Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit, just working in your business and start working on it, join us here, where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt Seva: What is up, you guys, and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast! I’m your host, Britt Seva so excited to be joined this week by two incredible souls I feel so lucky to call friends, Corey and Tony from Hairdustry.
Now I have a lot in common with these guys. We actually launched our podcasts at basically the exact same time. You’re probably already a big fan of the Your Day Off podcast, and you’ve likely heard and seen these guys around before.
This was such a fun episode to record because we really hit on a lot of topics: growing as an educator, networking, salon ownership, how to know when it’s time to leave a salon, and so much more.
You guys, let’s dive in.
Corey, Tony, thank you so much for being here with me today. I always say this when I interview amazing guests: everybody did miss the pre-show, which is one of the best parts, but like I told my assistant this morning, when I saw you guys on my calendar, I said, “Oh my gosh, I get to spend the day with two of my friends,” and I’m just so excited to have you here on the podcast, so thank you for joining me today.
Tony Stuart: Thank you for having us.
Corey Gray: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having us, and I kinda got the chills when you called us friends ‘cause that gives me the good willies, you know?
Tony: Yeah.
Britt: Aw, I love that.
Tony: It’s been our goal since we started this thing.
Corey: Yeah, we’ve been stalking you ever since.
Britt: I love it. Well, and that’s the cool thing for me too, is I think in this industry, I’ve really sought out like-minded individuals, and then in meeting both of you, I feel like it was instantly like click. We see the industry the same way and our vision is so similar, so I’m really happy to have you on the show. I know everybody’s going to love to hear what you have to share.
So first of all, I want you to tell me a little bit about yourselves. Corey, we’ll start with you. Who are you, how did you get into the industry? I always say like your origin story, what drove you to join the industry? What was that first year or first couple of years like, and then catch us up to where you are today.
Corey: Well, I’m honestly, even in high school, I wanted to get into the industry, but actually, a good friend of mine talked me out of it and said, “Oh, you suck with your hands, man. Why would you do that?” And when you’re 17 or 18 years old, those are real words. So what I did instead is I went into the military and then when I went into the military, I was like, “Man, I don’t care what anybody thinks or what I can do or what I can’t do.” So when I got out of the military at that point, literally the very next day I got out of the military, I started hair school. My boy Tony here was hanging out at home and I said, “Hey, man, I’m going to start hair school. Are you interested?” and Tony was like, “Yeah, sure. I’ll join hair school,” so we joined hair school.
We actually had a third guy that joined our journey in hair school as well. We went to Graham Webb—what do they call it?—Graham Webb International Hair School or something like that—
Tony: Academy.
Corey: Academy, right. So we went to Graham Webb, we had a great education there. They certainly were on the cutting edge of education, certainly in our area they were. I feel fortunate that I went to Graham. Then I went to a hair salon and, actually Tony was with me there at the first hair salon.
I worked for a company for 14 years. I did my first 14 years with one company, and then I left and went to a single—that was a big chain then I went to like a single operator salon, which was awesome because there is where I took flight a little bit. Where for the 14 years before that, I was just in the grind of figuring out how to do it.
Then I went to the new salon and the new salon really believed in me and gave me some mentoring opportunities, I should say. It was also a Summit salon, so I learned a lot about how the business of hairdressing works and how the business of a salon works, and then I was able to mentor some younger hairdressers there.
Then I guess, I don’t know, heck, it’s been about four or five years now. I left that salon and I went into a studio suite, so I’ve been in a studio suite since then.
A lot of people are shocked to learn that Tony and I still work behind the chair. We still work behind the chair four days a week, so yeah, we slay it out and, I like to make a joke on the podcast that we talk to the people whose feet hurt on Saturday evening. Those are our people. That’s been my hairdressing journey.
Then, I dunno, 2017, I had this idea about starting a podcast and there wasn’t a lot of—I think actually, Britt, I think when you came on our podcast, you started your podcast the same time we started ours, which was like January 2018, yeah?
Britt: I launched January 2018 and in 2017, it was coming together. That was my epiphany to like, man, we were having podcasts babies at literally the exact same time. We were on that same path.
Corey: That was definitely it. Then I went to a—I don’t even know what it was. It was like a gathering of Instagram. We’re really close to BeScene Studio. So BeScene had this thing and had a bunch of influencers come in and I went over there to check out the influencers and just to watch how other people interacted with them. I go, “Man, people really care about these guys.” So my idea was—and I came to Tony, was like, “Tony, I wanna start this podcast and I want to be the Jimmy Kimmel of the industry and I want to introduce all these people to other hairdressers ‘cause they really care.”
And the genius of Tony said “It has to be more than that. It has to be the soul. We have to share the soul of the industry and we have to really share the stories and the real stories, not just the introduction, but how’d they get there, yada yada yada.”
In an instant, Tony was 1000% correct and in an instant, the podcast changed before it even started because as we to design it or who we wanted to bring on as guest and stuff changed or who we seek to be on the podcast changed because what was their story and what did they have to offer the audience? It wasn’t about, “Hey, this is so-and-so,” but what was your story and how did they get there?
That’s kinda how it started and then January 15th, we launched our first podcast and when we first recorded it, we were so nervous and so crazy.
