Reflections & Revelations

Remember the first time you sat in a salon chair, the trust you placed in the hands of a stylist, and the stories that unfolded? That's the spirit of this new version of Hair Life, as Cally Borg joins me to weave new conversations that blend the artistry of hairdressing with the tapestry of life.In this episode, we discover that mirrors are more than just reflective surfaces, we discuss the art of discreetly observing others and share a story that involves false teeth and dog poo.

We can expect to take a few punches in life and business, but the ability to get back up truly defines us. In this episode of Hair Life, I explore the often-unspoken challenges of mental health and stress that come with navigating difficult times.I share my experiences with personal growth and how it positively impacts our teams and communities, emphasising the importance of leading by example.This episode also marks a new chapter for HairLife as I introduce a new co-host who brings a wealth of creativity and entrepreneurial prowess to our upcoming episodes.

In this episode Nathan Plumridge talks about being vulnerable, something that he’s had a lot of discussions about in the last few months, mainly due to an experience he had in early December which he shares with you. This is about learning from things both in business and from a health point of view. KEY TAKEAWAYS I’ve started thinking about health not just from a physical point of view, but from a mental side as well. Opening up, being vulnerable and sharing has helped me mentally and has enabled me to have some incredible conversations and opened up some incredible relationships. One of my best friends recently opened up to me about his childhood and the impact that it had on him and the direction it had taken him in his life until now. He started finding demons that had been buried and I was really blown away with what he shared with me. It was highly emotional, highly charged and as a result I had something click inside me which enabled me to firstly, open up about my childhood and my experiences, and how I could now see how the impact of that childhood was having an impact on me as a 45-year-old male. I can’t help but imagine how we all might feel if we opened up a little bit more and shared those things that we carry around with us, particularly men. Though I think it’s a generational thing, the younger generation seems to share everything – perhaps too much – but that’s something we can definitely learn from. The impact of being truly listened to with no judgement, no bias, no advice – so many people want to give you their advice and I don’t think that’s a good thing because a lot of those people are giving you the wrong advice. My friend listened to me so intently, with 100% focus, it was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. What an incredible thing that is. How much stronger would your relationships be if you listened 100% to the person sitting in front of you? BEST MOMENTS ‘It wasn’t until someone had been vulnerable with me that it enabled me to be able to reciprocate the same thing. The impact of that was that I got very emotional. For two days I couldn’t stop crying, even in the salon.’‘My team was absolutely amazing. I think seeing their boss being vulnerable and truly open and showing them that you can’t always be this superhero type was incredibly powerful. It’s only done great things.’‘Opening yourself up and really showing your vulnerability gives you an incredible sense of relief, both emotionally and physically.’‘I’d like you to hear that voice that tells you not to do things to piss off!’ ABOUT THE HOST Welcome and thank you for reading this, I’m Nathan Plumridge salon owner and Hair Stylist. I’ve been in the industry for nearly 30 years and have been a salon owner for 23 of them. I have been fortunate enough to work and learn with some of the biggest names in the industry and this has given me the experience and drive to now be here with you sharing my experiences. CONTACT DETAILS  www.hairlifeshow.com Instagram is <a...

