Testimonial: Yohan, manager of The Hairdresser salons

Discover Yohan, manager of The Hairdresser salon in Sanary-sur-Mer

Introduce yourself and the concept of your living room?

My name is Yohan Menzoyan, I'm 28 years old and I have created a concept based on the technical experience of hairdressers. The rates are variable according to their experience, depending on their availability in the salon, the number of training courses that are validated internally and externally and their seniority within the company.  

We only do 3 things: the cut, the colour and the beard for men. We have a concept that is divided into three parts because we have a building that is on three floors, with a cosmetic part with a receptionist, a barber and a colorist.  

How are you managing your salon today?

Today, we have made our hairdressers and our employees more responsible, so that they are truly independent. I use a management style that is fairly delegated, which allows me to keep an eye on all my employees by really focusing on their performance and motivation.  

Today they have several roles within the company, so I'm really going to have the role of manager, I'm going to train my employees, I'm going to teach them how to manage on their own, how to perform well, how to be versatile.  

We have a manager in the living room who makes sure that all employees feel comfortable and grow within the company on a daily basis. We have a receptionist who takes care of all the administrative side, but also of welcoming our customers. She answers the phone, makes appointments, sells cosmetics, offers coffee, etc...

She's really the conductor of our day, she sends the hairdressers and customers to the different floors that are dedicated to the company.  

We also have hairdressers, who have three very different specificities: we have barber hairdressers, colorists, and finally there are multi-skilled hairdressers.  

As a barber, one is asked to know how to do facials, beard trimming, work the lines, American gradations, and classic gradations. Then the colorists, one asks to know how to manage a certain number of different scans, contouring, lightening.  

Several trainings are dedicated, we only do 3 things in the salon: the cut, the color and the beard.

How do you recruit your employees?

I'm in charge of Human Resources, I don't just do that, but as far as recruitment is concerned, we don't wait for a CV to be sent to us before we recruit our employee. With our Trade Fair Manager, we have set up a value system, which is really based on 3 values: the smile, the passion and the crew (the team).

That's really what characterizes us, and in fact, if we manage to have an element that would like to integrate our team and that is part of its 3 values there, it will have more chances than a person with a monster CV.

We preferred to base ourselves on the psychology of the future employees who will be returning home rather than their technical skills. We prefer to train our employees ourselves, to make them independent professionally rather than letting them do what they do technically but psychologically it doesn't follow because that never works.  

Our recruitment is essentially based on our three values: the smile, the passion, the crew, and then we continue to develop.  

There's a first date like that between us.  

We have a second meeting with the manager, the future recruit and me.  

After we have a third appointment, there we ask him to express himself more freely, to show us some of his techniques.  

After that, we make a fourth appointment to give him an answer, to give him a two-day internship to see how he reacts to the company and the employees.    

Our goal is really to work as a crew, that is to say as a group. There's no way one of us is out of the group, there's a risk of contaminating the others.

If we have a negative element, it's a bit like a rotten apple in a basket, it risks contaminating the others, so we don't accept it.

How did your debut as a hairdresser-star go?

I started hairdressing when I was 15, and at 17 on social networks, I contacted all the photographers I had, in my friends, in my friends' friends. I'd send them messages, I'd say, "Please, do you need a hairdresser?".  

I used to ask them if I could do hair for free for photo shoots, sometimes I would close my salon at the risk of losing money, but I would close my salon to do hair on photo shoots for free, just to get 6 months later when the photographer would give me the picture, my name in the bottom right corner of the picture, that's what I was actually advertising with.  

Then little by little, after having done 1, 5, 10, 20, 30 and 100, by dint of giving business cards to all the make-up artists, to all the hairdressers who are also on the shoot, to all the photographers, all the video artists and all the models, finally afterwards you start to build up a network. In this network, one day, one of them called me and said "Hello, I saw that you did such and such a shoot, would you like to work for us? I heard the word "work", so I can bill. That was my first fee for a photo shoot, 100 €.  

And then after that shoot, one day a model called me "We need you" and then little by little I started to have contacts like that.

One day there was a big Cannes Film Festival company that contacted me and said "Yohan, how would you like to come in for a couple of weeks to cover the Cannes Film Festival?" I'm not hiding the fact that the first year, I came for 15 days without doing anything because they were taking hairdressers who were already used to working. I did a painter's hair on the last day of the Cannes Film Festival.  

The next year, I was still there. What really allowed me to get into this business is the determination, the assiduity, and I wouldn't say the technicality at all, because I really think that there are hairdressers who are much better than me in this field.

On the other hand, it's really the contact, the network and the fact of feeling comfortable in front of people. It's always better to work with people who are perhaps a little less technically trained, on a bun for example, but who will give the person a good time.

That's really what helped me, and it allowed me to be able to do the hair of several film and music personalities at the Cannes Film Festival but also in many other events: films, photo shoots, fashion shows.  

Now it doesn't stop and the network is really very strong and solid which allows me to continue.

How do you manage your communication?

Actually, our hairdressers are out all day doing clients' hair, and I'm not doing hair. I ask that every client they do, who wants to and who agrees, to make me a small publication, to film, to take what is called rushs, videos, photos.

