Gina bianca is a 15 year industry veteran, the owner of the network for 10 years and today we're going to hear her story, plus what she sees going on in the beauty industry from the business side and what trends we can expect to see next year.

Welcome back to the Hairdresser Strong show.

My name is Robert Hughes and I am your host and today I'm with Gina Bianca.

How are you doing today, Gina?

I'm amazing.

Thank you, Robert.

Thank you for having me.

Hi everyone.

So thank you, Corey, from your day off podcast, hairdistry, for making this introduction.

I'm super excited for this talk.

We thought we like to talk about business and anything that can help people's business, professional life, even personal life.

And we like to talk about healthy hairdressers from the, from the perspective of finance, business and community as well as mental, physical health.

And.

But we are definitely like a business and professional forward podcast.

So thank you for coming and I'm, I'm just super excited to, to hear, to talk to you today.

Yeah, it's my pleasure.

And all of that sounds right up my alley.

So awesome.

Yeah, I know.

Corey was like, have you ever interviewed Gina?

I was like, Gina Bianca?

I was like, no, actually I would love to.

So let's get started.

Let's jump right in.

So tell us like kind of give a high level overview of your story before we start getting into talking business.

Give anybody who's listening or watching a chance to kind of get to know like where you've been, what you've been doing and where you're going.

Absolutely.

So I graduated hairdressing school in 2009.

I have been a color specialist my entire career.

When I was 23 years old, I opened my first salon.

It was a team based pay salon, meaning everybody was paid hourly and pay was based on overall performance.

And it was a very culture driven, team based environment.

I worked with strategies as my business coaches.

I owned that business for five years.

I decided after growing my social media for, you know, seven years after beauty school that I wanted to become an educator.

So I ended up closing my team based salon, opening my current salon which is a 30 chair booth rental salon and focusing mainly on education and focusing on the booth rental model.

Model which is a little bit more hands off, but not really.

We could talk about that.

So for the past seven years I've been educating full time a salon owner, the other full time.

I also work with brands.

I own a mastermind group where I do online education and coaching and mentorship.

I always think of myself as A mentor rather than a coach.

My mission has always been to elevate the beauty industry and to help hair stylists take their cosmetology license and make a beautiful business from it, which I have done.

I'm so grateful for that.

I'm so grateful for my cosmetology license.

I've done so much with it, so I always try to help others do the same.

And I talk to a lot of hairdressers all the time and I feel like I have a pretty good pulse on.

On what goes on.

And, you know, I feel like the industry is in a weird spot right now and I really want to talk about it.

I have a lot on my heart when it comes to it.

So that's just a little bit about me.

I also do have a podcast, the Gina Bianca podcast, where I also, you know, talk about business.

And for the last year, I've done salon owner series.

So I have 52 episodes where I only interview salon owners.

So if you're a salon owner listening and you need like a free resource, for the last 52 weeks, I've been talking to only salon owners.

And yeah, so I'm a full time salon owner here at the network salon in Southington, Connecticut.

And that's pretty much my life, you know, salon owner.

I'm a new mom, my baby.

Congratulations.

About to be a year old.

I'm married.

I have two dogs, a husky and a pit bull.

I love to cook.

I love to cook for groups.

I'm super Italian and I say a lot, I do curse a lot.

And I don't mean to, but it's just how I am.

So that's like the bit.

The bird's eye.

Bird's eye view.

Nice.

I love it.

I love it.

Okay, so the first thing is that I want to ask is you something you said.

I don't know if I want to.

How.

How deep into it, because I do want to get your view of the industry, but I think this is kind of related.

You, you mentioned like going from team based pay to booth rental.

Like, talk about.

I mean, to me that seems very kind of odds in the spectrum where like everybody's kind of like lifting and being paid not based on productivity necessarily.

Right.

And no, they were definitely paid based on productivity.

Like it was not, not commission.

So team based pay is such a different animal.

And I feel like it takes a really good salon owner who knows what is, like what is going on.

And for the longest time, that was me.

Like, I knew all of the numbers.

I did my own QuickBooks.

I had scoreboards, spreadsheets, report cards.

I was, like, super engaged with it.

And I got really jaded because this was back in 2014.

And I owned GBH from 2014 to 2019.