Here’s a funny story. Tony and I, we wanted to do like an intro episode before you get started. This is true, Britt, you ready? We worked on it for seven hours and we got exactly one and a—hold on—we got one and a half minutes of content. We’re like, “Huh, we’re not very good at this, aren’t we?”
Britt: But here’s the thing. Okay, first of all, if anybody’s listening, we’re going to dive in deeper into that, but that’s like the real real. People see us show up and do our podcast and it looks easy and we’ve got it, and it’s like, “Oh, you didn’t see the messy beginnings where we were crying behind the podcasting mic, asking is anybody even going to listen to this,” trying to figure out the edits, trying to figure out everything. But that’s what the messy beginnings look like.
Corey: Dude. It was so messy. Honestly I think the reason, one, I think the reason that we do it as a group and the reason we have guests is because if you listened to Tony and I, we’re just a wreck, we’re just a mess. But by bringing a guest in it, we’re allowed to bounce that energy in like a triangular shape here.
But yeah, that’s the truth. I mean, we struggled mightily before we got on air.
Britt: Well, first of all, I don’t believe that you two talking together would be a mess. It actually sounds like you guys have an incredible partnership even when you talk about you brought your idea of the podcast to the table and Tony was like, “Oh, that’s a good idea, but here’s how I think we can soften the edges.” Like that, to me, is such an indicator of a healthy partnership in business, which is really difficult to find on both sides, that Tony felt comfortable giving you that feedback and that you were able to actually accept it and not feel like, “Wait a minute, you’re trying to change my concept.” That is actually an incredibly challenging dynamic and I think it says a lot about your relationship that you’re able to navigate those times.
Tony: Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. And he left out a few stories too, through his little journey over there.
Corey: I had to set you up, man.
Tony: Yeah. So I’m going to go rewind back to the hair school thing. He said he joined the Navy; him and I were going to do the Navy together ‘cause we went to high school together. We were best friends in high school and we were going to do the Navy thing and then he went in, eventually I did not go in, but I did say goodbye to him in the morning while waving him on the bus. He thought I was going to be on the bus, but I didn’t jump on the bus. True story. But I did go out and visit him out in San Diego while he was in.
I tried different things. I can draw, I was creative that way. Corey’s dad was a hairdresser. My grandfather was a barber, so it was around us, but we had a mutual friend that was a really good, talented hairdresser.
When Corey got out, he goes, “Hey, I’m going to go to Graham Webb,” and by that time, I went to programming school. Wasn’t for me. I lived in Florida for a couple of years and just, I really couldn’t find myself. So when he said, “Let’s go to Graham Webb,” something about it just sounded just right, so we went in and the rest is history.
Yeah, we worked for the same company for awhile. We apprenticed for this one company and I left because of him.
Britt: Okay, we have to talk about that because we dove into that teeny tiny bit when I was on your podcast, but tell us how that went down.
Tony: Corey had the afternoon shift, I had the evening shift, right? So we were apprenticing. Well, Corey would just sit and observe and learn all day, and then when it’s time for my shift, it was such a wreck, all I had to do is clean. I couldn’t learn and observe because I was cleaning all day.
Corey: I learned a lot.
Britt: I bet you did.
Tony: Yeah, so I got upset and I said, “Hey, if this doesn’t change, I’m outta here. So it’s on you, Corey, for this change, we gotta figure this out. We gotta meet in the middle.” Nothing changed. Right?
So I was out, I left, and so where I went to is where Corey eventually ended up. He was there for 14 years. I was there for 20 years. We learned so much from this company. I helped build the cutting educational department for this company. It was the owner, Reg Laws. He was such an inspiration in my life. He was an amazing employer.
Then from there, I went to a studio suite while Corey was still at the other salon, and it took me a couple of years to talk him to come join me over in the studio suite, and he finally did. We’ve been together since high school. It was just right, so I’m glad he listened.
Corey: Me too.
Britt: I love that.
Corey: Even about the studio suite, like if it wasn’t for the studio suite, I don’t think we would ever have the opportunity to start the podcast.
Tony: Right.
Corey: Right. Because it’d be kind of hard as an employee at a salon to just that, one—I mean, in hindsight, the demand of time that it takes right now, you know what I mean? It hasn’t happened this year, but during show season and stuff, and because it was a Summit salon and because it was a corporate salon, I couldn’t just request off, “Oh, I need next Saturday off for next month,” or “I need it for two months from now.” Even I knew what the show circuit was because if there were 20 employees, only X amount could be off at a time and we only got X amount during the year.
If it wasn’t for the studio suite, we certainly couldn’t have grown the way that we’ve grown, because it just takes time to do that. And we certainly couldn’t have been as visible to the industry as we were just cause it wasn’t available. It just wouldn’t have been available to us.
And I probably wouldn’t’ve thought about it either because being a Summit salon, it was very much inside L’Oreal, so it wasn’t until I got to the studio suite that I realized that there was this whole incredible industry outside of like our L’Oreal bubble. And that’s not a shot on L’Oreal, but there’s just a much bigger hairdressing world.
