December 3, 2024 • 28 mins
In this episode, we sit down with Tim Howard from Vish to uncover how salons can dramatically cut color waste, improve profitability, and create a more sustainable business. Learn how Vish’s groundbreaking technology reduces waste from 40% to just 5%, while making every service on your menu equally profitable.
Tim shares insights into the latest trends in salon data and practical tips on how to maximize your color bar's efficiency. Discover how smarter pricing strategies and streamlined systems can empower you to take control of your salon's finances and create a better client experience.
Watch the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/KN5x-nGlEQU
Connect with Vish: https://hubs.ly/Q02-1K3T0
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, well, welcome everyone to the Beauty
Business Strategies Podcast.
Again, happy to be with you.
My name is Michael Yost andtoday we are joined by Tim
Howard.
Tim, how are you?
I'm doing really well, thanks.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Awesome, really well so just before.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
if you're not familiar with Tim, he's with a
spectacular company called Vish,and if you're not familiar with
Vish, you know what.
I think the best thing to startout with Tim is give us a
little bit about Vish for thosenot familiar about what Vish is,
what it does, and maybe it'd begreat just to give like a
little bit of just backstoryabout where did Vish begin and
(00:41):
its beginnings, so why?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
don't you take us on?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
that quick journey.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, I'll start there and I'll apologize in
advance because I'm on thistopic in particular.
I'm a bit long winded.
So, michael, you can give methe all right, we've heard
enough at any time.
So my background has been inthe hair business since I was 19
.
I've wore many hats as a salonowner.
I worked for a product company,aveda for many years as a guest
artist and educator for them,and then, during the time owning
(01:10):
the two salons that I had, alot of problems just existed
around our salon and I've alwaysbeen really curious and
interested in technology.
So, looking at the front deskand looking at our booking
system and our POS so looking atthe front desk and looking at
our booking system and our POS,I'm thinking, why is it not
communicating with our color bar?
And I know there's a lot ofproblems on the color bar that
(01:32):
aren't being solved and I knowtechnologies can solve them.
How I knew they existed andtechnology could solve them is
because I was writing everythingdown.
I was going to the color bar, Iwas making my formulas as a
hairdresser and, being honest,recording about 20% of the
things that I did, and then attimes we then go back into the
POS and type everything in.
(01:53):
When it comes time to do a haircolor order, I would have to do
a color count.
I would have to go into the POSand then manually update my
stock take so that I cangenerate an order and then
manually update my stock take sothat I could generate an order.
So, just knowing that that wasa manual process that could be
replaced by technology, startedlooking into how we could solve
(02:15):
the issue and at the time scaleswere not at the technology that
they are now meaning weighscales.
They weren't Bluetooth, theywere not wireless, they were lab
(02:39):
scales that required themhooked up to a computer and
color bars or something.
I knew it wasn't time, so I justsort of went into the industry
with all my cohorts and juststarted talking about it and
getting validation if this was agood idea or not.
I finally sat down and I waslooking for an engineer at that
point to help build the code,because I am far from an
engineer and met with somebody.
We started working on theproject and then Bluetooth
technology came out in colorscales.
So we knew that we could startthe project and initially the
project was about reallyeliminating the waste and just
(03:01):
having more visibility of what'sgoing on at the color bar.
But of course, as you createsomething, the customer is what
really drives the evolution ofthe product.
So we started to look at, youknow, as we're pulling in this
data and we're mixing formulasand we're getting rid of waste,
well then we start to see allthese other things unfold, which
is where all the cost and themoney is going.
(03:23):
So we then set out to kind ofchange how Vish operated so that
it wasn't just focused on thecolor waste, because we knew we
could do so much more.
Um and then and that was theearly days so, as we started to
get our feet uh, our feet wetand started to build this
(03:43):
software, what I've learned isreally important to this day is,
you know, make sure that theengineers are building what you
need.
So what it turned out was mypartner at the time was an
engineer who built code that waswhat they call spaghetti.
It was not healthy code, so itkept having rife with problems.
(04:09):
So we ended up parting ways andwe formed the second version of
Vish and we went back and builtand it was a really valuable
lesson.
You know, our first foray intobuilding technology for the
salon industry, which technologyhas to be so secure and stable.
