Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson

Are you ready to build a brilliant, profitable salon business without burning out? I’m Phil Jackson, your go-to salon friend, coach and Queen of Salons. Each week I dish out real-world strategies for hair, beauty, and aesthetics pros who want bigger profits, a stronger team, and a life with more freedom. No fluff, just clear advice (and a sprinkle of sass). Step up, get inspired, and Build Your Salon!

Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson is a business podcast hosted by Phil Jackson, with 261 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Phil Jackson hosts Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson, a business show with 261 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson

  How to Make Friends With Your Salon Numbers (A Beginner's Guide)

  Aug 20, 202611 min

  Do you avoid looking at your salon's financial numbers? Many salon owners do, feeling that knot of dread whenever money is mentioned. You might be brilliant at your work and fully booked, yet never truly understand your business's financial health. It's time to change that.This episode offers a gentle, jargon-free path to making friends with your numbers, turning fear into clarity and control.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHY WE AVOID OUR NUMBERS (AND WHY YOU SHOULDN'T)* It's not about being bad with numbers; it's the fear of what you'll see.* Phil, despite a finance degree, avoided his own numbers, thinking "if I don't look, it's not real."* Not knowing is much heavier than knowing. Numbers are a map, not a judge. They show your starting point for planning your journey. THE THREE NUMBERS THAT ACTUALLY MATTER* **1. TAKINGS (MONEY IN):** The total money from services and retail. This is the 'top of the picture' most owners are okay with.* **2. MONEY OUT (EXPENSES):** Everything spent to keep doors open. Think big buckets: stock (colour, skincare), wages, premises (rent/mortgage, bills), insurance, software, marketing.* **3. PROFIT (WHAT'S LEFT):** Takings minus expenses. This is your reward, to reinvest or take home. A busy salon can be unprofitable if money leaks out here. YOUR PROFIT AND LOSS EXPLAINED* Your accountant's P&L statement is simply these three numbers written in order: Money In, Money Out, What's Left.* Don't rely on annual P&Ls; you need more frequent 'pins on the map' to guide your journey.* Solo owners: your numbers and your wage are the same conversation. Every leak affects your take-home pay. HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR NUMBERS* Don't make it a dreaded annual event.* Commit 10 minutes a month with a cup of tea to just look at those three numbers.* Don't judge them, just notice how you feel. Knowing, good or bad, provides solid ground.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RESOURCES:Get Paid Properly: getpaidproperly.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Making Friends with Your Salon's Numbers0:57 - Why We Avoid Looking at Our Money2:44 - How Numbers Are Like a Map, Not a Judge4:06 - The Three Key Financial Numbers for Your Salon5:53 - Understanding Money In, Money Out, and Profit7:18 - What is a Profit and Loss Statement?8:05 - Why Solo Owners Need to See Their Numbers Clearly8:58 - Make Financial Review a Regular, Gentle Habit10:04 - Your Simple First Step to Facing Your Numbers#salonnumbes #salonfinance #salonprofit #salontips #philhacks━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson

  Should You Keep a Toxic Salon Employee Who's Great With Clients?

  Aug 13, 202610 min

  Is there a team member in your salon who’s a genius with clients but a complete nightmare in the staff room? You know they're bringing in money, but their bad attitude is poisoning the atmosphere for everyone else. This dilemma keeps countless salon owners awake at night.In this episode, Phil Jackson gives you a direct, honest answer on how to handle toxic, high-performing staff without destroying your salon's culture.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━THE DANGER OF 'INVISIBLE DAMAGE'* Talent acts like a blindfold: high takings make you overlook bad behaviour.* The "convenient sum" (good service cancels bad behaviour) is wrong, as it only measures easy numbers (money).* Phil made this mistake himself, keeping genuinely gifted but difficult staff, leading to the loss of good people instead.THE REAL COST OF A TOXIC TEAM MEMBER* They set the tone for the entire organisation, giving permission for negativity, clock-watching, whinging, and lateness.* They cost you your best people who have options and will work somewhere else.* They drain your energy and cost you sleep, as you constantly manage the atmosphere and brace for the next round of negativity.* Ultimately, they cost you clients because a "sour team is something people can feel" the moment they walk in.SKILLS PROBLEM OR CHARACTER PROBLEM?* A skills problem (someone keen and decent but not yet good enough at the work) can be coached, trained, and supported.* A character problem (whinging, not caring, steady drip of negativity) is an attitude that is "really hard to shift."* You "can't train someone into wanting to be there" or "teach someone not to be an arsehole."YOUR CRITICAL NEXT STEPS* You owe them one proper, direct "grown-up conversation" – no hints, no passive aggression.* Tell them plainly what you are seeing, how it's affecting the team, and what *has to change today*.* If nothing changes or it's short-lived, you have your answer and can stop telling yourself things might get better.* *Always* take proper HR or employment advice before letting someone go; Phil gives you the business judgment, not legal counsel.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RESOURCES:Salon Spark: https://salon-spark.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - The Problem With Your Toxic Salon Staff1:00 - Why Talent Can Blind You to Damage2:00 - The Hidden Costs of Bad Behaviour2:40 - Phil's Personal Lessons on Toxic Staff3:40 - The True Price of a Negative Team Member5:10 - Character vs. Skills: The Key Distinction6:00 - How to Have The Direct Conversation7:10 - When to Get Proper HR Advice7:30 - Trust Your Gut on Team Decisions8:20 - Choose Your Salon's Culture8:50 - Build Your Strategic Future━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#SalonTeam #TeamManagement #SalonBusiness #ToxicStaff #SalonCulture━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson

