At the three Jon Alan Salons in the Nashville, Tennessee, area, owner Jon Snetman is constantly reminding her stylists of the most important aspect of their jobs: shiny, healthy, beautiful hair. “We’re very passionate about helping people have shiny hair,” says Snetman. “Personally, I’m a nut about healthy hair and I’ve never been willing to compromise the integrity of the hair.” To get the kind of tresses Snetman is proud to have her clients wear out of the salon, you need great products. Her credo is, “Hair is the fiber of our art.” And Jon Alan stylists make sure the material they are working with is in perfect condition with recommendations and professional advice for at-home care.

Educate, Educate, Educate

Since retail is a very big part of business at Jon Alan, home-care education and advice for clients is an expectation for every stylist. “Right off the bat, our stylists understand they don’t move forward, get promoted, or get commission without meeting their retail benchmarks,” says Snetman. “It’s not an option to not sell home care,” she adds. Although she doesn’t actually encourage her staff to “sell.” Instead, they are expected to educate and advise clients. To guarantee every stylist knows how to effectively do that, Snetman makes sure they know their products inside and out. “Fortunately, we hire a lot of people from the Aveda Institute, so they have some knowledge,” she says. “We start them off with a basic product knowledge worksheet that says what the product is, what it does, how it’s used and results.” Stylists won’t get away with skimming the sheet and tossing it aside though. Snetman expects them to memorize it and write down every product. “Let’s say they came from a JPMS salon.

Aveda Thickening Tonic

Aveda products would be Greek to them. They have to read every label on every product and write down their perceptions of the products,” she says. Next, Snetman sends stylists to the Aveda site to take the product knowledge quizzes. Each stylist must take the quiz repeatedly until they get adequate accuracy. “After that, a lot of product knowledge is working with the team leader in each location,” she says. “Even if you’re brand new out of school and an assistant, you need to be able to help a guest who walks in for retail,” she maintains.

“We represent one line. We need to know it better than the consumer knows it.”

To ensure stylists in Jon Alan’s New Talent program know their products, they are tested constantly.

“If they’re not selling, we have to see if they know their retail, and continual testing allows us to figure it out.”

Snetman also provides scripts for stylists, but encourages them to put the scripted language in their own words.

“So for example, for a new client—I would ask them about their hair,” she says. “I would ask what she likes/doesn’t like or maybe, ‘If you could have anything you want, what would it be?’

“Then I would say, ‘Here at Jon Alan, we are passionate about healthy, shiny, beautiful hair. As we move through service, I am going to make recommendations on things to do to help get your hair to a healthier state,’ ” she says.

“We quickly get an idea of their commitment and budget. Based on that, I’ll make recommendations. If Damage Remedy fits their budget, that’s what I’ll recommend. But if not, I’ll recommend Shampure.

“It’s all about creating a plan,” says Snetman. “I tell my stylists, before we touch a person, we’re not responsible for what’s on her head. But once I touch a client, if her hair is still in bad shape in six to 12 months, it’s my fault.”

Snetman stresses the importance of educating clients on where their hair is right now, and where it can be.

“We tell them, ‘This is not your hair. This is what happened to your hair as a result of what’s been done to it. Our goal is to get the hair back to a normal, healthy state.”

Hitting the Benchmarks

Stylists at Jon Alan have a $300 minimum performance standard per pay period (every two weeks). They earn 10 percent on everything up to $1,000. Beyond that, they earn 15 percent. All of their earnings are put towards education.

“It accrues every pay period, and they usually let it build so they can save it for a big trip,” says Snetman.

“We guide them in how the money is spent and encourage them to do a significant trip like a visit to the Sassoon Academy, which usually costs $1,500-1,800,” she adds. “The quickest anyone has earned a trip like that is nine months.”

While Snetman offers additional education in the salon, she finds her stylists need outside inspiration to keep their creative juices flowing—and retail dollars are the perfect way to fund it.

However, she has changed course before, and paid stylists straight commission on retail rather than putting the money into an education fund.

“Years ago, service providers starting telling me they would retail more if they could get the money in their paychecks and take care of their own outside education,” says Snetman. “So I said, ‘ok, we’ll try it your way.’”

Snetman quickly saw retail performance take a dive and her staff members, who prior to the change had been going on fantastic trips, not going anywhere.

After a year or two of nobody receiving outside education and inspiration, she decided to bring back the education fund. Without fresh classes and information, her stylists were getting stale.

Today, Jon Alan stylists earn commission that’s put in an education budget so they can pursue exciting opportunities outside the salon and return refreshed and excited to pass on what they’ve learned to their colleagues and guests.

“Education is what keeps them inspired and motivated,” says Snetman.