Tony: But even as a salon owner, I get it. That chair has to meet X amount of dollars every month, and when you’re not there, you’re off traveling, which I want you to benefit yourself. But if you’re not making this X amount of dollars that I need for that chair, then it’s not going to work.
Corey: It’s not going to work.
Tony: I understand that too.
Corey: I completely understand that.
Britt: Okay, I have so much to unpack. So I want to talk about the Summit salon where you said you were employees and it had more of a corporate feel. You both chose to be there for a really long time.
And one of the things I’m passionate about talking about—and I think you guys will be too—is that commission is not bad. Being an employee is not bad. There’s a lot of wonderful and good things that come from that and I’ve always said if I opened a salon, 100% I would have employees. You probably couldn’t booth rent for me or it would be something that is earned, but I love the employee model. I was a commission stylist. I think there’s a lot of good that can come from that.
So I want to just ask you, why did you guys choose to stay in an employee environment, in more of a corporate environment for as long as you did?
Corey: First off, Tony mentioned Reg Laws before. Reg Laws is an incredible salon owner. He grew up in England when Toni and Guy were coming to fruition, when Michael Gordon was coming through, just a lot of people that we know within the Aveda world, within the Toni and Guy world. He was a half a step behind like the Vidal Sassoon world.
So Reg, as a young, young hairdresser, Reg had access to a lot of different people, right? Where nobody else in the country had access, this is the way before Instagram, this was way before that kind of stuff. We would go to shows with them and we would meet these mega interesting people, the Vivi Mackinders of the world—name a British hairdresser of that age and we had access to them. Reg grew up in that world, so that was very appealing to me. It was rock and roll is what it was and it was able to meet these people and to work alongside these people. We did the Alternative Hair Show as a salon where most of the Alternative Hair Show was done by brands. Reg had the connections to where as a salon, we could go in there and do it and that was incredible.
We met Scott Cole through there with Paul Mitchell and just so many people. That was, again, it was rock and roll. Then what happened for me is as I got older and as my kids got older and as life moves on, that appeal ends a little bit. And then it was time for me to move on.
It was hard for me to move on because as great of a businessman as Reg was, he very much has his model that he works in. Well, that model was no longer—I don’t want to say satisfying, but I don’t know what the right word is—but I had different demands and I thought that I can make more money elsewhere. Certainly that’s what happened, another salon approached me, the Summit salon actually approached me or I approached them or however that went down, I don’t remember. But however that went down—
Tony: We were supposed to join that together too.
Corey: I know, you’re a bum. Like I follow him everywhere, Britt, he never jumps on, man. Except he did join me in hair school and on the podcast, soo maybe that’s not right.
Tony: Two things in that matter most.
For me being there for 20 years, I’m always a loyal friend, a loyal person. Reg, what was so great about his leadership is that he allowed you to explore and create. He didn’t put you in this little—“Okay, you got to work in this small little box and this is where you’re stuck at,” right?
We had two salons, right? And he was taking over two or three; it was a small chain, I guess two, three, four salons. And he was taking over and I came to him one day and I said, “Reg, if we’re going to grow like this, we should create an educational department so we can create a culture.” And he goes, “That’s a great idea. You should start working on it,” and I was like, “Okay.” I took the challenge and I started working on this cutting program.
He gave you free range. If you had an idea, he said, try it, go do it.
Corey: And not only that, but he would actually support it financially. As the company grew, he had an audience that you could share your ideas with, and that’s where he gave great support there.
Tony: It was brilliant. You could utilize it on your clients, other people’s clients, he didn’t say, “Oh, that’s horrible.” If you believe in it, try it, and if it works, we’ll adopt it. How about that? But it was on his expense and on his clientele or his salons. He had such a wonderful way of leading that way. He didn’t stifle your creativity.
Britt: I love that and I want to just spotlight the key pieces of what you said for our salon owners listening in is that you felt supported and you felt like it wasn’t just his way or the highway. He had structure and you respected the structure, but he wanted to support you as individuals as well.
What I think is really important and so interesting is that when Corey was explaining why he left, he didn’t say, “Because I want to make more money.” That wasn’t the driving force. You mentioned that, but it was like three reasons why in, which is actually really typical. It’s like, “and the money piece.” But you mentioned your family had changed. Your life choices had changed. You had just shifted, you’re onto another chapter, and a lot of times, we all want to hold on to every relationship we have forever, but the reality is we evolve as people, and it was more the evolution. It wasn’t Reg as an owner by any means, it was just the evolution of life and this is what happens sometimes.
Corey: I sent Reg a parting letter when I left, and I said, here’s the deal is I totally respect your business model, but my business model has changed and what I need has changed. So unfortunately, I wouldn’t insult you by even asking you for that. Just understand that my business model had changed, and it was time for me to move on, and honestly it was the greatest thing ever ‘cause the next salon that I went to—here’s a little thing—your salon owners are going to hate this—but Britt, I came into that industry, I came into that salon as a young hairdresser, and I was never past a young hairdresser. I was always the hairdresser coming up, right.
I didn’t know this at the time on any level, but when I went to the new salon, it gave me different footing and now I’m the experienced guy that’s there and I’m mentoring younger hairdressers coming up. They’re using me for my experience and my knowledge and it was the greatest thing ever ‘cause it opened up a different door and a different passion for me.
