Boundaries in Business W/ Gina Bianca: #1 Ruan Marinho Podcast

[Music] all right good afternoon gina how are you uh great how are you thanks for having me good guys just so you know this is uh my first podcast episode there's no name there's no structure it's just me and you talking so thank you for having uh thank you for coming on first person my pleasure my pleasure love it so if you guys don't know gina you probably don't know gina bianca she's a massively successful hair salon business owner and today we're going to talk about how she's different than other hair salon owners and she's going to talk a little about her expertise um so gina why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and we can kind of get to know you a little bit great so my name is gina bianca i'm the owner of the network in southington connecticut and the network is um a 26 chair booth rental salon a yoga studio and an education business so we do a lot we have a lot of different things going on and my experience comes from the salon business i started out in 2009 going to hair school i went to paul mitchell the school in north haven and i went to school i was like a total visionary i was the one you know taking out the trash coming in early staying late and i always like went above and beyond in school and from that point in my life in school i realized like i wanted to own salons not one salon salons like i was like i'm gonna own five salons i had like all these mentors who were really amazing and i'm really lucky to have those mentors and i still honor them today um but you know growing up in the beauty industry it's been such a blessing because just with a beauty school license a cosmetology license i've been able to do so much got it so tell us a little bit about like what made you want to go from just a stylist to being an entrepreneur when i was a stylist i i grew very quickly as a stylist i went from an assistant to a six-figure stylist in a very short period of time and it was very hard for me to fit in anywhere i have like a very um what's a personality i'm a gemini so i have like a very strong personality at times and even in the salon like i had a very hard time fitting in and being an employee i just had a really hard time with that i don't like being told what to do if i see something that needs to be done and it's not being done i have a very hard time sitting on the back burner i think any entrepreneurs can relate to that you know i have a really hard time just sitting there and like you know working for somebody else it just is what it is um so i knew that i wanted to be a salon owner and i had a lot happen in between being a stylist and a salon owner but this is an hour long so i'm not going to bore you guys with the details but you know i ended up opening an employee-based salon in 2014 called gina bianca hair and i swear gina bianca hair was like my business school i always say that you know my first business was business school and even though i only have a cosmetology license i have five years of experience uh running a business with on average about 12 employees you know sometimes we had 16 20 sometimes we had four to six like on average we had about 12 to 15 employees and i owned the salon for about five years and it wasn't the typical salon where we did commission it was called team based business team based pay and i paid everybody hourly so i paid everybody hourly and their pay was based on overall performance so it wasn't the typical salon where i just get a cut of whatever they do it was something where you know the focus on training the focus on teamwork and culture and accountability and leadership was huge it's very different than other salons you know other salons you know people when they open they're like i want to open a salon they open a place they maybe take a few people from the last place everybody does hair and everyone just makes a cut you know gbh was like a real business uh in a sense of there was a lot of factors to it so that experience was huge for me and i did that for about five years so going from there and then a lot happened i started doing an education business that's a whole other episode we could do but then i moved into a different business model i closed my first business and moved into the network and the network is more of a booth rental business model where i'm more like a landlord and it's very different and in between all of that you know i have a huge presence online so i do a lot of marketing do a lot of education do a lot of coaching so that's kind of what i'm doing now so let's talk about that business school that you mentioned because you're not talking about a degree right you're talking about the five years that you spent at gina bianca hair um and so that's actually when i came across your name was june bianca hair people were talking about how you price very high which is very impressive because you don't have an unlimited amount of time you have a very finite amount of time what are the top you know lessons that you learned on the negative side of like what you will avoid in your new ventures and what are some of the things that you saw that were delightful and you will stick with you you know for the rest of your life in that business school quote unquote yeah you said that i'm priced high and a lot of people they'll want to get their hair done by me and i don't really do a lot of hair now i really don't have time and i don't really care to do it you know i teach now which is something i love to do but i did hair for a really long time and my prices were the highest in the area and you know some people like don't want to be the highest haircut in the area or they're like oh but i'm the highest price in the area i can't grow anymore i took it as i'm leading the entire area of like this is where you can go and i took that as a responsibility of being like okay well i my mission is to elevate the beauty industry so literally my price point was always the highest in the area and i delivered i did a great job i took care of all my customers very well and i think just the reputation of going to the highest price person people see value in that like if i'm going to get like me as a customer like if i'm going to get something done or if i'm going to do something i want to go to the best person and that's the client i'm looking for right you know so i think it's really important you know if you're questioning your pricing if you're questioning your your stuff like that like to really think about like are you adding value like is your reputation speaking to it are you adding value are you in demand are you educating yourself constantly and like are you pricing yourself for the outcome that you're seeking like i want to make six figures doing hair you know what i mean if i'm gonna do anything i always reverse engineer back from six figures so it's really important to to think like what outcome are you seeking best biggest lessons in business school i love the pricing thing because one thing that you did with your pricing was it actually created more word of mouth because people couldn't believe how much you were charging so now people were talking about you more than if you were to charge less yeah totally i mean like when it came down to it like when somebody wants to get their hair done when i was in when i went to beauty school it was like people wanted like normal stuff cover their grays get some highlights get a haircut okay and then the industry changed a lot with instagram instagram and social media changed the beauty industry a lot because people were bringing us the 12-hour transformation in a before and after and they want that in a two-hour appointment right so my claim to fame like when you look