The Agencie Experience

By Louise May

For Julia Brown there was never any doubt, it was always going to be hair! She just knew. Her feelings towards school was that it was a waste of time, in her way, and proving to be a major roadblock in her need to start her career.

Hairdressing ticked all the boxes for Julia at such a young age, creativity, people, fun, independence, work anywhere in the world… Finally 2 weeks before turning 15, Julia’s mum gave her permission to begin an apprenticeship.

Her mum was sick of the fight, sick of school calling to say she wasn’t there, and school really just didn’t know what to do with her… and here she is now, coming into her 31st year in this wonderful industry owning a premium hair and skin destination in Melbourne. Her beloved ‘Agencie’ is a mindful business with an emphasis on education, sustainable practices, community and lots of style.

Editor Louise May chats all things business with Julia, including freelance opportunities and future plans...

Was owning a salon always at the top of your list?

Never! My journey into business ownership all came down to luck, timing, a whole lot of faith from others around me and an opportunity. It was a matter of an opportunity presenting itself and whether I had the courage and guts to go all in.

I was 22 years old, felt invincible and thought it would be a breeze ha ha yes, lots of lessons needed to be learned, but I have always trusted the process as much as it may have hurt. I am fortunate enough to now have 2 family business’s that I own and operate alongside my husband who left his corporate job. Nothing worthwhile is easy, but we are doing it and we complement each other’s skill set nicely.

What inspired you to create Agencie?

Ha ha …I was trying to simplify my life, truth be told. Clearly that didn’t go to plan. Having sold out of my first salon, Cream Melbourne, successfully, to a new partner to spend more time with my husband & 2 young daughters. I accidently came across the building that is now Agencie and the Skin Agencie and quickly realised I still had quite a bit of fire in my belly.

I guess I felt that maybe my work wasn’t done, and I felt instantly from entering the building that this is where my future would lie. I feel we have been able to create something quite different. So, simplifying my life went out the window and starting up the engines to not only start again, but take things to a whole new level began.

Agencie and The Skin Agencie are located in Seddon, which is right next to Footscray in inner West Melbourne. This is a community that I don’t actually live in, but I feel very at home in. It reminds me of what Fitzroy was, 20 years ago when it was full of creatives.

Full of clever people doing cool and clever things…. pushing the envelope in all kinds of areas. I feel excited and inspired to be a part of this area, and that by bringing Agencie and The Skin Agencie to this community we have something unique to offer.

I feel that I am really surrounding myself by a like-minded community who appreciate and value the contribution that we’re trying to make.

You have hair and skin; is this the first skin clinic you have owned? What inspired you to open The Skin Agencie?

We made the decision to move into the skin space because I feel very passionately about wanting to be a part of the pro-ageing movement. I want to use my space, my voice to contribute to a shift in attitudes towards the ageing process.

We have a no-tox approach to the aging process with our focus being skin health, rejuvenation, and regeneration. All wrinkles and frown lines are embraced. I wanted to take advantage of the fact that I have an audience and I’m able to expose them to a different way of thinking.

Raising two young girls, working with a team of young people, and working with women all day every day, I want to expose them to an authentic and different approach.

We are in the business of making people feel really good about themselves, and if I can use our voice to make a small contribution to positivity around the ageing process, I’ll be very proud of that.

I understand that people want to look and feel really good about themselves, and I want to help them achieve this, coming from a place of health and self-care, as opposed to changing the way they look and trying to deny and feel ashamed of the ageing process.

We are on a mission to change the narrative for our children, and people of all ages. Flying the flag for pro-ageing through skin health, and self care.

What is unique about Agencie?

The Agencie and The Skin Agencie customer experience has been designed and carefully curated from the guest’s perspective. We have a great respect for people who choose to spend their hard-earned money within the walls of our business’s, and we believe they deserve to have an experience where every detail has been considered for their benefit.

This is no easy task…. creating a consistent, high level of customer experience and care…but it’s the right task for us. We want to create an experience for people who walk out of our salon or skin clinic, thinking “WOW. What was that? What just happened? That was an experience!” I know myself as a customer visiting other business’s, I’m a tough cookie to crack.

I am very happy to spend my money, but I want to feel that the value exceeds the cost and that I feel cared for and valued as a customer. That is exactly what we want to create for our guests. It’s not the easy road, but we believe that is what our guests deserve for choosing us.

Agencie is a Gold, Salon Select, AHC accredited salon, can you talk us through this process and what is involved gaining this accreditation, and what does it mean?

We sought out the gold accreditation from The Australian Hairdressing Council. It was important to me, and to be honest, I felt we deserved it. We have always strived to raise the bar and work at an elevated level.

We’ve always had policies and procedures, systems and values that have allowed us to grow and build in an ethical manner, and because of this, collating everything together for our submission, although a lot of work was painless.

The submission also involved a mystery shopper visiting the salon, which I am a fan of personally. The insight and feedback are of huge value to a business in my opinion and really validate the team, and all their hard work.

