#literally at a point where the low level retail staff have to tell the managers what to do bc they dont know Anything

[ruairy]

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[killapunk]

the weirdest, NO, evilest, person i have every worked for

no real names are used in this piece. i refer to other weirdos and freaks throughout, sorry its a long read (i didnt intend for this) but its one of those things ya gotta settle into and believe me its a wild ride. this saga covers over three years of drama btw.

tw: mental health mentioned (inc panic attacks), chronic illness mentioned and mild sex references 

i am going to single out jess. shes more evil than a weirdo but weirdo nonetheless. pete is a secondary weirdo in this saga.

i work in retail for a long time. a fashion store to be precise. i started out in one store but transferred when i started studying at uni and remained there for the majority of the retail career. during my time there i had three managers, the longest one, who is also a fucking weirdo was pete. now before i worked with pete, before he transferred to our store. i didnt like pete when i started working with him, he annoyed the fuck outta me. but my life circumstances changed and my mental health issues got very bad AND i was diagnosed with cfs so i had to disclose it w him. turns out… he was fucking mental too, very understanding, super chill. we liked the same shit. great boss. 11/10 every time.

he would be my reference for every job ever…

…but. he started gettin involved w jess. now to jess. the main character in this piece.

jess had started at the company around the same time as me and we were always on the same level until the last year or so. jess was a bit older than the average age of staff at the store (17-20) and was 23 when this drama started. she had a college diploma, went onto do something semi-successful but related to her HND. but blew all her money, moved back into her parents and started working at the store part time and then onto full time. she was like…the perfect retail girl? small, cute, slim, bubbly… always looked cool in her uniform. customers loved the fuck out of her. 

jess had a bf when i first started and pete had a longstanding gf. jess and her bf ended things abt 4 or 5 months before pete and his gf. but i remember they started gettin cushy around about this time. im not sure if its cos im v sympathetic towards pete (a true kind soul who i hold v dearly in my heart) but even tho youd be thinking ‘boss abuses his power’ …jess was and still is fuckin manipulative and he has longstanding mental health issues and i just think she sorta got the ball rollin’. pete and his gf didn’t seem on good terms, i dunno the full story but it seemed like they should have broken a long time before the did.

i think the fortnight before pete and his gf broke up they were spotted hanging out together near where she lived. it was this hush hush thing that everyone giggled abt cos there was at the time talk they were fuckin. when it got out, after his breakup jess said she was ‘just being a friend’ cos he was ‘going through a tough time’. 

jess got promoted to keyholder even though she didnt really (at the time) have the skills or confidence to be a keyholder. and then she started to try and fuckin control the work. back during this time, everyone who worked at the store, minus literally 3 people, had worked for the company for at least a year. the store ran very well, we were always in profit. nothing went wrong. but. she started changing processes because it 'made things easier when she was opening’. like. she made everyone tally the amount of people they served in the fitting room in one box and tally the amount of things people left behind so she could make a sales chart. idk if that’s normal in other stores but like? it was just nuts and impossible to do.we always put deliveries away out the package but not folded in a particular way. she made everyone tag and (where relevant) hang items bc she had to pick everything in the morning. 

she became friends w most of the girls, including one of the supervisors. they ruled the workplace. it was a total gossip mill. she gaslit the fuck outta people. one already less-popular girl at work ended up quitting cos she kept blaming her for fuck ups, she kept getting write ups and it was impating her mental health. she spun people against her. less popular girl spoke up and called her a bully and jess acted all defensive and said she wasn’t a bully bc shed been bullied before? jess continued to fuck up the workplace. next she turned on two people in her own clique. one tbh, i think she was jealous of bc jess had always wanted to be a teacher and this gal was training to be one. the other girl was v like jess, just not a bitch… strongwilled, liked control. anyway, drama got to the point where they had to quit. waay too much drama for this textpost. at this point others started to notice n work became hostile. jess moved her girlgang clique to one of the original clique girls, a different supervisor and the other two full time staff members.

pete obv didn’t listen to people coming to him, as store manager being like… hey… there’s this major clique problem and he’d be like ‘nah everyone is just friends, jess is a bit insecure but yno things are good, people quit, its just retail. fuck it.’ jess accused everyone who didn’t get on w her as being a terrible person. those legit words. like. if someone said it was a shame x, y or z left shed rebut, nah they were shit at their job, they were a shit person. honestly. EVERYONE. was a bad person. even the nicest people in the world were the worst person, the worst at the job. she was a good person, she liked the good people. she HAD BEEN BULLIED AND WOULD NEVER BULLY. she threw the anxiety word around a lot.

once we had a staff night out and i got left alone with jess and pete at the end of the night in this terrible lil bar as i waited for someone to pick me up. this is a good point to mention jess was always weirdly jealous cos i was close to pete. fucking ridic considering he was 14 years older than me and you know my fucking boss??? this night, i was sitting right next to pete, we were both drinking, jess wasn’t (cos she likes to be in control, she even said it), he had his arm around me and was whispering something into my ear that was such a non-thing i don’t even remember. she got her phone out, started texting. he excused himself and when he returned he sat beside her. it was fucking nuts. i couldn’t believe my eyes. we had to basically carry pete out of the bar. jess said to me she was gonna drive him home cos it was on the way to hers (spoiler! it was not!). myself and pete did the open the next day. he came in wearing the same clothes. i mean, he could have just passed out and had to rush to work when he woke up. but. this guy went out a lot. he never repeated an outfit. i think jess took advantage of a very drunk him. similarly, on another night out, jess promised to drive someone home. said person got too drunk and thew up. jess refused to take them home and called them embarrassing, she gave the space in her car to pete.

i had a major bad evening shift at work concerning another staff member, kaylee. a gal who just rubbed me up the wrong way, and who didn’t like me. ill never know why but it was just one of those things where anytime i was on shift w her she would nitpick and bitch about me and just… make me feel not v good. she was possibly the laziest and rudest person i had ever worked with but someone got away with it?

i used her as a way to talk to pete about the general problems in the store (jess). and…it was fuckin surreal. i told him abt kaylee. i told him i thought jess was controlling but kinda laid off a bit like ‘i get she thinks shes doing it for good’ etc. i padded it out w a few other rly petty issues abt the store. i was actually really upset, kinda numb from life to properly let out my emotions. and then. he started cry on me. like this full-on grown man having a panic attack in front of me when i was 19, fucked on diazepam i should have never been prescribed. to this day i visualise it. me and pete were v close at this point, and like, he didn’t mention jess too much – asked me about the other girl and other issues when i came to him. we spoke about personal shit, all but jess. i kinda wonder if he didn’t have the panic attack if i would have told him his under the radar relationship w her was not on?

and then. pete sold me out in the name of jess. idk the full ins and outta everything but he had to confront the drama once and for all cos our figures were so low so he decided to blame it all on kaylee. from my understanding of the situ from a lot of ‘he said she said’ bs, pete had this big meeting w kaylee. was like. 1. do ur job right and 2. stop being rude and unapproachable. the thing is, although kaylee is rude shes one of these ppl who most ppl really liked, not in a jess/regina george theyre scared of you way but…like they thought she was a tv character and she was funny and honest. so i think she confronted some obvious allies, and jess told her, according to another staff member, that i complained about her. after hearing this i obvious went to pete and tbh, acted pretty dramatic (cos if you haven’t fucking learned already THIS STORE WAS FULL OF DRAMA QUEENS). as soon as i heard, i started texting him angrily on his day off. i remember folding something in the fitting rooms and he came up to give me a hug and i was like ‘HOW FUCKING DARE YOU TELL OTHER PEOPLE MY BUSINESS’. i confronted jess, in a lighter tone, cos i obv told pete (half) what i felt about her. jess played the fucking innocent role. like, she said something along the lines of ‘we’re both close to pete n he was so worried that when me, you and kaylee did those shifts together that something would go wrong. so he told me to keep an eye on things and that’s all i told kaylee cos she wasn’t sure why she was being targeted when so many people in this store are treating people badly. i didn’t say you reported her or anything, honestly!!!!’ queue more bs.

after this, jess didn’t bother with me but was never explicit about hating me. if there was a convo going on and i tried to join in she scolded at me for being nosey. if i was unwell (i have cfs) shed moan ‘jokingly’ that i always had to be ill. i think she ripped on me once cos i said i was late for a hand-in at uni.

her next real victim, however, was jack, my best friend in store and our supervisor. jack was getting fucked over in his supervisor role bc pete would schedule jess for anything managerial. jess started a rumour that pete didn’t trust jack bc jack fucked it at a meeting w the other stores (semi true but fucking up a meeting isn’t the end of the world). like. anything jack would be, jess would be on him. by this point 50% of the staff that were around at the start of the story HAD LEFT. jess had driven people out and had the new ones all up her arse.

pete quit. it was sudden.

not long later, facebook popped up with a fuckin ‘pete is in a relationship with jess’ status and pete has never spoken to me again. i left shortly after that, although our new manager was lovely i felt like i was working for jess.