at my instagram i have like a couple hundred thousand followers that following came a lot from my business teachings about pricing like i'm known like you guys might not know me whoever is listening but i'm known in my industry for pricing and pricing education helping people understand the whole course on that right like tons of courses on it and it's like figuring out the value like how to get the value to match the price and how to explain to a customer and not be afraid to set those boundaries because pricing is a boundary you know pricing is a boundary and a lot of people have a really hard time with that so my my biggest lessons to go back to your original question my biggest lessons in my first year of business is you can't take things personal people are in their own worlds like their own universe i'm in my own universe there's so much happening around you that like when people make a decision for themselves you can't take it personal you know i had a lot of people leave and i got very bitter and resentful you know i was teaching people right out of school i would build them up to a six figure styles and then they'd leave and go rent a chair and for me i took it so personally i'm italian i got some daddy issues i took everything so personal like a direct attack to me and i think like that those were some of my biggest mistakes is you know i have i also have a pretty like cutthroat reputation in the area not so much really anymore but like as a business woman you know as a woman in general you if you're savage in business you're a [ __ ] you know what i mean or you're go you're you know you're looked at as whatever so i literally have like that i have a reputation to be the most expensive to be no [ __ ] i tell people straight i will wear literally sweatpants and a t-shirt to a high-level meeting i don't give a [ __ ] do you know what i mean like i literally have you know a specific reputation um and if i could go back you know the one thing i would change i wish i did more work on myself before opening a business but i really wouldn't change anything because you're hair or your newbie bianca hair because i wouldn't have i wouldn't be where i am today if i change anything so i can't really like say if i would i would change anything but for business owners you got to be like okay yourself and be strong yourself before you bring other people into your business so like i used to take if someone left i would take it so personal you know and i would you know they're dead to me yeah it would be personal yeah you're not with me you're against me you're dead to me how do you get stronger so you don't take everything personal how did that work out for you um i did a lot of work on myself you know um i'm i'm in recovery from alcohol and drugs and i think like you know the biggest drug is resentment and they say that when you're resentful it's like drinking poison and hoping the other person gets sick so even though you're the one drinking the poison yeah i had to like really learn that like not everything is about me and i had to really be okay with like a lot of things and business is hard because sometimes and you have to remember that business is business it's not personal like with gina bianca hair my first business it's like if you told me i was ever going to close that i would have like punched you in the face i'd be like you don't know anything like it was beautiful or show a picture on here i'll send it today but it was a beautiful space it it was gorgeous and i put my friend judy that i grew up with killed it there he was very happy judy was one of my first assistants nice cool yeah she was one of my first first first assistants and when she left it was like yeah she started working at the network yeah she came a lot of my people came back which is says a lot for my growth and says a lot about the network most people who worked at gbh and left came back which is ironic because you you were resentful and then you changed and then they came back as a result yes got it so drugs and alcohol um you know i drink and i smoke so um you know it's definitely one of those things especially with resentment where you start to feel it creeping up on you and you just kind of have to like avoid the temptation and so tell us a little bit about how you used substances for your business and what advice you would have for people that consistently drink and smoke well drinking and smoking is one thing but like there are other drugs like work can be a drug like the consistent like when you're when you don't want to be alone and you don't want to like deal with yourself you work you can always go into work food sex drugs alcohol weed coke anything that you i've done everything to like escape just dealing with my own [ __ ] so i totally can relate and the hardest thing for me was weed and you know because we would hang out like all the time and i was like using so much weed i had my medical card and everything um you know so i felt like i had the solution like remember i was like i have the solution to everything that's marijuana i have the solution like y'all are living in one of the things that marijuana anonymous which is an actual thing is do you feel like you're living in your own privately defined world yes that was me totally and i think like i when i got my medical card i i learned in rehab because i went to rehab last year i um i learned what about tolerance we all know about that right but when you're in it you don't realize you just don't realize like i'm very intelligent person yeah when i was in the midst of my addiction to marijuana and it's so stupid to like even say that out loud sometimes i'm just like so many people smoke weed like you know i started and i got so high and i was like had a spiritual moment that i've never experienced in my life spiritual moment and i was chasing that for two years i was chasing chasing chasing chasing that and i started using more and more and more and then eventually it got to the point where i was smoking to not feel like uh-huh not to feel good not to feel okay to not to feel good or normal to not feel horrible and like that's tolerance you were able to like work and function like oh yeah like i was taking 100 milligram 100 milligram pills on a regular basis 100 milligram edibles 180 milligram pills were what i would take at night and i would just be like rocked yeah steve said he my husband said he gave one of my pills to one of his friends and they had to go to the hospital 100 milligrams a lot 180. that's a lot and they had to go to the hospital and the fact that you were able to function i can teach in front of 200 people it shows how much pain i was in yeah okay i was not okay and i'm not bragging about it but like i got to the point where it was just like everybody around me was just like oh okay yeah and like no i'm like such like a boss in my own world like nobody really said anything to me or tried to stop me mm-hmm i have a serious question for you um okay and i think this goes you know something that i've always been curious about with you is how do you just like not care what people think because there's a lot of things that you know people will do in life and they're always worried about what the next opinion is like the fact that you just came on here on a podcast and probably ten thousand people are gonna see this and you're opening up about a lot of the things that you've been through oh yeah how do you do that in business because it's a it's a super big asset for you to just go up on stage and do whatever it is that you got to do and you're like i don't even care what people think i'm just going to do it because it's good for me you know what what's that like well i don't have a boss okay so like