And during that time, I trained so many stylists.

I'm still friends with most of them to this day.

Good friends.

And many of them own salons.

Like, many of them are very successful.

And I take.

I take my flowers for that.

I trained so well.

I had an extremely profitable business behind the chair.

I was double booked, triple booked.

That's how I trained my assistants.

But I got very jaded when people would leave and go booth rental.

It was almost like I was building, building, building.

And then once they could go and be independent, like where I don't have to babysit them, they left.

And I got very jaded about that.

And I started educating because I'm like, I'm sick of paying people to learn from me.

I want people to pay to learn from me.

And then I got a taste of the whole independent educator lifestyle, which will never be the same.

That was a whole era that is now over.

Okay, I'm going to need to know that isn't.

Explain that one.

There will never be as much money that was made again.

That era is over.

Like, it's not over over, but it's like, it's so saturated now that it's way more of a grind.

For me.

It was so easy.

It was like, oh, my God, this is like, why do I even own a salon?

Fudge this place.

I ran from my problems as a young salon owner into social media, into education, into fame, into people kissing my ass.

You know, people were, like, obsessed with me, cry when they meet me, and I've got someone bitching and moaning about having to come to work on time.

I was living a double life.

So during my double life, I decided, I don't want to do this anymore.

I closed, which was a whole insane thing to build something so great and then to walk away.

It was very insane and great because I wouldn't be where I am without doing that.

And then I ended up opening a different type of location where I'm like, you can come rent from me, and if you want big sister energy, that's it.

But I'm not your mother.

I would travel, I would teach.

I would host huge events here.

And I had all renters.

I really only had, like, one or two renters.

And then when Covid hit, everyone wanted space, and that's what we have, space.

So we filled up During COVID it was the biggest blessing.

We expanded, we filled.

I opened a yoga studio.

So I own a yoga studio and a salon.

Yoga studio is against this wall.

Salon's against that wall.

And we've been building this business for, like, seven years.

And it's been amazing.

It's been amazing.

And it's just super interesting, though.

I could go on and on.

It's just super interesting, though, like, how the industry is now.

So let's talk.

Let's open up the.

The educator thing just a little bit so people who are curious to know, to understand that more.

I'm assuming that, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you're talking about how in the earlier days, the space was.

There weren't a ton of people in the space, and they were demanding very high prices for their classes.

Or is that not even just that?

Not even just that, Robert?

Literally, like, if you go on TikTok and you scroll on TikTok, there's just people hating on educators, there's people hating on hairstylists.

There's just, like, this dialog in the industry where, like, value doesn't match the price and where a lot of educators and hairstylists don't take the economy, they don't take demand, they don't take those types of things into consideration.

After Covid happened and I got back to teaching, my ticket prices dropped.

I dropped them because I was like, the average hairstylist is broke right now.

Totally.

You know what I mean?

My ticket went from $600 to 295, and my business class was 195.

And I tried to make it as accessible as possible because I'm like, the everyday, average hairdresser needs my education more than anybody, and I need to make this accessible.

And then you have other educators, and I'm not bashing them, but I'm saying If you're charging $600 for a ticket, you better add massive value.

Because people talk.

Like, I've seen so many educators charge 6, 7, $800, and they, like, will fill a class because they're famous.

And then people are like, it wasn't worth.

And they burn out.

And people talk.

Then you'll get the person on TikTok saying, I went to this class, it was trash.

You know, this person's charging this for that.

And, you know, it's basic stuff.

So I really think the pricing is kind of like, we need to talk about it, because people talk, and I feel like it's the same with hair.

So let's talk about it.

So what is like, I mean, what is reasonable?

I always thought that like a 2,250, $300 look and learn class was ridiculous.

And I still feel that way.

But like, I know that that seems to be the st.

That seems to be like a market price.

I just couldn't imagine spending that kind of money to watch someone cut hair.

I need hands on.

But then if it's hands on, I expect 400 minimum up to $600 would make sense.

Now tell me how much.

Tell me how much you agree or disagree with that.

I agree with you.

I really think your class ticket should be your average ticket in the salon.

Like hot take.

Like, I think you're.

And you also have people who like, don't really do hair anymore too.

Like, you know, you have people like, I shifted a lot more to business rather than technique because I'm not behind the chair as often.