There can be no interruptionsto what that person's doing
(04:31):
every day.
You know, early days I likenedit to Uber.
When the Uber app goes down,you can't do your job, which
means you can't make money.
We've always treated Bish thesame way.
It's to create a tool andtechnology that people can use
every day.
It's stable, it's secure, it'sfast, and we continue to evolve
that to make it better, not onlyfor the salon owner, but really
(04:54):
focused on the hairdresser.
And earlier this year wereleased Vish 2.0, which was
let's take all the informationwe learned over the previous
five or six years and let'sstart from scratch again and
build the new version of Vish,which is what we did.
And again, that was releasedearlier this year and it has
been a game changer foreverybody.
(05:15):
We're very proud of thatproduct.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Awesome, awesome stuff.
So I love the fact that, likeyou shared, I love the fact that
started with, like you know,there's a need out there.
How do we meet a need?
And what's interesting and wecan kind of get into this, I'm
sure what's so fascinating isand you kind of hinted at it a
little bit is, I'm sure, likemost things, you start to try
and solve one problem and youdiscover all the other things
(05:41):
that you probably start findingall these other data points and
pieces of information that itjust kind of starts expanding,
even you know, beyond maybe whatyou initially thought this
would be.
And you know, I think we cankind of get into a little bit of
that.
But let's kind of start withthe core, which is so at the
core of this.
This really, you know, this isreally about this idea of how
(06:04):
can we be more efficient withour costs and the idea of where
waste is in a big key area inbusinesses, especially around
color waste.
Again, it's something that ispredominant out there.
So give us a little bit aboutwhat you're seeing.
So, again, where waste fits into us and I know, with you and
(06:26):
as we've talked over the courseof our times together is this
all comes down to pricing andbeing able to price properly and
saving cost and various things.
Where do you really see in thatarea?
Where do you really see thegreatest?
What are you noticing as far asgreatest gains and
opportunities in that area ofpricing and waste and expenses?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, okay.
So if we think about waste andyou know, in order for you to be
environmentally sustainable ina business, you need to be
financially stable first, orsustainable, so you need to be
profitable.
It's great to say that we'regoing to do all these
environmental measures, but it'simportant to be environmentally
(07:11):
focused and they go hand inhand with each other.
So by eliminating the extracolor that you're using that has
such an impact on the business,of course you don't have to
raise your prices as frequentlyand you don't have to order as
much color, which means, from anenvironmental standpoint, the
(07:33):
manufacturer of that hair coloris producing less, shipping less
, and then we're throwing awayless packaging and we're
throwing away less waste that'sgoing into our waterways.
So there's the environmentalside of that, and we resolved
that really quickly.
Most salons start at a ratio of40% waste, which is two out of
(07:53):
five color tubes get thrown away, so a massive problem.
And then, in order to combatthat, what we end up doing is
raising our prices.
And what does that do?
Our most loyal, frequentcustomers, who come every six or
eight weeks?
It's impacting them the mostand they're the ones who aren't
using a ton of color, so it'soff-putting.
(08:14):
And then and then we try tocombat these increased prices
again by raising prices.
And then the lion's share ofthat is going to the hairdresser
where, when we looked at theservices that are happening
across the board, yourhighlighting services have been
the most profitable historically, and that's because you could
(08:35):
charge a higher price for thatservice and the cost of goods is
much lower.
The average cost of a lightenerper gram is about five cents.
Where you look at what colorcosts, it ranges between 15 and
25 cents a gram.
So we have these services liketoners and new growth
applications which, yes, they'reless booking time, but the cost
(08:56):
of goods are four or five timesthe amount of a lightning
service.
So what Vish sets out to do ismake every service on your menu
equally profitable, and how wedo that is we price adjust.
So your menu is set up and yourprices are set up based on the
area that you're in, theexperience, level of hairdresser
(09:17):
, cost of goods, the time tobook that appointment or time to
apply that color All thosethings factor in.
But if what we're looking atand we're fortunate at Vish that
we pull data from a lot ofsalons and we take that data and
dissect it so that we canre-strategize and really see
what's going on in great detailin the salon.