nobody can tell me like my critics aren't my boss they're not even your customers they're not even like you're not gonna mess with my money you're not gonna mess with my livelihood or my job like nobody's gonna take what could take my business away is drugs and alcohol drinking and driving and killing someone sure yeah you know that when it becomes when drugs and alcohol become your higher power that's your boss being sober i have no boss you know it's just me and when i share about my story i'm not sharing to brag about 180 milligram pills that's a pretty worthless brag yes i get that i'm sharing more to open up conversation about real things that actually happen you know i can come on here and have a whole script about anything if you told me the topic is pricing i can literally give a whole pricing thing i've done 100 times if you tell me boundaries i could do that 100 times tell me anything about hair 100 times employees i could do whatever but when we talk about things that actually go on in our lives i feel like people need that more than another class i kind of get like nauseated on instagram now where everybody's just teaching teaching teaching and i like almost posted like less education more personality like because i don't really care what you're teaching it's like shove down everybody's throat all day long so my strategy in life is to just keep it real and if people don't like me it's literally their loss like i know i'm a good person i have enough people in my life really don't need anymore you know what i mean so i'm not afraid of you of gratitude and you understand that yeah i'm not afraid of someone not liking me and that perfectionism of like oh my god you know i'm a perfectionist so sometimes it's hard if i'm teaching a class and i see one person not laugh at my jokes i like will almost hone in on that person a little bit and watch them for a reaction because i'll teach in front of like 200 people so like in those situations like that perfectionism of like hey not everybody likes you and i think accepting that like you asked me your original question is like how do you not care not no matter what i do no matter what i say no matter how many people i help no matter what i create that makes the world a better place no matter what i do there's always going to be some people who don't care they're like she's whatever and there's also going to be people who literally hate me i did a podcast and this girl started it i remember i i'll never forget the day i realized that not everybody likes me she's like gina bianca some people love her some people hate her and i was like this is literal news to me like i thought everybody liked me you know because we live in our own privately defined world sure but i think like for me i really don't care and i'd rather have someone not like me for being real than have like a million people like me for being fake yeah so i think there's a lot of that and i don't really care got it how do you stay uh underwhelmed and not overwhelmed with everything that you've got going on so i know you personally of course and i know everything that you go through and so you have this beautiful salon which we'll post a picture of beautiful yoga studio now and i'm sure you're already thinking about what's next after that you're already present you have an idea you have ideas right how do you stay underwhelmed and make sure that everything is operational without kind of going crazy i have a lot of help you know i have elise she's our manager and then we just hired two more i'm calling them managers you know they're we have a big support staff to help us at the network with the education the yoga and the salon um but i would never would describe myself as underwhelmed i feel like overwhelmed is like my permanent state and i feel like that keeps you sharp you know i think that it's good i think sense of urgency and a little bit of pressure is good for me you know i think that i did not get where i am today working a 35 hour a week schedule where i punch in and out and i go i didn't get where i am today with work life balance i think that work life balance is a myth i think it's fake and i think it's used to make people feel like about themselves i think that there's a rhythm to life and if you love what you do you're good if you're if you're not loving what you do you got to make a change and that discomfort you know can suck for a little bit but i wouldn't consider myself underwhelmed there's i have so much i have to do today alone you know there's always a list going but i do have a lot of help i couldn't do it alone and if i was alone doing it there would be some things i just have to accept this isn't happening today and so how do you take time off what's that like um i'm trying to think of the last time you took time off yeah i booked well what i did for my self-care yesterday is i booked massages for the rest of the year every friday i used to go every week yeah and um i stopped going because i didn't pre-book if i don't pre-book an appointment you won't go if i don't have a vacation planned and advanced i don't go so i think planning is huge um i'm getting married in february on two two two two two um congratulations 2 22 22 and we're going to costa rica for a week so i think that will be amazing and then after that we like kind of need something planned going forward we always go see my in-laws and um delaware so like there's things that are planned but for me to take time off it has to be planned and if it's like in the middle of the week or something and i take some time off sometimes my time off is like rotting on the couch and like just taking some time and watching the sopranos like that's it it's not glamorous you know yeah when i am on vacation too i'm like wanting to be working doing something because i love my job and my business you know if i were behind the chair full-time that would be different because i don't i'm not in love with that anymore when does that start to change i mean so in business you're really managing a lot of your emotions all day right and so like for me if i get started and start getting resentful which is like hey i just don't like paul today because he's being annoying you know i'll have to walk out and you know i know when i'm starting to think that way and so i'll walk away and i'll just like leave um you know tell me about managing your emotions inside of your business you have how many people in the network 26. okay 26. so i'm sure there's times you get frustrated you don't want to explain things i mean is it simple as you just don't show up or are there other tactics that you use to kind of lower your emotions so you kind of stay logical we have very open uh communication there so like my values as a person like our love kindness health boundaries vulnerability making an impact i think that comes down to like the reason the fact that you don't care about what people think about you comes down to how vulnerable you are in front of those people totally and like my values love health boundaries love health vulnerability boundaries making an impact these values are in a specific order so everything i do is out of love and kindness so like as long as i'm kind to them i'm doing a good job you know what i mean um sometimes you have to put all the time you have to put yourself in your health first so we have an agreement and remember i have 26 booth renters they have their own business but with my leadership team and the people who work for me directly on payroll if they can't do it today if they're not okay they stay home because we can't have somebody coming in not in a great state affecting the entire culture right so i'm very flexible if people are like i can't you know today i i can't i'm