28. Can Education Build a Better Salon? | Bumble Pro’s Sheri Doss

Connector, Intercoiffure America Canada'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. A reminder, the ICA Fall Atelier Tapestry of Beauty is happening in literally... Four days from when we released this podcast, it's happening October 3rd through 5th in New York City. Go to intercoiffure.com to learn more. All right, today's guest is the brilliant Sherry Doss, VP of Global Education for Bumble and Bumble, one of the industry's most iconic brands and certainly a favorite brand partner to many Intercoiffure member salons. And Sherry and I are going to dig into the transformative power of education. And there are a few people that I really can think of that I'd like to have this conversation with more than Sherry Doss. And I am recording this intro two days after we had our conversation. There's a little thing I would normally edit out at the beginning, but it makes me giggle. So I'm leaving it in. Here we go. Let's get to it. Sherry Doss. You look fabulous. I wish we were doing video.

Thanks. Sherry Dodds,

VP of Global Education for Bumble and Bumble, the iconic Bumble and Bumble. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. Well, I'm always excited to talk to you, but excited to be here today.

You know, this is our first time doing something like this together since you have stepped in, and it's been more than a minute, to your very important role with Bumble and Bumble. And so, again, it's going to be a fun conversation.

It always is.

It is. So let's start. Let's start with the beginning. Start in the beginning. We're all in conversation. Start. You and I have both been at this for a minute. We don't have to give dates. But, you know, you've got a multi-decade career, much of it in education. But I want to go all the way back to the beginning, and we'll do the short version. But let everybody know, because you started where so many start, which is doing hair.

That's exactly right. I love that you tell me the five-minute version. You know me very well, obviously. Well, starting just with hair, I suppose, is pretty important. I actually became a manicurist quite early in my career to help bring some money into the house, support myself, thought I was going to go to college to be a high school math and English teacher. My very best friend convinced me that being a hairdresser is amazing and much more fun than being a manicurist. And at the time, I agreed with her. You know, it was the same. It was like doing a one-length bob every hour on the hour

with

the pink and white acrylics. And so I went back. I became a hairdresser. And I started my career actually working for Aveda. I worked for Caesars out on the West Coast. I did some education and class in salons. And I was really great at doing hair color. It came natural to me, just like math comes natural to me as well. And I felt like the formulation of it all just really made a lot