We were lucky to catch up with Chandra Chriswisser recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chandra, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?

I had a business partner when I first opened my salon we were both hair stylists and we started with just the two of us. We struggled for quite awhile to find team members who were a good fit for our business we placed ads and almost nothing came from them. Our 1st few hires came from word of mouth from other industry professionals that we knew. In the beginning our interview process was horrible we were desperate for help and hired just about anyone with a cosmotology license and a pulse. Our training process also was not the greatest since we both had to work taking clients all the time we really didn’t have the time to properly train new stylists. The old saying I wish I knew then what I know now definitely hits home when it comes to this topic. We have finally found the formula to our hiring process that is effective and helps us find the right people who are a good fit for our culture. The most important thing I learned over the years when it comes to hiring is that it has to be a slow process and you have to get to know people better before bringing them into your company. It’s incredibily expensive to a business to have constant turn over and always be training new people it’s better to take longer but find the right people who will be a good fit.

Chandra, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started out as a hairstylist in 2008. I have always been super passionate about this industry it has provided me with many opportunities over the years.I started my salon with the mission of spreading beauty to the world and this may start with leaving the salon with beautiful hair but it goes deeper than that. We want to impact the lives of our guests by also providing a beautiful experience when a guest leaves the salon not only looking good but feeling good and cared for then they will be able to go out and spread beauty to those around them by feeling positive, relaxed and uplifted. Another point of difference for my company is our goal of being different from other salons and providing an environment, and structure that would allow my team to thrive and be successful. That type of environment is rare in this industry you either have independent stylists who work for themselves with no team or company support, you have chain salons that have low pay and work their employees to the bone, or there’s commission based salons but the majority of them don’t offer their team long term growth opportunities and I wanted Ohana Salon to be different from the norm. We help our team members not only reach their career goals but we want them to also be reaching their personal goals I believe those to things go hand in hand. If I have a team member who wants to buy a house we sit down and go over a plan to help them reach that goal. I am most proud of having the opportunity to have an amazing team who is aligned with our Ohana culture and mission, and having amazing guests who make our job so much fun and fulfilling.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I have read a lot of books on these subjects over the years but the ones that helped me the most are; Be Obsessed or be Average by Grant Cardone
Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
Believe it by Jamie Kern Lima
Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly
The Toilet Paper entrepreneur by Mike Michalowicz

These have helped me the most

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

One thing no one tells you when you become a leader is that you have to learn how to take emotion out of your decisions and be able to lead with compassion but still have a level of firmness. There was a time when I had a few people on my team that were not aligned with our culture again with the bad hiring process in the beginning. I let them basically run me and my company I was afraid to reprimand and up hold our policies for fear they would quit or cause drama and problems among the team, It is very easy to brush things under the rug and ignore them then to face them head on but my compalcency was causing bigger issues by not doing something. I was constantly stressed and having to spend my time putting out fires among the team that these people we causing. It’s a horrible feeling to see the environment and culture you worked hard to build start to fall apart because of your cowardace. It finally got to a point where it had to come to an end and I had to let those people go. The first time I ever had to fire anyone and it was not easy it weighs very heavy on you when you have to do that even if you know it’s the right thing for the business and everyone else. After that experience I went into research mode on how to be a better leader and handle these types of situations. I read books on management and sought out advice from other business owners I respected. I would say dealing with those types of confrontations never becomes easy but when you take out the emotion and just handle the business with certain things it dose make the process a lot less painful.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ohanasalonaz.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohanahairlife/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ohanahairlife
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ohana-salon-arizona
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ChandraOhana
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@ohanahairlife?_t=8WnsIKlQAep&_r=1