IAM2173 – Founder and Salon Expert Helps Individuals Build and Scale Salon Suite Facilities

Karen Kaminski is the go-to expert in all aspects of salon suites, disrupting the salon franchise model while helping entrepreneur beauty professionals succeed in their businesses.

Karen helps investors nationwide establish, manage, and scale private salon suite facilities at cost-effective rates as the founder of Allure Salon Suite Consulting. Allure Salon Suite Consulting also offers strategic exit planning for facility owners, providing tailored advice for those looking to transition away from their investments when the time is right.

Karen empowers beauty professionals with the entrepreneurial tools they need to run a successful salon using her professional and personal experience as a beauty professional and the owner of 5 salon suites housing over 115 salon studios through her second company Allure Salon Group.

As an industry expert, Karen is recognized for her hands-on experience and comprehensive knowledge of the salon suite market.

Website: Allure Salon Suite Consulting LLC
LinkedIn: Karen A. Kaminski
Facebook: Allure Salon Suite Consulting, LLC

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Transcription:

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Karen Kaminski Teaser 00:00

It was like a business incubator to show these individuals how to work with a sales rep. You, because what tends to happen too in that medium, they end up not using a sales rep because they think, oh, I'm too small. But when they're going to open up a multi-tier salon, they're like, oh, I need a sales rep. So we're trying to change the culture.

Intro 00:21

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:48

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. Have Karen Kaminski. Karen, excited to have you on the show.

Karen Kaminski 00:56

Thank you so much for having me. I was so looking forward to this interview.

Gresham Harkless 00:59

Yes, I'm looking forward to it as well too. And Karen's doing so many awesome things. And of course, before we jumped into having that great conversation, I want to read a little bit more about Karen so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's working on. And Karen is the go-to expert in all aspects of salon suites, disrupting the salon franchise model while helping entrepreneur beauty professionals succeed in their businesses. Karen helps investors nationwide establish, manage, and scale private salon suite facilities at cost-effective rates as the founder of Allure Salon Suite Consulting.

Allure Salon Suite Consulting also offers strategic exit planning for facility owners, providing tailored advice for those looking to transition away from their investments when the time is right. Beyond her consulting, Karen empowers beauty professionals with the entrepreneurial tools they need to run a successful salon using her professional and personal experience as a beauty professional and the owner of 5 salon suites housing over 115 salon studios through her second company Allure Salon Group. And as an industry expert, Karen is recognized for her hands-on experience and comprehensive knowledge of the salon suite market.

And Karen is transforming the beauty industry, making salon suites a more accessible and lucrative venture for investors and beauty professionals alike. And I absolutely love everything that Karen is doing. I was geeking out on all the information and kind of knowledge she shares with people, even on her YouTube channel. But I love to hear about her journey. And I think we were talking about this a little before we started, is that people don't always see overnight success. They think it happens at a snap of a finger, but she has over 15 years, I think, of experience before she even got started on her journey as a professional in her business. So I love to hear about all those awesome things that she's been able to do. And I'm super excited to have you on the show, Karen. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Karen Kaminski 02:47

I am so ready for this. Awesome. Thank you so much.

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Gresham Harkless 02:49

No, thank you. You did all the hard work. I just get to ask the questions. So to kick everything off, the question I have now is to hear a little bit more about that story, your CEO story, and then you can start with all the awesome work you're doing.

Karen Kaminski 03:00

Absolutely. So like many, when I was in high school, I wanted to go to beauty school. My dad was like, no, you're not going to beauty school. You're going to college. You could always go back to beauty school. And I'm like, but dad, I want to own a salon. I don't really want to work in a salon, but you have to. At that point, you had to have a license and a management. He's no, so I bagged that idea and I ended up going to Marywood University. Got my advertising, went through there, got married, had my children. And I always knew I wanted to go and be something, be an executive. And I ended up starting my own nail salon.

I went back to beauty school just for my nails and I was doing a nail salon. And while I loved the business part, I didn't have the mobility to move around. And this company, my OPI rep actually, her name was Renee at the time, she contacted me, she goes, hey, do you want a sales job? And I was like, doing what? And she was like, I don't know, this company is out of Philadelphia, they're looking for a rep up in your area. I'm like, okay. So I met this guy, his name was Steven. He had no hair and he hands me a bottle of oil and he's, hey, he goes, why don't you try some of this? I go, you want me to put oil on my hair? I'm like, are you kidding me? And we just, he started laughing. I said, oh, it must really work for you. And he's, I know, don't take it like this.