And I prefer to teach business because every day I'm teaching business, every day I'm running my salon.

So I always coach people.

Coach.

I always tell people, teach what you do, right?

Teach what you do.

And I can teach people how to do fast color techniques.

I could teach them how to do foiling and all of that stuff, but it gets repetitive over and over and over.

And you know, I'm not doing $1,000 box die transformations every single day.

If you really average out everything that I'm doing, my average ticket is between 295 and 495.

You know, it's pretty.

That's what my normal everyday client gets.

They're getting two hours of my time because I'm pretty fast for 130 to 150.

An like, that's a good price.

And I feel like, you know, some people, you know, they may charge $600 for a class, but they're not doing that behind the chair really.

You know, they may like say they are, but a lot of people aren't really doing that.

It's like you have to be careful what you believe on social media.

And I'm not bashing any educator.

Like, I'm not saying anyone in.

In specific, but I'm saying there's a lot of people who come on the scene hot, they charge 600 and then people will go to that class, like with all of trying to buy all of this hope and then they're kind of let down and then they're never going to take your class again.

And then will tell 20 people it wasn't worth it.

Yeah, I mean that you're.

What you're saying Definitely tracks with what I hear when I talk to like local stylists.

And they, that's definitely 100% what they say.

Like, Matt, value doesn't match the price.

Yeah.

And they're, they don't want an influencer.

They want an educator.

And if you're an influencer, that's amazing because you can sell tickets, but they want, you need to be like a well trained or practiced educator or else people are going to be like, and you need to have something other to teach besides hair.

Like, you need to bring people in, they need to learn like tips and tricks and all of that.

Like how many different things can you do doing hair?

I've seen every lived in color technique.

Nothing blows my mind.

But if you could tell me like a certain way you talk to your clients, if you could tell me a certain dialogue, if you could tell me like something about you where I could fall in love with you, then I'm like, this was worth it.

But if you're just like, someone's like, why are you doing it that way?

Oh, that's just how I do it.

Give me a break.

You're charging $600.

That's my.

So I talked to Ashley Norman about this topic and she was kind of basically saying this, you know, talking the same way.

And she said something about how like there are educators and I love this and I love Ashley Norman and shout out to her, she's awesome.

I think she's awesome personally.

But something that came up with that conversation and then also subsequently I had mult conversations about this and the same thing keeps coming up over and over is being a good influencer means you're like good at content creation and entertainment, but that has nothing to do with your ability to teach and how you have all these people.

But like, but that's also like shaming somebody for.

And maybe they deserve it.

But like that, you know, like, like, let's just put it this way.

If you have a big following, just as this is business, you know, not caring about people's feelings or the craft at all, just speaking strictly business, if I have a, if you have or anybody has a large enough following to be able to sell tickets across around the country to classes, then why wouldn't you monetize your following?

Now you could like alienate your followers.

But what I've discovered in talking to people, and maybe this is part of something that's waning because of this conversation.

But you know, it's like, it's like having the opportunity to take a class with somebody who is a trained educator is not as appealing as taking a class by an influencer.

Like, people flock to their influencers because they're like, they're celebrities.

And so I don't know how.

How do you.

Like, how do you reconcile that?

Because, like, if you talk about the educator, that's one thing, but the educator's like, yo, they're buying my tickets.

You know, it's like, what?

Get off my case.

They love me.

You know, I don't know.

So this is what I have to say about that.

There's one.

One thing is, if you want to be an educator, you have to educate every day.

You have to educate your guests behind the chair.

You have to educate on social media, Go teach at the schools for free, Train your assistant.

You have to educate every day, and you'll become an amazing educator if you educate every day.

That's how I became an educator.

I took one national educator training with Paul Mitchell, where I learned how to sell products.

That was the only formal education I ever, ever had.

The rest of it, I learned how to be an educator from training my assistant because I needed them to understand how to do what I do so that I could send my client to them.

I was able to answer their questions by breaking it down as small as possible until they understood it wasn't just like, oh, that's just how I do it.

It was like, this is why I do it.

If we hold it at this angle, it goes like this.

If we take this section, it looks like this.

So really, like, you have to educate every day.

You don't.

Okay.

So with that being said, there's educators who are amazing educators.