In this episode Nathan Plumridge talks to entrepreneur, award winning stylist, and salon owner Cally Borg to talk about her background and journey through her career. KEY TAKEAWAYS I wasn’t very academic at school, I couldn’t sit still in a classroom, that’s just not my thing at all. However, when I got into hairdressing I was so focussed from day one because I just knew it was for me. My freelance career was really busy, I was in and out of London and Surrey taking any job that came to me. One minute I’d be doing highlights and cut and blow-dry, the next I’d be doing a photoshoot or at a show, it was really crazy but it was great. That worked until I had my daughter. I started doing local stuff and basically winged it for about three years while building up a regular clientele around looking after my daughter, in the day while she was at nursery and in the evenings while she was in bed. Lockdown offered a great opportunity to re-write the brand. I thought to myself, what do I really want from life and what’s most important to me. My partner and my kids are the most important thing to me so I don’t want to work evenings and weekends any more. So, do I cull 50% of my business or look at a new strategy and bring somebody in to look after those clients? And, that’s what I did and I realised I really liked helping and mentoring people. There’s been a massive rise in home salons in the past few years. I think that’s down to the lockdown, but also it’s to do with the freedom and flexibility that you get with working from home. I’m not in salons any more, so I don’t know the opportunities there any more, but I can only presume that the rules are stricter and that’s why people are looking for freedom and flexibility. BEST MOMENTS ‘I liked being in the salon, what I didn’t like was being told when I could and couldn’t go on holiday. I’m a team player, but I don’t like to be controlled in any way.’‘I did Amanda Holden’s personal styling, I’d go to her house, blow-dry her hair a couple of times a week and I started working at ITV, which was great.’‘People used to say: “you really work a lot of hours”, but I love my job, I love talking to people, yes I was knackered and unhealthy. Then I had a health scare and life changed like that.’‘I learned by working for free when I started out, but it’s a lot easier now to be educated, there’s a lot of free education, but people don’t seem to tap into that. This is the best time to be a freelancer.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Cally Borg is an Award-Winning Hairstylist, Educator and Business Mentor; she’s been hairdressing for over 20 years, working for salons such as John Carne, Toni&amp;Guy and Charles Worthington before going freelance and starting her own business. She recently won 'Surrey Hair Stylist of the Year 2020' and the ‘Marketing Trailblazer 2021’ at the Salon Awards. Cally is on the Art Team and an Educator for the brand 'We Love Salons.' and the UK brand ambassador for TUFT international. Website: https://www.callyborg.com/  ABOUT THE HOST Welcome and thank you for reading this, I’m Nathan Plumridge salon owner and Hair Stylist. I’ve been in the industry for nearly 30 years and have been a salon owner for 23 of them. I have been fortunate enough to work and learn with some of the biggest names in the industry and this has given me the experience and drive to now be here with you sharing my experiences. CONTACT DETAILS  <a...

In this episode Nathan Plumridge talks to Tom Johnson, Ex-England Rugby Player about his career and the transition to the second half of life as a coach now he no longer plays. KEY TAKEAWAYS My happiest times were when we were playing rugby for the craic, giving it a go. The reason we did it was to find out our boundaries and what we could do, then we started to bring it into focus on areas of risk and reward, where we can dominate games and where we can give ourselves the best chance of winning games rather than putting ourselves under the cosh needlessly. I have huge imposter syndrome, even when I played in the first test for England, and I saw these huge South Africans come running out the tunnel and I’m sitting there cracking myself: What on Earth?! I used to run around at Oxford Brookes University drinking lots of booze having a great craic and now I’m on this international field! Facing the Haka from New Zealand was a tick off the bucket list though, and then nearly beating them on my last game, it was an amazing thing to be part of. When I was in rugby I had my head in the sand a bit and thought it would never end. Coming out of it, there’s a huge amount of anxiety – for professional sports people in general – and worry about what the future entails. In the last six months or so I started thinking about how much I wanted to be present and enjoy the now and look forward to the future rather than getting everything lined up and pushed away from the future, pretending it wasn’t going to happen. I want to be fiercely independent and be able to look after myself, my family and those around me. What we decide to do now and tomorrow is going to have a direct impact on that future. By nailing down what that future looks like you can start to plan and really enjoy the now. You can link this thought to business, or homework, or whatever, if you’ve got a big meeting and you haven’t prepared you’re going to have to try and blame it. But if you’re prepped and up to speed you go in there confidently, exuding confidence, come across really well and nail the pitch/meeting. It’s the same with getting enough sleep, you set yourself up for a great day ahead. If you wake up tired you start off on a negative path where everything’s an effort. The link between mental health and sleep is undeniable, good quality and consistent sleep can put you in the right frame of mind to help you overcome. BEST MOMENTS ‘You really find out a lot about yourself when you play in a team.’‘Coaches have to give an awful lot of thought about their pre-match speech, their half-time speech and things need to adjust on the fly depending on how that first half has gone.’‘The future is coming for everyone, can you be prepared for it and can you enjoy that journey all the way up to your deathbed? We can do something about how the last six months of your life is going to look like now.’‘Enjoyment comes in the here and the now, not achieving goals.’ ABOUT THE GUEST After graduating from Oxford (Brookes!) With a degree in Sports Science, Tom was about to follow his family’s traditional military path by joining the Parachute Regiment. By chance just before embarking upon his officer training, he was scouted by Coventry RFC whilst playing for Reading in the then National League 3 South. Two successful years at Coventry then led to a move to Exeter Chiefs, where he played professionally for 10 years, even earning a few England Caps along the way. Tom is a bit of a rarity in that he didn’t follow the traditional academy route into professional rugby – up until the age of 18 he even played scrum half! A professional rugby career allowed Tom to experience some of the world’s best training facilities and nutritional plans all whilst teaching him the...