Tony: And it’s funny, I left under different circumstances, right? Reg and I, we had a different relationship. We had a very, very close relationship and after 20 years, the company had grown to 15, 16, 17 salons, right? So now it’s not about just one, two, three, four salons, you know? It got so large that the culture started changing a little bit and I didn’t fit in it anymore after 20 years, in the sense of how we evolved. I knew it was time for me to either just stay back and be that hairdresser behind the chair and just roll with it, or move on and start a new phase of my life. And that’s what I decided to do.
I told Reg, “Hey brother, thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me, everything you shared and taught, and I’m going to go move on.” That’s what I did and it was the perfect timing for me. I would go back and work with him any time in the world, he meant that much to me.
Britt: I love that and you used my favorite word, which is the C word, which is culture. That really is the underlying driving force for what most of us are looking for really in any type of employment, like take us out of the beauty industry, put us anywhere, great culture, and phenomenal leadership, and then room to be individuals I think is the secret sauce.
Knowing these things, I have to ask you the million dollar question: Would you guys ever open a salon? Would you ever be salon owners individually or as partners?
Corey: No, I wouldn’t. It’s just not what interests me now. You know what interests me now—funny story, going back to the Summit salons, we used to do our one-on-ones and I would tell the owner then, I said, “Listen, by the time I’m 55, I don’t know how I’m going to do it or what I want to do, but I want to reach the industry as a whole.” Never with a podcast in mind or whatever, that just happened however. Now we’re able to reach the entire industry so that right now that would be my focus. And my focus would be like how can we embrace the industry as a whole, as opposed to a salon. It just doesn’t have interest for me.
Tony: I would have said yes up until the podcast. Several times I almost went in partnerships with Reg to open up a salon, and then several times before the podcast, I was teetering and looking and you know what I mean? I wanted to build this thing myself. Of course, when we started the podcast, everything shifted and everything got redirected, but prior to the podcast, I would have said yes.
Britt: You know what, Tony, you and I have similar paths then, because I was in talks for salon partnership as well, then thought I was going to do my own thing. And then once I really started mentoring, coaching, I was hooked and there was no turning it off.
And to what Corey was saying, so what you’re talking about, Corey, is what I call the North Star. Like you said, by 55, I want to be impacting the industry in a really beautiful way. And then that—it’s really difficult, like once you set your eyes on that North Star, of “no, this is what I made for, this is what I’m going to do,” it’s very all consuming.
Then to what Tony said, once it starts to align and it starts to come together, you know and then you can get hyper-focused on what was always meant to be yours. And you guys found it.
Cory: It’s a pretty incredible journey and you have more clarity—hindsight 2020—but I thought I would do it like in the L’Oreal world, because that’s the world that I was in, I thought that was it.
Tony and I kid all the time that we hacked the industry, like we found our hack because in order to do it with any kind of corporation or—you know, you have to do like PK classes and then you have to do education classes, and then you grow up in that education world.
Well, I knew that that wasn’t for me, I knew I would never be able to sustain that journey. It just wasn’t for me.
So when we started the podcast and people started listening, I kind of feel like, “Oh, we hacked it. We hacked the industry, we’re like education hackers. We figured our way through it.”
Tony: And we get to do this with our best friend, right? That’s our childhood best friend.
Corey: Exactly.
Britt: Okay, I want to talk about—it’s come up a couple of times, so I know I’ve got to dive deeper. So it really resonated with me when you said you got out of the L’Oreal bubble and to what you said, we were a Redken Elite salon, so nothing against L’Oreal. I definitely have lots of L’Oreal in my bathroom right now. All good.
But for me, I found the same thing. So when I think about like Aveda salons or Aveda people where it’s truly a culture in and of itself, and L’Oreal, I mean, name any brand, Kevin Murphy, name anything, you can really go all into something and it can be so good, but there is something that happens when you step back. I’ve noticed it as an educator in the salon and beyond, and when you’re like, “Whoa, there is a really big world out here.”
Do you have any advice for stylists who are all in on a brand or all in on a vision or all in on a method? Do you believe that people should just stick with what they’re doing? How do you know when it’s time to take a step back and look at the world around you and see what else is there?
Corey: Well, first and foremost, congrats to Aveda, congrats to L’Oreal for creating this culture, because that’s the hardest thing in life to do is to create this culture. It’s not a culture though, too. It’s a belief system. Like they’ve created this place—
Britt: Perfect word: belief system, that’s it, you nailed it. Yes.
Corey: It’s this belief system that you grow up in and I don’t have any advice because I think it has to be your journey and your soul, right?
I have many, many friends that are still within that Redkin world that are educators and that are doing their classes and that stuff within that world. And that’s perfect for them. Again, if we didn’t find the podcast, who knows where we would have ended up, but it took, again, being in a studio salon and seeing all these other great hairdressers to go, “Okay, there is a bigger world here,” which is funny ‘cause you say bigger world, but it’s also a very small world at the same time, right? Once we get out there.
Tony: Yeah, but it’s all self-focused. So to me, it’s all about contentment. Okay. If you’re content of being all in and you’re a hundred percent happy, hey, stay there. There’s nothing wrong with that.
