358 Seven Lessons on Education Every Salon Owner Needs to Hear

[upbeat music] I listen to a lot of podcasts across a wide range of different topics. Some of them are salon industry related, others are about business, or politics, or global current affairs, or personal development. If I'm out driving, or out for a walk, or even just tidying up around the house, there's a pretty good chance that I've got a podcast playing. Now, it's not that I don't enjoy silence, because I do, but I also like the idea of getting the mundane jobs done while learning something else at the same time. The one thing you might find interesting is that I very rarely listen to podcasts at normal speed. Depending on who's talking, I'll usually listen at one and a half or even double speed. You'd be surprised how quickly you get used to it. The reason is very simple. Some people are naturally very slow and deliberate speakers, and I often enjoy what they're saying, I just wish that they'd say it a little bit quicker. And yes, I know perhaps I should learn [laughs] a little more patience. The reason I mention this is that because every now and then someone will say to me, "Anthony, I love your podcast, but could you please slow down a bit?" But then someone else tells me that they listen to my podcast at one and a half speed. So to my friend Stuart, who sent exactly that message after last week's episode, firstly, thank you for listening, thank you for your feedback, and yes, Stuart, my wife agrees with you, I sometimes speak too fast. So today I'm gonna try and put the coffee down, slow the pace just a little, and make sure that I don't rush over the important bits, because today's topic really deserves a little bit of thinking time. I'm Anthony Whittaker, and welcome to this week's episode of the Grow My Salon Business Podcast. Today, I wanna talk about the state of education. I wanna talk about what's working, what's not working, what does our industry need more of, what does it need less of, what should be taught live, what should be taught online, and how is the role of the manufacturer changing, and what role do coaches play, and what impact is AI having? And perhaps the biggest question of all is, where is education heading next? Now, I think the best place to start is by looking at where we've come from. I've been in this industry since 1978, and over that time, I've been a stylist, an educator, a salon owner, a business coach, an author, a speaker, and now for the last several years, a podcaster. So I've watched education evolve from almost every angle imaginable. For probably the first three quarters of my career, the opportunities for education simply got better and better every year. There were the great private education companies like Vidal Sassoon and Toni & Guy. And then there were also obviously those large product manufacturers that invested heavily in their academies, and educators, and putting on live events around the world. Education was everywhere, and I don't mind saying, it was very exciting. When I first started, almost everything was live. If you wanted to learn, you went to a seminar, you attended a show, or you went to a product knowledge class, or you traveled to an academy because there really wasn't