The Professional Beauty Association and Pivot Point International recently joined forces to develop Pro Beauty Pulse, an ongoing research initiative designed to provide a monthly view of confidence and sentiment across both the professional beauty and beauty school markets.

On the professional side, the research looks separately at three groups—salon owners, salon employees and independent professionals. Each group is asked to assess business conditions over the past 30 days, how they view the current state of their business and what they expect over the next 30 days.

Those perceptions are then viewed alongside transaction data from The KIM Report, which anonymously aggregates point-of-sale data from more than 10,000 salons and tracks key trends across service, retail and consumer behavior. Analyzing data from both studies creates an opportunity to compare confidence with actual business performance to see where perception and reality align—or differ. (Read the latest blog from The KIM Report.)

The beauty school portion of Pro Beauty Pulse is tracked separately and focuses on beauty school leaders. It similarly examines their assessment of the past 30 days, current school conditions and expectations for the next 30 days.

Tracking the professional and school markets independently, while following both consistently over time, gives Pro Beauty Pulse a broader view of how different parts of the beauty industry are experiencing and responding to changing conditions.

Click here to find out more information and look at current and past Pro Beauty Pulse updates.