If you’re starting not to be content, step back. It is a much bigger world out there. And again, Corey is right, it is a lot smaller, but take a step back. You might see something else that might catch your eye and then you strive for it and you achieve it and you become content again.
It’s all about being content in life, because if you’re constantly envying or lusting or wishing I had that, you’re never going to be happy. Find your happy place.
Britt: You hit on one of my favorite things. I always say, “Don’t get stuck in the stuck.” Like often you’ll be like, “Well, I guess this is it.” No, there’s always a gajillion other things or a million other opportunities if you can take a step back and just take a beat and look around for a minute, there’s always a left turn that you can take. Always.
Corey: Our industry is amazing like that and I think that we’re the proof—or we’re the pudding, right? This industry gives opportunity to do almost whatever you want. If you want to be an educator, if you want to be a salon owner, if you want to be a corporate educator, whatever you want to do, this industry gives you—I mean, there’s so many paths.
If you think about it as a star, there’s not a point of the star that you can’t fulfill in this industry. And all we did was we created a new point because we decided that we’d do a podcast and we made that decision before Britt. She followed our path.
Britt: Hey! [laughs] We were in alignment like two peas in a pod.
Okay, I have to ask another question. It came up earlier and I was like, ooh, this is so good. So even as you’re talking about working with Reg and how you had access to so many incredible educators, and then you’re talking about BeScene. So as you talk about things like that, I know my listeners are going to be like, “I want to be invited to BeScene’s event,” so I want to talk about networking. Talk about BeScene, don’t talk about BeScene, but how do great relationships like that get started? How do those connections get made? So many people are like, “I want to do that, but I don’t know how to start.” How did those relationships even begin?
Tony: Well, I’ll let Corey talk about the relationship that got him there, but BeScene, Linh, he worked in the same studios as we did. Before BeScene opened, he was BeScene in the studio and so we knew him through the studio. It was great.
What took Corey to that particular event—now I got sick, so I couldn’t make it. We have a mutual friend, I don’t know if you know who Phillip Wolff is. He was our apprentice at PR Partners. He worked with us, for Reg. He was a phenomenal hairdresser. I mean, of course, you know, you always like, “Okay, you have the apprentice that becomes the master,” right? He becomes better than everybody else. That was Phillip and he decided he wanted more, so that’s when he headed it out to LA.
But I guess I’ll let you tell that story, how you ended up at BeScene, but through PR Partners, we were able to have—’cause a lot of people came through PR Partners that went out like Joe Blackwell, New York, et cetera—so we already had great access to all these people.
Corey: Yeah, so I mean the Phillip story is pretty simple. We reconnected once I went into a studio salon, again, I mean, Phillip is everywhere. So we reconnected there. Before Phillip though, I’m actually very close to his sister. His sister and I are pretty close. She used to give me guitar lessons and stuff like that, so I always had—her music, you know, pleased to meet you on your day off podcasts? That’s her, that’s Philip’s sister.
Britt: Oh my gosh, I have no idea the connection.
Corey: Yeah, that’s Sarah Wolff, that’s a Phillip’s sister. So I always like, whenever I saw Sarah, I’d be like, “Oh,how’s Phillip doing? Yada yada yada,” you know? So once I went to a studio suite, I reached out to Phillip, “how do you do these things” or “what’s going on” or how you’d run your business.
Then literally it was a Friday night, he’s like, “Hey bro, I’m going to be in DC on Monday.” He hadn’t been home in a long time. It had been like 15 years or something. I just thought like, “Oh, this is gonna be my last time” or “this will be a time that I get to see Phillip,” ‘cause I haven’t seen him at that point in 15 years. I was just going there to slap fives and give man hugs.
It was when I got there and Ricky was there and Kelly O was there and of course Linh was there and a few other people were there. While I was talking to Philip all day long, people were coming up and handed me their phone going, “Will you take my—” I was like Phillip’s professional photographer for the day, you know? And so I was taking people’s pictures with him and when I left there, that’s when the light bulb went off and I go, “Oh, people really care about this guy.” And I had known, we know the Phillip story. We just never knew to talk about it, you know? That was it. We’re like, “If we can tell the Phillip story, put in whatever face you want,” that was the direction of the podcast. That’s when I went to Tony with it and he gave the podcast soul.
Britt: I love that. What I love about this entire story and this entire journey is, I don’t know about you guys, but I get messages all the time where people say, “Well, I want to hang out with you, Britt,” or “I want to hang out with Corey and Tony. How do I do that?” Or “I want to hang out with, somebody who’s really a big deal, somebody phenomenal.” And I’m like, “You can certainly aspire to do that and if you can manifest that possibility, but who you actually want to connect with the Sarah who is in the studio suite next to you.”
I think that there’s this lateral networking that people don’t take advantage of. They’re always trying to network vertically. And I don’t know about you guys, but the horizontal connections, to be candid, are the ones that have meant the most to me, like connecting with those in the trenches with me, like you guys, like on the same journey. If that ends up going vertical, amazing. But those horizontal connections are worth their weight in gold. And that’s how you guys continue to meet incredible people is by connecting to those in your world and nurturing those relationships and allowing them to evolve.
