ONSTAGE: ANNUAL HAIRHOUSE WAREHOUSE CONFERENCE

THE BIG 3-0

THE ANNUAL HAIRHOUSE CONFERENCE, SYNONYMOUS WITH A TWO-DAY CELEBRATION, SOARED TO A NEW LEVEL OF PASSION AND EMOTION WITH A TEAR JERKING 30 YEARS ANNIVERSARY RETROSPECT, WRITES CAMERON PINE.

The continually evolving Hairhouse brand and its culture of innovation and leadership has continued to lift the brand’s profile and performance across a full 360-degree realm of professional salon services, piercing and retail.

This year, a milestone 30th celebration filled the room with hair luminaries and our favourite suppliers celebrating collectively for the first time in three years. With a key focus remaining on the consumer and drawing them in to experience the latest brands and top salon services, the renewed collective focus truly celebrated the people that make it all happen.

The renowned conference closing gala on Tuesday August 9 kicked off with the infamous group photo and a timeline of achievements walking guests through every key milestone and celebration of the brand over the last three decades.

The family legacy and undertone of heartfelt passion continues to emanate from everything the Hairhouse brand does. Aside from the emotional stress and challenges of these significant events colliding with nationwide COVID challenges, the spirit of such a heartfelt family business remains true to the mission set out by the brand’s founders an impressive 30 years ago.

Centred on three core pillars of salon, retail and piercing, the Hairhouse group is still the largest employer of hairdressers in Australia and continues to forge ahead with a renewed focus on salon services and a leading consumer marketing approach.

As with most conferences, the tradition of arriving at the Gold Coast’s RACV Royal Pines on Sunday ensued, giving franchisees and partners a little chance to decompress and reflect on a challenging few years for the group while prepping for a busy end of year period. That quintessential Queensland weather and the opportunity to connect over two days of education, inspiration and business planning saw guest speakers and motivational experts including Emma Murray and Julie Cross raise the room. A revised buying evening, with drinks kicking off from 3 to 9pm, combined business with pleasure that only the hairdressing industry knows how.

“I want to acknowledge not just the last 30 years, but also acknowledge what’s been achieved since we were here in 2018. 2018 felt like the last year in some ways. Not only was it a pivotal time for our organisation and all over the world with COVID, but our business was facing quite a serious existential threat to its existence and we were trying to work out if we should pivot left or pivot right,” said Hairhouse Executive General Manager and Chairman, Ahmed Fahour.

Hairhouse Directors (L-R: JJ Lattouf, Ahmed Fahour, Tony Lattouf, Emad Nayef, Emerson Lattouf and Michael O’Connell)

Hairhouse Director Emad Nayef has often been tipped as the ‘outside in’ guy and Tony Lattouf the ‘inside out’ guy, but each have held their pride and responsibility to ensure each store and franchise is in a better position than they were just a few years ago.

Emad spoke of the raw partnership and sense of honesty each of the Directors have always had, as a promise to not only themselves but also their franchisees and store team members to learn from each other and continually strive for betterment.

He passionately read out a text conversation between himself and the late Joseph Lattouf, who sadly passed in 2020 a week after this exchange, just to show how committed the ‘family’ of Hairhouse has been to the cause. Joseph showed this unwavering commitment to the franchisees and his initial commitment to making sure they were alright and looked after. He spoke of Joseph fondly while reflecting on just how much influence he had on everyone in the business.

Joseph Lattouf Tribute and Legacy

“From the beginning to the end it was always and only about his people. I’ve written so many speeches for this and words to describe Joseph and none of them were perfect – last night I tore it all up because I suddenly realised the perfect speech was right in front of me,” he shared.

Emad Nayef and Tony Lattouf each bring their individual strengths to the business, and both have ensured each store and franchise is in a better position than they were just a few years ago.

“There are a whole bunch of people who just flog products online. They are not a service provider, they are resellers, they don’t offer anything other than convenience and pricing us out. With Hairhouse you meet an experience with a trained professional,” Ahmed said.

Not just selling people into a haircut, but selling them into a full-service relationship, Hairhouse continues to forge ahead in lucrative areas of piercing as a repeat service, offering staff incredible opportunities to diversify.

Hairhouse’s longest employee, Leah Evans, saw Joseph as a mentor, brother and confidante beyond just a work colleague since starting with the company as a young employee.

“Joseph had a humble, kind generous and fun-loving cheeky personality that made being around him so memorable. He achieved so much and left us a remarkable legacy,” Leah said.

Showing guests a recording of some very emotional yet profound parting words from Joseph, Leah shared his message that was as fulfilled and simple as his approach to life, which packed 100 years of experience into 53 years, with so much energy still to give. A live song tribute brought tears to the eyes of many who were fortunate enough to share in the energy he brought to the Hairhouse group.

“I would like you to remember one thing,” Joseph said in these parting words. “We all have the staff members with the same stuff going on, it’s up to you how you deal and where you finish. It’s very important that you dream big and think big. Imagination can take you anywhere.”

To keep the fun in the room that Joseph would have wanted us all to have, Hairhouse put on a spectacular dance show of Hairhouse through the decades – giving everyone a reason to smile and celebrate what an incredible industry of trends we are fortunate to be part of. The proceeding then moved to the long-awaited awards. The last two years impacted the traditional awards process, which forced Hairhouse to approach their awards from a different angle.

Tony Lattouf (Co-Founder and Director) and Tara Storno (Outstanding Franchisee winner)

“Given the challenges of the last two years, we really wanted to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of our businesses and teams with a record number of awards offered,” said Hairhouse National Services Manager, Nathalie Becker. “We have had to pivot and adapt to find the best way to recognise our outstanding individual achievers and businesses. Due to lockdowns and closures, following the usual like for like criteria was not an option, so we called on the franchisees to nominate those in their teams who proved their loyalty, passion, and endurance over the last two years.”

The awards were divided by state, with each state being represented across the three business verticals of Retail, Salon, and Piercing. These verticals were then divided into Award categories of Outstanding Individuals, Outstanding Businesses, and Outstanding Franchisees.

A firm reminder of the power in community, the strength in leadership and the growth in change, Hairhouse 2022 in their 30th year has left a legacy on hairdressing will continue. Congratulations to all involved, and well done to these winners.

For more information visit www.hairhouse.com.au