jack ended up GETTING DEMOTED, by petes replacement who had no idea what a shitstorm she was getting herself into. the new manager PROMOTED jess and demoted jack bc she was doing all the supervisor jobs whilst jack was only doing midshifts. he didnt get shafted to the lowest pay and was instead given the title ‘trainer and authorised opener/closer’ whilst still doing the same fucking job. he transferred out, cos that shit is fucking degrading and within, like two months he was put back up his rightful position. yay for my forever work bestie. I

feel like this has been going on for too long now. i think this doesn’t do her justice. like…i cant believe someone who is NOW 26 and who got what she wanted after manipulating a mentally ill man caused so much drama and pain and tension in a fucking clothes store.

fucking horrid. im reading this completely exhausted and so i cant say much but i just feel like these people are always the ones who come out on top, and its so fucked up. im really sorry you had to deal with so many unpleasant people, and your friend as well. 

i swear mediocrity and asskissing is what gets you anywhere in this world, and manipulative cunts like this jess woman take full advantage of that. it’s pretty scary, honestly. amazing how far drama can go, huh. this is why i have trust issues.

i still hope she gets her ass kicked by life, though. there has to be some sort of karmic justice somewhere

i also feel like i should say that there’s always going to be people who won’t like you for some reason. even if you don’t do anything wrong and even though everyone else thinks they’re great. no idea why this happens, but all i can say is there’s really nothing you can do. so FUCK EM (in the most metaphorical sense as they don’t deserve you giving them the time of day)

[coldstreams]

Case study: How not to run a Great Clips hair cut joint

My Disastrous Hair Cut at Great Clips – and how their information systems contributed – a Case Study

Plus, suggestions for any business on how this should have been handled

Sections As I have learned more about the business of hair cutting this has probably expanded to my longest ever post!

Synopsis

Background

Where Things Went Wrong

Update (things learned after writing the above)

About the Hair Cutting Franchise Market (This is probably the most interesting part – the industry is basically a scam that preys upon young women – almost all workers are female – pays minimum wage, no benefits, and they must provide their own hair cutting tools after completing 1,000 to 2,100 hour licensing programs. Most franchise chain stores are owned by passive investors – its a cash flow generator. Owners make a lot of money while staff pay is on par with fast food restaurant workers.)

Synopsis

Went to Great Clips for a hair cut. Big mistake! My hair is always a few inches long and cut back, at most, to the top of my ears. Great Clips stylists refer to their Clip Notes database to supposedly read notes on my prior haircuts there – but unknown to me she is reading the notes for a different client. Without warning, she runs a razor along the side of my head, cutting my hair which is 2+ inches in length to 4 mm or 1/6th of an inch in length. I tell her “What?” and she proceeds to say that this is what the computer says while whacking off the other side of my head. Shortly after she has literally shaved the sides and back of my head in a crude attempt to balance her butchering job, another stylist tells her she is reading the notes for “Nick” who was a no show and is giving me the wrong haircut. At this point, she rushes me out with a hair cut looking like a Nazi.

How on earth could an organization be this incompetent? That is the subject to this case study and based on my research and observations I will never go to a chain hair cutting place again. They really are that bad.

Background

Companies often add information systems – because they can – without thinking through possible failure scenarios and how those impact workers and customers. This is a case study of how a common failure scenario, and a distracted or incompetent stylist abruptly shaved the side of my head – leaving me with a Nazi-style hair cut. Unbelievable. Yes, a semi-Nazi looking hairstyle which will take up to 4 months to recover from.

Great Clips white supremacist/Nazi haircuts are even a meme on social media.

My background is information systems (M.S. in software engineering) and an M.B.A. Doing systems analysis, organizational and information systems architecture is what I did, and this is a classic business case study.

Great Clips is a large chain of franchised hair cutting businesses that typically operate at local retail strip malls.

Their business model is to be the low cost franchiser of hair cuts for men, women and children (versus SuperCuts, a chain which seems to charge a little more and offers more services or versus locally run barber shops and styling salons.)

A few years ago, Great Clips began using a data base to track their customers’ hair cuts. They call this Clip Notes. Stylists made notes in the database to – hopefully – guide the next hair cut (since you probably will not have the same stylist each time).

Separately, Great Clips began offering a smart phone app, and eventually a web app, to enable customers to reserve a time in advance, versus being a walk in customer and having to wait for the next available stylist.

These two data systems, combined, to produce a very undesirable outcome!

I was a walk in customer to the local Great Clips. While I have only been to this store 3 or 4 times (we recently moved) I had gone to Great Clips for 7 years (mostly at my prior address). Because some customers reserved on the app and a couple of other walk-ins were ahead of me, I had to wait a bit – ended up being about 30 minutes.

Where Things Went Wrong

They went to their waiting list and called for “Nick”. But Nick was not in the store (if he was a walk in) or never showed up (if he was reserved). When it was obvious Nick wasn’t there they went to the next name on the list – me. And this is where everything went haywire at Great Clips.

The stylist, unknown to me, was still thinking I was Nick and read the hair cutting notes of Nick – who apparently has a super short military style hair cut. She mentioned something about a 1 1/2″ razor and immediately takes the razor and buzz cuts the side of my head. I said, hey, wait, this doesn’t seem right!

UPDATE: Turns out she said a “1.5 razor” and I interpreted this as “1.5 inch razor” as that is about how wide the razor looked to me. But 1.5 is a razor head guide number denoting a razor that leaves just 4mm long hair on the head – literally an Army buzz cut. How is an ordinary consumer supposed to know what a 1.5 guide number means?

I’ve never seen their Clip Notes entry for me and I know that sometimes the stylist cut my hair using a comb and then running a razor along the comb line to trim a clean cut. I thought she was referring to that. I had no idea that her reference to a 1.5 razor meant she was about to run a buzz cut across the side of my head.

And while I’m telling her this isn’t right, she then does the same thing on the other side of my head.

In matter of less than a minute, this Great Clip’s stylist has obliterated my hair. She realizes at this point that somethings not right and buzz cutting the top of my head is going to make it worse. She tries to balance the look and ends up shaving off the back of my head. I’m now left with shaved sides and back of my head with hair too long for that style, on top. A Nazi haircut. (I later learned that others refer to this on social media as the Great Clips “white supremacists” haircut – that’s nasty.)

About now, a different stylist calls the name of the next person still supposedly on the waiting lit- and calls my name! But I’m already having my hair slaughtered – what?

This other stylist realizes what just happened and tells my stylist that she has the wrong customer and is referring to the hair cutting notes of Nick, not Ed. They just gave me someone else’s haircut. And worse they give me someone else’s lousy haircut – done really badly, and I mean really sloppy and poorly done.

This action by the stylist, surprisingly, appears to qualify as a 4th degree misdemeanor assault in my state. Crazy, huh? But in reality, she will face no repercussions. Great Clips has no quality assurance program nor metrics on stylist customer satisfaction – literally, no accountability.

Broken Business Processes

There are multiple things going wrong at Great Clips:

Great Clips lacks a procedure to verify and cross match the computer record with the actual customer. Simply asking the customer for his or her name and cross referencing to the record or reading the name from the record out loud would have spotted the error immediately. This is either a systems analysis failure, a design failure, or a training failure. At this time, they do not have any process/method for verifying the names match. (I have since spoken to a manager and this is true – they don’t have an existing procedure to verify anything.)

“No shows” are a frequent problem with their scheduling system. Some “walk ins” went to Starbucks to wait – but did not return in time. Some “walk ins” walked out after finding the wait time was longer than they could wait and did not come back. And some of the reserved customers never showed up. This fiasco started the moment Nick did not show up. This led to a cascade of errors starting with the no show, not verifying the customer record, and then applying someone else’s hair cut to a different customer. “No shows” are a catalyst for problems and they appear to have no procedures in place to reduce no shows or how to prevent them from causing additional problems.

Having not verified the correct customer and data records, the stylist then failed to communicate properly with the customer. The stylist was distracted, not competent or a ditz (a.k.a. scatter brained). Before she touched my hair, she should have confirmed my name with the record. She should have noticed that the description bore no relationship to my existing hair style (which was several inches long). She should have explained clearly what she was about to do and/or ask me specifically how I wanted my hair cut (I was never asked and assumed she had correctly read my prior visit notes). She used terminology that was meaningful to her but not the customer. To illustrate, at past haircuts, the stylist combed out to the edge of my hair and then ran a razor along the comb – not my head. I thought her reference to a razor was to its use along the comb. She has poor communication skills and failed to properly communicate on multiple levels.

The moment the stylist was aware of the error, the proper customer service oriented response would have been to own it, apologize, say there is no charge and offer to make the next hair cut free. Instead, she rushed through the rest of this, leaving the wrong haircut done badly, with straggling hair in places, rough cuts on both the left and right, and charged me, albeit at a discount. An hour later I saw the mess in the mirror, looked online for what to do about a screwed up haircut and the word was, call or visit them back the same day. It took a phone call and two more trips back to get a refund. Related: When you are a guy and they’ve shaved much of your head there is nothing that can be done to fix it at this point except to live with the embarrassment for a few months.