In this episode Nathan Plumridge talks to Colin McAndrew, MD of Medusa Hair – one of the fastest growing salons in Scotland, about his inspirations, his challenges and his passions. KEY TAKEAWAYS Growing up I had three central female figures in my life, my two older sisters and my Mum – Dad disappeared. I went to salons with my sisters when they were baby-sitting me, Mum worked two jobs. I loved the atmosphere in that space. After I left school I got an apprenticeship in a beautiful salon on Prince’s Street in Edinburgh where I learned how to make coffee and tea. Within nine months I was a hairdresser in their eyes. I had a real desire to not be in poverty so I worked two jobs, seven days a week. Mental health is a big concern and well being. I don’t say that flippantly or cheaply. I think the onus is on us to have the right balance between targets, driving and moving forward without adding to anxiety and levels of stress. If you’re still running your business and your team in the same way as you were 15 years ago, you’re really outdated – 15 months ago is outdated. But on the back of that, as correct as it is to say it's OK not to be OK, it’s also OK to say I’m going to try my hardest to change that feeling. I have a horrible feeling that resilient young people are becoming more alien than the norm. Everyone deserves the best life, but the reality is (unless you marry a footballer), you’re going to have to work really hard to get your best life. That message is missing at home and in schools. I’ve always been obsessed with personal security rather than wealth. I’ve always wanted to know that if, god forbid, something went wrong £1000-£5000 can probably cover it. When my Mum’s fridge broke down we’d have to wait two months without a fridge, so I’ve always wanted enough money to buy white goods whenever I need to. At 46 it’s still my attitude: “Have we got a fridge-freezer in the bank?”  Without the team there is genuinely nothing. I want the team to have as many opportunities – always say when someone joins Medusa: “We’re a company of opportunity, I don’t care if you’ve been here six days, six weeks or six years, if there’s something coming up and you’re good, we’ll help you, or if we think you’re the perfect fit for it then we’ll do it. BEST MOMENTS ‘When I went to Medusa I had two other jobs in the city that were much better paid, but I knew Medusa was my opportunity to grow in an artistic sense – I didn’t imagine buying the company in the future, but I thought this is going to give me a platform.’‘Every team member thinks we’re millionaires, and I know we’re remunerated better than anybody else in the company, but ultimately we’ve got the bigger risk: If things go wrong we could lose our house. People don’t see the risks that we put in, before we even talk about expenditure. But, everybody’s human, not supermen or women, we’re all taking punches, especially in the last two years.’‘You don’t want to die the richest guy in the graveyard, I want my last cheque to bounce.’‘I want to create a clear reward for hard work and that people are paid what they deserve to be paid – a good salary with a decent bonus structure. There’s no limit from the top.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Colin McAndrew is the managing director of Medusa Hair, an award-winning Edinburgh hairdressing salon consistently creating new styles at the vanguard of fashion, but all the while exuding a genuine warmth and welcome. Website: https://www.medusahair.co.uk/  Email: [email protected]  Instagram: @colin_medusa ABOUT THE HOST Welcome and thank you...

