Phorest Founder Ronan Perceval welcomed hundreds of salon owners from around the world to the 2024 Salon Owner Summit in Dublin, Ireland, with this year’s theme of “Elevate.”  

“This year’s summit was designed to help you elevate the conversation, elevate your sales and elevate your business,” said Perceval, whose software company celebrates its 20^th anniversary this year.

To kick off the event with some unique energy and a bit of Irish culture, Perceval invited the audience to pick up the bodhran (framed drum used in Irish music) left on their seats and welcomed two musicians on stage to teach the attendees a series of rhythms so they could play along.

Then David Meade, an award-winning researcher, helped the audience understand how to drive change and growth with intention, grow collaboration and ownership of performance and drive a performance mindset in their team. “Decisions are the oxygen of great teams,” he said.

Meade shared research that helped owners position their marketing. For example, if you are offering your clients a menu of five items, put the one you want them to choose in the third position. “Psychologically, #3 is the sweet spot, because humans typically can only hold three pieces of information,” he shared. “Because we are herd animals, we want to do what most people are doing—that’s why testimonials work so well.”

Next, Patrick Monaghan, chief product officer for Phorest, and his team revealed some new and improved software features, such as Phorest Pay, improved online booking functionality and the automated Phorest Referrals program, which easily allows owners to reward loyal clients who recommend their friends.

To round out the first morning, Sharmadean Reid, founder of WAH Nails and The Stack World, taught the audience how to create client personas. “A client person is an example of a real person based on your current or ideal client base,” she explained. “It is a single client who can represent a larger group of clients, and can encompass the characteristics, habits, pain points, needs and goals of all our clients.”

She then walked the audience through her client persona sheet and how it was completed for three personas for WAH Nails. “To gather data on your target personas, follow all their persona details on social media, create a calendar of their life journey and look at their spending history in Phorest,” she said.

With his unique blend of humor and beauty honesty, Geno Stampora delivered a standing-ovation session that helped owners rethink their attitude in order to elevate their business.

“No one can compete with how you make people feel,” he said. “Are you bringing value to each and every client? Value is the difference between what you expect and what you get.”

That evening, the audience was entertained with a rousing game of Bingo Loco, a combination of Bingo, dancing and prizes.

Kicking off Day Two, Business Mentor Nina Tulio walked the audience through old school versus new school thinking. “The only way to spark some change is to hold a mirror in front of ourselves and get very honest,” she said. “We get nervous that we are going to fail, but your mindset and your willingness to change will carry you through.”

Tulio’s five steps for embracing the new school mentality included: 1) Know who you are and what you stand for; 2) Create actionable core values; 3) Focus on the thing syou can control; 4) Create a people-first culture; and 5) Become best friends with your finances.

In a powerful session, PhorestFM host Zoé Bélisle-Springer shared his journey of gender transition before reintroducing himself to the audience as Alex. “I was hiding in plain sight until my early 30s,” he shared. “We seek to look on the outside like we feel on the inside.”

Businesses that embrace DEI can increase their profits by 35%. “Despite the increased attention paid to issues of diversity, equity and inclusion over the past 10 years, 60% of US workers report ‘covering’ at work in the last 12 months,” Bélisle-Springer shared. “Covering is how individuals downplay disfavored identities.”

Belisle-Springer then challenged owners to think about the types of pressure they may be unknowingly imposing on their staff or clients to minimize their identities. Examples include strict dress codes; limited sick leave; schedule distribution with little to no notice; lack of sensory friendly areas; limited expertise in working with diverse hair or skin types; lack of products made to cater for people with diverse hair or skin types; space doesn’t cater to physical disabilities; not offering gender-neutral prices, services or products; and referring to diverse needs as ‘additional,’ ‘reasonable adjustments’ or ‘special requests.’

Phorest’s Rich Cullen and Verna Wall shared stories from the salon floor on how customers are creating and maintaining high-performance teams.

They found it starts with a well-defined, well-disciplined culture. “Many of these salons are establishing a Code of Honor with their teams, by together identifying 5-10 agreements that the team commits to keeping.”

Cullen and Wall also shared that many of the owners they interviewed have been reading Unreasonable Hospitality by Chef Will Guidara, a book that shows readers how to seek out ways to create extraordinary experiences.

The two-day educational experience ended with an awe-inspiring session by TV Hypnotist, Mentalist and Brain Hacker Keith Barry who asked the audience to record things like a funny memory and a drawing of a tattoo they’d like to get on cards, then invited a few members of the audience to pick a card randomly as Barry envisioned what was on the card.

The event also included a series of workshops across both days, including:

• An interactive social media session hosted by Kate Lynch and The Creative Society

• Greening Your Glam: The Salon Sustainable Solution with Fry Taylor, Green Salon Collective and Dr. Denise Baden

• The Gridy Art of Getting Things Done with Tom Kuhn of Qnity

• Maximizing Your Phorest Reports with Helen Devenney