They do not seem to collect any metrics. When the stylist messed up, no notation was made anywhere. Even when I went back to the store (twice!) no note was recorded about the stylist’s error. They do not do customer satisfaction surveys – in other words, they have no metrics to evaluate product and service quality. Without metrics, they can never become a better organization! Another way to view this is that there is no quality assurance program and no one is tracking their output.

A complaint to Great Clips corporate headquarters was responded to with “its the franchisee’s problem, not ours”. This is a common response from franchisers who take no responsibility for their franchisees’ actions. Quality organizations, like Starbucks, manage their franchisees to deliver consistent services throughout all of their franchised stores. But too many franchise operations operate like Great Clips and absolve themselves of responsibility. A franchiser can either stand behind the franchisees or in this case, hide behind them! In effect, the Great Clips brand is meaningless because they are not able to deliver consistent quality repeatedly across their foot print. Or, the corollary: the Great Clips brand name means inconsistent hair cuts, every time! (See update at end)

Incredibly, both a friend of mine and my adult son had the exact same experience at other Great Clips! There too they used a different customer’s records and gave my son someone else’s haircut (he has not returned since this happened 3 years ago in Eugene, Oregon). This points to poor management at Great Clips corporate and not adequately placing appropriate processes across their franchisees. This failure scenario for their Clip Notes usage has been going on for years and they’ve done nothing to fix it. Indeed, there’s a long online list of bad experiences at Great Clips.

Corporate said they would forward my comments to the local store. After a day, I’d heard nothing so I stopped back in the store. Every person working there said they’d never heard the name of the stylist that butchered my hair! I am wondering if the store employs unlicensed stylists? They took my name and number and I did eventually hear back from a supervisor. They refunded my money and offered me a free future haircut. I will not go back of course (See update at end). The “free haircut” offer expires in 8 weeks – but it will be 4-5 months before my hair has grown out such that this offer is a bit of an insult. They had repeated opportunities to respond in a positive customer service oriented fashion, but instead did the wrong thing at each step. This was when I chose to file a formal complaint with the state licensing office and sent a detailed version of this case study to the office of their CEO. This paragraph is probably the most important one in this case study – they lack a customer service mind set and have no idea how to be a pro-active customer service minded organization. I posted a short description of what happened, with 1-star reviews on Google, Yelp and Facebook.

There is a corollary to (8). In the 1980s, business management guru Dr. Tom Peters noted that, back then, businesses only heard from about 1 in 28 dissatisfied customers. The other 27 just never returned – but told 10-12 of their friends, on average, of their experience. Today bad business interactions get shared far more widely. It’s not just a few bad reviews – its what happens when recipients of poor service tell far more friends via social media sharing.

This disaster had some personal costs, let alone the psychological self image/self esteem issues that many of us deal with. In the aftermath, I canceled out of many events, groups and activities out through the end of November as I do not want to be see at these events looking like this. ‘Bad haircuts — and I’ve had my fair share of them — can really depress you,” he says. “When you’re walking around like you’re sporting a crooked toupee, like some drunken game show host, you feel totally powerless.” ‘ I’d gone in for this haircut just before a rare all family get together – the result was bad enough that we did not do any group portraits.

I have revised my own procedure for hair cuts – who knew we need a procedures list for purchasing a hair cut? (1) Read reviews; (2) ALWAYS bring a photo of yourself with the correct haircut; (3) if they refer to prior notes, request they read out the name and the description of what they are going to do – do not permit them to touch your hair until they have clearly stated what they will be doing; (4) Don’t assume they have appropriate procedures or competent staff; (5) Take charge of the hair cut – ask them about each tool they are going to use, (6) if at any time something is not right yell (really) “STOP!” and go no further until the problem is understood by the stylists, and (7) write down the full name of the stylist or barber and their license # for future reference, if needed. RELATED: It’s noted that guys do not know much about hair cuts (true for me) and we tend to space out and not pay close attention during our hair cuts. In fact, we need to be focused on the cut as it happens and yell Stop when it goes off the rails.

The list I sent to the CEO’s office has more items but this is enough for you to get the general idea of numerous process failures and customer service mistakes made at every step. I do not expect to hear anything back from Great Clips corporate regarding my many suggestions for fixing their deficiencies. However, quietly behind the scenes they will probably adopt at least a couple of them 🙂

Obviously, I am never going back to Great Clips.

Big Update

I learned it takes up to a week for Corporate to forward customer satisfaction issues to the local franchisee. A week? That says customer satisfaction is not a high priority. They need to fix that. Amazon can ship a product in a day but Great Clips takes a week to electronically send customer feedback to their stores?

After I shared my bad experience with friends on social media, several said never go to Great Clips. As one put it, they are “the worst of the worst”. Ouch. I also found a few people saying “only White people go there” and their haircuts for guys look like “white supremacist” haircuts (true). I searched Instagram for #GreatClips tag and that’s all I found after scanning through hundreds of photos. Double ouch. I had no idea that retail chain hair cutting places had such reputational issues.

Above, I wrote about a “1.5 inch” razor. In doing some research, I learned my interpretation was completely wrong. In fact, when she said “1.5 razor” she was referring to a number that designates a specific razor head size (a number that can vary by razor manufacturer). In fact, the 1.5 razor head is a cutter that cuts the hair to just 4mm in length! When I said she did a buzz cut on me, I was not joking. My hair went from several inches long to 1/6″. The stylist used terminology that was meaningless to the customer and failed to communicate what she was about to do, after reading the wrong notes. Having learned this I feel better about having filed a complaint with the licensing office. She screwed up on multiple levels.

I did hear about a week later from their area district manager and she is apologetic, will be working with the store manager to get more training for staff there, and offered to refer me to a stylist that she regards as excellent (but I will not go again to Great Clips). There were some comments about certain people’s abilities, skill sets and training needs that I will not mention publicly. I believe she recognizes they messed up – I was pretty forceful during our phone conversation, which is the opposite of how I usually deal with things. I hope they will be making some changes but I will be going elsewhere for future haircuts. (See below – I’ve learned more about the franchise hair cutting business and I no longer plan to go to franchised outlets – see below).

Bottom line is they had a series of business process failures – starting with the “no show” problem, then no procedure to ensure they were matching the customer with the customer record, then apparently no process to handle mess ups. As I noted above, the moment they knew they messed up they needed to own it, apologize, immediately say there is no charge and offer the next hair cut on them. They need a system in place to gather metrics when staff make big mistakes and to collect customer satisfaction data. At present they have no metrics and thus, can’t identify failures, learn from them, and develop improved processes.

Great Clips knows their stylists can infuriate their customers. Why else would this be their odd policy “for safety and privacy”:

This ends up – hopefully – as a useful business case study and lesson for other businesses.

About the Hair Cutting Franchise Market

A benefit of being retired is I can choose to learn more about obscure subjects like hair cut franchise models and businesses, if I want to.

The local hair cut chain store franchise is primarily a business pursued by passive investors. That is, they put up the money to set up the business: hair cut places are very low cost – minimal furnishing, low inventory. The owner generally has zero experience in cutting hair – it’s strictly a business investment. It is also a service business that Amazon probably will not squeeze out of the market – and a decent salon will get repeat business from their customers.

From Quora in a Q&A about Great Clips franchise opportunities:

“They offer a semi-absentee business model

They are extremely picky about who they award franchises to

You can grow a multi-unit business

You don’t need to know anything about cutting hair

It’s pretty darn recession-proof”

As we will see, the owners make a very good income. The stylists, however, make crap wages, receive no benefits and must provide their own hair cutting tools. The industry is basically a scam that preys upon young women who make up 92% of the work force.

The owner hires a salon manager who hires staff, which are independent contract workers (no benefits) and not employees in the traditional sense. Stylists have to purchase and provide their own hair cutting equipment. The entire business is a scam that preys on mostly young women.

The U.S. has a surplus of licensed staff for working in hair salons so the pay is low ($9-$12/hour is typical). This came about because the government, for a long time, provided scholarship money for students to pursue training in cosmetology, in spite of the markets being saturated with workers.

“A young woman pays thousands and spends about 40 full-time weeks in school to secure the government’s permission to do quick cuts at a strip mall where she earns about $12 an hour.”

The pay is low because the labor market is saturated; some jurisdictions have noticed this. The Great Clips model is designed to largely rip off women.

“It’s a high turnover industry with a bunch of women who are used to not staying in a job very long or being treated very well. In that industry, you have to treat your employees well; I had a jump on that. I’m good with people, and figuring out what their natural skills are. “

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/business-ownership-on-the-side-franchisees-keeping-their-day-jobs/2012/06/27/gJQAiHuS7V_story.html

It is generally expected that the investor will have sufficient funds to set up multiple store fronts (say, three or more). The business produces cash flow for the investor and the growth opportunity comes in three forms: (1) initially to max out the number of customers per store, (2) to open additional stores, and (3) to sell a successful retail business after it is up and running. A typical start up cost is about $130k to $250k but may net up to half that in income per year (or more) which is a great ROI for a passive investment. Franchisees pay fees back to Great Clips.