In this episode, Nathan is joined for the second of two episodes by Luke Doolan and Paddy Monahan, manager and head of product at Phorest Software respectively, as well as Nathan’s head of operations, Candice, to talk about Phorest Software (that Gavin has worked with for a long time) and what they do. KEY TAKEAWAYS In order for you to say your average ticket is £120 or whatever, to look at that and say “why is that?”, at a business or a staff member level, within the new Phorest Reports you just click the number and it drills you in showing you day-by-day service rev, average retail ticket, total ticket, is it up or down and week-to-week comparison. We tell you straight away if it’s up or down and automatically run a drill report for you. That’s why we had to rebuild the reporting from the ground up because it’s no longer about running a report, it’s about whatever direction it takes you. We have to be able to have that data to you within seconds. From a staff member point of view, management can’t be quarterly any more, you can’t be sitting down with them at the end of the month going over what they should have done three weeks ago, that’s useless. In the new reporting suite, on any number there’s an alert bell, if you don’t want a staff member’s service level to drop below 12% you can set it to send you a message if it drops below 12% and it will check on it every hour. Even though you’re working with them in a coaching capacity, you’re able to address the issues at the time that they happen. The industry is amazing at building these long term relationships, at Phorest, what we try to do is cut out all the day-to-day things that salon owners need to do. If we can get better at that and free up the time for salon owners to go and do what they really enjoy doing, that’s the part where we’ll win.  We’ve launched a new ecommerce store recently, the idea behind that was it can be set up to be click and collect only, you can set up one product on it, we’ll host it for you, you don’t even need to put it on your website, and you can run a campaign just off people who’ve bought that product in the past but haven’t bought it in the last three months. When we get feedback  on ecommerce, sometimes it’s logistics, sometimes they want to try it but aren’t sure if it would take up too much time. The next piece of challenging  feedback we’ve had is that staff aren’t all that enamoured with ecommerce because they want the commission. We’re now working on bringing staff members into this so that they get the reward. BEST MOMENTS ‘Phorest is there to make booking as convenient and not-time-consuming as possible, we don’t want someone standing there rescheduling appointments on the phone, we want someone standing there having conversations and building relationships.’‘For us, it’s about making the relationship last outside of the salon, that’s where we’ve been more successful in retaining clients. Our re-booking rate has improved since we’ve had Phorest.’ ‘Retail conversations came across so sales-y, that was a problem we really wanted to fix. So, we’ve enabled the software – through ecommerce – to actually do the selling for the stylist. Not to replace, but to be additional to what they’re doing.’‘You’re giving bad service if you’re not talking to your clients about retail, especially if they’ve said they want to talk about products.’ ABOUT THE GUESTS Website: https://www.phorest.com/gb/  ABOUT THE HOST Welcome and thank you for reading this, I’m Nathan Plumridge salon owner and Hair Stylist. I’ve been in the industry for nearly 30 years and have been a salon owner for 23 of them. I have been fortunate enough to work and learn with some of the...