Tony: Yeah, and that’s true even if you’re in a salon, a big salon, and when I started the studio, not only did Corey come over, but there’s probably five or six other hairdressers that we’ve impacted their lives through education, they came over. All separate times. So it wasn’t like we were trying to recruit anybody. People just wanted to grow.
When you impact people’s lives like that and then to watch them impact people’s lives and next thing you know, our studio suite, the whole thing was filled out with everybody we knew because everybody wants to be together.
Britt: I love that you said the focus is on impacting lives because isn’t that the damn truth, like the more impact you create without any expectation of, “so now you owe me one” or anything else, just creating connection and impact. And it’s amazing how that it all comes together. And it really does
Tony: A hundred percent. That was perfectly said because that’s what it, for us when we started the podcast, how can we impact lives to better the industry as a whole? It wasn’t about the brands. It wasn’t about anything but the individual in that. And that was our goal.
Britt: Yeah. I love that.
Okay. I want to shift right here and really talk about the podcast. A lot of my listeners are very on very similar journeys that I was on and you were on as well: have been in the industry, done the behind the chair thing, and feeling like what’s next or something more. A lot of people excited to start podcasts right now, so can we talk for a minute about what have been the greatest—I always say peaks and pits. What has been the most amazing thing about the podcast, but can you talk about some of the challenges, especially when you first start trying to get people to even listen or even know that you exist? Can you talk about podcasting as a whole?
Corey: Well, first of all, I feel so very fortunate and lucky that we were early to the game. When we started the podcast and, back in late 2017, I’m sure you did the same thing, you look at like, well, how many podcasts are in our space? There was only two or three. Literally only two or three. We had Gordon Miller that was in the space. We had Eric Taylor that was in the space. Aside from them, there’s a couple other ones, but not ones that I thought were making a huge impact. Like who is my competition going to be?
Now the joke is that in podcasting world, there is no competition. You just get out there and do that. I tell you a decision that—and I don’t know if this answers your question or not, but I’ll tell you a decision that we made very, very early on and that was we are going to make mistakes. Let’s accept that we’re going to make mistakes so we can keep moving forward. Because if you accept that we’re not going to make mistakes, then you’re treading water before you get there and you can’t move forward from that.
To this day, we’ve made many, many mistakes, but we don’t really see them as mistakes. We go, “Okay, well, we’re not gonna do that again.”
Tony: We call them learns.
Corey: Yeah, learns, exactly. They were the opportunity to learn. That’s been a godsend, especially when you’re working in a partnership. In a partnership, Tony and I had to agree that mistakes were going to happen. It couldn’t be about pointing fingers. It couldn’t be about that kind of stuff. It had to be like, “Yeah, we’re going to make mistakes. I’m going to make mistakes. You’re going to make mistakes as individual. And we’re going to make mistakes—”
Tony: Corey’s gonna make mistakes. I’ll make a few—
Corey: But I’ll make most of them. [laughs] But that was really—and now that probably was 30 years of friendship that did that, but just understand that we are gonna make mistakes and again, individually and as a group, but you just have to move past them because you can’t do anything new without that happening.
Tony: Corey talked about competition. Corey helped a lot of people start podcasts in our industry, and we were like, let’s help as many people, even if it puts us out, as long as it’s benefiting the industry, we’re in. If nobody listens to us because everybody’s listening over here and we’ve had a hand in that, we’re okay with that. So it wasn’t about the Tony and Corey show at all.
Britt: I love that. We have the same vision of—I always say I’m here to revolutionize the industry. Like if the industry wins, then it’s a win and it’s a victory. If you can stay in that mindset, then you’re correct, the only competition is yourself, is what I always like to say.
If self-doubt creeps in or I start questioning my actions, or I let that fear of failing takeover, then I’ve lost. I defeated myself, but we’re not each other’s competition because nobody is you.
To what you said, there is a place in space for any podcast that if anybody is listening and wants to launch something, do it without that fear of failure, know that the beginning is messy and ugly and hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s not right. It doesn’t mean you should stop fighting for what you want.
Corey: I will warn you if you start a podcast, it’s going to take about three times the amount of time that you think it’s going to take.
Britt: Can we talk about that? Yes. It’s the whole my overnight success took a decade, like that old adage. It’s so true. Like you think, “Oh, I’m going to do it. It’s going to take off, and then it’s going to be—” The amount of work that goes in, the amount of time it takes to gain traction. It’s massive.
Corey: Yeah. Completely. Just the editing time and especially if you’re doing all your own editing, ‘cause at first you don’t have access to money. So if you’re doing the editing, if you’re putting it up, it takes time and way more time than you think. It doesn’t mean it can’t be done, but don’t think that it’s not without hard work, really, really, really hard work or really focused work as well.
Britt: Can I talk about something I don’t think I’ve ever talked about in the show, how did you guys grow your podcasts? That’s something people ask me all the time and this is the interesting thing I think is worth talking about is there’s not a lot of organic marketing that happens in a podcast. Like you can’t hashtag on iTunes. You’re either using the right keywords or it’s word of mouth, or it’s through social media, but how did you guys grow your podcast following?
Tony: What we did is that whole first year, it was strictly out of our pocket. We hit the show circuit and we were able to line up a lot of those people live. So we did live podcasts at all these shows and were able to get eight or 10 podcasts in a weekend. But it was an expensive journey, but it was able to get us in front of a lot of these people quick.