Investors may need to open up more local stores to prevent cannibalization of sales from new Great Clips outlets in their neighborhood. If the investor does not do so, Great Clips may sell the right to another local investor whose stores may eat into sales of the existing storefronts. On the flip side, perhaps in smaller markets, Great Clips may prevent competing franchisees from opening, thereby providing a local brand monopoly.

The franchise model is designed for investors who know little about cutting hair. If you are a competent stylist with access to investment money and clients, you would be better off opening an independent salon for a fraction of the cost of opening a franchise.

The typical worker is a recent graduate of a “beauty college” trade school and is looking to build experience. Others are older workers who wish to work part time or who were not successful in or dislike the intensity of high end salons offering more services. The workers are almost entirely female (92%) – and again, low paid.

The work can be either okay or grueling – depending on the facility and the manager. And training requirements vary widely, by state, plus other factors that make life as a student and job seeker a mess. I suspect the field has a Pareto 80:20 distribution – for 20% of those in the field, this is a great career choice earning a good income at an independent salon. The other 80% struggle or work part time.

The Des Moines Register writes “Beauty schools may be the biggest scam in education“. $21,000 in tuition, you get a job at Great Clips paying $9 per hour – and this is not just in Iowa (but Iowa is a particular bad case).

Visiting “beauty college” web sites is amusing. First, all of the photos of guys show a military style razor cut with super short hair and a tuff on top. This seems to be a post 9/11 phenomena where all guys are now, apparently, expected to have a U.S. Army hair cut. Indeed, as the chain haircutting stores have proliferated this too is the male haircut image they push – because its fast, low cost and high volume. 70% of Great Clips customers are male – and the buzz cut is a fast hair cut, whether the client wants it or not.

At Great Clips, stylists are expected to do 4 hair cuts per hour. They may receive a productivity bonus if they exceed this level. The Army or white supremacist haircut takes less than 5 minutes, enabling stylists to exceed their quotas. (I saw a Great Clips discussion saying that some guys haircuts are done in as little a 2 minutes – that was my experience.)

Stylists are encouragde to “up sell” products like shampoos and conditioners, which sell in the salons for much more than equivalent products sell for at your local drug store. Making money doing men’s haircuts is difficult – that’s why it has to be a high volume business. Or, a full service salon offering hair color, perms, weaves, extension and other services. In fact, many in the field say the high end services that women purchase are what make salons successful.

The pay of a stylist in a franchise chain is near minimum wage ($9-$12/hour) plus tips. It can be hard to offer good service that encourages tips when stylists are working against the clock.

For most stylists at these places, its an opportunity to build experience, possibly build a client list, and move on to a higher paying opportunity elsewhere or to possibly become a salon manager or assistant manager. (It depends highly on the local manager as to whether it is a good place to work or not a good place to work.)

The next step for a stylist is to rent a chair at a higher end salon and offer premium high $ services (which includes hair color, perms, weaves, extensions, braiding etc). But to do this requires having a client list to start. Hence, the franchise chains are a starting point for those in the field.

In my market there are about 35 places that do hair cuts (5 barbershops and the rest as mostly independent hair salons). All of the barbershops are locally owned and have 4.7 to 5.0 star ratings on user reviews. All but one of the local hair salons have very high ratings – while the hair salons do cut guy’s hair, most of them are oriented towards female clients. And then there are the retail chains like Great Clips and Supercuts with 3.7 to 4.0 ratings. Some of the retail chains are sometimes seen as scams that prey upon investors, and as shown above, prey upon low paid female workers.

After several months of hair regrowth I will be going to one of the highly rated locally owned barbershops. No more chain outlets for me!

Heh:

At a Great Clips in Chilicothe, OH, (near Columbus), 49-year-old Jimmy Nguyen was so displeased with the haircut he received that he punched the manager in the face. Those of us who’ve suffered a Great Clips haircut have likely acted out similar fantasies in our minds, though few of us punch our stylists in the face.

….

Rough day for Nguyen, but come on. It’s Great Clips. What did he expect?

Source: Ohio Man Goes Apeshit After Great Clips Haircut | Scene and Heard: Scene’s News Blog

Keywords

GreatClips, Great Clips, haircut, hair cut, haircuts, hair cuts, worst, worst haircut, bad, terrible, horrible, lousy, case study, management, franchise, business, franchisee, franchiser, information systems, software, incompetent

[uppitybeautycompany]

Today is the last day you can get $110 in free products. Sign up between June 1-30, 2019 and you will automatically receive $110 SeneBucks ($110.00 retail value) product credit to their new Distributor account to purchase amazing SeneGence products through their Distributor account.

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It's only $55. a year. This gives you the “New Distributor Kit” which is an opportunity DVD, some order forms and a distributor handbook. AND this month only $110 in free product. Retail, up to 50% discount. Just want this discount for your personal products BECOME A WHOLESALE CUSTOMER. Consider this like a Costco card, you pay your membership fee and you are free to shop all year round at super awesome prices! There are no monthly autoships! There are no monthly minimums – order what you want when you want! You are bound to save at LEAST 20% on all of the products you buy, that’s your MINIMUM discount. That means that instead of paying $30 plus tax for a lipsense, you will be paying $24, and possibly as low as $15! You will have the OPTION to sell if you want to, this is totally up to you. We have all of the training and support tools to plug you right into our successful business model!

I10 REASONS TO JOIN SENEGENCE

. 1. STABILITY & MOMENTUM

Senegence International has been around since 1999 when it was founded by Joni Rogers-Kante. So, this company which is fast becoming a household name has been around for nearly 2 DECADES and is debt free! Crazy, right?, considering that 95% of start up companies fail in their first year.

Now, lets touch briefly on the phases of growth with any network marketing company:

formulation phase which is the first two years when start u is happening

concentration phase which is the “growing pains” stage, when the company has to adapt to rapid growth and change in order to service its swelling customer base and sales force

momentum phase which is when the company’s geometric growth kicks in. At this stage, the product becomes a household word, sales people rush to join the company and the momentum can turn distributors into millionaires overnight

stability phase which is characterized by continued growth, however, the product line is often diversified to create a new wave of momentum

Wondering where we fit in? Well, brace yourselves! We are just entering the momentum phase after what distributors call the “outofstockalypse” where we literally sold out of EVERY product that we sell! The concentration phase was a trying time with no products to purchase, lip kits and glamour demo kits being discontinued, fast start bonuses being discontinued, the website crashing when products came back in stock, and the list goes on!

We have seen many improvements in the past 6 months with more stable websites, resuming to 100% of products in stock, new corporate staff to facilitate growth, and jumpstart bonuses, lipkits, and fast start bonuses have also been re-introduced!

Right now, we are less than 1% saturated per province and state! That’s crazy! And we are right at the beginning of momentum! The best time to join!

2. WOW PRODUCT

Have you ever tried Lipsense, our premiere product? Well if you answered no, you are seriously missing out! But here, let me show you quickly what I am talking about!

LipSense is a pharmaceutical-grade cosmetic product with pure pigments and natural botanicals. It is the best blend of science and nature. LipSense is gluten-free, vegan, kosher, non-GMO, contains no lead and no animal by-products. SeneGence uses the highest quality ingredients and is made in the USA.

In saying all of that, the best part about it, is that its a WOW PRODUCT! Instant gratification baby! And we live in a world of instant gratification! No one wants to wait for results, we want it right now! And that’s what you get when you use this product! Smudge-free, budge-proof lipstick within seconds and it lasts all day!

Not every company has a Wow product. Take for instance weight loss and wellness MLM’s, you have to wait 4-8 weeks for results and pay upwards of hundreds of dollars for a system and support!

This product literally stops people in their tracks! And it also allows the distributor to introduce and upsell other products in our line that are equally as amazing as Lipsense! We have a whole cosmetic line with this staying power that is smear proof and lasts all day! But if I had to choose, I’d hands down pick the skincare!

3. COMPENSATION PLAN

Now, this is where things get a whole lot sexier! Yes, I said sexy, it’s one of my favorite adjectives!

Let me just say before we get started that not all compensation plans are built the same, this is not my first walk in the park when it comes to network marketing companies, and until Senegence, it was very clear to me that only the people at the top made the type of money distributors are making with Senegence.

up to 50% RETAIL COMMISSIONS

Unilevel Compensation Plan that pays 5 levels deep

No Breakage – this is HUGE!

Full Compression – this is HUGE too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W0O2hjdKpE&feature=youtu.be

4. PRODUCTS

Let me tell you something, when you join a company, you need to really stand behind the products, become a product of the product, and actually believe in them!