Nobody knows who they are because they're not an influencer.

Then there's amazing influencers who have no educator trading and probably have never taught anyone anything.

They just do what they do.

They're great at content and whatever.

This person gets on stage and bombs this person get.

Gets on stage and nobody comes.

So then there's a person who wants to do both or be an educator, but, like, what do they do?

So me and.

I don't know if you know her.

Olivia Thompson.

OMG artistry.

Yeah, of course I love her.

Olivia and I created a program called Educate with Influence, where it teaches educators to market themselves and influence, and it teaches influencer how to be a classically trained educator.

The gap is huge.

So the whole point of the program is to fill the gap.

So since we're talking about that, that I've created something to help people because there's no training now and people are like, I want to work with a brand.

Back in the day to work with a brand, you would go to a hair show and stalk them and take out the trash and clean and assist and be their and work for free for years.

And you would use their products in the salon, only their products.

If you ever use a different product, they would dead you.

You would never be spoken to again they ever saw you using a different product.

And now today, if you want to work with a brand, you need a following.

Like, no one will look at you.

All the brands work with agencies to fill influencer positions.

And they're not looking for educators, they're looking for where to throw their marketing dollars.

And when it comes to educators within a brand, you have to really go from the bottom up or come with a following.

And even if you go from a bottom up, if you're not building your your following that whole time, you're really not going to go anywhere because they're going to hire someone right above you who has 10 times your following and your 10 years of hard work.

You're going to be in the shadow of someone who is better at content creation than you.

It's super weird.

Yeah.

This is so good.

This is I this conversation.

I saw your Educate with influence course and I thought that was brilliant.

So, yeah, if anybody out there is interested in becoming an educator and you don't have a following or vice versa, you should definitely check that out and you maybe give me the link to that and we'll leave it in the description below.

Yeah, totally.

And I can actually grant you access to it so you can look at it before you share it or something.

Because it is a beautiful course.

We don't even call it a course, we call it a program.

Because like part one is how to educate, how to lesson plan, how to hit learning types, how to, you know, answer difficult questions during, you know, the.

Sorry.

How to answer difficult questions during class, how to keep the class flow going.

Part two is how to become an influencer, how to build a following.

And part three is how to turn it all into a business.

So like, how to sell tickets, how to start a podcast, how to do online education, how to plan a whole event, right?

Like if you're going to do a live event, how are you going to do event, how to facilitate hands on, how to price your classes.

I have spreadsheets, everything.

Because people ask all the time and I'm just like, dude, it's too much to type.

Like, I can't like just be like, hey, do this.

It's like, well, what are you using?

Like, I'm a Kajabi expert.

I don't know if anyone knows about Kajabi.

But for online education, like a learning management software, people are like, well, where do I host my videos?

YouTube.

I'm like, no, you gotta lock up your video.

Like, people don't know how to do it.

So I created just like a step by step.

And then we obviously do like, lives and mentorship and have the Facebook group and the Instagram and like all of the stuff.

But like, for some people, it's their dream, but the old way of doing it doesn't exist anymore.

Like, you need to have the skill and when you build the following and the opportunity comes, you'll be ready for the opportunity you're not going to bomb.

And even if you got educated with influence to be a better educator to your client, to your team on Instagram at the schools, like, it will help you with and it'll help you just like in your career.

Like, it's, it's good.

It's not just like, hey, you want to work for a brand?

It's very like, multifaceted.

Nice.

Awesome.

That sounds great.

So that basically is the solution to the problem that we were talking about.

So problem solved right there.

Just saving the world one program at a time.

Okay.

And I'm going to take you up on.

I would love to check that out and see what it looks like.

So, moving on.

What I, I want to get back to this thing you said.

What is the, the weird state of the industry?

I don't know if that was what we're talking about or if there's something else.

Like, what do you, what are you talking about when you said that?

Because you said that before we started and after, once we started the, this conversation.

Yeah, I'm going to be like, kind of like, honest and it's not, it's not, it's not positive.

Is that okay?

Yeah, yeah, come on, let's hear it.

Real talk.

Like, I've just spent like my whole career, like, trying to elevate the beauty industry.

And I feel we're kind of at a low point right now.

And I, I just feel like we're kind of at a low point.