Corey: When we first started too, we knew we sucked, right? What we did at first was—and this sounds so shallow, but it’s not shallow, it’s actually strategic I’m telling myself— what we did is if we had access to you and you had a bigger following, then we would push you off to the end.
For instance, Phillip was what inspired us to get into this. But we didn’t talk to Philip until we were a year into it because what we didn’t want is we didn’t want to have a lot of people listening, and we knew that the bigger the artists and if they promoted us, we’d have more ears in. We want it to work out in our early—and if you listen to our early podcasts, you’ll hear it. We wanted to work out who we are, what our voice is, what our messaging is, and we grew that.
Tony: We went to our friends before we brought in the Britt Sevas.
Corey: Exactly. Before we brought in whoever has an audience, we want it to secure ourselves.
Tony: And make sure if there’s two of you, have two mics. We started off with one mic and we were bumping our heads trying to—
Corey: Literally bumping our heads—
Tony: Like bing, bing bing, trying to get to the mic.
Corey: Fighting for the mic, right?
Tony: You’ll notice in the first podcast, maybe just set the tone for the rest of them. I just sat back for the most of it. I was like, yeah, I had a headache, finished the conversation, I was hurting.
Corey: That’s it, man.
Britt: I love that strategy of you’re going to suck at first. So embrace the fact that only 16 people are listening to your first episodes. It’s probably kind of terrible. So it’s okay, it’s okay, just trust the journey. I love that.
Corey: You said that you talked about the suck and I’ve always been embraced the suck, but let’s just move past this. Like you can’t get on the other side of the suck, right? You have to do it.
My favorite motivational speaker ever is David Goggins and David Goggins says, “I do something that sucks every day. Why? Because it sucks and I’m a better man on the other side of suck.” So we’re there.
Tony: I guess it’s perspective of the suck.
Corey: It’s perspective of the suck, that’s right. You own the suck or the suck owns you.
Britt: Exactly. And so what you said, I do think you have to walk through the fire. Even when you talked about we invested a lot of money into these shows, and it’s not just money, it’s time away from your families. I mean, it’s everything. It was a major investment and a huge risk.
How did you know it was going to pay off or were you like, it’s like a leap of faith?
Corey: Now, here’s a funny story. We were invited to go to the Modern Salon digital summit. We were 10 months into the podcast—
Tony: To speak.
Corey: Yeah, to speak. We are going to be speakers there. Through the podcast, they asked us to get on stage and talk about digital education is basically what they told us to talk about. But again, this is all out of our pocket. Now we’re going to LA, so it’s a couple more days from behind the chair. LA hotels are expensive. A flight from the east coast to the west coast is expensive, and we literally sat back and it was like, “Dude, I don’t know. I don’t know if we should do this. It’s just going to be expensive.”
And now mind you, at the same time, we’re telling our wives that we’re spending all this money to do something that might not have a payoff, right, at this point.
One of the driving forces of why we did it was because we knew if Modern Salon invited us someplace, they would never invite us again if we turned them down. So that was like we gotta suck it up and just make it happen.
Britt, that was the greatest weekend for the podcast ever, because that weekend is when we met Jerry from Schedulicity, Jerry from Schedulicity fell in love with what we were doing, and he wanted to support us any way he could. He gave us a sponsorship. We met so many people that have since become guests on the podcast. It’s literally where we interviewed Phillip for the first time. We interviewed him at the Modern Salon digital summit.
Tony: And then from that point, Premiere started giving us our own room to do classes and stuff like that. But what was so funny is that with a podcast, it’s all audible, right? It’s not necessarily video. So when Corey and I, when we’re actually on the stage, nobody knows who we are, right? So nobody knows who you are, and then all of a sudden they started playing the soundtrack of our podcast. People, literally people start clapping like, Oh yeah—
Corey: That’s Sarah again, thanks Sarah!
Tony: But they recognize the podcast and then as soon as we started talking, people were, “Oh, that’s them.” It was so funny because nobody had a clue. They’re like, “Who are these bums?”
Corey: These old guys.
Tony: And we looked like bums, right? It was hilarious, but it was really the defining moment for the podcast to be where it is today.
Britt: I want to go back to some things, I want to make this very clear. When Modern Salon gave you that incredible opportunity to be a digital summit, they didn’t pay for your flights.
Corey: Nope.
Britt: They didn’t pay for your hotel.
Corey: Nope.
Britt: And I think that is a misconception, is that myself too, it’s been our dime to put ourselves in these—if somebody gives you the opportunity, that doesn’t mean it’s coming with a paycheck. It means you’re literally getting a small hand up, like, do you want to come join me up here? But it does not necessarily mean it’s a $10,000 payout.
You’re chasing opportunity and chasing connection. And to what you said, to get in front of those people and that you had the foresight to know this opportunity is not going to come around again if we don’t take it now, and sometimes you just have to make that leap of faith. I think that’s just genius.
