Culture, Color, and Connection with Allison Steimel

SPEAKER_1 (0:04)

The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

Stephen Sakach (0:19)

Welcome back to the show, everyone. I'm Stephen Sakach here once again with my co-host, Tullio Siragusa. And we've got a special guest who we'll introduce in a moment. So a salon is more than a place where people get a haircut and color service. It can be a place of self-expression, confidence, and community.

People walk in with the idea of how they want to look, but they're often also looking for how they want to feel. And today, we are exploring building community and connection in business through the lens of bishops, part of the Head to Toe Brands family. And Tullio, introduce our special guest today.

Tullio Siragusa (0:58)

My pleasure. Our guest today is Allison Steimel. She is the brand president of Bishop Cuts and Color. This is a meaningful milestone in our Head to Toe Brands conversation. We have hosted Meg Roberts, who's the CEO of Head to Toe Brands. Then welcome John Babcock, who's the brand president of The Lash Lounge, and Kayla Bramlett, who's the brand president of Frenchies Modern Nail Care. So with Allison, we will have now hosted all three Head of Toe Brand Presidents.

So Allison joined Bishops as president in July 2024, after 15 years in beauty franchising with Massage Envy.

Her leadership background is rooted in operations, systems, profit, and point of sale technology. Given her practicals and strategic lens for growing salam brands while supporting franchisees and teams.

Allison, welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast. Nothing like getting tongue-tied while you're live.

Allison Steimel (2:03)

Thanks for having me.

Stephen Sakach (2:06)

Allison, so we're talking about building community and connection in business as the topic for today because I think salons are such personal relationship-driven spaces. From your perspective, what makes Bishops more than a haircut or a color brand?

Allison Steimel (2:25)

Bishops is a vibe. It's a personality, a quick Google search and you'll see that if you've stepped into any of them, it's something very different than the normal cookie-cutter franchise brands you've seen in the hair industry and that's something that just really stuck out to me right away. It's vibrant, there's self-expression is welcomed. Everybody is comfortable being themselves in that environment and in that salon from guests to the stylists, to the franchisees, to everyone. It's just really something so cool when you walk in. It's to me, when you walk into a Bishops, it's an experience when you go in. From the music, to the people, to the murals on the wall, there's a really big local component to Bishops. When you walk in, you'll see all the locations have these murals that are locally commissioned by artists in the area. You get a sense that it reflects the community, the neighborhood, sometimes even the franchisee, like the owner personality.

You feel like you've walked into your own local barber shop or salon, even though it's a part of a large franchise.

Stephen Sakach (3:42)

That's cool. You're talking about part of your system of launching a franchise is you're going to hire local artists or something to get some of that local flavor in there.

I don't think we've seen that from-

Tullio Siragusa (3:52)

Oh, I love that.

Stephen Sakach (3:53)

Yeah, many people have.

Tullio Siragusa (3:55)

It's the vibe of the old village where everybody knew the barber.

It's got a flavor to it. I love it. Yeah.

Allison Steimel (4:02)

We're not interested in it being 39 locations that look the same. That's very different in a franchise business. We're interested in seeing their local reflection in their business in the city that they're in or the community, the neighborhood.

That is something different than a lot of the franchises that are in the hair industry.

Tullio Siragusa (4:28)

Interesting. I'm curious because you spent 15 years in the beauty franchising with Massage Envy. Was there anything from that experience that taught you anything about leading brands where service and personality and relationships matter? I'm curious how that that gave birth to a lot of what's happening at Bishop.

Allison Steimel (4:49)

Well, yeah, I mean, relationships, it all comes back to it's a people business, right?

Any of those things. So they're all personal services, whether it's massage or lash, you know, you're talking about providers, right? So your nail technician, your hair stylist, massage therapist, lash artist, whatever it is, it is a people business. People come back to the place because of that person, right? So that's one of the things that I think I've learned in being in the industry so long is that it's, it is really focused on those relationships and the people. But you also need the, it doesn't replace operations, right? You need them both. So operations are the things that really the guests don't see. Those are the things that are going on behind the scenes, and you want them to be that way. So when people go in, they're like, yeah, I have this relationship with my stylist, but there's a lot of things going on behind that, and structures and systems that are built that keep it running right.