There's a lot of disrespect toward hair stylists.

If you go on tick tock and read the comments of what people write about hair stylists, hairstylists have priced themselves out.

Hairstylists are too big for their britches.

Hairstylists are scam Artists like all these things.

The value doesn't match the price.

It's definitely not worth the money.

Nobody has money for that.

There's like this whole, like, dialogue around getting your hair done.

And I think a lot of it comes from, like, I think a lot of it comes from COVID because.

And I hate that we're still talking about COVID And I'm not a Covid scapegoat person.

I'm not.

I'm kind of like, figure it out.

Like, we need to move on.

But since COVID the economy has changed, our industry has changed, and I feel like a lot of hairstylists have lost the important fact that our clients pay our bills.

Like, our clients are the most important people.

It's not about your following.

It's not about the clout and the likes and all of that shit.

It's about doing amazing work, giving an amazing experience, building an amazing relationship, building trust, telling them how to take care of their hair, what to use at home and when to come back.

Like, we're too focused on, like, getting content.

We're too focused on, like, doing what we want to do, not what they want to do.

We're too focused about what we're getting paid rather than, like, if they're happy.

And I think that there are so many people flooded into booth rental who are not ready and who have no idea how to, like, run and manage a business.

I'll give you an example.

Two clients this week have complained that their hair isn't right a month after they've gotten their hair done.

A month.

So I go to the stylist, I'm like, and these are renters.

I'm like, hey, do you have a waiver?

Like, where if they need a redo, it's within seven days.

They're like, no, I didn't know I could do that.

I'm like, girl, figure it out.

Like, why do I have to do a redo?

Why am I getting a two star review?

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So it's happening to everybody.

And then I want to just put out there, my friend Danielle does hair.

She posted a TikTok and she was like, I can't believe you guys are posting that you're slow and that everyone's slow and that nobody's busy and that it's the slowest winter ever.

She's like, you would have to waterboard that information out of me.

Like, I would never post that.

And it is embarrassing.

Like, nobody's going to want to go to you if you're Posting that you're dead.

Oh my gosh.

So I just, I just really think.

But they're posting that to be a victim, to get engagement, to have people be like, are you okay?

It's like, no.

You have to do the hard work.

Figure it out.

Hot take.

Hey, you know what?

It's like, I'm glad you're saying it because like, honestly, my whole vibe with this, all this like, all this like pursuit of content, customer shaming online.

It's like my clients look at my social media so I'm not gonna like shame them for being late or not or canceling last minute.

And like, no empathy seems to be in this, in this industry.

Like at least if you look at social media.

I also think the majority of us are not on, are not making content like that.

I, I think it's a small group.

I, I mean I believe it to be not the majority and, but because it's social media and it's a bullhorn, it amplifies the message and it looks like it's everybody just kind of like, it's kind of like I always say, I don't know how many.

I don't see any salon stylists that are commission based stylists that work for somebody else, making content, giving hairdresser's advice to go work for somebody else because it's helpful to build your book.

I don't see that.

I see salon owners saying that, teachers saying that, suite owners saying that.

But the students that I talk to on a regular basis, they don't.

They're list, they're like seeing the glory of being a business owner, being independent.

They're going straight on their own, falling on their face, filing bankruptcy, calling people like myself, crying, saying, what do I do?

You know, and then, and then you have, and then those that are out there are making shaming videos and like saying like, oh, these are my policies.

Like posting on social media to their customers being like, we just, we had to raise our prices.

And like, I don't know, it's just the whole vibe is, is the opposite of how I was trained.

Like, I was trained very old school.

To me, what you're saying sounds very old school.

Like it feels like we're going to get back to what the market wants.

Because that's what happens in a free market.

The customers have choices and they are gonna make decisions based on how they want to spend their money, not how we want them to spend our money.

And it doesn't really matter about anybody's feelings, like, or anybody's Thoughts or opinions or new ideas and new ways of doing things.

Like, at the end of the day, like, all that is fine to talk about and it's fun, especially on podcasts and stuff.

And I.

And I'm all for it.

I'll go down a rabbit hole with you for some new idea or new concept.

But.

But at the end of the day, what I notice is my customers, they're.

They.

They don't.

They haven't changed.

They want the same thing.

Like what you just said.