So he handed me 144 bottles in these little kind of capsules and it was called Moroccan oil. And I was like, I said, let me try it. Let me figure this out. I went home, tried it, loved the product. I was like, oh my God, it changed your hair. And that's why I started my sales career. And they said, listen, you have all the territory except for Philadelphia, because that's where it located. So I started my sales career. And through that, they ended up growing the company. And Moroccan oil is a global company. And I ended up going into Cosmoprof. And Cosmoprof is one of the largest distributors in the US and Canada.

And what had happened was I started with in 2011 and Pennsylvania, New Jersey did not have salon suites. And when I trained the girl took me into a salon suite and she was like, she had to go pick something up. And I was like, oh my God, look at all these accounts. Cause that's what reps look for. She's like, oh, you don't want to be in here. I said, why she's because they don't buy from us. I'm like, what do you mean they don't buy from us? She's like, their orders are too small. So they just go to the store. We want the multi-chair salons. And she goes, you know, there's no business really in here.

So knowing that fast forward, 2000 and maybe 15, 2 franchises opened up in Pittsburgh and in Pennsylvania it like blew up all the reps knew because with our company everybody came in from the state for our meetings so I'm thinking I'm never going to retire as a sales rep if this happens and fast forward I started a lorcelon group in 2016. We opened the doors in 17 in June and the owner of the property, I went to 17 different landlords and they thought I was absolutely crazy. They were like, what do you want to do? How do you know the electric and plumbing? I said, yeah. I said, they're not going to use a bucket, jokingly.

So Joe spent most of his time in West Palm. So Florida, Texas, and California have the highest concentration of salon suites. And he knew the concept. And he was like, hey, listen, if you go in my space, he's, I'll help you. So that's how I got my first location up and started. And then slowly started seeping into the Philadelphia Market, the East Norton, which is really Lake Plymouth meeting, Allentown. Then we did one up here in the Scranton music area. And then our newest one just opened about 3 weeks ago in Lansdale.

And so that's how I ended up acquiring 5 locations. It was a lot of hard work. It was, I ended up taking on a business partner who was one of my consulting clients because what had happened was around 2017-18, people started contacting me because they wanted, how did you do this? Because they would go through the franchise and at the end we're like, okay, the heavy lifting is in the front. And then once it's set up, like I'm paying a royalty just to collect rent. So people started seeking me out and that's how we're Salon Suite Consulting started.

Gresham Harkless 07:37

Awesome. I appreciate you so much and sharing that. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more here a little bit more on how you're serving with and making that impact for your clients. Can you take us through how you're doing that with each of the business?

Karen Kaminski 07:47

With the consulting, because I have my own, I'm probably one of the only kind of consultants in this field that have my own facilities. So I do everything from find the space, build the space, build the space. And the group that we have, I have three that are completed, three that are under construction right now, three that are in the real estate portion of the project. And then I did branch out into Canada and that person is actually in the process of building his and then doing his second location. So we have a great little group but what I do is people reach out to me, honestly, from my LinkedIn profile, and I take them through finding the space, vetting it.

Then what we end up doing is doing an LOI and doing a perform on making sure that the space is going to be profitable for that person. Because we want to make sure these spaces, when they're done correctly, are very profitable. They're anywhere from, they're generating like 50 to $60,000. And then by the time you pay your rent and your utilities, you're probably coming in at about 25 to $32,000 a month in income. So they're very profitable.

Gresham Harkless 09:00

Yeah, absolutely. And I imagine that might be part of the secret sauce. Because as you said, like so many times, people might just be consulting. They may not have the salon or vice versa. But being able to bring those two things together, I imagine it provides such a great insight, connection, and of course, help for so many people.

Karen Kaminski 09:15

So with the beauty professionals, what I do in my particular locations, so when you look at the title, it's called the Lorsalon Group and Professional Education. And when I started it, I was still in, I was still a sales rep. And at the time, there was more and more hotels and convention centers that wouldn't let you have classes. And that's where a manufacturer would come in and do hair cutting or color classes. Those kinds of facilities were like, we don't want color, we don't want hair on our carpets. So I put a classroom in there. And it was a way for me because one of the things that always happened as a sales rep, people would be waiting at my car and they'd be like, listen, I want to get out. I want to open my own salon.

