A Night to Honor Success

ST honorees enjoyed appetizers and time to mingle with one another before the certificate ceremony commenced. For me, the annual SALON TODAY 200 Reception is a bit like a wedding reception. There’s a year’s worth of careful thought, planning and detail that go into this wonderful event which our friends at Neill  Corporation and Serious Business graciously plan and host each year. Our team and the SALON TODAY 200 honorees eagerly anticipates it for months, and like a wedding reception, it always flies by in the blink of an eye. 

Of course, there’s a very big difference between the ST200 reception and a wedding reception. ST200 owners and their staff members have to earn an invitation to the awards reception by sharing the best business practices and their data and earning a place on the SALON TODAY 200.

In my opinion, this year’s reception was the best one yet. Representatives from 72 salons journeyed to the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans where Serious Business 2013 was held. They eagerly enjoyed meeting one another and posingfor photos with a large banner of the ST200 cover before the awards ceremony started. 

Debra Neill Baker, CEO of Neill Corporation, congratulations SALON TODAY 200 honorees on their accomplishments and welcomes them to the reception. Debra Neill Baker welcomed guests and spoke of the special relationship between the SALON TODAY 200 and Serious Business and congratulated the room’s attendees on their hard work and accomplishments. Before introducing the evening's special guest speaker Antony Whitaker, Steve Reiss, publisher of MODERN SALON and SALON TODAY, told attendees that they were raising the bar in the area of salon business and that the industry looked to them as leaders.

Guest speaker Antony Whitaker told the owners a chronic case of the hiccups was his wake-up call to reduce stress by beginning to work on his business instead of just in it. Whitaker, an Australian stylist, salon owner, educator and author of Grow and Grow 2, shared his personal journey to success as a young stylist with Vidal Sassoon in London before opening his first salon in Australia. Like many owners Whitaker at first believed the surest path to success was to work harder and longer hours, until a weeks-long case of the hiccups landed him in the hospital. Faced with the fact that he needed to reduce stress in his life, he decided to take a cue from The E-Myth and begin working on his business instead of just in it. “Honestly I didn’t know what that meant at first,” he told the group of owners in the room. “But I set aside a few days to see clients, and I spent the rest of the time starting to work on my business.”