Like, you just nailed it.

So I'm glad that, anyway, that.

That's my.

My response to what you just said.

I think after Covid, people, the prices have gone up because of inflation.

That's a whole different combo.

And people save up to get their hair done, and they're very particular about what they want.

They're way pickier.

So if you have not continued to elevate, continue to put customer service first and, like, take your ego out of it and remember that you're a servant.

Like, I don't think it's the right business for you.

Like, a lot of people go into hair school and they think they're going to come out and charge like 400 for a full highlight.

And, like, I'm sorry, I don't even charge 400 for a full highlight.

You know, like, I just think that people kind of have this idea and, like, I want to leave this conversation, like, this part of the conversation with this.

And this is something that I think every hairstylist and salon owner, everyone needs to remember is that hairstylists have the license to touch.

And, like, the impact that we can make on a human being is more than, like, we even know.

There's people who go through their whole lives with no connection, no touch.

They look forward, these appointments, they save up all of their money to get their hair done.

You know, maybe when they get their hair done is when they feel the most beautiful and the most confident.

And maybe they, like, really need this.

And, like, we're over here thinking about ourselves, and I think, like, you're suffering when you're thinking about yourself.

So, like, some of the harshest advice I have to give to people is stop thinking about yourself and start serving your clients.

And I really think that us as an industry needs to get back to that, especially in 2025.

Like, my whole focus in 2025, for my education in my mastermind group, end to end experience, how someone finds out about you to how you follow up with a lost customer.

The end to end experience needs to be Improved for all of us.

And that's how we're going to get to the next level.

Because I really do think we took a big step back after Covid.

I'm not shaming anyone, but I really do think we all need to like, take it to another level and remember why we're even here.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm pretty sure I'd have to pull the data, but I'm pretty sure I saw that the expectation of value is at an all time high from customers and it's reported that their experiences are very low.

I don't know if it's an all time low, but it's, it's very low on the custom, on the customer's experience.

So it's like, it's like you're gonna get like a mediocre maybe okay experience, potentially bad, or you gotta pay a lot of money to get a very high end, a very good experience.

That's kind of what I'm reading and what I'm seeing personal.

And can I just give one hot tip for everybody listening on how to give a better experience?

Because a lot of people don't do this.

And when I'm in an experience where this happens, I get so freaking mad.

Can you talk to your client about the price before you start their hair?

Like, we all want that client who comes in, sits down and says, do whatever you want and then spills the tea for two hours.

We want those clients, but those clients will never be if they don't trust us.

And we're losing clients left and right because we sticker shock them.

I hate being sticker shocked.

Like, I make a beautiful income.

I hate being sticker shocked.

And I can't even tell you.

Like, stylists that come in and work here, like, it takes coaching and training and like accountability to get them to talk about the price.

Like they're afraid to talk about the price and then they sticker shock and then the client will never come back.

Like, it's not just, I'm not saying you, you, you.

I'm saying this is happening everywhere.

Like, do not sticker shock your client.

Talk about the price.

Be transparent, talk about their budget, talk about when they can come back and what they can afford.

Like, it's really.

The basics are lacking totally.

You know, and also, here's a hot take.

I mean, it's not mine originally, but I mean, and if it, if it is, I was having at the same time as somebody else.

But I think that a lot of people are apprehensive and nervous about the confrontation of raising their prices.

And when they had the up and they didn't raise the prices for years.

And then Covid came around and it's almost like they had permission to raise their prices and they jacked their prices way up.

And, and then the customers were like, you know, there's all these kinds of articles about people feeling like they're getting price gouged.

You know, that's not, it's not like okay to.

Well, they, A lot of people are being price gouged.

Yeah.

And so like, I think that it's, it's not okay to do that.

It's unethical.

And.

But at the same time, like, like you're saying, like at the end of the day it comes down to value.

Like if, if you're jacking up your prices and as long as the customer knows it's their decision to come and see you.

But like you're saying, I totally agree with the value match to price.

And it's like, for what are they getting in exchange for that amount of money?

Like, what is the alternative?

Because Harvard Business Review did a, did a study and they found that the way people make decisions, and you know, this is just one study, so take what you will, but they said that the way people make decisions is an allocation of dollars.

So it's not, can I afford this?

What's my budget?