having [ __ ] going on at home i'm not okay i'm like okay great stay home thanks for telling me you feel better and then i check in with them throughout the day so lauren your most recent hire was at zumi's which is a big company and she was just talking just now about how impressed she is by how little gossip and little drama there is there's none compared to zoomies where it's like everything is a big is a big ordeal no so do you ever feel yourself like falling out of love with what you do and is that kind of when you know when to take time off well to go back to like the no gossip and the the like my values are the same as my business so i explained to them kindness is first your health comes first we have to set boundaries and keep it real like when we start when i start feeling resentment i know internally if i start feeling resentment which is my number one going away from feeling this is the feeling that if i feel it it's my most hated feeling then loneliness that's the second one and sometimes you could have a million followers tons of people around you and you're still lonely and feel lonely so resentment is like my number one i hate this feeling and the reason i feel resentful the usual causes because i'm not saying how i feel so i'm not being vulnerable i'm not being real and i'm not setting boundaries that's why those are my two top values because it will protect me from that number one going away from feeling which is resentment so if i'm you and i start feeling resentment in my business i'm not saying what needs to be said and i'm not setting boundaries i love that you know it's true those two things will protect you from those feelings you have to figure out the feelings you want to go away from and then build a system within values that will protect you because otherwise i didn't have values growing up you know i grew up in a very weird household like my mom worked all the time to provide for us and my dad was in jail so i grew up in front of a tv eating microwave food and uh cook i raised my brother as a kid you know so i didn't have a value system integrated into me and then when i went to palma jul the school their value system was integrated into me and i became a total workaholic and then every relationship filled in all the other values what is an example of that resentment and i'll give you an example one of mine is i work so hard but there's people taking vacation and then i just i start to notice i'm like why is everybody taking vacation if i'm not taking vacation right well no one's gonna be you correct so what like give me that's why you're the boss correct i don't know i don't want to be the boss but you so nobody is coming to save you right that's why i tell people is nobody's coming to save you nobody's coming to do anything for you like we look around for an adult and somebody to save us literally nobody's coming right i literally tell my coaching clients this my students i'm like nobody's coming you're waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting to make the change that needs to be made nobody's coming you have to make the change nobody's coming so you have to figure it out and if what bothers you the most about somebody like maybe somebody is a little bit slower that's telling you i need to slow down if somebody's taking vacations that's t and it pisses you off that's telling me you need to take time off if somebody is you know taking a long lunch it's probably telling you you need to eat like anything that bothers you about somebody else is something it's a mirror like people are i've we've talked about this like the mirror like anything that bothers you about someone it's a mirror so i think that for you with all of your employees which are such a blessing because oh my god like you can't do what you do without them absolutely you know you just can't like the amount of help that they've given even just me as your client like they're all incredible for you just setting those boundaries you're worthy of having boundaries just because you want to give so much to everybody doesn't mean you're not worth anything to have you know i totally went through that and that is such an easy trap to go down like because when we started talking you were you know you analyzed my business and and just so you guys know gina's a little bit older than me probably a couple years barely barely and so but no that's important because that means you've experienced things in business that i have yet to experience just because of time and so you said to me one time you know make time for yourself and it's it's important because you're right everything is basically a mirror if you're angry at yourself you're going to be angry at someone else it's just an outlet um and so tell me like what are some of those resentments that resentments that you saw inside of genie bianca and as a manager how did you manage those emotions to kind of make a change for the better so you can progress the biggest resentments that i had were when people weren't marketing themselves when people weren't promoting the business they didn't care enough about as like i had so this is weird at gbh we had job descriptions and part of the job description it was all broken out into categories it was like a growth plan so like the first category is critical numbers so our critical numbers were like pre-book productivity um retail to total sale so there were numbers we can do and then after that it was um things they had to do so one of the things they had to do was post three times a week so they had to post on instagram and this is when instagram was huge instagram is huge now but it was but not done instagram was blowing up then 2014 to 2019 and now it's tick tock like now it's just a different platform we're just in a different we're evolving so i had seen all of my growth and experience so much growth and it's almost like i know the formula why aren't you following it so i created a system around it and i would get frustrated if people didn't you know but it was part of their job description so something i wanted them to do it i made it part of the job description especially since i was paying them um resentments i would have is when people would leave too you know when people would leave to go start their own business and it became really weird and the reason i closed gbh is because when people were leaving part of gbh is my name is on the door right so i want to talk about that a little bit afterwards yeah wouldn't i would not recommend to a friend putting your name on the door of a business where you have to rely on so many service providers it's just it's really hard and the perfectionism is like all the way turned on because nobody is going to be you and it puts a lot of pressure on people and they're living in your shadow you know what i mean so it's like a lot of different factors so part of it was like you know i hire someone i train them i teach them everything i know i fill their books like my clients like get to know them over a year or two and then they finally trust them to go and then i pass the client to them and then they leave and like half the clients will go the other half i have to squeeze back into my books and there's no room for me to grow because i'm literally it's like you have all the wheels going and you're turning the wheel and this wheel's doing the great and then you go to the next one and this one's going great and then you've got three and then they're going great and then one just goes flat or leaves or falls off and is on the highway somewhere and you're just like okay yeah um that person leaving your business to start their own business is always tough that was the most resentful because i i took it so personal and in the midst