Well, one thing I can tell you about Senegence products is that they WORK! It’s the easiest thing in the world I have ever sold! Even the skincare! I literally can’t wait to apply makeup to a customer or have them try my nighttime or daytime routine! Every time I do, I end up selling nearly every product I apply to their skin! My customers are happy and satisfied with their results even after only a day or two using the skincare.

5. GROWTH/ EXPANSION

Right now, Senegence is only fully launched in 3 countries: United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia. We are barely scratching the surface in these countries, but lets talk international growth and what that is going to do to team volume and more importantly, your pay cheque!

With every new country opening, and a new sales team developing in those countries, teams are going to see even more momentum! Canada grew by 7000% in its first year, what if the next country does the same and you have a team growing there? What could this mean to you and your residual income? I think you know

6. TEAM CULTURE

First let me 100% transparent and honest with you. First when I joined, I heard all of this crazy, good stuff about the “sisterhood” with Senegence. This “sisterhood” sounded completely hokey to me. Like really?

But it didn’t take me long to see that, yea, whether you are upline, sideline, crossline, or hanging upside down from a clothes line, these girls came together like a real family. No matter who you asked for help, there was always a helping hand reaching out to guide you along the way!

Just last month in December, all of the Leaders in the company came together in a special training group and shared all of their best tips about how they built their Senegence business! Have you any idea how rare that is? If you are in a network marketing company right now you might appreciate how HUGE this is! No one ever gives access to their team to a sideline or other leaders in the same company!

7. TRAINING & SUPPORT

I have to say that we have the BEST training in the company! There is live training all the time on facebook.

As a new distributor, all you have to do is plug into this system and away you go! But only after we have launched you with your new business!

8. BE YOUR OWN BOSS!

I can’t tell you how liberating it is to set your own schedule, not have to ask permissionfor time off. I have been there, done that! I struggled trying to manage a career, a home, and the care of my special needs child! Now, I get to make the rules! I set my schedule and work when I WANT to!

There is no ceiling or cap on the amount of money I can make, that is also up to ME! But just let me tell you, the sky is literally the limit in this industry!

But what I would attribute as the biggest pay off for me since joining Senegence is the amount of FREEDOM I have to spend time with my family and friends! The financial freedom is great too, don’t get me wrong, but there’s nothing that compares to FAMILY!

And we are a FAMILY here at Senegence, we’ve got you girl!

Check out these awesome testimonial videos and hear first hand how Senegence has changed the life of women just like YOU.

https://youtu.be/KUZBFGzn7a4

In many Senestories, you will hear about the power of God! This story always gets me!

https://youtu.be/xD5yHSHDWLw

Would you believe this girl was homeless?

https://youtu.be/oL3dLrJOFTI

There are three main ways you can earn commissions with SeneGence. Retail commissions, downline commissions and group sales volume bonuses.

Retail, up to 50% discount.

Downline Commissions

Commissions are based on the PV accumulated on personal orders within your team. Depending on where they are placed in your downline. This is capped at the first 100 PV per distributor in your downline.

First level recruits (directly under you) earn you 10% commissions

Second level recruits earn you 20% commissions

Second level recruits earn you 30% commissions

SeneGence’s discount levels are based off of Point Value, or PV. An item’s point value is 1/2 of the retail price. (EX. 300 PV would be $600 retail product.

Plus you can get Group Sales Volume Bonus

This is essentially a continuation of the previous income stream, but it takes effect from 101 PV onwards.

Level 1 commissions: Purchase 100 PV in products each month to qualify to earn 10% commissions from recruits in the first level of your downline.

Level 2 commissions: Purchase 300PV in products each month to qualify. As well as five level 1 and five level 2 distributors in your downline who do the same. In doing so you can earn 6% commissions from recruits in the second level of your downline.

Level 3 commissions: Same as above, except also have five distributors in the 3rd level of your downline who purchase 300PV in products each month. In doing so you can earn 4% commissions from recruits in the third level of your downline.

Level 4 commissions: Same as above, except also have five distributors in the 4th level of your downline who purchase 300PV in products each month. In doing so you can earn 3% commissions from recruits in the fourth level of your downline.

Level 5 commissions: Same as above, except have five distributors in the 5th level of your downline who purchase 300PV in products each month. In doing so you can earn 3% commissions from recruits in the fourth level of your downline.

As you cans see, things get pretty technical when it comes to the business opportunity. The name of the game with these types of programs is recruiting. The more people you recruit, the more money you make.

[maxihealth]

Healthcare Just Got SMAC’ed – Accenture’s Post-Digital Era for Health

Social, mobile, analytics and the cloud now underpin the health care industry. We’ve been SMAC’ed, and Accenture’s Digital Health Tech Vision 2019 believes we’re in a post-digital era ripe with opportunity.

Five trends comprise the Vision:

DARQ Power, the acronym for Distributed ledger technology, Artificial intelligence (AI), extended Reality, and Quantum computing. Adopting these applications can help health care reduce costs, drive labor efficiency and support people-centered design and experience.

Get to Know Me is the use of technology to develop and deepen relationships with people. As an example of this trend, Accenture points to Mindstrong which leverages AI and machine learning to divine digital phenotypes of consumers-patients that inform mental health support. (For good background on the promise of digital phenotyping for mental health, see this article by Mindstrong’s co-founder Dr. Thomas Insel in World Psychiatry).

Human +Worker recognizes that workers in organizations are more digitally advanced than the organizations themselves, playing “catch-up” with people. In health care, two-thirds of management told Accenture that in the next three years, staff will have access to a “team of bots” to accomplish their work.

Secure US to Secure ME calls out the risk of cybersecurity across healthcare organizations’ entire ecosystem of inter-connected payers, providers, technology vendors and, to be sure, patients whose data are a personal precious asset at increasing risk of hacking.

My Markets is about “meeting consumers’ needs at the speed of now,” in Accenture’s words, because healthcare is more connected in the post-digital age. We live on-demand lives in daily life-flows and tasks, so people expect that experience and service level in health care. The AI part of “SMAQ” is one of the tools the health care industry will increasingly use to personalize, customize, and “immediate-ize” health care across the continuum, from wellness and fitness to acute care and rehabilitation. Underlying technology like the emerging 5G networks, drones, and autonomous vehicles will enable some of the My Markets’ scenario.

The report points out that the health care industry hasn’t felt the level of disruption that other sectors, shown at the bottom right corner of the company’s “Where Are You Now?” bubble chart of industry positions. The diagram illustrates Accenture’s “Disruptability Index” study published last year. Industries that have already experienced a high degree of disruptions that have been volatile (versus viable) are energy, infrastructure and transportation services, and natural resources. Industries with low current disruption levels that have been durable include consumer goods, industrial equipment, and chemicals.

Health care sits in the higher vulnerability with low current level of disruption — highly susceptible to future disruption.

Accenture believes that, “Those most vulnerable to disruption are under pressure to scale new technologies….[some] experimenting to learn how these technologies can deliver new sources of value.”

Now return to the first chart to re-visit the five trends, the first four all about the human in health care.

 Health Populi’s Hot Points:   “Me,” “US,” My,” pronouns repeat throughout the Accenture 2019 Health Tech Vision report. As I re-read the findings, I kept hearkening back to the George Harrison song, “I Me Mine,” recorded on the Let It Be album — and also the title of Harrison’s (semi-auto) biography. The first stanza of lyrics of “I Me Mine” go:

“All thru the day, I Me Mine I Me Mine I Me Mine

All thru the night, I Me Mine I Me Mine I Me Mine

Now they’re frightened of leaving it

Everyone’s weaving it

Coming on strong all the time

All through the day I Me Mine I Me Mine I Me Mine….”

George could have been writing about the vulnerability of health care organizations late to the digital health era, let alone the post–digital health era. It’s a time for the legacy healthcare system to leap-frog, to turbocharge that scaling of new technologies and experiment, as Accenture recommends at the start of the report. We see such leap-frogging in parts of the world that were indeed late to the Health Care v1.0 era, and now have the opportunity through SMAQ to scale and not be too concerned about sunk investments into slow tech.

“Now they’re frightened of leaving it,” George observed on the third line of the song. Indeed, many healthcare players have been slow to change and pilot, but Accenture’s survey research of health execs demonstrates that most of these folks believe it’s time to get off the dime and embrace that post-digital era.

I’m particularly keen on the I-Me-Mine analogy as it speaks to the central player in health care I’ve been focusing on for many years: the patient, morphing into the consumer and now, the payor. As I wax on about in my book, HealthConsuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen, the new retail health landscape, coupled with digital health platforms (baked into the SMAQ acronym), enables people to take on more self-care, and also connects providers (doctors in traditional settings and new entrants in retail clinics, telehealth channels, and grocery stores, among them) to consumers to inform and support that care.

I’m an omnivore of Accenture’s research, and this year’s Digital Health Tech Vision 2019 tells the big top-line truth that, “digital is no longer a differentiator.” There’s no more eHealth or mHealth — it’s all health, it’s all digital.