I am very proud to be a gold star accredited Salon. I hope my team are proud too. It’s something that we abide by all day every day in our daily business practices and its nice to have received that recognition.

Sustainability is part of Agencie’s ‘brand’ value, can you tell us about your sustainability practices, and what you do to minimise the carbon footprint?

As business owners we take our responsibility of doing what we can where we can very seriously. Our community, is very, very passionate about sustainability issues, and there’s no planet B, right?

We made a commitment to make this a “top of the list” when it comes to what our business values and ensure that our carbon footprint will be as minimal as possible. We are obviously members of the Sustainable Salons initiative, which is an outstanding organisation in our opinion. In true Jules fashion, we wanted to do more…Some of these have been challenging, but we are committed to finding work arounds…

• Use single use biodegradable towels

• Use biodegradable multi use gloves.

• Are as close to paperless as we can be, I would say 95%

• Offer a fully curated digital magazine collection available on tablets for our guests.

• Offer a 5% discount off retail sales for guests who return their empty home hair care packaging for recycling

• We offer reusable calico branded bags for all home hair care purchases.

• Use Ecoheads shower heads on all basins, reducing our water usage by 68%!

• Use blue tooth scales to weigh our chemicals and track our waste keeping it to the absolute minimum.

• Use a steam cycle to wash our gowns after every use.

• Use digital only gift cards and business cards

• & have LED lighting used throughout the building

We will always be committed to continuously refining and improving our practices.

What is your role within the business?

Pre Covid my roles have always been team building, the customer experience and marketing, which I love. I’m currently back on the salon floor 2 days per week which has been a great experience….Showing the team that I don’t lie by a pool all day every day.

Share with us your philosophies around staff selection and development. How do you find, keep and grow high performing staff? Argh, it’s very challenging…. trying to build our team, in a new business, during a pandemic has taken us to all kinds of new places and forced us to think outside of the box’s box.

It has meant that we have put just as much effort into the employee experience as we have the client experience. We all know that employing out of desperation is a train wreck just waiting to happen and not a solution. We put all of our focus in the interviewing phase of employing based purely on shared values.

We outline a projection of growth within the company with a heavy focus on goal setting and achievement. We believe that if our team are achieving and progressing both personally and professionally, this creates a healthy self esteem and is the basis for a long and successful partnership.

It involves a lot of coaching, mentoring and communication on a weekly basis…. but we are a people orientated business and anything we can do to raise the bar regarding professionalism and structure I think is a positive for our business but also contributes to showing our industry in a positive and attractive light.

You also offer freelance positions. What are your thoughts on freelancing and our current industry crisis with lack of stylists. Do you feel that freelancing and micro business ownership is the way of the future?

Agencie, being in its infancy stage and with 24 chairs, is the first business we have been in a position to welcome freelancers in to share our creative space. We have a process where we screen them as we do an employee.

These people who share our space, I believe add a huge amount of value to my team, even though they work completely independently from us. These people are goal orientated and hard-working. They want to be a part of a team environment, whilst still working independently.

Due to the pandemic and suddenly being approached by stylists wanting to grow their micro business’s, exposed a need for these guys to work alongside experienced operators, who will hopefully go onto having their own salons.

Obviously, it’s been a win win situation for us as we had the space available. I have a huge amount of respect for them, and I value them. In this current climate, recognising that many more people are wanting to be their own boss and make decisions for themselves it has worked very well for us having them share our space.

I love the energy that they contribute to my team. I love that my employees see how hard these guys work… there’s no lunch breaks, there’s no assistants, there’s no coordinators, they’re doing it all on their own, and I feel privileged to be able to make a contribution to their career and to help guide them through the beginning of their business journey.

I think that the more people there are in our industry working to an extremely high level of professionalism, the better it is for everyone and the more attractive it looks for our industry. We really do value these young people, and we thank them for their contribution.

I think its worth adding that not all hairdressers want to freelance or are even interested in any kind of business ownership…We’re also seeing stylists return to the salon environment but as employees. It’s not for everyone. As employers, we are just riding the wave.

What are your secrets to juggling the demands of running a busy salon and clinic and a large team?

Omg!! It takes a village! It took me years to learn this one. Outsourcing! That is my secret ha ha and allowing people the space to step up and excel in their own roles, not micromanaging. You need to accept help….

What’s on the agenda for the future, and goals/plans?

What’s for the future? Continue to grow, continue to elevate, continue building a space that’s inclusive where people feel cared for and valued both from our client’s perspective and also for our team.

It’s been very challenging navigating our way through a pandemic having only opened the businesses in January 2020. It’s been a wild ride, but we have buckled up. Lots of learning has happened and lots of learning needs to continue.

I feel very passionate about what we have to offer this community and proud of what we have managed to create in this time. Keep on keeping on and fill this salon and clinic with like minded people.