22. Alain Audet on The Kim Report, the Power of Salon Data & the KPIs Driving Profitability

Hey, everybody. Welcome to The Connector, Intercoiffure's weekly podcast connecting salon owners and professionals with the leaders, artists, and innovators shaping the future of the professional salon industry. I'm your host, Gordon Miller, General Manager of Intercoiffure America Canada, the industry's only not-for-profit association representing employment-based salons across the U.S. and Canada. To learn more, visit intercoiffure.com and sign up for our free weekly e-newsletter. And also be sure to check us out over on Instagram, where we can be found at intercoiffureAC. Before we get started, a reminder that the Intercoiffure Fall Atelier Tapestry of Beauty is coming up fast. We'll be in New York City October 3rd through 5th with a brilliant lineup of educators and artistic presentations and some surprises. So go over to intercoiffure.com to learn more. Hit the events tab in the fall atelier. Reserve your hotel room, register, learn more about everything that we're going to be doing. And yeah, having said all that, on to today's guest. All right, so today we are returning to a conversation we started earlier in the year with our friend L.A. O'Day of Salon Interactive and the Kim Report. And yeah, in episode four of The Connector, we talked about data, clarity, and then action. I want to struggle here because, you know, I actually say data, but I force myself to say data because that's what everybody's saying these days. But Alay was the keynote presenter at the Intercoffier America Canada Spring Gathering up in Montreal this past May. He also spoke with our next leaders group at a luncheon. And we loved him so much in Montreal. The members loved him so much. He is coming back to our fall atelier to share a little bit of an update on the state of salons, according to the Kim report. And yeah, and this time we're going to talk about Q2, quarter two, 2026 numbers. Yeah, it's a complicated story. But before we do that, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you for Intercoffer. I had a blast. It was fun to have everybody in Montreal, which is my hometown. So, you know, that was very nice. And I know it was the second time Intercoffer was in Montreal. So I'm really looking forward to be in New York, which is going to be my second time being at Intercoffer in New York.

So before we jump in, for anybody who did miss the first conversation, give us the short version. What is the Kim Report? What does it do? And why does it matter?

Well, the Kim report is the only report currently that is following Salon transactional data. So what does that mean? Is we are tracking because of our software platform, we're working with Forest, we're working with Aura, uh rosy with square with envision and with stx and then we are developing relationship with a few other software so what happens is these platforms are actually covering currently over 70 000 salons out of what we consider being uh 220 000 salons in the independent market in the united states A salon is a business unit. So it could be a salon of one person or a salon of 100 persons. So when I say salon, I refer to all of those business. So a solopreneur in our language is a salon and is a