The great irony in all this — which I, not Accenture, term as ironic — is that “together, humans + machines produce better results.” This is the subtext and subtitle of Dr. Eric Topol’s latest book, Deep Medicine — that AI can and should be artfully deployed to “humanize healthcare.”

Some folks in healthcare may well need that explicit, big “smack” in the head (speaking metaphorically, not literally).

The post Healthcare Just Got SMAC’ed – Accenture’s Post-Digital Era for Health appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

Healthcare Just Got SMAC’ed – Accenture’s Post-Digital Era for Health posted first on https://carilloncitydental.blogspot.com

[365footballorg-blog]

Sweeping up glass, cooking pasta & managing the team - ex-England striker on his new challenge

Overnight there has been a break-in at Southport’s training ground, and manager Kevin Davies is literally picking up the pieces.

As his players drive into training and grab a slice of toast at Skelmersdale United where the club trains three times a week, the former Bolton Wanderers forward is around the back sweeping up broken glass from the changing room windows.

It’s tempting to wonder how many other former England internationals would be willing to pick up a broom and graft like this in the sixth tier of English football, the National League North.

Southport defender Steve Howson, recently signed from National League North rivals Salford City, has a simple answer: “None”.

The image is symptomatic of Davies, who has also been willing to cook pasta for the team on away trips and wash pots at the training ground as the club aim to become a more professional outfit and reach the English Football League in five years.

“We have a lot of volunteers at the club, some who give up 40 or 50 hours a week and don’t get paid,” Davies tells BBC Sport from his fitness trainer’s office, which is littered with Men’s Health magazines and has the players’ body fat percentages on a whiteboard.

“So you have to muck in and embrace the level we are at. Sweeping the floors is something I did when I was on a youth training scheme at Chesterfield.

“It’s all about having standards.”

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Southport’s long-due turnaround

It’s a Thursday morning at Skelmersdale United and break-ins aside, the place is buzzing.

There is a distinctly non-league feel to the place, with a clubhouse carpet straight out of a working men’s club, but players are busy receiving pre-training massages and warming up on the fitness bikes while others make teas and grab a quick game of table tennis.

“Gaffer, have you got any spanners?” asks fitness coach Neil Skidmore, who is attempting to assemble a weight-training station bought with money from player fines handed out for not washing up or arriving late.

Despite defeats on Saturday and Tuesday, Southport are on a high after winning eight of their last 12 games since the turn of the year, taking them from a relegation-threatened side to one which is challenging for the play-offs.

National League North table[1]

This is a club which has not been in the Football League since 1978 and has bounced between the fifth and sixth tiers ever since, so it took time to turn things around.

Davies failed to win any of his first 12 games and admits “there were some long drives home” after heavy home losses to Bradford Park Avenue and Blyth Spartans.

But he realised that with so much work to do, it was too early to lose hope. Asked what he needed to change at Southport when he took over in October, the 41-year-old says: “Everything.”

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‘Gaffer, I’m not playing on this pitch’

Having spent 16 years as a Premier League player with Southampton, Blackburn and Bolton, the size of Davies’ task was soon illustrated on his first away trip.

After asking what the team did for pre-match meals, he was told they amounted to ready meals in the coach microwave or toast, so he took matters into his own hands by going to a bulk retailer and cooking a batch of pasta.

“To be honest, it could have done with a bit more sauce, it was a bit dry,” he says, admitting they have since hired professional caterers.

But it proved his dedication, a level to which some of his players seemingly failed to match.

His first training sessions were eye-opening. Having first learned they were to take place on two 3G five-a-side pitches, Davies says: “One player came up to me and said ‘Gaffer, I’m not playing on this pitch’.

“I said ‘OK, well you’ve signed for this club, when are you training then?’.

“Another one said, ‘I’ll just run down the side of the pitch on the grass, I can’t train on 3G’.

Are they still at the club? “No.”

Lack of fitness was a big issue, and there has been a huge turnover of players since, including the club’s record signing of former FC United of Manchester striker Jason Gilchrist for a reported £30,000.

It has also led to a change in recruitment policy where Davies has avoided signing those working in manual jobs, such as labourers, because he wants “football to be the focus” rather than a “demanding day job”.

But he stresses that he “gave everyone an opportunity to impress me and prove they wanted to play for the club”.

“You have managers saying don’t try and bring your level of professionalism to non-league, it doesn’t work,” Davies adds. “They said that the lads who are working all day want to come in for an hour, have a bit of fun and go home.

“That didn’t sit well with me. I wanted to put my stamp on it.

“Having access to the players at this facility at Skelmersdale has been a massive turning point. They can come in and have a bit of breakfast, do a bit of pre-hab, get the medical team to assess them or get a massage. None of that existed before.”

Changing Southport’s culture

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After unveiling plans to refurbish its Haig Avenue stadium, it is revealing to listen to chief executive Natalie Atkinson, who previously worked at Curzon Ashton and describes Southport’s budget as “amazing”.

Davies, who calls the budget “competitive”, says he gets some friendly stick off former Blackburn forward Matt Jansen, now manager at Chorley, every time he signs a new player.

But the former England striker, who earned a solitary cap in 2010, is keen to stress that the money “has to be spent right” and says he’s done some good deals.

“We do due diligence on players, check on them as characters. That’s one of the things I learned from [former manager] Sam Allardyce.”

Some of the biggest changes to the club’s culture have cost very little.

In between managing Southport, which is still a part-time outfit, Davies is also studying for a master’s degree in sports directorship at Manchester Metropolitan University.

It is there he learned how Borussia Dortmund painted their players’ tunnel with landmarks from the city to inspire players, so Davies decided to do the same at Haig Avenue.

He has also led the way in trying to get a younger clientele through the door, given that Southport has traditionally attracted a more experienced supporter from the town.

“In one of my first games, the child mascot was on the pitch and I told them to come and meet the players, but they said they weren’t allowed in the changing rooms.

“I was like, ‘What? Get in there now’. The players were taken aback at first, but the mascot had a great time, got to meet the players and they might want to come back with their friends.

“As good as the fans are, we have to look to the future and engage with the community.”

How many would drop down to this level?

Davies’ willingness to drop down the leagues to earn his stripes marks him out as a rarity among former Premier League stars.

Former Arsenal and England defender Sol Campbell, who has been trying to step into management, recently said he didn’t “want to go too low that it’s a struggle”,[2] although after being turned down by League Two Grimsby, he said he was willing to “get his hands dirty”.

Campbell was told he lacked experience for the Grimsby role, something which also applied to Davies, but the Sheffield-born manager did his homework and was selected from more than 100 candidates.

He does, though, recognise that more could be done to help former players aiming to cut their managerial teeth.

“There are some players who get offered under-12 roles at Premier League or Championship clubs and they aspire to be higher than that. Others might feel the National League is too low for them.

“But when I applied for the Chesterfield job, I was told I lacked experience, so how do you get it?

“I love the intimacy of National League football and when I was working for BT Sport covering this level, I was able to go to a lot of new grounds and have a coffee with a chairman or club secretary. I got to pick the brains of managers such as [Lincoln City’s] Danny Cowley.

“Players are finding it difficult to get opportunities, and I think it’s something the Professional Footballers’ Association could help out with by giving them interview training because I think that’s where a lot of them fall down.

“Southport was my first ever interview, but I prepared for it for weeks. I made a big presentation, did my history on the club, watched them play a few times, offered ideas on how they could improve and came up with a recruitment plan which had contacts within a one-and-half-hour drive time from Southport.”

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Can Southport make the step up to league football?

Time is running out on our interview and Davies needs to get out on the training pitch where his diligent assistant Jon McCarthy will tell the players “to set the tone” as they go through their exercises and drills.

So among the pot-washing, the sweeping and compiling video analysis until 1am, is he actually enjoying his first taste of management?

“Everyone asks me that, and I say no,” Davies replies. “It’s a lot better now. After some defeats, I have questioned myself a bit but the good thing is you’re back in the next day, speaking to your staff and players, and we’re all working in the same direction.

“You don’t get time to dwell on the losses. As for the wins, I don’t enjoy them as much as I thought I would.

“It’s not really relief. Immediately, you’re just looking at other results and the table, planning for next week and doing the video analysis.”

For Davies, who is contracted in a part-time role but can do 35 hours “in a few days”, the work never stops.

“I was speaking to Blackpool boss Gary Bowyer the other day and asking him when he finds time to go on holiday. He said ‘even if you do, you’ll be asking to pop to the shops to make a quick call’. It’s full-on.

“I don’t see the family as much as I used to in retirement, but my wife and kids come to the games, and Southport is a good club and being part of it is important.

“It’ll be difficult to get out of this league and the one above, but I’m excited by what’s ahead – we haven’t achieved anything yet but we will keep pushing.”

