We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lucinda Quattrochi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lucinda below.

Lucinda, appreciate you joining us 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?

When we first opened we had a small staff of three in our ten chair salon. Seven weeks later we were shut down with the pandemic. Hiring became a balance between expanding our staff and having enough space for our clients to have distance between them.

Now we are expanding our staff, building a brand and identifying our culture. At the beginning we were in survival mode. As a group, we have formulated a code of honor that everyone must agree upon. Identifying our values makes it easier to focus on what to look for in our hiring. It has still been challenging. We go to cosmetology schools and talk to the students to find out what their interests are too. There are so many directions one can go in. Extensions, fashion colors, and blonding services are big areas of interest for students. We do all of that, but our specialty is building life long relationships and providing a friendly, yet luxury experience customized to suite each individual. So we need to have a staff of stylists with a diverse range of talents that can fit what our guests are looking for.

Our Mission Statement is:
We specialize in building relationships, with an artistic approach to reflect your personal esthetic, customized for your lifestyle. We are inclusive, celebrate diversity, and are your representative to the world around you.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I moved to the Denver area from Washington DC looking for a new career path. I had been an interior designer and a freelance muralist while living out east. I wanted to start my own business, in a creative field, where I could mentor young creatives and make people feel good. I also wanted to get away from all of the chemicals I was working with. The beauty industry opened so many doors, and has offered great opportunities to grow as a person and an artist, but the relationships I have built over the years has been the most rewarding. Salon Sisu was a brainchild of years of working in the industry, and examining all the things that I saw that worked and things that didn’t work. From a design perspective, working on functionality as well as creating an esthetically pleasing space was fundamental.
I researched professional brands for the best color, that left the hair healthy, shiny and beautiful but also was sensitive to their environmental impact. We use GOLDWELL color, Kevin Murphy hair products, and Phyto Botanicals. We studied the practices of the companies, the ingredients, and how well they worked to find only the products that fit our values.

I am so proud of what we have created as a team too. Our staff work collaboratively so we all do our best work. There is no task too small or question we are too busy to answer when one of us needs help.

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

Sisu is a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness. I had owned two other salons. Opening a third one was an act of resilience but I had a knowing that it was the right thing to do for me even though seven weeks after we opened, we were shut down for COVID and we had to figure out a way to take care of our guests and keep revenue coming in to pay the rent.

We kept in touch through email and social media to keep the relationships going, but we needed to bring in money to pay our overhead. We came up with take-home color kits with detailed instructions so that our guests could at least maintain their color. That was a win-win for us and our guests. For other clients that wanted to support us, we sold gift certificates at a discount just so we had revenue coming in while we were closed. It was just enough to see us through until we could open our doors again.

We adjusted everything we did to accommodate all the protocols. We celebrated all the wins and the fact we could still come together to make our guests look and feel their best. We learned during that time what an important role we played in making people feel nurtured and looked after. Hopefully, we will never forget the importance of that role.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I’ve been in the industry for 25 years, so that helps. At Salon Sisu, we know that building a reputation within the industry has a direct correlation with happy guests. From the moment our guests walk in the door we want to stimulate their senses with a warm welcome, visual beauty, a hot beverage or a glass of wine, good music and pretty fragrances. We believe this has a transformative effect on each individual.

Giving a professional consultation to really understand the guests lifestyle, struggles, and goals is imperative to providing the result that goes above and beyond the guests expectations. We want our guests to gush to their friends about how much they love their hair and their experience at the salon.

We believe that providing exceptional service is a privilege.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.salonsisu.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/salonsisu
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/salonsisu
• Linkedin: Lucinda Quattrochi
• Yelp: www.yelp.com/salonsisu
• Other: www.connect2local.com/salonsisu

Image Credits
Matt Normann, Photographer