And here in Pennsylvania, the only way to get out of a toxic situation was to open up a multi-chair salon. So I would try to talk them out of it. I was like, are you kidding me? I'm like, now 100% has to keep the doors open. And because beauty professionals in beauty school do not teach any kind of business, like literally business training, they didn't know. And so when I opened a loris long group, I opened it and I put together a business binder and I showed them step by step, how to do your fictitious name, how to decide whether you're going to do an LLC or a sole proprietorship, how to do your EIN number, how to set up your bank account.

It was like a business incubator to show these individuals how to work with a sales rep because what tends to happen too in that medium, they end up not using a sales rep because they think, oh, I'm too small. But when they're going to open up a multi-chair salon, they're like, oh, I need a sales rep. So we're trying to change the culture. And then when I partnered with my current business partner, he came from the private equity world and we had been working for the last year on doing expanding the business incubator. And actually, instead of having a beauty business, you have a business that does beauty services.

And what we do is we connect the dots. Whereas if you go to a beauty show, people are just growing everything out at people. And for beauty professionals, they're very visual, creative people, and they're not connecting the dots. So what we found is by connecting the dots and taking them through, we have longevity in our studios and in our tenants. And then what happens is we end up, for the consulting side, I end up passing that along to my clients. So now they have more than just real estate to provide. They have an actual business and we've learned that it added so much value to our business and it sets you apart from the competition.

Gresham Harkless 12:04

Yeah, I love you all being able to see that and of course being able to execute on that business that does beauty is such a huge thing. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or even a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Karen Kaminski 12:21

So I am traveling back and forth from the Scranton area down to the Philadelphia area. So I listen to books all the time. And if I really like a book, I'll listen to it and then I'll buy the hard copy and then I'll listen and read it along and then start highlighting. So I've read so many books that way. And it's so funny. I just heard this in one of another podcast. It says listening to a book, you learn reading a book you learn. But if you do them both at the same time, it's more impactful and you retain more information. I was like, that's what I've been doing.

Gresham Harkless 12:56

I love that. And so what would you consider to be a little bit more of what I call CEO nuggets, this little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell an aspiring entrepreneur, a business owner or something you might tell your younger business self if you were to happen to a time machine.

Karen Kaminski 13:10

Failure is part of the business and you're going to fail a lot. If you're not sued or talked about, you're not doing something, especially on social media. Yeah. If you're not, failure is huge. I tell people all the time. I said, when we're talking about how it works, I'm like, you're paying me. So you don't make the mistakes I did. And I consider having my PhD in construction and general contracting through the 5 projects that I've done. So yeah, it's you pay for wisdom, whether it's with money or with time or experience.

Gresham Harkless 13:49

Yeah, absolutely. It's such a huge thing. So when I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and our goal is to have different quote unquote CEOs on this show. So Karen, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Karen Kaminski 14:00

Being a CEO, I read the book, The Motive, and it gave me a different perspective. What I thought a CEO was, somebody who has gotten to the pivoting point of their career, and now they're overseeing everybody, but you're hiring people to do their jobs effectively. And then when I read the motive, it completely changed that. It's funny because me and my business partner are co-CEOs and he's more of a CEO, I'm more of a COO because when you're a CEO, you have to have those hard conversations, you're constantly managing people, whether they're your top executives, you're like the chief reminding officer.

So you're like always, and not in a derogatory way, but you're always re-implementing what the goals of the company are, what the target is. So yeah, being a CEO is a chief reminding officer and always being hands-on, but it's that delicate balance. It's not, hey, I'm the CEO, everybody answers to me. So definitely.

Gresham Harkless 15:15

Yeah, I love that. So Karen, truly appreciate that definition. And of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want you to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get a hold of you. Find about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Karen Kaminski 15:32

So for people who have salon suites right now, and they're in that, what I call, again, we talked about that race to the bottom, if they're looking for other ways to keep their income going up and steady instead of going down, reach out or opportunities in other parts of the world, because everybody we know gets their hair done. Whether it's cutting color, barbers, and the opportunities are endless, but you can reach out to me on my website, Allure Salon Suite Consulting, or reach me at Karen@AllureSalonSuiteConsulting.com.

Gresham Harkless 16:11

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Thank you so much again, Karen. And of course, to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information shown us as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Karen Kaminski 16:21

Thank you so much.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at ceohacks.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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