It's kind of like that, but it's more like.

Or is that worth it?

At the end of the day, if you have $10 in your wallet, you know, you need $1 for gas, $1 for groceries, $3 for rent, and you got two, you know, well, how many ever dollars you have to left over.

And then you're going to decide with this discretionary spending, you're going to, you know, you'd like to go out to dinner and then what's left over?

So you're competing with, not with maybe other hairdressers, and I think you're competing with them too, but you're competing with all the other things that people have to pay for.

And so like, are people gonna go out to a restaurant one last time to come and see you?

Maybe?

Because like going out to restaurant nowadays, I don't know about where you're at, but in D.C.

it's like, it's like a hundred dollars minimum a person if you want to go to like a halfway decent restaurant.

So it's like, if I could skip three, three dinners out and I can get my hair looking good for three months or two months.

That's a good deal, you know, so anyway, that's my, my two cents on that one.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with you completely.

And I, I'm like the first person to like, speak, like to hairdressers, charge your worth, right?

But like, what is your worth?

And I think, like a lot of people, I saw a comment, it was like, people haven't taken Gina's pricing class and it shows because I would never tell someone to raise their prices unless they're 85% booked consistently.

Like, it's supply and demand.

Supply and demand.

If you don't have the demand, There is your 911 warning sign, lights, sirens, warning, you're not ready.

85% booked.

If you have no software to even tell you if you're 85% booked, there's another problem, right?

Like, you don't just raise your prices for fun.

You raise them when the supply and the, like supply and demand.

And then, you know, I kind of go into like, reputation, experience, demand, like, you know, those basic things, like your reputation.

Like, what are people saying about you?

Are you getting reviews?

Are you getting referrals?

Are you having people say, like, I'm so happy.

Can you screenshot five messages a week from your clients saying, I'm so happy?

Like, what are people saying about you?

And then your experience, like, you know, you two years out of school, are you 12 years out of school?

Like, are you taking classes?

Like, all of those things?

Like, you really have to look at the big picture.

Am I doing everything that I need to do, where a price increase is going to be, like, you know, accepted, or am I just gonna, like, do it because I want to and then deal with it later?

Because I think a lot of people do that and they get all this pricing, education.

I teach people how to reverse engineer 100k properly by reverse engineering 200k, which.

Have you seen how to make 100k?

And it's like, that's how you make 40 grand.

Are you fucking dumb?

I can't.

So I can teach you how to reverse engineer, but like you, if you're 40% booked and you raise your prices to try to make 100k, you're going to be 20% booked.

I always say if you raise your price 10%, you're going to lose 10% of your clients.

If you raise it 20%, you're going to lose 20%.

If you raise it 30%, you're going to lose 30%.

So if you're not 85% booked and you do a 20% price increase.

You might put yourself in a position where it's like, oh my God.

And then what's your reputation?

Oh, it's expensive, but not worth it.

Totally.

You know, so, so if, if we're talking about like, I guess that if.

Would you say that that's your trend, that what you see for 2025, the trend of 2025 is value.

Like just really leaving value customer and the customer experience honing.

Honing in our skill set to match the prices that we've been charging.

Kind of.

Is it like the, the year of equalizing our price to value?

Is that.

Should that focus and is there anything else?

I think the focus for me is going to be the end to end experience.

That's going to be my focus.

And I think that all of us need to remember why we're here and why we're here is to serve the customer.

And if your ego, if your ego can't handle that, you may be in the wrong career.

Yeah.

And there's also.

I will say this because I get this.

I have some people in my, my world, in my life that they love to point out the exception every time.

It kind of drives me nuts because, like, I am more of a macro person personally, but, but I, like, I've learned to acknowledge this.

Some of, some of you out there listening and watching will become famous and you will be able to demand big dollars.

And it is very hard, especially with young people to speak about probability of success because everybody young, I don't even know I was, Wants to blaze a trail and defy.

And defy the norm or the statistics or the probabilities.

And there are.

Every generation has people who defy them and stick out.

They're outliers.

And so maybe, maybe the, you know, I'll let you give some advice on that.

I, I just, I think, I think that it's important to know that you want to shoot for.

You want to shoot for the moon, go for it.

But just, just like set yourself up in a way that if you don't make it to the moon, you'll be in the stars.