of all of this you know i'm open for four years right and so many people kept leaving i lost 12 employees over 12 months and it was literally devastating and during that 12 months i broke my foot and i couldn't take time off because that whole cycle kept happening and to this day anytime i have problems with employees to this day i have psychosomatic pain in my foot i was having an issue like a couple weeks ago i had to do it honestly two weeks ago with the schedules of our new managers my foot was throbbing because i didn't want to upset everybody and i have that fear of people leaving it turns up in my foot it is it's like literally being a business owner is [ __ ] up sometimes like because as a human you can only be so like we our brain is like only so strong you know so like me working on a broken foot for two years and never healing and all of that is because people kept leaving and i couldn't take time i could have taken time but like i wouldn't you know and that resentment when i start feeling the resentment of i should just be able to give everyone a schedule and everyone needs to shut up that resentment comes out in physical pain right mad right yeah i've heard i can swear on here i'm like yeah you're good people with their spines and stuff like that they have pain so gina bianca hair to the network um what's that all about yeah so what i was going to say is like which is a great name by the way because they can be incorporated into so many things yeah i'll tell you how we got that too from gina bianca hair when people kept leaving when the 12 people left i i checked out i was talking about closing that place for over a year and a half before i actually closed it i was totally checked out um i did hire people but they did not get the same training as i normally would because i was like you're just gonna leave anyway so instead of really putting the investment into what i needed to i did what a lot of business owners do i put my attention to a new business right which was the education and i traveled everywhere and i made so much money i did i literally was like this is amazing but do you know what i was teaching what i was teaching stylists how to open their own business so it's ironic and then i would come home and be like don't open your own business so it was a huge major conflict yeah it was like a spiritual conflict that's like what i was doing literally so i was like this is not working out and then it came to it like that's what they want to hear they want to hear how they can become a you know stylist well everybody wants freedom and flexibility and i think that having your own business is going to make up for about 80 of the workforce within the next 20 years right yeah that's what i believe i mean even just the beauty industry how it's going now right like your model at the network which is a key difference from gina bianca hair is all about growing your own brand yeah and our brand is be yourself which is your direct thing from your resentment that you had that feeling that you had that turned into a business yeah pretty much so the name how did you come up with the name oh well this friend that is no longer my friend i was talking to them and i was we will not mention them yeah well was my best friend and then out of nowhere while i was in rehab i came home never talked to me again interesting yeah so weird never in my life have i ever been treated like that ghosted ghosted by someone who i talk to every single day they don't like you i think you're right jealous i i don't know and i talked to them briefly of like what did i do i have no idea what i did to them and i can't figure it out like usually you know if you do something you're like you know what it is i don't know what i did if they are watching this they know who they are let me know what i did don't know but i was talking to them i was like we need because we were best friends but we lived in different states and i was like we should open a place in new york and call it the network and all of our friends can work there who are renting and then i was gonna close gbh and i talked to my friend victor you met victor i talked to my friend victor and he does education tours with a lot of people and he's really cool and i was like i'm closing my business like i wanted to close for a year and i was torn up over it because like what am i going to do just close what do i do sell it and sell the people you can't just sell people it was a whole thing so he's like no don't close open a booth rental model but make sure you have 30 chairs because then it will be like a community any smaller it's going to be a pain in the ass wait so you were just before we move on you were just going to close and just strictly focus on education are you okay so you're going to have no salon just education yeah i didn't know okay i didn't know what was next which is scary when you it was like i could just stay but i didn't want to my model the team-based model and like gina bianca here as it was could not survive if i wasn't there and i wanted to teach and if i wasn't there the business suffered i would come home and there would be so many problems i had managers making more than me they there were so many problems got it so it was like i needed to choose one and i had this like super emotional meeting with them and i was like i just feel like i'm giving up all of my dreams for you and you're not even gonna stay that emotional resentful i was like you're not even gonna stay like why am i gonna give up my dreams for people who aren't even gonna stay it was awful it was like oh i could get sick just thinking about it um but in the midst of that we started opening the network in november i signed my lease it was ready in june i closed like june 15th gbh so the network was open but like nobody was in there we were doing classes there as soon as it was ready i closed i gave them two weeks notice and i closed and i was like love you guys so much but like i didn't want to train another team right i was like i don't have it in me to train another team i was teaching full-time and all my education money was going into paying these high hourly rates for people and i was just like in the managers you know so it was just like a whole thing and our reputation of hair was so good it was almost like i want to leave and close when we're high instead of waiting nobody knew what was going on no customer knew right there was always the thing like people would be like oh you left gina's what's going on and you know the only people can't leave without talking of course you know because like they the customer will feel bad to go with them if they've been a bit small business for a long time so they have to make you the villain you know it's like that's what was happening and now to see so many of those same customers coming together the network i know everybody in there right i'm like oh hey they're like hey like they think i hate them or something i'm like no like hey welcome yeah um but it was just a the whole business journey from gbh to the network i learned so much in my experience that's how i'm able to like literally help anyone you know how we have the quote board yeah and there the next quote is one day you'll tell your story and it will be someone else's survival guide that's how i feel like it is my whole journey telling the story not being ashamed of being kind of i was kind of like a piece of boss at times because i had so much resentment and you know i did kind of abandon them traveling all over you know they were all just there with no supervision kind of just running it yeah you know and i did treat people kind of see when they left i'm not ashamed of it because i've made my amends you know what i mean and