BOOTLEG BOSS

By Louise May

Nathan Yip is a father of three young kids and owner of Pretty Vacant salon suite and customised education business. There are two things in life that he loves the most, and is really good at, and that is being a dad and being a hairdresser.

He joined the industry late after experimenting in many different industries, and finally “fell” into hairdressing, where he found a place where he belonged and felt accepted, but also allowed for all his skills and natural abilities to culminate into one use.

Since joining the industry over a decade ago, he has worked for, and alongside, some of the world’s best artists in-salon, on stage teaching and presenting, and backstage on fashion shows and photoshoots.

Nathans purpose and passion now lies in education, helping uplift and up-skill hairdressers to feel more validated and valued in themselves, and in their work. He specialises in customised in-salon education, where salons hire him to come and work with their team and he delivers a truly tailored class for the salon, and for each individual, depending on their learning and communication styles.

Nathan says… I am 100% committed to raising the profile of hairdressing and believe this will come through the power of community. This is why I have co-founded a series of events under the brand “The Bootleg Project” which is a community focused education evening/house party designed to create a safe and comfortable space for hairdressers to gather, talk and learn, at the same time offering an opportunity for up-and-coming artists to present their work.

My approach to hair is, first of all make it suitable and customised to the person in front of me, but my aim when cutting hair is to offer the highest amount of versatility and ease. Just simple low maintenance beautiful hair.

Editor of Hair Biz Louise May sat down with Nathan to find out more about is industry mission and future goals.

Can you share with us how your journey in the industry began?

My pathway has been a unique journey for sure, from massage therapist, builders labourer, forklift driver to DJ and party promoter. By the age of 24 I had explored much of what life had to offer, after a 12-month stint back packing and bar tending in London, I returned home supposedly for a few months when I took a job in my friends hair salon on reception to fill in the days while I DJ’d at night.

I started dating a hairdresser and we had a dream of opening a salon, I started my apprenticeship solely to understand the business better. The relationship failed; however, I was introduced to the Enigma Clive Allwright, who changed my life and career path in ways impossible to express!

What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career to date?

Fast forward more than a decade I am a father of 3 and I now run my own customised cutting and styling education business called Pretty Vacant. I am an educator and sales agent for The ANTI Collective, Excellent Edges, piiq and Timely and most recently I have become an independent stylist and opened my own salon suite in the Freedom Suites in Brisbane and have just been in the finals for educator of the year for both AHIA and AHFA.

It’s hard to pinpoint the most rewarding aspect of my career so far but I guess to compile it down would be meeting my wife at my very first stage show with Clive, getting incredible opportunities to travel both nationally and Internationally many times working on stage, being able to have so much diversity in all the different work that I do and being able to utilise all my natural skills and abilities in these different flows. At the moment though the most rewarding aspect in my life is being able to share all my knowledge and experience with others and to help guide and mentor them on their journey.

What do you think is the “secret sauce” when it comes to owning and running a successful salon and team?

Hmm, I actually think running a successful business and a successful team are two very different things. They definitely both affect each other however I think they both require a completely different set of skills and energy.

The secret sauce to running a successful business in my opinion is to have great people around you and know your numbers! I don’t claim to be a business guru at all, but I do love it! My first recommendation is to build a great team of advisors around you. Accountant, and business coach, make proper relationships with your sales reps and brand partners and again know your numbers!

The most common thing I hear from salon owners is how they hate the numbers and that they always turn a blind eye, guess what… the numbers won’t pay you the same respect and will bend you over ten-fold.

Also understand and utilise the power of recommending salon treatments and at home hair care! The industry has a horrible association with “sales” but guess what, if you recommend Shampoo and Conditioner to your client, you are facilitating an essential NEED to your client and making a profit on their need instead of supermarkets or chemists. Its literally money for nothing and essential to ever increasing costs of doing business.

I think running a successful team takes time and energy. I don’t think there are many people that put enough of either into this area! I think the three keys are incredible leadership, communication, and vulnerability (unfortunately I think these are 3 of the 4 key areas that are lacking in our industry).

I don’t mean to trigger anyone this comment however I have come to realise leadership is something that is learnt and earned, some people are more natural than others, but I think most take being an owner or “boss” for granted and it simply means paying wages and doing rosters. Another thing I have observed is that hairdressers are great conversationalists but not always great communicators when trying to get their point across or negotiating.

Vulnerability is a hard one because it means dropping your ego. By this, I don’t mean arrogance I mean the deep-seated defence mechanism that protects the artist within and rears up when it is questioned. The best leaders I know, acknowledge that they are a leader, they work on themselves, understand there is more than one leadership style and when to employ each one for each situation. They have high EQ and employ empathy in every situation but also know how to communicate their point of view or decision assertively and with great communication.

What are your philosophies around education and staff development?

To me education is the key that will get us out of the current situation we are in! This is the 4th area that I think we are most lacking in, really good education system and educators. When I say this, I don’t just mean great technical education because that is around, what I think we need is more education around business (the nuts and bolts - numbers, profit, and loss etc), culture (leadership, understanding people and motivations) and how to be a proper educator (How to teach people in a way they understand) For the last few years, I have spent a disproportionate amount of time learning about human psychology, how people learn, how they communicate and how to teach people better.

