Joe and Karen DeAnda's story was the cover feature for SALON TODAY's Fall 2025 issue.
At Trios Aveda Salon in Fort Collins, Colorado, Owners Joe and Karen DeAnda have always pushed their team to reach their full potential—while giving them the tools to achieve it.
To hit goals and operate efficiently, tracking goals for their 19 employees is key. Trios collaborates with the salon coaching company Qnity and its weekly Tuesday Tracker to help stylists stay focused and motivated, using Aura Salonware to provide the necessary data.
“We’ve used Aura since 2021,” Joe DeAnda says. “We initially switched because of its ability to keep the salon up and running when the internet went down.”
But Aura is so much more than a back-up system. The software keeps Trios running as efficiently and effortlessly as possible, with tools that help for managing, marketing and more.
Joe and Karen DeAnda tap into Aura salon software to track data, help their individual team members achieve their goals and dreams, and market services, products and gift cards to their loyal clients.
The KPI Dashboard: Where Numbers Tell the Story
One of DeAnda’s favorite tools is Aura’s KPI Dashboard. The Dashboard gives salons the ability to:
- Track all key metrics in one place
- Customize how metrics are calculated to their team’s unique workflow
- Personalize the Dashboard to the metrics they want to prioritize
- Monitor staff productivity and performance
- And, access data in real time
Trios stylists use Qnity’s Tuesday Tracker to set personal goals, and the Dashboard to back up their growth with numbers in real time. At a glance, stylists can see their retail, service and total sales as well as their productivity and other key areas they want to grow.
“The Dashboard tracks everything: tips, what clients bought, service sales, etc,” says DeAnda. “Our stylists have the Dashboard on their phones, so they can see what’s happening every day, but we try to take it in weekly chunks.” Joe DeAnda answers the phone while Karen checks the salon’s KPI Dashboard.
On Sundays, stylists receive their numbers from Trios management. They can see where they started and how they grew during the week.
“We use percentages for growth,” DeAnda says. “The team makes a game of beating their own numbers—they are their own benchmark.”
DeAnda also meets quarterly with stylists, utilizing their service sales, retail sales, and average ticket numbers from the Dashboard to share the average over the last 13 weeks and identify any challenges the stylists faced before the start of a new quarter.
“Stylists aren’t numbers people, so we find out the ‘why’ behind their work,” he says. “Not everyone is motivated by money, so we figure out what they want—a trip to Italy, planning a wedding, purchasing a car—and we tie the numbers to that ‘why.’”
Depending on a stylist’s level, goals can be anywhere from 5-6 percent to 10-12 percent.
The salon floor at Trios Aveda Salon in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Executing Action Items
The Dashboard provides an enormous amount of information, which can be overwhelming. To keep his team engaged, DeAnda helps them hone in and focus on specific areas to improve.
“We pick one or two goals to work on,” he says. “So, if they choose prebooking, we’ll write that in their weekly Tracker and set the goal. Then, at the end of the week, we can use the Dashboard numbers to say, ‘Your goal was 6 percent and you grew 10 percent.’
“We always highlight the positives so they feel they’re making movement,” he adds.
Mindful of meeting the team where they’re at, DeAnda s
Joe, Karen and the team from Trios in Fort Collins, Colorado
“Master stylists know what they’re doing, but we like to check in and point it out when they’re killing it in retail or if their client count is down,” he says. “A number is just a number, but a number tells a story.”
For example, if DeAnda sees a stylist’s client count is down, he can reveal the bigger picture and help them determine next steps.
“Maybe the client count is down because the stylist is hitting their goal of doing more color, and they increased their average ticket,” he says. “Or maybe the stylist just had a price increase, so client count is down.”
The Dashboard gives DeAnda the ability to run the report and assign action items to his team to improve or achieve new goals.
In the quarterly team meeting, he acknowledges everyone who has grown.
“It’s awkward because there are always a couple who don’t achieve the growth, but it makes them motivated to work harder the next quarter,” he says.
Trios’ impressive retail sales during a 12-Day holiday event that leverages Aura’s Sent feature to text visual messages to clients.
Marketing Magic
While Aura’s KPI Dashboard helps stylists achieve their goals, its Marketing Suite drives Trios’ growth.
The Suite offers targeted marketing campaigns through text and email as well as promotions and additional features to open new revenue streams.
DeAnda has found myriad opportunities to use Aura’s marketing tools, including gift card sales and retail events.
Last November, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Trios hosted a holiday open house for its Aveda rewards members and top retail purchasers as part of a 12-day sale.
Trios utilized Aura’s visual text marketing tool, Sent, to promote the open house and the concurrent online sale, which took place over 12 days in November.
The visual text invitation was sent only to specific guests and to clients who were scheduled for services that day.
“We scrubbed our data to target just our Aveda rewards guests and top retail purchasers and invited them to the holiday open house, which included 25 percent off Aveda products, double points, makeup stations, hand treatments, aroma stations, and more,” DeAnda says. “We created three check-out stations, so nobody had to wait.”
The result was $14k in retail revenue over the seven-hour event. But that was just the beginning of DeAnda’s holiday retail success story.
In the few days leading up to the open house, Trios used Sent to send visual texts advertising 25 percent off Aveda products and the upcoming in-salon holiday event, and made close to $7k in retail.
After the open house, another visual reminder was sent out, informing guests that they could still receive double points for two days. During that time, the salon generated an additional $7,200 in retail sales.
After the double points days were over, Trios used Sent to inform guests that the 25 percent off sale was still happening, which generated another $5,500 in retail sales.
Finally, in the last two days of the 12-day retail event, Trios sent a final visual text letting guests know it was their last chance to save. During that time, the salon generated an additional $8,300 in retail sales.
“Over the 12-day event, we made more than $41k in retail sales,” DeAnda says. “And for 12 days AFTER the sale, our retail sales were up 36 percent.”
The visual texts from Aura played a big role in targeting the right audience, instilling urgency, communicating effectively, and driving guests to the salon and website.
“And the hidden benefit is the customer feels appreciated,” DeAnda says. “You’re having a sale and letting them know—and they appreciate that.”
Karen makes a gift card sale at Trios.
Visual Texting for Optimal Communication
DeAnda also uses Sent to communicate staff promotions, gift card deals, and any other important information a guest may need.
“We can let guests know a stylist has been promoted with a celebratory message, a photo of their stylist, new price information, and an invite to reach out to us with questions,” DeAnda says.
Seeing their stylists’ photo is an effective way to get clients to open a text, and if the price change is beyond their budget, DeAnda can easily offer another stylist at a different price point.
Recently, DeAnda had a stylist who resigned due to a family emergency. The stylist was beloved, with an 88 percent existing guest retention. So DeAnda knew if he sent a text out to her clients with the stylist’s photo, they’d open it.
“We were able to set the parameters to send it out to everyone who had a future appointment with her,” he says. “It saved our staff from making 100 phone calls.”
Next, the team used a report to show any “fails,” or clients who didn’t receive the text.
“We can try to resend the text individually, email them the info, or just call them,” DeAnda says. “In this particular instance, we had a four percent failure rate.”
DeAnda uses the visual texts strategically to promote Trios as well. Recently, he used Sent to reach all customers who had visited Trios in the last 15 months or had future appointments.
“I let them know we were nominated in five categories in a local ‘best of’ competition and asked them to vote for Trios,” he says.
This quick, targeted communication was an easy way for DeAnda to grab some votes on the last day of voting. However, DeAnda always stays mindful of his guests and their time, using visual texts sparingly and targeting only the guests who need the pertinent information.
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