On Tabatha’s Salon Takeover, she turns around failing hairsalons and is famous for her deadpan delivery and bitchy comments. But in the flesh, she came across as genuine in her love of hairdressing, and in support of hairdressers…
Don’t mess with Tabatha Coffey.
With her reality TV show, Tabatha’s Salon Takeover, she turns around failing hairsalons and is famous for her deadpan delivery and bitchy comments.
But in the flesh, at her industry presentation on Monday 14th November, she came across as sincere and genuine in her love of hairdressing, and in support of hairdressers. I guess you have to be cruel to be kind.
Tabatha visited New Zealand as a guest of JOICO to speak from her wealth of knowledge on the salon industry at a one-night-only event in Auckland at SKYCITY Theatre at a $250 per ticket, 1.5hr presentation followed by a 30 minute Q&A session, before flying on to Melbourne and Sydney.
She welcomed interaction from the floor and was extremely respectful and measured in her responses. I found the advice she gave completely transferable to other industries beyond hairdressing; whether fashion, retail and so on, wherever you have staff, customers, pricing, and branding.
Tabatha was particularly focused on knowing who are your customers and what they experience when they come in to your salon; and your branding. She also spoke in depth on how to hire, fire and motivate your staff. She also values procedures and standards as vital.
"Yes, I’m a b.i.t.c.h." Coffey opened her presentation – but clarified that by expanding it to an acronym for Brave, Intelligent, Tenacious, Creative and Honest.
"There’s never been a better time to build your business than in a recession." Her salon in NYC was badly hit, so she had to turn lemons into lemonade by "shifting our consciousness" and coming up with new ideas to retain customers leaving due to cost-cutting. She put staff onto split shifts to take advantage of the early blowdry trend; she did single process colours without blowdries at cheaper rates; offered clients junior stylists; did hairlines and partings colours in between colours, and offered them less highlights or to put balliage in – or go darker and put lowlights in to be lower maintenance.
The most important service you can give is free – pay more attention to your client. Have a smile on your face, and a passion for the job that you do. The number one reason clients leave their salon is for a change in hairstyle, therefore, you need to talk with them every time.
Tabatha likes resistance; not going with the flow. "Create your own culture in a salon. It’s okay to take risks."
She stressed the important of selling retail hair products in salons, as an insurance policy to protect clients’ hair from losing their new colour, and because your client’s hair is your walking advertisement, so as a professional you need to recommend good products to suit them. A proven formula is selling in threes; put it in the client’s hand so it’s emotional, smell it, tell them properly about how to use it, and at the end put all three on the desk and say, "So are you taking all of them today?" They’ll pick one, two, or three!"
Janetta MacKay asked what she sucked at. "I’m not subtle (audience laughter.) I have a terrible temper, I’m a perfectionist, and I’m a tad controlling. …But my weaknesses are also my strengths."
Coffey says her inspiration is that "I truly love what I do; playing with hair, pleasing clients, spending time with hairdressers." She says she hasn’t had any time off lately; she’s only spent three days at home since June due to filming series 4 of Tabatha’s Salon Takeover. She recently sold her salon to a staff member and her next move is to shift coasts to the West Coast of USA and open a training academy – not for a TV show – but because she feels there’s a need for it.
Below: Megan Robinson and Tabatha Coffey.
Kate and Kelly Latu of Blaze salon Newmarket.
Jiali Yang and Kimberley Brown of Fresh PR.
Chris Lorimer of Ciel PR and James Dobson of Jimmy d.
Crowds gather to have a photo opportunity with Tabatha Coffey after her seminar and she greeted each person warmly and smiled and shook everyone’s hand; very patient and gracious considering the crowd was over 150 strong.
Words and photos, Megan Robinson 14 November 2011
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