  When to Discount in Your Salon: 5 Times It's Fine, 5 Times It's a Mistake

  Aug 6, 202611 min

  Are you constantly battling the urge to drop your salon prices just to fill a quiet column or please a demanding client? Many salon owners fall into the trap of panic discounting, unknowingly devaluing their services and attracting the wrong type of client.In this episode, Phil Jackson cuts through the noise to reveal when discounting is a smart business move and when it's a detrimental mistake.THE PROBLEM WITH RANDOM DISCOUNTS:* Random discounts teach clients your prices are negotiable – they'll always expect a deal.* Inconsistent pricing leads to embarrassment and damages your salon's reputation.* Every discount "anchors" your prices lower, making it harder to charge full price later.FIVE SMART REASONS TO USE SALON DISCOUNTS:* **Fill Dead Time:** Strategically use off-peak rates for consistently quiet slots (e.g., Tuesday mornings), turning zero revenue into income.* **Launch New Offerings:** Introductory offers for new treatments, products, or a junior stylist's column are investments, not giveaways. Ensure they are time-limited.* **Trade for Commitment:** Offer a discount in exchange for guaranteed future business, like monthly memberships, upfront course payments, or multi-appointment packages.* **Clear Stock:** Discount old, expiring, or discontinued retail products to free up cash and shelf space (e.g., selling Christmas packs post-Boxing Day).* **Reward Loyal Clients:** A genuinely rare "thank you" for your very best, long-term clients can build relationships, but never let it become a habit.FIVE BAD REASONS TO USE SALON DISCOUNTS:* **Client Haggling:** Dropping prices at the desk teaches clients to push for a deal. Instead, politely state "My prices are fair and the same for everyone."* **Discounting Signature Services:** Never put your best, most popular services on sale; it devalues your hero treatment and attracts bargain hunters.* **Flat Discounts to Everyone:** A blanket percentage off tells existing full-price clients they overpaid and attracts clients only interested in deals.* **Lack of Confidence:** Discounting because you don't believe you're worth the full price is a confidence issue, not a pricing strategy. The answer isn't a lower price, it's getting honest about your value.* **Fixing Complaints:** Don't use discounts to resolve client complaints. Instead, listen, fix the issue, and ensure it won't happen again. A discount implies complaining gets a cheaper price.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RESOURCES:Get Paid Properly: getpaidproperly.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - The Truth About Salon Discounting0:40 - Why Random Discounts Hurt Your Salon2:25 - Five Smart Reasons to Discount2:35 - Smart Discount #1: Fill Dead Time3:25 - Smart Discount #2: Launch New Offerings4:45 - Smart Discount #3: Trade for Commitment5:35 - Smart Discount #4: Clear Old Stock6:00 - Smart Discount #5: Reward Best Clients6:35 - Five Bad Reasons to Discount6:45 - Bad Discount #1: Haggling at the Desk7:40 - Bad Discount #2: Discounting Your Signature Service8:10 - Bad Discount #3: Offering Flat Discounts to All8:55 - Bad Discount #4: Lacking Confidence in Your Prices9:55 - Bad Discount #5: Using Discounts to Fix Complaints10:35 - Stop Panic Discounting, Start Earning━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#SalonPricing #SalonProfitability #SalonDiscounting #SalonBusiness #PhilJackson━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson

  How to Get Systems in Place in Your Salon

  Jul 30, 202613 min

  Does your salon grind to a halt the moment you step away? Are you constantly interrupted on your days off with questions that only you can answer?Phil Jackson reveals a practical, no-nonsense approach to building salon systems that free you from being the bottleneck and allow your business to truly thrive without you.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━THE PROBLEM: YOU ARE THE SYSTEM* Many salon owners are the central "system" — all knowledge is in their head.* Phil shares his own experience: his salon struggled when he was forced to step away, not because the team was bad, but because systems weren't documented (e.g., handling wedding deposits, client discounts, supplier issues).FIND YOUR MISSING SYSTEMS: USE INTERRUPTIONS AS RESEARCH* Every call or text you receive on your day off is a free research opportunity.* These interruptions highlight exactly where your documented systems are missing (e.g., "where's the till roll?", "client wants a refund", "who do we order tint from?").* Even solo operators need systems for "future you" — for illness, holidays, or selling the business.WHAT A SYSTEM IS (AND ISN'T)* A system is *not* a glossy, thousand-page manual. It's simply the recorded way your salon does something – the answer to a common question.* Examples: How to take a deposit, what to say for a discount, how to run a skin test, aftercare advice.* Format doesn't matter: a few lines of text, photos with arrows, a voice note, a screen recording. It just needs to exist outside your memory.CAPTURE SYSTEMS *DURING* WORK, NOT AS A SEPARATE PROJECT* Don't treat system documentation as extra admin. Capture it as you go.* Spend an extra 10 minutes: screen record cashing up, write down complaint handling steps when showing a new team member, screenshot steps for setting up a new client.* Prioritise systems that touch money or clients first: bookings, deposits, cancellations, complaints, new client consultations.* Your first goal: list three things that interrupt you most often or would stop operations without you. Then, document the highest priority one.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RESOURCES:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Stop Your Salon Relying on You1:00 - Why Most Salon Owners Avoid Systems2:40 - My Lesson: A Salon That Only Ran in My Head4:10 - Use Interruptions to Find Missing Systems5:30 - Why Solo Salon Owners Need Systems6:40 - What a System Truly Is (and Isn't)8:20 - Capture Systems While You're Working10:00 - Prioritise Money & Client-Facing Systems11:10 - Your One Simple Task to Start Documenting12:20 - Build Your Salon with 1:1 Coaching#salonsystems #salonoperations #salontips #salonsuccess #philhacks━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson

  Your Salon Q3 Plan: 3 Things to Do Before September

  Jul 26, 202610 min

  Is your salon's third quarter (Q3) slipping away? Many salon owners mentally check out during summer, but you still have two crucial months to turn things around. Don't let Q3 fizzle out and leave you scrambling. In this episode, Phil Jackson, your Queen of Salons, reveals three essential moves to rescue your Q3 and ensure a strong, planned entrance into autumn. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: **KNOW YOUR NUMBERS & NAME THE GAP** * Don't avoid your salon figures. Take an honest look at your Q3 performance so far. * Analyse what's come in and gone out, and the service vs. retail split. * Identify truly profitable services by accounting for product cost and time. * Calculate the exact financial "gap" between your current position and your Q3 target. Write this number down to create a clear destination. **GET AHEAD ON THE AUTUMN RUSH** * Use any quiet summer headspace for planning, not panic. * Map out key autumn dates and campaigns now. * Develop "end of summer recovery" offers (e.g., for sun-damaged hair/skin, nail rescues). * Prepare, don't just plan: Write emails, create social posts, and schedule them so you're executing when September arrives, not creating from scratch. **INTRODUCE RECURRING INCOME** * Stop relying entirely on "bums on seats" for income. * Start one stream of recurring income this quarter. * Phil's top recommendation: a salon membership, especially for solo salons. * Build it around existing regular maintenance appointments or monthly treatments. * Get clients to pay monthly so income arrives whether the diary is full or not, providing stability. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RESOURCES: 1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORK WITH ME: 1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LISTEN: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalon Spotify: https://go.philjackson.me/Spotify Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS: 0:00 - Introduction & The Q3 Problem 0:50 - Why Q3 Isn't a Write-Off 1:30 - Step 1: Know Your Salon Numbers 2:20 - How to Name Your Financial Gap 3:00 - Step 2: Plan Your Autumn Campaigns 3:50 - Prepare Your Autumn Offers Now 4:30 - Step 3: Get Recurring Salon Income 5:20 - Salon Memberships for Steady Income 6:00 - Memberships for Solo Salons 6:40 - Recap Your Q3 Action Plan 7:00 - How 1:1 Coaching Can Help You #salonstrategy #salonprofitability #salonbusiness #salonowner #salongrowth

  ListenShow Notes

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.