snapshot of oakton coaching program

The down and dirty, as-of-today situation - and yes I realize those sparkly letters are peeling, and after a year and a half we need to replace our fading markers. But a part of me hates to do it because this is the Velveteen Rabbit of whiteboards! It represents a truly remarkable year. Here's what we do:

1. Cycle through 3 weekly contests: 1) Hit all 3 R's (Rebook - % clients who book before leaving salon, Reinvent - average services per client, Recreate - average products per client), 2) Highest Recreate, 3) Biggest % increase in service sales over your own 3-month average.
2. Award the winner a gift card each week, remind other coaches and managers to high five them, and write name of winner in the back on whiteboard.
3. Print MA245s every morning and coach writes comments, reminders and encouragement on everyone's copies before placing on stations. It's the first thing each stylist sees when they come in. You hear them mumbling to themselves about it and making excuses or bragging. :)
4. Random, public and enthusiastic high fives when people go beyond their comfort zones and do something awesome: sparkly balloons, drawing stars on someone's mirror, hugs, yelling, etc. The occasional congratulatory text doesn't hurt to build comraderie either, especially if there's a sexy wink involved (Hero!)
5. Salon meeting or cocktail hour every 3 months, as a casual open forum to discuss direction of program. Coaches meet once/month to discuss challenges and support each other.

I can think of a million more elegant setups, and they would probably all work just as well, but this is what evolved in our store. This simple game plan helped the average Oakton stylist increase weekly service sales by $300/week in the first year of our coaching program. 

I believe the key factors that led to our growth were:

1. The coaches met regularly amongst themselves and grew their relationships with each other first. We provided a unified front and could all influence and reach different stylists. One person could not have changed the climate. It started with growing our leadership team and committing to each others' growth.
2. The coaches were committed to consistently holding weekly contests and rewarding winners - we have been late countless weeks but we have yet to miss a week, no matter how busy we get.
3. Anyone who asked for help was showered with attention and support, while the attitude of anyone who wanted no part of the program was politely ignored. Low hanging fruit first!
4. There was a head coach who took responsibility for organizing meetings and holding the other coaches accountable, and who regularly checked the whole shop's progress and presented it to the rest of the team. It takes a team to change culture, or do anything important. It also takes a leader who is 100% committed to keeping her team focused. Every team needs an organizer and clear roles and responsibilities for all members to get things done and move towards a goal. 
5. We were ruthlessly open about where everyone stood along the way - we posted everyone's R's each day and made charts and graphs showing who was growing quickly (and not growing), and everyone knows where our Partner keeps the weekly service sales report, and a lot of us check it! This allowed everyone to see the full range of what was possible (someone had almost a $1000/week increase in 2014, while one stylist went down) and started the process of associating certain habits and attitudes with progress. The more openly we talked about money and the R's the more we came together - because it was no longer a mystery why some people grew faster. Any jealousy, competition or negativity melted away when we showed that there was a path open to everyone and IF/WHEN you want to go down it, we all have your back.

I'll be going around to each PR @ Partners location after bringing their head coaches into our company-wide team and documenting 13 other approaches. I can't wait to see how everyone improves on our process!