Every night, I ask them to pass on all these rushs to me. Once I have them, it allows me to have content and schedule my posts on social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Google.

We will publish daily through stories on Instagram and Facebook which are linked to communicate daily on our technical work. As soon as we have different events, like shootings, fashion shows, movies, we will communicate directly on them with our phone. We film it and we broadcast it on all the networks.  

We don't want to publish every day on posts because it's going to wear out the flow of our clients. They're going to think "He posts every day, it's too much, there's too much content" so we'd rather be expected on our content and post something clean rather than posting daily like that and having a pile of content. We prefer to program our publications, select them and have quality.

What advice do you give to those who want to get started?

The best thing is to rely only on yourself, the person who will motivate you most professionally is actually yourself. Don't rely on others to motivate you. Afterwards, if you want to grow professionally, you need to feel good inside. That's the first thing.

The second thing is that you must never let go of anything, because if you want to develop professionally, you're going to have to take a bit of a hit in the face. You have to be willing to take a little bit in the face.  

The third thing, you have to keep in mind your goal, create your goal, create your path, because if you want to do what I do, it won't work. Because if I'm trying to do like everyone else, that's not going to work either. You have to have your goal and you have to put that goal in place to get to the end.

Here you go, detail exactly the path you want to take and above all count on yourself and no one else.

What's the most significant moment in your career?

The moments that marked me the most in my career were during my first internship, when my internship supervisor told me "You should stop doing your hair because you're not cut out for it". So I stopped doing hair in his salon, I trained myself and set up my own.

I think he's the one who's given up hair now! Also at the Cannes Film Festival, we were given room numbers, we were asked to go and do some people's hair in their room, so I go up to the room, I see there's a guy who opens up to me, a strong guy, a bit Spanish, I do his hair, he's super nice and super nice, and then I hear a little voice in the bathroom saying "Ah I feel like he's a French hairdresser, could you take me back?". I see a really gorgeous chick and she asks me to do her hair. I really don't know who the actors in the movies are because I don't watch much TV and movies.

As I left the Cannes Film Festival, I realized that it was Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz who were the guests of honor at the Cannes Film Festival. The same evening, there were already photos all over Cannes of the hairstyles I had done, and there was an effect of surprise because I had no idea who they were while I was doing them.

The same evening I said to myself "It's them!" so afterwards I started watching almost all their films, because I was quite happy, that's a good memory!

Let's talk about Wavy... Did you feel a difference in the management of The Hairdresser when you took Wavy ?

You should know that before using a cash register software, I used to make day sheets, where I wrote down each service, each customer and their payment in cash, credit card or cheque. I wrote that every day, every week I took week cards, and every month I took cards from my week to create a month. Every month, at the end of the year, I would create my year cards.  

Ican assure you that all my week I had cards on my table, which were marked everywhere with writing, with deletions from everywhere. What really changed my vision as an entrepreneur was to use Wavy, because it was really easy to use. Because the guys were really cool too, I have to say, because when you work with people who are nice, who listen to you and who manage customer service, it's really important when you have a bug.  

At first it feels weird to switch to an app when you're used to writing on paper. It's really a first draft, you have to go for it.  

The third thing is a huge time saver because I just have to click on a button and it sends everything directly to my accountant, whereas every month I had to bring my day, week and month sheets back to my accountant, it was interminable.

It's really changed my life, I've been using Wavy since they created the premises of the first version, so I've really evolved with them and from month to month, each time it's a tool that allows me to grow, evolve and have a job that is respectful.

Did the statistics dashboard Wavy help you in your management?

Yes of course the statistics dashboard helps me enormously in my management, because I just have to click on a button and I see all the stats of my employees. Unfortunately for them I can see the differences in sales, women and men, I really have a global vision of everything that can be achieved in the living room.  

Unfortunately for them when they make mistakes, but good for them because I correct their mistakes to create something positive, they improve their figures from month to month, so their salary. We do what we call challenges at trade fairs, for example on this product, a small oil, we will say "Ok", we set up a challenge. Whoever manages to sell the maximum and to advise the maximum on this oil will receive a surprise at the end of the month.

That's what allowed our hairdressers to benefit from great clippers, or equipment offered by the company, because we had set up this little challenge on a product.

But for example, I also do what they call secret challenges, I say to myself, "This month, whoever makes the most men's cups will get something".

At the end of the month, I tell them "Bravo, you've won something, so the person is a little surprised" What? What's that? What did I win?". It forces them to motivate themselves on a daily basis and they are very, very motivated.

An anecdote?

The anecdote I'm going to tell is that at the beginning, when I wasn't using hairdressing software and I was writing everything by hand, a girl I know, Anjela, introduced me to a guy, she told me you're going to see he's really nice and in fact this guy's name is Victor.

Actually Victor he's co-founder of Wavy, and the first time I saw him, we had a big plate of sushi, and he invited me. Here's my first anecdote with Wavy, take Wavy and maybe you'll win sushi!

Written by
Aurélie Pauker
Always attracted by the world of hairdressing and beauty, today I answer the problems you may have.

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