(09:39):
One of the things that we foundrecently is, if you look back to
2023 and compare to 2024,customers are stretching their
appointments out by anadditional eight days.
So think about that.
And in that time, we knowinflation has caused a lot of
other costs to go up as well.
Maybe your hair color hasincreased by 5% or 7% the cost
(10:01):
of goods from the manufacturer.
You're absorbing all of theseextras, which means you're
eroding your profit.
So what we aim to fix is well,let's adjust that price so that
not necessarily.
Look, everybody should do aprice increase annually.
We get that, but that doesn'tresolve the problem.
And if we go back to that clientwho's now coming in eight days
(10:23):
later, how are you making up thedifference for that?
That extra color is being used?
Or you have a subset of yourclients who are coming in every
six or eight weeks for, say, aroot touch-up, and then you have
another subset that typicallycome in every 10 or 12 weeks.
Your booking time is the same,your commission rate is the same
, but yet your cost is up to 30%more.
(10:45):
So what Vish does is we putthat threshold on every service.
This is the standard amount ofcolor that should be used in
this service and that is basedon.
You know, if it's permanentcolor, what is your most
frequently used permanent colorline?
Here's how much color youshould use.
Let's say 40 grams at aneight-week service.
(11:05):
Anything over and above thatuse a more expensive product.
You use more color.
We'll price adjust that at thefront desk.
If the guest, if no extra timewas taken, let's only charge for
the color used with a markup.
That revenue goes back to thesalon and what we're able to do
(11:28):
there is do that consistentlyand keep the cost down to the
customer so they don't get sickor shocked.
And then the most frequentloyal customers who don't use
extra color are not beingcharged more.
It's the people who are comingin a little bit later who are
having a little bit of extrawork done, because what we see
(11:49):
consistently across the board isthat we're really good at
hairdressers being creative anddelivering great service, but
we're not always good atcharging those extras when we
need to.
It's inconsistent.
We're not always good atcharging those extras when we
need to.
It's inconsistent.
So if I've mixed extra colorand maybe it's only 15 grams.
My salon says that I'm to addan extra bowl fee.
(12:10):
By doing that, I'm charging theguest $25 for a little bit of
color.
I don't feel justified.
I don't always charge it andthen the salon is losing money
and the guest experience is.
Sometimes I pay more, sometimesI pay less.
It's inconsistent.
So we simply just make it easyto understand.
Push that information to thefront desk, it gets collected
(12:31):
and now we can aim to get your.
All right, well, welcome everyone to the Beauty
Business Strategies Podcast.
Again, happy to be with you.
My name is Michael Yost andtoday we are joined by Tim
Howard.
Tim, how are you?
I'm doing really well, thanks.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Awesome, really well so just before.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
if you're not familiar with Tim, he's with a
spectacular company called Vish,and if you're not familiar with
Vish, you know what.
I think the best thing to startout with Tim is give us a
little bit about Vish for thosenot familiar about what Vish is,
what it does, and maybe it'd begreat just to give like a
little bit of just backstoryabout where did Vish begin and
(00:41):
its beginnings, so why?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
don't you take us on?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
that quick journey.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, I'll start there and I'll apologize in
advance because I'm on thistopic in particular.
I'm a bit long winded.
So, michael, you can give methe all right, we've heard
enough at any time.
So my background has been inthe hair business since I was 19
.
I've wore many hats as a salonowner.
I worked for a product company,aveda for many years as a guest
artist and educator for them,and then, during the time owning
(01:10):
the two salons that I had, alot of problems just existed
around our salon and I've alwaysbeen really curious and
interested in technology.
So, looking at the front deskand looking at our booking
system and our POS so looking atthe front desk and looking at
our booking system and our POS,I'm thinking, why is it not
communicating with our color bar?
And I know there's a lot ofproblems on the color bar that
(01:32):
aren't being solved and I knowtechnologies can solve them.
How I knew they existed andtechnology could solve them is
because I was writing everythingdown.
I was going to the color bar, Iwas making my formulas as a
hairdresser and, being honest,recording about 20% of the
things that I did, and then attimes we then go back into the
POS and type everything in.
(01:53):
When it comes time to do a haircolor order, I would have to do
a color count.