This includes coaching sessions on presentation and facilitation and voice coaching, on top of a serious debrief after every session I teach on what I did well, what can I improve on and what did I learn. I have been listening to many podcasts recently which have been bringing up the same idea of career progression and areas of excellence.

Let’s think about a lawyer for instance, they go to uni, get a job, excel at what they do, make lots of money for the firm and then get tapped on the shoulder to move up the ladder, however they were really great at litigation not so good at managing and leading a team so all of a sudden, their billables go down, turnover decreases because they are spending all their time and energy doing something they aren’t necessarily good at. Then they are more stressed and don’t have the skills to lead so all of a sudden, the whole team isn’t preforming, and the gun lawyer is burnt out and either leaves or gets fired.

Sound familiar? How often does that happen in our world, you have a staff member that is the best haircutter/colourist in the salon so you make them the trainer and or manager and all of a sudden, they have to action a heap of responsibilities that they aren’t qualified for or might not want to do but it’s the only way to justify higher pay or career progression.

I think we should look at just paying people more to do the things they are really good at and identify the leaders and invest in training them to do the job really well! I am working on a salon mentoring program that does that, trains the trainer around how to teach and facilitate well, understand different people's learning styles and work on communication and leadership skills. Then we co-facilitate a few sessions together with the intention for them to do it all themselves really well with a whole new tool kit of skills.

The most valuable lesson I have learnt in on my incredible journey is to find and pick your mentors well, when you do, align with them, give them just as much as you get if not more and really absorb everything you can from them! They don’t have to be the best technical operator but someone who will invest in your growth and progression and someone who understands you and communicates with you incredibly!

“I AM 100% COMMITTED TO RAISING THE PROFILE OF HAIRDRESSING AND BELIEVE THIS WILL COME THROUGH THE POWER OF COMMUNITY!”

What have been some of the best decisions you have made in business?

The best thing I did for my business in the last few years was outsource and get great coaches and mentors. First was get a great accountant and definitely get Xero, I’m a self-confessed xerophile! I am so fortunate to have two particularly amazing coaches in my life Richard Kavanagh who I have a monthly call with where we cover presentations skills, education, and business, the other is Glenn Ruddle CEO of The ANTI Collective, his wealth of business knowledge and the industry is paramount and has literally taken my business to where it is!

The last essential to my business is Hayley and Stasa from Six Underground Media, they have brought all my branding, design and marketing to life and develop, curate, and schedule my social media (This is my biggest pain point but biggest need)!

If you had the power to change one thing about the industry, what would it be?

If I could only choose one, it would be culture! If I could choose four it would be better leadership, communication, education, and culture. Culture is such a broad concept, but I want to change the culture in salon, in the industry and in the individual! I am using the power of community, connection, and collaboration to create the change in the hair industry to destroy competition between salons and stylists.

To be the conduit between salon owners and stylists to create good communication channels and help establish clear motivations, mutual needs, and healthy boundaries. I plan to do this is through my role as an educator, instead of teaching finite rules and techniques I have realised my role as an educator is to rehabilitate stylists in their own confidence, mind set and creativity and to help retrain business owners and salon trainers to rethink training, business practice and culture.

Allowing and giving stylists the “permission” to be themselves, harness their own problemsolving skills and trusting their intuition and creativity. Building a stylists self-esteem so that they understand a great hairdresser isn’t someone who holds a section of hair like Vidal Sassoon but someone who makes their client feel great about themselves, who their clients are happy to spend their hard-earned money with and who are booked up and happy! The last 12-24 months have been the biggest periods of growth and maturity for me in my whole life and through this work I have constantly developed and refined my life’s purpose which I now have nailed down to two things and two conversations.

To be the best father and family man I can and to positively impact the hair industry! I want to model and embody these two things and actively work on them! I want to change two conversations we all hear at BBQ’s: 1. “Oh, you’re just a hairdresser” Like we are second rate citizens 2. I used to be a hairdresser for 2 weeks and it was the worst experience of my life and I still have PTSD from how I was treated!

What is on the horizon for yourself?

There are many things on the horizon for me but I’m actually in the process of taking a step back, taking stock of what I’m doing, doing a helicopter review (Where you look at your business from 15000ft) of what I do in my business, where I make my money and trying to consolidate it all and focus my attention more to the things that bring me most joy and most profit! I’m reading a book at the moment called “The One Thing” and I’m sure if you’ve read this far you will understand focusing on one thing is not my strong suit, but I am working on discipline.

I want to build financial freedom for myself and my family! I think because of Australia’s tall poppy syndrome we demonise success and money. I don’t plan to be “rich” I want to not have to worry about money and give all the opportunities I can to my kids so why not live in purpose, do exactly what I want, create the change I want to see and profit from doing it! I think this conversation needs to happen more often!

My immediate goals for 2023 though are to get into the FAME team, win one or both Educator of the year awards and book as many gigs as I can to impact as many people as possible and create the change I want to see!