You won't just come straight down to earth and like, head, you know, head first into the ground, into the cement.

You know, saying this, like, would hurt me, but I think we all need to not focus on social media as much and focus on our clients.

Amen.

I mean, you know, I want you to watch my social media.

I want your views, I want your money.

You know, I want you to buy my.

But I really think we all need to put Our phone down.

What do they say nowadays?

Touch grass.

Is that what people say?

Yeah.

We need to focus on our clients.

Focus on your clients.

Like stop focusing on yourself.

Oh, I post this.

How many likes did I get?

Oh, how does this make me feel?

Grow up.

Focus on your client and build your career and build your craft.

Like whatever, like whatever happened to refining our craft?

Like whatever happened?

I asked someone, when was the last time you took a class?

I don't know.

What do you mean you don't know?

You have color specialist on your profile.

Can you.

Last time you took a class.

Can you give us a.

I know we're running, we're running up on our time here.

But on that note, can you.

What is your take on online video education for technical training versus in person?

Is it a compliment or a supplement or neither or both?

I mean I think all education is good.

I just got, I just got an educators online program.

I watched three videos.

They were good.

It was nothing like groundbreaking.

You know, it wasn't something I had never seen before, but it got me really excited to do hair and I think that was worth the money.

It got me excited to do hair.

When it comes to really refining our craft, the way that you're going to do that is behind the experience in hands on classes.

Yeah.

If you take a class, do that on your client.

Try something new.

Like, like it's like doing crossword puzzles.

Like if you're doing the same thing every day, you're going to be stagnant.

Like try something different.

Get a model.

I think getting a model is an amazing form of education.

If you're going to actually like invest in online education, get a model, do something creative.

Take a hands on class now and again.

Take a business class now and again.

But like, like I always say like 1 to 2% of total revenue.

So if you're bringing in 100k, spend 2k on education, that's good.

Make the investment.

I feel like you will get it back.

I mean, I've always made the investment and gotten it back.

There are some classes though you go to when it's just like what do you expect?

You expect them to like reprogram your brain for $400.

Like you need to go to therapy.

Like if you want, want to go to a class and have your entire life change, like I think your expectations are really, really high and you're gonna have a life changing experience going to therapy once a week and working on yourself.

So I think like managing your expectations, taking classes to be inspired and to like Stay with it because like the worst is just getting like burnt out and like I don't feel like doing hair.

Oh.

Every client but you get into like a rut and I think like any type of education, whether it be online, subscription, coach, any type is good.

But definitely 1 to 2k investment.

If you're, if you're making or depending on 1 to 2% investment, if you're making that investment in yourself, I'm sorry, but there's no way it's not going to reflect in your confidence, in your paycheck with your clients.

You're gonna get that money back.

So I think that's always been like one of the core things of a happy, healthy hairdresser is just investing in their continued education, whatever that may be.

I like a hands on class.

I like a hands on class but sometimes I get a little willy nilly and I go do my own thing.

So like sometimes I need to like watch videos and get a model, you know, I don't.

That's kind of like how I am.

But for somebody else, they may be a hands on learner and that's the best way they learn.

So I think that's something you should know about yourself is what your best way to learn is.

Totally.

That was awesome.

Well, I mean, that's our time.

Thank you so much.

That was a great conversation.

How can people, people find you?

So you can find me on Instagram at.

I am Gina Bianca.

You can go to thenetworksalon.com our website is dope.

Go check out our website.

We just had it redone.

So I'm just like, go check out our website.

Educate with influence the network mastermind.

You had asked me before we started, like where I get my business information, like is it something I'm reading or something like that.

And like it's funny because like I don't have the bandwidth to take in new information sometimes.

Like I would just love to listen to a Joe Rogan podcast and like zone out.

I like have like very little bandwidth and like where I get my information is my students, my stylists, my everyday experience as a salon owner.

And I think that's what kind of like makes me me is like anything I'm teaching about or sharing or talking about is just from everyday experience.

And you know, I, I loved that question.

I was like, you know what it is really every day everyday experience.

So I really appreciate you having me on.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for your time.

And I look forward, and I look forward to talking to you again in the future.

And until next time.

Have a good one.

Thanks.

Thanks so much, everyone.