I would have to go into the POSand then manually update my
stock take so that I cangenerate an order and then
manually update my stock take sothat I could generate an order.
So, just knowing that that wasa manual process that could be
replaced by technology, startedlooking into how we could solve
(02:15):
the issue and at the time scaleswere not at the technology that
they are now meaning weighscales.
They weren't Bluetooth, theywere not wireless, they were lab
(02:39):
scales that required themhooked up to a computer and
color bars or something.
I knew it wasn't time, so I justsort of went into the industry
with all my cohorts and juststarted talking about it and
getting validation if this was agood idea or not.
I finally sat down and I waslooking for an engineer at that
point to help build the code,because I am far from an
engineer and met with somebody.
We started working on theproject and then Bluetooth
technology came out in colorscales.
So we knew that we could startthe project and initially the
project was about reallyeliminating the waste and just
(03:01):
having more visibility of what'sgoing on at the color bar.
But of course, as you createsomething, the customer is what
really drives the evolution ofthe product.
So we started to look at, youknow, as we're pulling in this
data and we're mixing formulasand we're getting rid of waste,
well then we start to see allthese other things unfold, which
is where all the cost and themoney is going.
(03:23):
So we then set out to kind ofchange how Vish operated so that
it wasn't just focused on thecolor waste, because we knew we
could do so much more.
Um and then and that was theearly days so, as we started to
get our feet uh, our feet wetand started to build this
(03:43):
software, what I've learned isreally important to this day is,
you know, make sure that theengineers are building what you
need.
So what it turned out was mypartner at the time was an
engineer who built code that waswhat they call spaghetti.
It was not healthy code, so itkept having rife with problems.
(04:09):
So we ended up parting ways andwe formed the second version of
Vish and we went back and builtand it was a really valuable
lesson.
You know, our first foray intobuilding technology for the
salon industry, which technologyhas to be so secure and stable.
There can be no interruptionsto what that person's doing
(04:31):
every day.
You know, early days I likenedit to Uber.
When the Uber app goes down,you can't do your job, which
means you can't make money.
We've always treated Bish thesame way.
It's to create a tool andtechnology that people can use
every day.
It's stable, it's secure, it'sfast, and we continue to evolve
that to make it better, not onlyfor the salon owner, but really
(04:54):
focused on the hairdresser.
And earlier this year wereleased Vish 2.0, which was
let's take all the informationwe learned over the previous
five or six years and let'sstart from scratch again and
build the new version of Vish,which is what we did.
And again, that was releasedearlier this year and it has
been a game changer foreverybody.
(05:15):
We're very proud of thatproduct.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Awesome, awesome stuff.
So I love the fact that, likeyou shared, I love the fact that
started with, like you know,there's a need out there.
How do we meet a need?
And what's interesting and wecan kind of get into this, I'm
sure what's so fascinating isand you kind of hinted at it a
little bit is, I'm sure, likemost things, you start to try
and solve one problem and youdiscover all the other things
(05:41):
that you probably start findingall these other data points and
pieces of information that itjust kind of starts expanding,
even you know, beyond maybe whatyou initially thought this
would be.
And you know, I think we cankind of get into a little bit of
that.
But let's kind of start withthe core, which is so at the
core of this.
This really, you know, this isreally about this idea of how
(06:04):
can we be more efficient withour costs and the idea of where
waste is in a big key area inbusinesses, especially around
color waste.
Again, it's something that ispredominant out there.
So give us a little bit aboutwhat you're seeing.
So, again, where waste fits into us and I know, with you and
(06:26):
as we've talked over the courseof our times together is this
all comes down to pricing andbeing able to price properly and
saving cost and various things.
Where do you really see in thatarea?
Where do you really see thegreatest?
What are you noticing as far asgreatest gains and
opportunities in that area ofpricing and waste and expenses?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, okay.
So if we think about waste andyou know, in order for you to be
environmentally sustainable ina business, you need to be
financially stable first, orsustainable, so you need to be
profitable.
It's great to say that we'regoing to do all these
environmental measures, but it'simportant to be environmentally
(07:11):
focused and they go hand inhand with each other.