Corey: It was an incredible leap of faith. I have one better for you, Britt. Again, we’re financing it ourselves. We don’t have a budget. We’re just like, what do we need to take out of our account this month? When we talk to then the editor of Modern Salon and we said, “Hey, you’re going to pay for us to come out?”—’cause we didn’t know either, right? We thought that that was the game—and his answer was, get this: “I’m not paying Sam Villa to come, so I’m certainly not going to pay for you.”
So it’s not just us, but Sam Villa also pays for his way at some of these events. That’s just the truth behind it and you’re absolutely right. Sometimes you have to pay for your own opportunities and honestly too—
Tony: The door’s open. It’s up to you whether you walk through it or not. No matter how much it costs you, the door’s there. It’s on you.
Britt: Exactly right. Okay, I want to shift gears and talk about Hairdustry. What does this mean? I understand a little bit about your mission in the movement, but break it down for us. What is Hairdustry? What do we get when we come hang out with you guys, when you listen to Your Day Off podcast, when we come hang out with you guys on Instagram, like, what does it mean?
Tony: Well, Hairdustry is a word we made up and it represents the hair industry, right? So we put it together and that’s what Hairdustry is. It’s beyond the hair, right? It’s our industry as people. It’s not about brands, it’s not about anybody but the people of the community of hair, right? Or that has to do with our industry.
The podcast is about the people. We are literally, like Corey said, starting this off, we are everyday hairdressers. We work behind the chair still four days a week. We want to represent everybody that does that in our industry. We’re not here to represent the brands or anything and we’re not against the brands. We love the brands, right? But at the end of the day, our voice is for the people.
Corey: Yeah, sometimes I’ve quoted that we need the brands, but we also need each other. Hairdustry is the each other portion of that.
The other thing too is that Tony and I never want our face to be Hairdustry. We want Hairdustry to be the industry. It’s not about us. It’s just a space that we’ve created. But it’s not about us. It’s about everybody that works behind the chair, or once again, those whose feet hurt late on a Saturday night. Those are the ones that we want to reach and that’s why we created it.
Tony: But the podcast is different. The podcast is Your Day Off podcast. It’s a different brand. It’s a different thing, and we started Your Day Off podcast first with the mind of being able to create Hairdustry for our industry.
Corey: Yeah.
Britt: I love that. Now, if the opportunity became available and they said, “You know what, over the next decade, you guys get to control how the industry shifts and what happens and what education looks like and what connection looks like,” and you were able to control exactly how the industry would shake out over the next decade, what do you think the future of the industry would be if you had complete control, if you could wish and make it true, how would the industry look in 10 years?
Corey: Well, I don’t know about 10 years, but the big shift that we’ve seen, and we just did a podcast with Gordon Miller on that titled State of the Industry, and Gordon kept saying this last year, 2020, what it did is it accelerated our industry five years, right? Where we’re on the slow groove and then when COVID hit, everything had to fast forward five years and what’s come of that is two things that are pretty significant, or certainly that we’ve witnessed is, one there’s so many more—and I’m sure you’ve seen this—there’s so many more independent educators.
There’s business educators, there’s business coaching, there’s so many more now than there was even a year ago, one. But two, and where I see a hole in the industry, and we’re trying to figure out this hole, is that there’s no centrally located place for defined education.
There’s all these independents, and like we talked about before, if you’re in the L’Oreal bubble, there’s plenty of stuff there. If you’re in this bubble, there’s plenty of stuff there. Well, what about the industry as a whole? And as the whole includes the independents, it includes the L’Oreal bubble. It includes the Aveda bubble.
We want to work on a space where we can all find education together because to me, that’s what’s missing in the industry, and frankly, it’s been missing for a long, long time. When we had these different brand camps since 2014, that’s been filled up with independents, right?
Tony: And to me, they’re like, you have all these cliques, right. Either you’re part of this clique or you’re not, you’re part of that. So we’re going to create one big giant family, and we want to be able to live life together as like-minded hairdressers.
And look, there’s nothing wrong with a clique, but as long as it’s open to everybody, be able to let other people grow, let other people join them, let other people love on other people like that.
That’s what Hairdustry’s working on and it’s going to be exciting, and 2021 is going to be a year of some really good news from us. I can’t really get too far into it, but it’s something exciting that’s happening.
Britt: I love a cliffhanger. I’m so here for it. Okay, so where’s the best place to find you guys, hang out with you guys, connect on the regular?
Corey: If you go to Instagram, we’re just @Hairdustry. We promote a lot of our podcasts there. You can find us there, we’re also on Facebook, there’s a little bit more video content on Facebook. And we have a YouTube page that we’re now reconfiguring how that’s going to work out with what’s happening in the future. But yeah, we’re going to start putting some content up there and we just want to make a beautiful, happy hair world.
Tony: And look for hairdustry.com soon.
Britt: You guys, thank you so much for joining me today. And until next time, can I say that? See you guys soon.
Corey: A hundred percent.
Tony: Much love, Britt.
Britt: Oh my gosh, Corey and Tony, again, thank you so much because I know we’ll be hanging out and doing so much more stuff together.
You guys, I hope you got tremendous value from this episode. Make sure you’re following these guys @Hairdustry on Instagram if you’re not already and make sure you subscribe to the Your Day Off podcast. These guys are interviewing amazing industry professionals every single week.
You guys, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