anybody in my position would understand you know so i think that like just owning your journey and owning your story and telling your story makes people feel less alone like they say people don't remember what you do they don't remember what you say they remember how you make them feel and when people talk to me or listen to me or take a class from me or work with me i want them to feel heard and validated and understood i don't want them to feel like just imagine question marks all around me i don't want like i saw something else it's like if someone likes you you'll know if someone doesn't you'll be confused and with my team with my friends with my family like you're always going to know where you stand with me like i'm not going to be that person that's going to leave people confused so i think like you know my vibe is just i'm here to tell my story keep it real hopefully help as many people as i can if you don't like me it's literally your loss i mean i could not care less so what is that survival guide um you know especially for a woman like yourself growing a business getting you know very very good reputation in terms of doing hair i mean what is that survival guy i mean what are some of those skill sets that somebody that's thinking about making the jump and starting their own business um what would you say to keep inside of your get your game right your values get your values right because if you live by your values like my values being what they are my business values are the same it's very easy to tell if someone fits if someone doesn't if someone is not kind right they don't fit here right if someone has zero boundaries and they can't handle a conversation you know if you're leaving the salon a disgusting mess there's going to be a face-to-face conversation about if you can't handle boundaries and vulnerability not a good fit here what does that sound like so like i leave your salon i'm an artist and i have a bunch of garbage everywhere we have them sign a culture contract and the culture contract talks about cleanliness and that we're a community so they know exactly how they're to leave everything from the start yes and we remind them all the time you know we remind them and then if it becomes something where somebody does it like once it's like there's an oops like there's days where things happen we're not like total psychopaths over it sure but if it's a consistent thing it's like hey i just want to make sure that you understand our cleaning protocols i want to go over them with you and you just go over it with them and if it's a constant thing be like i know we went over this last week you know we are very proactive so having them sign the culture contract having the trainings i just did a retrain for everybody this week everybody had a mandatory 15-minute meeting of cleaning just to remind everybody um and it's like so annoying it's like get on the call and let me tell you to wipe your mirror down yeah you know but with 26 people if somebody's doing the right thing and somebody else isn't that person doing the right thing is going to get resentful yeah you that's community you have to keep it real another thing is um having holding space for them so every month on the last tuesday the month from 8 30 for 90 minutes i do a town hall meeting and i say what's one big problem the salon has what's one small problem and i let them hit me with anything that they need and we make things happen so they feel safe to share nobody's letting everything build up that's community yeah you have community there yes and i tell them what's that big problem right now i don't think we have one okay i think the biggest problem right now is that brian station um shorts out when him and jesse are blow drying like the electrical yeah so steve said he's like i think i crossed a wire so he's gonna fix it but like literally it's not a bad problem there's not a lot but in the beginning there were a lot of big problems tell me about a time when you were just like really scared that you were going to go out of business financially never okay so you've never been ups you've never been scared success is the only [ __ ] option failure's not mom i love you but this trailer's got to go eminem literally i've always had i've never been scared to go out of business because i would literally if i go out of businesses i'm deciding to close right but during the pandemic when i had to refund almost a hundred thousand dollars when i already spent the money yeah that sucked during all my ticket sales because my main revenue is my travel education like that's where i make my bread you know this and in 2020 i had sold a ton of tickets and then i built out parts of the salon and paid off my business loan with it and i was like okay the next wave of tickets you know no one was expecting the world to shut down and then no one knew what was going on so people weren't like oh yeah i'll take online education people were like i want a refund or i'm going to find you and murder you and i'm like oh my god yeah so being in debt to your customers that's where my marijuana addiction went from like to like boom yeah because i was numbing out i was totally numbing i felt like completely out of control and my i didn't know i don't know i never felt like i was going to go out of business though yeah you have a skill it's very strong if you need to you'll do hair again i wouldn't let it happen i'll work illegally i will literally sell i will do whatever it takes like and that's what i think i have like that grit you know um like whatever it takes success like i said like the eminem song success is the only [ __ ] option failure is not like i tell people that it's like that grit that's something that a lot of people have that people it's like oh what is it about them it's like they just don't quit yeah you never mm-hmm not an option never like no not my vote like not me yeah it's man-made it's like no yeah and so um what are your plans for growth how are you going to make more money well we want to franchise the network someday it's not there yet though there's so much that has to go into it i just want to focus on the network you know it's the best we were talking about that a while ago you're like you need to just focus on the network and i always thought the network was just like the small thing your side business and now the network's like my full business yeah we i always thought it was going to be an education space and a salon on the side and now we filled 26 chairs so it's uh so 26 people renting chairs from you in your location yeah so 26 people rent a chair there and we are probably going to add six more chairs toward the end down there um and then you know they can open it they're like are you gonna open another one i'm like you can i don't want to open another one i don't want to have another place i have to be unless i'm traveling i like to be home sure i'm a homebody i like to be home yeah so i would love to be here this be my headquarters and then if other people wanted to open them have like a franchise model i also kind of want to open suites i'm like i'm like about to get on zillow and find like an abandoned building that has like 40 rooms or something like an older school or something and open suites because the network would be cool with suites too right um and yeah i'm just really working on that i'm just working on the network my travel education is great it's how i can like i love my students before it was like doing hair was my art and now teaching is my art because like tony robbins always talks about the artist the entrepreneur and the manager leader it's like the artist part for me was hair now it's teaching sometimes editing and you know doing my videos like i love the