References

^ National League North table (www.bbc.co.uk)

^ “want to go too low that it’s a struggle”, (www.independent.co.uk)

BBC Sport – Football

Sweeping up glass, cooking pasta & managing the team – ex-England striker on his new challenge was originally published on 365 Football

[uppitybeautycompany]

Sign up between June 1-30, 2019 and you will automatically receive $110 SeneBucks ($110.00 retail value) product credit to their new Distributor account to purchase amazing SeneGence products through their Distributor account.

TO SIGN UP GO TO

https://www.senegence.com/distributorsignup/sponsor?c=1&s=393785

It's only $55. a year. This gives you the “New Distributor Kit” which is an opportunity DVD, some order forms and a distributor handbook. AND this month only $110 in free product. Retail, up to 50% discount. Just want this discount for your personal products BECOME A WHOLESALE CUSTOMER. Consider this like a Costco card, you pay your membership fee and you are free to shop all year round at super awesome prices! There are no monthly autoships! There are no monthly minimums – order what you want when you want! You are bound to save at LEAST 20% on all of the products you buy, that’s your MINIMUM discount. That means that instead of paying $30 plus tax for a lipsense, you will be paying $24, and possibly as low as $15! You will have the OPTION to sell if you want to, this is totally up to you. We have all of the training and support tools to plug you right into our successful business model!

I10 REASONS TO JOIN SENEGENCE  . 1. STABILITY & MOMENTUM

Senegence International has been around since 1999 when it was founded by Joni Rogers-Kante.  So, this company which is fast becoming a household name has been around for nearly 2 DECADES and is debt free!  Crazy, right?, considering that 95% of start up companies fail in their first year.

Now, lets touch briefly on the phases of growth with any network marketing company:

formulation phase  which     is the first two years when start u is happening

concentration phase  which     is the “growing pains” stage, when the company has to adapt to rapid     growth and change in order to service its swelling customer base and sales     force

momentum phase  which     is when the company’s geometric growth kicks in.  At this stage, the     product becomes a household word, sales people rush to join the company     and the momentum can turn distributors into millionaires overnight

stability phase which     is characterized by continued growth, however, the product line is often     diversified to create a new wave of momentum

Wondering where we fit in?  Well, brace yourselves!  We are just entering the momentum phase after what distributors call the “outofstockalypse” where we literally sold out of EVERY product that we sell!  The concentration phase was a trying time with no products to purchase, lip kits and glamour demo kits being discontinued, fast start bonuses being discontinued, the website crashing when products came back in stock, and the list goes on!

We have seen many improvements in the past 6 months with more stable websites, resuming to 100% of products in stock, new corporate staff to facilitate growth, and jumpstart bonuses, lipkits, and fast start bonuses have also been re-introduced!

Right now, we are less than 1% saturated per province and state!  That’s crazy!  And we are right at the beginning of momentum!  The best time to join!

2.  WOW PRODUCT

Have you ever tried Lipsense, our premiere product?  Well if you answered no, you are seriously missing out!  But here, let me show you quickly what I am talking about!

LipSense is a pharmaceutical-grade cosmetic product with pure pigments and natural botanicals. It is the best blend of science and nature. LipSense is gluten-free, vegan, kosher, non-GMO, contains no lead and no animal by-products. SeneGence uses the highest quality ingredients and is made in the USA.

In saying all of that, the best part about it, is that its a WOW PRODUCT!  Instant gratification baby!  And we live in a world of instant gratification!  No one wants to wait for results, we want it right now!  And that’s what you get when you use this product!  Smudge-free, budge-proof lipstick within seconds and it lasts all day!

Not every company has a Wow product.  Take for instance weight loss and wellness MLM’s, you have to wait 4-8 weeks for results and pay upwards of hundreds of dollars for a system and support!

This product literally stops people in their tracks!  And it also allows the distributor to introduce and upsell other products in our line that are equally as amazing as Lipsense!  We have a whole cosmetic line with this staying power that is smear proof and lasts all day!  But if I had to choose, I’d hands down pick the skincare!

3.  COMPENSATION PLAN

Now, this is where things get a whole lot sexier!  Yes, I said sexy, it’s one of my favorite adjectives!

Let me just say before we get started that not all compensation plans are built the same, this is not my first walk in the park when it comes to network marketing companies, and until Senegence, it was very clear to me that only the people at the top made the type of money distributors are making with Senegence.

up to 50% RETAIL COMMISSIONS

Unilevel Compensation Plan that     pays 5 levels deep

No Breakage – this is HUGE!

Full Compression – this is HUGE     too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W0O2hjdKpE&feature=youtu.be

4. PRODUCTS

Let me tell you something, when you join a company, you need to really stand behind the products, become a product of the product, and actually believe in them! 

Well, one thing I can tell you about Senegence products is that they WORK!  It’s the easiest thing in the world I have ever sold!  Even the skincare!  I literally can’t wait to apply makeup to a customer or have them try my nighttime or daytime routine!  Every time I do, I end up selling nearly every product I apply to their skin!  My customers are happy and satisfied with their results even after only a day or two using the skincare.

5. GROWTH/ EXPANSION

Right now, Senegence is only fully launched in 3 countries: United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia.  We are barely scratching the surface in these countries, but lets talk international growth and what that is going to do to team volume and more importantly, your pay cheque!

With every new country opening, and a new sales team developing in those countries, teams are going to see even more momentum!  Canada grew by 7000% in its first year, what if the next country does the same and you have a team growing there?  What could this mean to you and your residual income?  I think you know 

6.   TEAM CULTURE

First let me 100% transparent and honest with you.  First when I joined, I heard all of this crazy, good stuff about the “sisterhood” with Senegence.  This “sisterhood” sounded completely hokey to me.  Like really?

But it didn’t take me long to see that, yea, whether you are upline, sideline, crossline, or hanging upside down from a clothes line, these girls came together like a real family.  No matter who you asked for help, there was always a helping hand reaching out to guide you along the way!

Just last month in December, all of the Leaders in the company came together in a special training group and shared all of their best tips about how they built their Senegence business!  Have you any idea how rare that is?  If you are in a network marketing company right now you might appreciate how HUGE this is!  No one ever gives access to their team to a sideline or other leaders in the same company!

7. TRAINING & SUPPORT

I have to say that we have the BEST training in the company! There is live training all the time on facebook.

As a new distributor, all you have to do is plug into this system and away you go!  But only after we have launched you with your new business!

8.  BE YOUR OWN BOSS!

I can’t tell you how liberating it is to set your own schedule, not have to ask permissionfor time off.  I have been there, done that!  I struggled trying to manage a career, a home, and the care of my special needs child!  Now, I get to make the rules!  I set my schedule and work when I WANT to!

There is no ceiling or cap on the amount of money I can make, that is also up to ME!  But just let me tell you, the sky is literally the limit in this industry! 

But what I would attribute as the biggest pay off for me since joining Senegence is the amount of FREEDOM I have to spend time with my family and friends!  The financial freedom is great too, don’t get me wrong, but there’s nothing that compares to FAMILY!

And we are a FAMILY here at Senegence, we’ve got you girl!

Check out these awesome testimonial videos and hear first hand how Senegence has changed the life of women just like YOU.    https://youtu.be/KUZBFGzn7a4

In many Senestories, you will hear about the power of God!  This story always gets me!             https://youtu.be/xD5yHSHDWLw

 Would you believe this girl was homeless?   https://youtu.be/oL3dLrJOFTI

There are three main ways you can earn commissions with SeneGence. Retail commissions, downline commissions and group sales volume bonuses.

Retail, up to 50% discount.

Downline Commissions Commissions are based on the PV accumulated on personal orders within your team. Depending on where they are placed in your downline. This is capped at the first 100 PV per distributor in your downline. First level recruits (directly under you) earn you 10% commissions Second level recruits earn you 20% commissions Second level recruits earn you 30% commissions

SeneGence’s discount levels are based off of Point Value, or PV. An item’s point value is 1/2 of the retail price. (EX. 300 PV would be $600 retail product.

Plus you can get Group Sales Volume Bonus This is essentially a continuation of the previous income stream, but it takes effect from 101 PV onwards.

Level 1 commissions: Purchase 100 PV in products each month to qualify to earn 10% commissions from recruits in the first level of your downline.

Level 2 commissions: Purchase 300PV in products each month to qualify. As well as five level 1 and five level 2 distributors in your downline who do the same. In doing so you can earn 6% commissions from recruits in the second level of your downline.

Level 3 commissions: Same as above, except also have five distributors in the 3rd level of your downline who purchase 300PV in products each month. In doing so you can earn 4% commissions from recruits in the third level of your downline.

Level 4 commissions: Same as above, except also have five distributors in the 4th level of your downline who purchase 300PV in products each month. In doing so you can earn 3% commissions from recruits in the fourth level of your downline.

Level 5 commissions: Same as above, except have five distributors in the 5th level of your downline who purchase 300PV in products each month. In doing so you can earn 3% commissions from recruits in the fourth level of your downline. As you cans see, things get pretty technical when it comes to the business opportunity. The name of the game with these types of programs is recruiting. The more people you recruit, the more money you make.

