We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melanie Dunn a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Melanie, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us a story about a time you failed?

I love this question because I am so inspired when I hear stories of the failure of my heroes. If they failed along their path to success, I must be able to find success even though I have also experienced failure.

I am proud of having a business that survived Covid but I had almost every employee quit after things “normalized” in 2021. I failed to retain employees and I failed to gain their respect.

Fortunately, the time I spent at home during 2020 and 2021 led me to seek mental health counseling, and online education in leadership and business.

I figured out my priorities, boundaries, and my “why.” I decided I would rather work alone than to work with a dysfunctional team, so I put stricter and stricter rules in place until I had no more stylists working for me.

I now realize I can not blame my former employees for being frustrated and underperforming when I was not an inspiring and communicative leader.

In 2021, I started over with one administrative assistant, Emily. We created a new vision for the business. We would create a safe space for clients to be heard and seen, and to feel worthy of self care. I updated our booking process for more price transparency and easier online booking for clients. We created systems to improve the client experience at every visit .

Emily and I committed to taking care of ourselves with balanced schedules and healthy lifestyles so that we were mentally available to listen to each other and our clients, and to bring good vibes to our sacred shared space.

When I was getting overwhelmed with client bookings, Emily enrolled in hair school and started assisting me with services. This allowed me to take more clients and the business grew.

Then, in 2022, new stylists started applying to work with us. I decided that new hires would need to be open to learning my systems, bringing good energy, and share my values of self care, and genuine hospitality.

Fortunately, 6 stylists with those shared values have joined us since then, bringing us to 8 total stylists now.

I am practicing better communication and becoming a better business person. I inspire each team member to see the big career and joyful life that’s possible.

I will continue to have failures as I grow. That’s just part of the journey. I am glad I get to keep learning and trying things, without fear of failure.

If I hadn’t lost all my employees, I would not have studied leadership and I would not have such a cohesive and growing team.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’ve been doing hair since I graduated high school in 2005. I started leadership in 2012. I worked with business owners to plan fashion shows and other community events, and I mentored apprentices at Salon Vivace in Richmond, Virginia.

I moved to Breckenridge Colorado in 2015, looking for a lifestyle change. I learned that hard working professionals do well here, and even hard workers are encouraged to take vacations and have healthy life balance.

I didn’t find the perfect hair salon that I envisioned working for when I moved here, so I set out to create the environment I wanted. The newly renovated Chopping Block Salon was beautiful and had a warm feeling, so I started out working here as the manager and stylist.

I felt good about my continually improving technical skills after doing hair for 10 years. In Colorado I also learned about better controlling brassy tones in highlights, creating blended bright neutrals, and how to embrace natural curls with specialty cutting and styling techniques. I also continue teaching clients in the salon how to achieve their style at home.

The hard part for me was creating systems to ensure every client had an equally stellar experience, no matter which stylist they saw. I had to look inside myself to figure out what was most important to me, and then I had to get busy documenting, implementing, and reinforcing systems.

My goal has been to create a salon culture where I would want to be an employee and I would want to be a client.

Now my stylists have specialities which helps pair the perfect stylist for each client. I have a long blonde hair specialist, a red color shag layered cut specialist, and so on. I present each stylist on the salon website with their own page. Clients can get to know the stylist personalities and services before ever booking. It helps take away the fear of trying a new stylist, especially if a client has had a bad previous hair salon experience.

Unfortunately clients often have negative salon experiences which makes trying a new salon anxiety-inducing. I try to help with that.

Clients might be nervous because they have not felt listened to, or because they have felt judged. We have removed gender from our service list, and we welcome any gender identity or sexuality. Our stylists are trained to talk about how certain styles present as feminine or masculine, and help each client make informed decisions about how they want to express who they are on the inside.

Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses.

I came into my business as an employee, with plans to be a leader and turn it into my dream job. After a year working here, I wanted to hire administrative staff and take on a bigger payroll risk. The owner at the time did not want to take that risk, so we agreed that I would buy the salon and it would become my risk.

I put together a business plan, and took steps to apply for an SBA Loan to buy the business. After sharing my plan with my parents, my mom told me she would happily give me the loan herself, and save me the high interest of an SBA loan. This was a shock to me, because I didn’t know she had that kind of cash set aside, and I felt like it would lessen my achievement if I got a loan from a parent.

I learned after a few more conversations that most people I know got a loan from a relative when they purchased a house, a business, a car, or a wedding. This was news to me, because of the self-made, DIY, Frugal persona I saw in my parents and their generation. The more people I asked, the more I heard about loans from family members.

I was ashamed about taking a family loan instead of “doing it myself” but it was the clear choice given the price difference and less paperwork.

I felt good about the amount I paid for the business, given the renovation it had, the reputation, and the revenue.

I wish I had stood firm and negotiated a longer lease, because after 4 years I was forced to buy the unit to avoid having it sold by my landlord. That was very scary and I was lucky to be able to pull it off.

My biggest realization through buying the business is that I have been lucky and privileged. I am hard working, smart, and talented, but I have also had help and encouragement. I breathe a little easier now that I own the real estate and the business itself, but it’s been a stressful 6 years with many unknowns.

If I had to do my own build out with zero experience, it would not have gone well, so I’m glad I paid the price for a “move in ready” salon. In hindsight it was all worth it and I’m glad I’m here now.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

We are all motivated differently. We have different learning styles, and different goals in life.

I am motivated by acknowledgment. I have a fear of feeling stupid and unimportant and so I light up when someone makes me feel smart and relevant. I show up authentically so that I can be seen and loved or hated as I truly am and that makes me feel alive. My goal in life is to inspire others to take care of themselves and pursue big dreams.

To manage my team, I lay out my values and expectations from the beginning. We bring positive energy, show up well groomed, provide authentic hospitality, respect each other’s time, and maintain a self improvement journey, professionally and personally. If someone does not feel aligned with these values, they won’t want to join the team to begin with.

Once someone joins, I give specific instruction for processes to go a certain way, like how to clean a work station, and how to greet a client.

Getting to know each person helps to find out what motivates them. They might want to save for a house, vacation, or wedding. They might value flexibility and personal time. Letting someone disconnect when they are off work can help motivate them to give their best effort when present. This means I don’t send texts to employees when they are off work. I use a separate work message app so they know they don’t need to look or respond until they are back at work.

My team appreciates being acknowledged for their wins, so I send them a message when they get a 5-star rating, and we give shout outs for admirable work in our weekly emails and monthly team meetings.

Being direct and simple with feedback when something is done incorrectly or forgotten is kind. It’s not a big deal, but it will create resentment if unmentioned.

A one on one conversation at least quarterly is great for deeper connection. We talk about skills, numbers, pay, training, goals, life balance, vacations, and I ask for feedback and how I can support them.

Many salons expect stylists to show up for trainings and meeting for free, but I am giving stylists a “real job” so everyone is paid for these things.

We also do fun team events like taking a pontoon boat out on Lake Dillon in the summer, a holiday party, and historic downtown tour.

I think people want to do what’s expected of them, as long as they understand what that is, and they believe in the shared vision. We all need to be reminded to stay on track sometimes, so as long as we keep communicating and we keep moving toward shared goals, morale is high and things get done.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bcbsalon.com
• Instagram: @melaniedunnpro
• Facebook: Facebook.com/bcbsalon
• Other: Salon Instagram: @bcb_salon