artistic side um but you know more and more i move into that manager leader it's like growth you know i don't think it's i don't think one is better than the other i think as long as you have all those people in your business you're good but i think for me just working on the network so what does that look like you know i mean franchising like what would you what would that offer look like and how does one get started like in the future if someone wanted to franchise the network they have to be in my mastermind group that's my online education and coaching group you have to be in mastermind for like five years so somebody with an existing salon that's not in your mastermind says hey gina i have 150 000 i want to open a network because they don't have your values and your core you know your your model and yeah mastermind is like the network but people like the network is the facility matt the network mastermind is the people and i do like these weekly coaching calls 90 minutes and i have all my education in there and like i don't know i really want the network to be close-knit of people that i know and i already know a lot of people who've asked me and they've been in mastermind forever and they love what we do they understand because those values you can have money but like you don't have the values and i can't have you representing me yeah yeah i just can't so i think like masterminds huge people who work in the network i would love for them to franchise yeah a lot of them want to move to like texas or something i'm like open it at work perfect yeah hey you can open it anywhere that's where i want to go people do hair every everywhere yeah literally so i would say working at the network working in mastermind got it you know i don't know if some random i don't know who knows talk to me in five years when you have a couple franchises i don't know we'll be doing the digital for you oh yeah only developmark does my digital only developmark touches my website so quick question about that spiritual experience that you said you were chasing before um i don't think i've ever heard about that are you willing to share that well okay so i was like i was it was right toward like the end of gbh and i was traveling i was very big i was very very heavy very big um very unhealthy i was smoking like a pack of cigarettes a day minimum yeah minimum i was smoking so much eating like traveling non-stop i was working with that brand that we shall not name um i had the network that was opening in gbh that was open but driving me nuts so i was in the midst of everything and i got this rash all over my body hives and i went to the dermatologist and she's like oh yeah like college kids get this during exams and i was like shut the shut up like there's something wrong stress like she's like oh this is just contact allergies that's what college kids get and i was just like college kids do you know what i deal with on a day to day i was like so offended by this lady because i'm the center of my own universe right right nobody nobody has nobody can tell you yeah nobody has it harder than me in my universe um and i asked i went to the er i had chest pain i was having a heart attack went to the er very common with entrepreneur burnout straight to the er you think you're having a heart attack if you haven't been there yet call me yeah i will i'll call you when i'm there i've been pretty close pretty close never made it to the hospital but it happens like sometimes you just feel like you're having a heart attack and you go to the hospital and they're like it's just an anxiety attack and you're just like yeah you're just like but i i'm dying and it's like insulting so they gave me um some pill i took like all of them within like three days and then i had to make a doctor's appointment i was like am i making a doctor's appointment like whatever and i was like what about medical marijuana uh-huh and they're like we don't talk about that here it was the er sure they're like no you need to go to a psychiatrist to get medic medicine right and i was just like i don't need medicine so which i'm i am on an antidepressant and it's very great helps me sleep too good good times i have nothing against medication but then i was kind of just like i don't need that so i went and i got my medical card and in the midst of getting my medical card it was like a seven week waiting period so i had my neighbor i was like i'm not okay do you have anything that i can have that would hold me over and they gave me a tincture in the tincture i swear and i'm not glorifying this at all but i took it and i had like i do transcendental meditation and it's a meditation technique that's very unknown very powerful but i basically um took the tincture and then i started freaking out like freaking out in what way in a negative way like i was freaking out i was like i'm freaking out okay yeah so i started doing the meditation technique that i know and i feel like in that moment i said to myself i was just like what is wrong i was like why what is really wrong with you i was talking like to myself i was like what is really wrong what is going on like i was having a mo it was like me outside myself talking to myself and i swear it was like this like weird it was like my third eye cracked open and i had like all these traumatic experiences come to mind from like since i was a kid all the way up to a 30 year old woman 29 year old 28 year old woman however old i was sure and i had all these moments come to mind and then i fell asleep and it was i woke up the next morning i like wrote it all down and i like found a therapist like i was like i need to work through this stuff this is what's really bothering me and then i was like weed is medicine it healed me it cured me i had this like moment but then i started chasing that because i thought it was healing me but in reality it was just numbing me out it wasn't solving your problems it was just probably my meditation helped me and i associated it with weed so that spiritual moment was everything that has been traumatic in your life coming in at once you recognizing it and then going to sleep and executing next day really feeling like i knew what was wrong it was like god speaking to me telling me like it's not your fault this is what's going on like you need to figure this out and i associated it to um weed helping me with that and then from that point that's the easy thing the easy thing is to smoke a joint or to take a pill or to you know it's the easy thing to do the hard thing to do is to sit quietly with yourself and meditate twice a day and like figure it out it's hard you know so i feel like i was kind of chasing that i wanted to have a message from somewhere else wouldn't interesting that is extremely interesting and so how do you know obviously you don't do that anymore and so how has that impacted your business honestly it's so much better like i it gets hard though sometimes like i i have certain things i can't do like i can't steve wanted to go to the casino the other night i'm like are we going to a show are we going out to dinner like what are we doing i'm like less spontaneous because i need to have a plan something's there well i can't go with because everyone's just going to be drinking and doing drugs correct yeah like our friend group like that's all we did like casinos drinking and drugs yeah literally like that's what i used to do with casino drink do drugs and play blackjack why else would you go to the casino so i was like are we going to a show like what are we doing he's like oh i don't know and i was like well i can't go uh-huh because you have boundaries i can't go because we're not doing something specific right so like you go i love you so much have fun