[uppitybeautycompany]

Are you open to an additional source of income? 💚

WE HAVE A GREAT OPPORTUNITY RIGHT NOW

Sign up between June 1-30, 2019 and you will automatically receive $110 SeneBucks ($110.00 retail value) product credit to their new Distributor account to purchase amazing SeneGence product

It's only $55. a year. This gives you the “New Distributor Kit” which is an opportunity DVD, some order forms and a distributor handbook. AND this month only $110 in free product.

Just want this discount for your personal products BECOME A WHOLESALE CUSTOMER.

Consider this like a Costco card, you pay your membership fee and you are free to shop all year round at super awesome prices!

There are no monthly autoships!

There are no monthly minimums – order what you want when you want!

You are bound to save at LEAST 20% on all of the products you buy, that’s your MINIMUM discount. That means that instead of paying $30 plus tax for a lipsense, you will be paying $24, and possibly as low as $15!

You will have the OPTION to sell if you want to, this is totally up to you. We have all of the training and support tools to plug you right into our successful business model!

TO JOIN GO TO 

https://www.senegence.com/distributorsignup/sponsor?c=1&s=393785

I10 REASONS TO JOIN SENEGENCE  . 

1. STABILITY & MOMENTUM

Senegence International has been around since 1999 when it was founded by Joni Rogers-Kante.  So, this company which is fast becoming a household name has been around for nearly 2 DECADES and is debt free!  Crazy, right?, considering that 95% of start up companies fail in their first year.

Now, lets touch briefly on the phases of growth with any network marketing company:

formulation phase  which     is the first two years when start u is happening

concentration phase  which     is the “growing pains” stage, when the company has to adapt to rapid     growth and change in order to service its swelling customer base and sales     force

momentum phase  which     is when the company’s geometric growth kicks in.  At this stage, the     product becomes a household word, sales people rush to join the company     and the momentum can turn distributors into millionaires overnight

stability phase which     is characterized by continued growth, however, the product line is often     diversified to create a new wave of momentum

Wondering where we fit in?  Well, brace yourselves!  We are just entering the momentum phase after what distributors call the “outofstockalypse” where we literally sold out of EVERY product that we sell!  The concentration phase was a trying time with no products to purchase, lip kits and glamour demo kits being discontinued, fast start bonuses being discontinued, the website crashing when products came back in stock, and the list goes on!

We have seen many improvements in the past 6 months with more stable websites, resuming to 100% of products in stock, new corporate staff to facilitate growth, and jumpstart bonuses, lipkits, and fast start bonuses have also been re-introduced!

Right now, we are less than 1% saturated per province and state!  That’s crazy!  And we are right at the beginning of momentum!  The best time to join!

2.  WOW PRODUCT

Have you ever tried Lipsense, our premiere product?  Well if you answered no, you are seriously missing out!  But here, let me show you quickly what I am talking about!

LipSense is a pharmaceutical-grade cosmetic product with pure pigments and natural botanicals. It is the best blend of science and nature. LipSense is gluten-free, vegan, kosher, non-GMO, contains no lead and no animal by-products. SeneGence uses the highest quality ingredients and is made in the USA.

In saying all of that, the best part about it, is that its a WOW PRODUCT!  Instant gratification baby!  And we live in a world of instant gratification!  No one wants to wait for results, we want it right now!  And that’s what you get when you use this product!  Smudge-free, budge-proof lipstick within seconds and it lasts all day!

Not every company has a Wow product.  Take for instance weight loss and wellness MLM’s, you have to wait 4-8 weeks for results and pay upwards of hundreds of dollars for a system and support!

This product literally stops people in their tracks!  And it also allows the distributor to introduce and upsell other products in our line that are equally as amazing as Lipsense!  We have a whole cosmetic line with this staying power that is smear proof and lasts all day!  But if I had to choose, I’d hands down pick the skincare!

3.  COMPENSATION PLAN

Now, this is where things get a whole lot sexier!  Yes, I said sexy, it’s one of my favorite adjectives!

Let me just say before we get started that not all compensation plans are built the same, this is not my first walk in the park when it comes to network marketing companies, and until Senegence, it was very clear to me that only the people at the top made the type of money distributors are making with Senegence.

up to 50% RETAIL COMMISSIONS

Unilevel Compensation Plan that     pays 5 levels deep

No Breakage – this is HUGE!

Full Compression – this is HUGE     too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W0O2hjdKpE&feature=youtu.be

4. PRODUCTS

Let me tell you something, when you join a company, you need to really stand behind the products, become a product of the product, and actually believe in them! 

Well, one thing I can tell you about Senegence products is that they WORK!  It’s the easiest thing in the world I have ever sold!  Even the skincare!  I literally can’t wait to apply makeup to a customer or have them try my nighttime or daytime routine!  Every time I do, I end up selling nearly every product I apply to their skin!  My customers are happy and satisfied with their results even after only a day or two using the skincare.

  5. GROWTH/ EXPANSION

Right now, Senegence is only fully launched in 3 countries: United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia.  We are barely scratching the surface in these countries, but lets talk international growth and what that is going to do to team volume and more importantly, your pay cheque!

With every new country opening, and a new sales team developing in those countries, teams are going to see even more momentum!  Canada grew by 7000% in its first year, what if the next country does the same and you have a team growing there?  What could this mean to you and your residual income?  I think you know 

6.   TEAM CULTURE

First let me 100% transparent and honest with you.  First when I joined, I heard all of this crazy, good stuff about the “sisterhood” with Senegence.  This “sisterhood” sounded completely hokey to me.  Like really?

But it didn’t take me long to see that, yea, whether you are upline, sideline, crossline, or hanging upside down from a clothes line, these girls came together like a real family.  No matter who you asked for help, there was always a helping hand reaching out to guide you along the way!

Just last month in December, all of the Leaders in the company came together in a special training group and shared all of their best tips about how they built their Senegence business!  Have you any idea how rare that is?  If you are in a network marketing company right now you might appreciate how HUGE this is!  No one ever gives access to their team to a sideline or other leaders in the same company!

7. TRAINING & SUPPORT

I have to say that we have the BEST training in the company! There is live training all the time on facebook.

As a new distributor, all you have to do is plug into this system and away you go!  But only after we have launched you with your new business!

  8.  BE YOUR OWN BOSS!

I can’t tell you how liberating it is to set your own schedule, not have to ask permissionfor time off.  I have been there, done that!  I struggled trying to manage a career, a home, and the care of my special needs child!  Now, I get to make the rules!  I set my schedule and work when I WANT to!

There is no ceiling or cap on the amount of money I can make, that is also up to ME!  But just let me tell you, the sky is literally the limit in this industry! 

But what I would attribute as the biggest pay off for me since joining Senegence is the amount of FREEDOM I have to spend time with my family and friends!  The financial freedom is great too, don’t get me wrong, but there’s nothing that compares to FAMILY!

And we are a FAMILY here at Senegence, we’ve got you girl!

Check out these awesome testimonial videos and hear first hand how Senegence has changed the life of women just like YOU.

https://youtu.be/KUZBFGzn7a4

In many Senestories, you will hear about the power of God!  This story always gets me! 

https:/youtu.be/xD5yHSHDWLw

Would you believe this girl was homeless?

https://youtu.be/oL3dLrJOFTI

There are three main ways you can earn commissions with SeneGence. Retail commissions, downline commissions and group sales volume bonuses.

Retail, up to 50% discount.

Downline Commissions Commissions are based on the PV accumulated on personal orders within your team. Depending on where they are placed in your downline. This is capped at the first 100 PV per distributor in your downline. First level recruits (directly under you) earn you 10% commissions Second level recruits earn you 20% commissions Second level recruits earn you 30% commissions

 SeneGence’s discount levels are based off of Point Value, or PV. An item’s point value is 1/2 of the retail price. (EX. 300 PV would be $600 retail product.

Plus you can get Group Sales Volume Bonus This is essentially a continuation of the previous income stream, but it takes effect from 101 PV onwards.

Level 1 commissions: Purchase 100 PV in products each month to qualify to earn 10% commissions from recruits in the first level of your downline.

Level 2 commissions: Purchase 300PV in products each month to qualify. As well as five level 1 and five level 2 distributors in your downline who do the same. In doing so you can earn 6% commissions from recruits in the second level of your downline.

Level 3 commissions: Same as above, except also have five distributors in the 3rd level of your downline who purchase 300PV in products each month. In doing so you can earn 4% commissions from recruits in the third level of your downline.

Level 4 commissions: Same as above, except also have five distributors in the 4th level of your downline who purchase 300PV in products each month. In doing so you can earn 3% commissions from recruits in the fourth level of your downline.

Level 5 commissions: Same as above, except have five distributors in the 5th level of your downline who purchase 300PV in products each month. In doing so you can earn 3% commissions from recruits in the fourth level of your downline. As you cans see, things get pretty technical when it comes to the business opportunity. The name of the game with these types of programs is recruiting. The more people you recruit, the more money you make.