So by eliminating the extracolor that you're using that has
such an impact on the business,of course you don't have to
raise your prices as frequentlyand you don't have to order as
much color, which means, from anenvironmental standpoint, the
(07:33):
manufacturer of that hair coloris producing less, shipping less
, and then we're throwing awayless packaging and we're
throwing away less waste that'sgoing into our waterways.
So there's the environmentalside of that, and we resolved
that really quickly.
Most salons start at a ratio of40% waste, which is two out of
(07:53):
five color tubes get thrown away, so a massive problem.
And then, in order to combatthat, what we end up doing is
raising our prices.
And what does that do?
Our most loyal, frequentcustomers, who come every six or
eight weeks?
It's impacting them the mostand they're the ones who aren't
using a ton of color, so it'soff-putting.
(08:14):
And then and then we try tocombat these increased prices
again by raising prices.
And then the lion's share ofthat is going to the hairdresser
where, when we looked at theservices that are happening
across the board, yourhighlighting services have been
the most profitable historically, and that's because you could
(08:35):
charge a higher price for thatservice and the cost of goods is
much lower.
The average cost of a lightenerper gram is about five cents.
Where you look at what colorcosts, it ranges between 15 and
25 cents a gram.
So we have these services liketoners and new growth
applications which, yes, they'reless booking time, but the cost
(08:56):
of goods are four or five timesthe amount of a lightning
service.
So what Vish sets out to do ismake every service on your menu
equally profitable, and how wedo that is we price adjust.
So your menu is set up and yourprices are set up based on the
area that you're in, theexperience, level of hairdresser
(09:17):
, cost of goods, the time tobook that appointment or time to
apply that color All thosethings factor in.
But if what we're looking atand we're fortunate at Vish that
we pull data from a lot ofsalons and we take that data and
dissect it so that we canre-strategize and really see
what's going on in great detailin the salon.
(09:39):
One of the things that we foundrecently is, if you look back to
2023 and compare to 2024,customers are stretching their
appointments out by anadditional eight days.
So think about that.
And in that time, we knowinflation has caused a lot of
other costs to go up as well.
Maybe your hair color hasincreased by 5% or 7% the cost
(10:01):
of goods from the manufacturer.
You're absorbing all of theseextras, which means you're
eroding your profit.
So what we aim to fix is well,let's adjust that price so that
not necessarily.
Look, everybody should do aprice increase annually.
We get that, but that doesn'tresolve the problem.
And if we go back to that clientwho's now coming in eight days
(10:23):
later, how are you making up thedifference for that?
That extra color is being used?
Or you have a subset of yourclients who are coming in every
six or eight weeks for, say, aroot touch-up, and then you have
another subset that typicallycome in every 10 or 12 weeks.
Your booking time is the same,your commission rate is the same
, but yet your cost is up to 30%more.
(10:45):
So what Vish does is we putthat threshold on every service.
This is the standard amount ofcolor that should be used in
this service and that is basedon.
You know, if it's permanentcolor, what is your most
frequently used permanent colorline?
Here's how much color youshould use.
Let's say 40 grams at aneight-week service.
(11:05):
Anything over and above thatuse a more expensive product.
You use more color.
We'll price adjust that at thefront desk.
If the guest, if no extra timewas taken, let's only charge for
the color used with a markup.
That revenue goes back to thesalon and what we're able to do
(11:28):
there is do that consistentlyand keep the cost down to the
customer so they don't get sickor shocked.
And then the most frequentloyal customers who don't use
extra color are not beingcharged more.
It's the people who are comingin a little bit later who are
having a little bit of extrawork done, because what we see
(11:49):
consistently across the board isthat we're really good at
hairdressers being creative anddelivering great service, but
we're not always good atcharging those extras when we
need to.
It's inconsistent.
We're not always good atcharging those extras when we
need to.
It's inconsistent.
So if I've mixed extra colorand maybe it's only 15 grams.
My salon says that I'm to addan extra bowl fee.
(12:10):
By doing that, I'm charging theguest $25 for a little bit of
color.
I don't feel justified.
I don't always charge it andthen the salon is losing money
and the guest experience is.
Sometimes I pay more, sometimesI pay less.
It's inconsistent.
So we simply just make it easyto understand.
Push that information to thefront desk, it gets collected
(12:31):
and now we can aim to get your.
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