have a great time like he can do whatever he wants i don't care i'm not gonna make him feel bad about it but like i need i have to know my limits the other limit i have is like his company christmas party everybody drinks and like i'm the only one who doesn't drink so like i need to take a separate car so like how has that changed my life is i need to learn my limits because i've been in situations where i have no escape and then i flip the [ __ ] out um i have to you know talk with my therapist my sponsor like all of those things but with my business how it's impacted my business i just feel way better yeah i watched it completely change yeah it's pretty great because you've seen you've seen pretty closely yeah the transformation of like what i was doing and then to what i wasn't doing and i had no idea what was going on you know what i mean i had no idea because you didn't talk about it until it you really yeah it was pretty i'm pretty high performing addict right and those are the very dangerous addicts to there's no one better more dangerous more serious like addiction is addiction it doesn't discriminate could happen to anyone but like high performing addicts people don't usually check in with them right because they think they think everything is fine they're usually the boss so no one was really checking in with me and i think that's why it got so bad so fast because people just thought i could handle it and i was holding it together for so many that no one really steve always came to me if you have somebody in your life and they're struggling the best thing you can do is come to them with love care and concern consistently because if he had ever tried to push me away with that or to make me feel guilty or shameful over it i probably would have left and hear that steve yeah he he with the love care and concern he never made me feel horrible about it um but with the love care and concern consistently you know i think that like concern is the key you know like i'm concerned about i love you i'm just concerned sure i care about you and i see this isn't working for you i'm here for you like you know but if you were just like your piece of stop doing what you're doing stop you're you know whatever it's way harder people rebel yeah people ask me that a lot like well how would i have someone and you know i always say love care and concern and people don't get help until they want to right that's the thing they don't get help until they want to you can't force someone it's their life you know and it's the most frustrating thing and i'm just grateful i wasn't doing any harder stuff um because i don't know i've never tried anything really that crazy i'm really glad i didn't because i do have an addictive personality probably like dead or something you're addicted to coffee now dude yeah coffee work there's always an addiction there's always something we all need something to get by i can't wait until there's one day i'm just like how do you sleep at night me watching the office so you can watch tv and go to sleep yeah like listen and fall asleep and what's your average sleep do you know like how long yeah six hours seven hours eight hours okay it depends sometimes like this morning i had every intention of getting up at six at five and i was like no and i woke up at nine okay my but i listen to my body too i don't have an alarm because a lot of people love being the boss don't have enough a lot of people i talk to like can't it's very hard for them to sleep because they're so they're always thinking about the next move well get off your phone yeah that's a big culprit if you get off your phone at like six o'clock you'll be able to sleep better i do take medication i haven't taken in a long time though i have to take it i didn't get my prescription feel it's nothing like crazy just to help me sleep but it's also like very mild antidepressant and that helps me put me out you know but otherwise i feel like if i can't sleep it's because i'm on my phone yeah if i'm not on my phone and i just have the tv going or something i'm fine but if i'm on my phone thinking about business if i'm on my phone even just numbing out on tick tock i literally will be up all night because my at the light it's like the light on your phone yeah yeah for me it's the thoughts racing and like i need to do this this is this so how do you get so decisive on what you're going to work on and not work on several different things at a time well my addd is pretty rough so if you saw me yesterday it was like doing 80 things at once but um what i like to do is i like i use the notes app in my phone a lot me too and so what i'll do every quarter is i'll go through the notes and condense everything into one master to-do list and then i put it in order of importance and then i break down each goal into mini goals and then i put it on my calendar so sometimes there's so much going on that when you condense it you have a million things on your list but then when you put it in order of importance you can just put the rest on the back burner and then when you have it organized you can delegate right you know i have a lot of things i have to do that i just need to ask someone to do i have people who can do it it's just me like holding on to it it's like almost like we like to have that problem as entrepreneurs like we like to have too much going on because it's like makes us feel important doing something yeah makes us feel important like we're the only ones that can do it so has it been an hour yeah wow that's great yeah but i agree with that um and so you know anything else that you want to tell the audience here today um i love what you said that it keeps you up at night uh all the things you have to do and i have an affirmation for that i'm not like a huge affirmation person you know i'm not the type that's like ohm you know it takes a lot for me to go do stuff like yoga and stuff like that like it's hard for me i love to do it but an affirmation for when you feel that is i have enough i've done enough i am enough and when you have a 4 000 page to-do list just being like no matter what i did today didn't do what got done what needs to get done i'm good like i'm making moves toward my future it's all being built around me you know i think every little thing we do every day has to do with our uh goals and accomplishments and achievements and like being able to recognize those achievements even if they're small like we just got a laundry cart it's like a metal laundry cart and i'm like i can't believe we do enough laundry to need this laundry car and we have so many people and it was like i was celebrating over a stupid laundry cart yeah those little moments everything you're doing every day even what doesn't get done everything that you're doing is helping you get to those goals so recognize your goals and just like it's all being built around you cool i say that to you i say that to everybody watching and thanks for spending if you got it if you got this far thanks for listening and you know wishing nothing but the best god bless awesome well thank you for coming on gina my pleasure i certainly appreciate it always weird handshake in your hand i always shake your hand i'm like hello so yeah thanks everybody for watching um and gina thank you for coming on my pleasure thank you [Music] you

Channel: Ruan M. Marinho

Views: 463

Keywords: Ruan, Ruan Marinho, Develomark, Ruan Manprin Marinho, Develomark SEO Agency, gina bianca, gina, the network salon, hair salon marketing, hair salon, hair salon business, how to start a hair salon, salon business, how to set boundaries at work, setting boundaries

Id: li4b7LhcRrg

Length: 59min 43sec (3583 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 24 2021