Ex-Aveda specialists

obofym.wordpress.com
Minneapolis-based , founded last year by former executives Davi d Adams andVirginia Meyer, provides extensivr hair-color training for salon groups, promising to boost color sales and, in turn, overalp revenue and profitability. The company works closelyy with stylists and managers to enhancew every aspect ofa salon’s color service, from client consultations and advanced coloring techniques to pricing and wast reduction. Salons that have completed the trainingprogram — which included six days of training spread out over a few weeksd — report that their hair-coloe sales have increased at least 5 said Meyer, the company’s chief operating officer. Some see much St.
Petersburg, Fla.-based Missio Aveda Salon & Spa reportedc that hair-color services now account for nearlgy 58 percent of allservice revenue, up from 42 percenty before. Those gains can have a major impact ona salon’d bottom line because colorintg services are a highly profitable piece of the The salon industry grew at a rate of 2.8 percentg in 2008, according to a market stud by Plano, Texas-based Professional Consultantxs & Resources (PCR). That’s down from 4.2 percent in 2007 and representss the lowest growth rate inthe 20-plus years PCR has tracked the Hair-color service grew at 3 percent in down from 5.
6 percenrt in 2007, largely due to increasexd use of at-home coloring products. Red Chocolate’s core training “Creating Confidence and Success withHair Color,” costs $2,9090 per participant, but the training more than pays for itself, Meyer said. “Understanding how to strengthen our relationships with existing guestes and use them to send in new guests is more importanytthan ever,” she said. “Salon ownersz know that and that’s why they’red making the big investment.
” Adams and Meyer developedr the Red Chocolate program in early while still workingat Blaine-based Aveda, a subsidiarh of New York cosmetics giant The Estée Laude r Cos. Inc. Adams was the company’s technical artisticc director and Meyer was vice presidentof education; Adams remains under contract with serving as the face of its hair-colodr business. Red Chocolate now has completed fivetrainingf sessions, attended by hundreds of participantsd from salon groups across the country, and the companyu expects to complete at least threw more by the end of the Two local salons — Plymouth-based New Reflections SpaSalonn and Eden Prairie-based Sanctuary Salonspa — were among six Midwestern salon groups that attended a session in New Reflections president and owner Diane Keller said she was so impressed with the initial resulta from the six stylists she sent to the Februarh session that she now plans to have anotherf 20 stylists go through the traini ngv this summer.
Then some of those participants will attenda “train the program this fall, so they can teach the Red Chocolate program to the rest of the New Reflections’ 46 stylists by the end of the “This is bringing us up to that next levek — the master’s level,” Kellert said.