In this episode, Nathan is joined for the first of two episodes by Luke Doolan and Paddy Monahan, manager and head of product at Phorest Software respectively, as well as Nathan’s head of operations, Candice, to talk about Phorest Software (that Gavin has worked with for a long time) and what they do. KEY TAKEAWAYS We’re not just an appointment system or diary, we take it in a slightly different way than most do. We're not a software company, we're a salon company, we’re aimed at the industry. Our whole existence is to understand how salons work and to build things that help them to grow their business, which is not all that common in the industry. We listen to salons and understand the problems that they have. We recently launched the Phorest Collections – we used to build a feature and ship it and maybe a month later we’d have something else from another team and we would ship that. Then we’d get feedback from salon owners saying they were really busy and couldn’t keep track of all these updates dropping so we changed tact and started doing like the fashion industry with Autumn Collections where we gather a load of stuff together and launch it all at once with all the training programmes put together so, as a salon owner, you can simply take an hour out of your day to learn about all of them and that’ll be it for a couple of months. We asked salon owners what the pain points around card payments on readers were. Tips for staff was an issue but also at the end of the day, cashing up is an absolute pain, if someone accidentally overcharged a customer by tapping the wrong number or put it through as cash instead of card, you can waste 30-40 minutes trying to find that £10 that’s gone somewhere. We take that as the starting point to solve it. The only way to light up the terminal to take a payment in Phorest is to key in, tap ‘credit card’ and then it will light up, in doing that, at the end of the day it automatically reconciles between the two, so you can look at your cash (which is next to nothing these days) and just walk out. For me, creating, innovating and figuring out these things is about pairing together a problem – and deeply understanding what that problem actually is – and then matching that with what technology is possible. What we’ve seen is our tech team really understands what technology is now possible. If you just start building things based on the tech you’ve got a solution looking for a problem. Salon owners, the people on the ground, know the problem the best, but often if you say “what feature do you want? Or how would you like this feature to be better?” they might discuss it just in terms of their own understanding. We’ve taken a different approach, instead of asking that, I often say “if we were to send somebody out in a Phorest T-shirt and they were an expert in everything (finance, marketing, everything) and I sent them to work for you for a week, what would you have them do, what problems would you have to solve?” It’s the magic question, it answers so much about the problems we have to solve.  BEST MOMENTS ‘Our goal is to help salons to grow.’‘I didn’t come from the industry. But I know it now because I’ve gone and taken the hard steps of just standing in front of the house.’ ‘When the company’s goals are completely aligned with the salon’s goals, you build the right products, and you serve in the right way. As soon as they grow, we grow as well.’ ‘We’re motivated by the impact it has on salon owners.’ ABOUT THE GUESTS Website: https://www.phorest.com/gb/  ABOUT THE HOST Welcome and thank you for reading this, I’m Nathan Plumridge salon owner and Hair Stylist. I’ve been in the industry for nearly 30...

In this episode, Nathan is joined by Adelle Martin, founder and creator of the Menopause Resilience Club – a private group where women can come together to build strong business and strong bodies through their hormonal change. KEY TAKEAWAYS I’ve always been sporty, but when I got to 15 my Dad told me I had to get a proper job – things like Britain’s Got Talent didn’t exist at the time, so I couldn’t make money out of dancing and gymnastics. A proper job at the time meant a job for life in a bank, which I absolutely loved and enjoyed. But, my colleagues bought me the book ‘How To Win Friends And Influence People’ because I was a bit direct and rude. But that got me into people, psychology and leadership and everything else around that, so I took evening classes and became resilient and built my career on that. During the financial crash in 2008 work suddenly got really busy, but you also didn’t tell people you worked for a bank – if was like being an estate agent! At the same time my daughter had grown up and was of an age and my parents were ageing and I was the one in the family were people asked me for time here and there to help with things. All of a sudden it all added up and I felt really tired and fatigued. After a while it got really difficult, flying between Edinburgh and London for work and we didn’t have the time to check in on each other to make sure we were OK. I remember small things happening, like a speech impediment as a child, that I’d got rid of, started to come back and my performance at work started to be affected. Eventually I collapsed and was taken to hospital and was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, which I know I didn’t have. I made them do blood tests and the results cam back saying my hormones were so low I’d suffered a very quick menopause. I had to take extended leave to understand it and how best to fight it. I went back into HR so I could change the way people talk about menopause. I couldn’t let another woman go through what I did. Management don’t always understand it, they often see a top level woman on a career path suddenly drop in performance. It’s easy to say it’s this, this and this. I ask: how old are they? What are the clues? I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but the performance and confidence change due to hormones, we lose it for a moment. Rather than say “she’s up and down with performance issue” we got people to look for the clues and create a conversation around it. I’m an action-orientated person. We can talk all we like about the issues but when are we going to move to solutions? As hard as it is, it is a process a woman goes through. When I was pregnant people would tell me what happened to them in their pregnancies and now we’ve got the same with menopause, although we’re all different and our lifestyles are different. I can explain what happens with your hormones, but how you react to that is different. You won’t have your mother’s menopause if you don’t want to. BEST MOMENTS ‘I had to Google menopause. I can do this the easy way or the hard way, if you ignore the menopause, you’re going to get in a lot more trouble than if you face into it.’‘Women leave work or reduce their hours due to menopause, not just to set up their own business for the flexibility. We set up menopause cafes and line-manager training around talking about menopause with women.’ ‘Not only do we have female advocates from all levels of the business who talk about their challenges, we also have men who talk about their experiences and perspectives with their wives or co-workers. The ripple-effect of that makes a huge, huge difference.’ ‘If you can’t see it, you can’t be it.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Adelle Martin is an accredited Menopause Strength Coach &amp; Bodybuilder as well as Founder of The Menopause Resilience System.  She started her...

In this episode, Nathan is joined by Mary Centofanti, one of the owners and creators of the vegan brand, Davroe, which is maybe the best kept hairdressing secret. KEY TAKEAWAYS In 2006 we needed to make changes to the company that we purchased. I went to the formulating chemist and said: “I want this range to be sulphate-free and vegan”. To his credit he agreed and it took us two years to get the formulations and fragrances right because they’re key to the product as well as performance. We launched in 2008 and a lot of people were asking why we were doing this because no other producers were doing this in Australia. It took another 5 years to get momentum going and convince hairdressers and salons that this was a good thing. Australia is the hub, it’s where we manufacture everything, we’ve built the laboratory, we do our R&amp;D, we do our compounding, our upscaling, we distribute everything from there, we’re very, very hands on. All the products in the range are products I wanted to bring to market, it’s about us looking at what we think the industry is moving into and what the consumer is looking for. When I started at 15 years of age, it was never in my wildest dreams that I entertained owning this company or doing what I’ve done with Davroe. But, I had really good bosses who were very open about a lot of things and gave clear parity between us and them. They’d have lunch with us in the lunchroom and they’d talk business and I would listen in to their conversations and I learned so much. From the minute I walked into the office on my first day I felt like it was my second home. I felt part of something. There was a moment where John and I had to find a balance between our personal lives and work, because we live and work together with each other and our kids, we all want space at certain times. Finding the balance is really tricky. We all go to work and come home separately, even though it’s two to three minutes away. We all seem to gravitate towards each other at lunchtime and we have dinner together every night but then we all go our separate ways in the evening, the evening is our own time. BEST MOMENTS‘It feels great to be away from home, we haven’t travelled for up to three years, before that we travelled quite a bit overseas. It’s amazing to see people face-to-face again and catch up.’‘The consumer knew they wanted a change which was one of the driving forces for us as well.’‘We watch what we eat and what we put on our faces, so why should hair be any different?’‘We jumped in, it was full-on, we made some really major changes but I’m so very happy that we did. We’ve met some wonderful people along the way and now my children are working with us, it’s a real family business.’ ABOUT THE GUESTMary Centofanti has a real passion for the brand and commitment to delivering premium quality hair care products and has been at the forefront of the business for over 35 years.From humble beginnings, Mary Centofanti began her career with Dresslier as a fledgling receptionist in 1984. 23 years later, in 2007, Mary and her husband John acquired the then struggling business motivated to turn things around. Armed with a strong vision and a set of guiding principles that are steeped in passion, determination, integrity and community, they embarked on a decade long journey that has led them to where they are today, one of Australia’s leading hair care manufacturers. Website: https://davroe.co.nz/Instagram: @davroe.girlLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marycentofanti/?originalSubdomain=au  ABOUT THE...