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Where local leaders discuss the challenges and opportunities in how we do business in Central Illinois.
(lively music) (upbeat music) - Welcome to "Business Forward," I'm your host, Matt George.
Joining me tonight, Jenny McCoy.
Jenny is owner of Carpo Bello Full-Service Salon, day spa and boutique.
Owner of the Barber Lounge, and owner of the Summit's Salon Academy of Illinois.
That's just so many things, I couldn't even spit it out.
Welcome, Jenny.
- Thank you so much for having me.
- Well, I was excited to have you on for many reasons.
One, when you own so many businesses, it's like you're sitting here going, "Okay, that's entrepreneurship 101 right there," which I love on this show.
But, let's start off with you, because I know your family, you have a great family.
You have an okay husband- - Yeah.
(chuckling) - But a great family.
Just teasing.
So, go ahead.
- Yeah sure.
So, I think it all started back when I was young.
My father was an entrepreneur.
And I got to see the flexibility and freedom in his life.
And I thought that is something that I would love to have for myself, but also to be able to create for other people.
- I like that.
So you saw that as a kid.
And so did you have the normal thoughts and dreams?
I'm gonna go to college, I'm gonna go do this.
Or, I'm gonna go, and go work somewhere.
Or did you from the get-go, think I'm gonna be an entrepreneur?
- Oh no, I thought after high school, I was gonna go to college.
- Okay, that's what I was wondering, and it's funny, because I ask that question to a lot of business owners.
Because, I think it's an important question.
- Sure.
- There's a lot of people who are visionaries, who sit there at young ages, and come up with these ideas.
And then, there are people who just go through the system, so to speak, and then all of a sudden, it hits them.
- Yeah.
- They go, "You know what?
I wanna work for myself."
- Yeah, yeah.
- So, where are you originally from?
- From Peoria.
- [Host] You're from Peoria.
- Born and raised, and never left.
- So did you go, I think Dunlap, is that right?
Dunlap?
All right.
So what business did your dad have?
- So it was a medical distributing business.
- Okay, nice.
So, let's talk about, and we're gonna talk about your core business, but I wanna talk about the name for a second.
- Okay, sure.
- [Host] Because I like the name, I obviously struggled in saying all of the names, but Carpo Bello?
- So when I first developed the company, I wanted to make sure that it was a talking point in itself.
Being a new business to the area, I really wanted to create some buzz.
So I thought, "How can we do that, "encompassing the beauty and wellness industry?"
And I thought that if I could put it in another language, then people would have to ask "What does it mean, "what does it mean, what does it mean?"
And if I had a nickel for every time somebody asked what it meant, I'd be a very wealth woman.
But yeah, that's how I came up with it.
So, Carpo Bello means "Beautiful Body" in Italian.
- Beautiful body in Italian.
- Mm-hm.
- Okay.
So, I think that's very creative, if you think about it.
Because I had thought about that, and never asked you it, but it's just not a simple phrase, so that's cool.
How many employees do you have?
- For all of our companies, about 60 to 65.
- Yeah, and I'm gonna get towards the end of the show, I'm gonna talk about the economic impact of an entrepreneur, because when start thinking of starting a company, and I'm relating this just to you, did you think I could go from 10, to 20, to 30?
Did you think that way?
Or, did you think, "I just have to build my company."
- I think that I just, I had so much more passion for the industry first.
And in the back of my mind, I just knew that it would naturally come at the time that it needed to be there.
- [Matt] Well, how did you come up with the passion for the industry?
I mean, where did that come from?
- Providing a platform for people to thrive.
Honestly.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- And so, did you, what type of training and schooling, and stuff, do you have to go through to do what you do?
Or, did you just go the entrepreneur route?
- Right.
So I graduated high school, three and a half years in.
I went straight to cosmetology school.
And it's the only post-secondary education that I have.
Is cosmetology school.
- So, when you went to cosmetology, when you went to school, did you sit there and go, "Okay, now I'm just gonna be a hairdresser."
Or, "Now, I'm going to build my business."
Or, did you have both of those in mind?
- So I was working at a salon in Peoria.
And there were a lot of changes going on in the salon.
And I thought, "Well, if I'm going to make a move, "I didn't want it to be just a lateral move."
So I thought, "What can I do?"
That's still that entrepreneurial blood was running through my bones.
So I thought I'm going to open up my own salon.
Still again, not the grand vision that my husband and I currently have now.
But enough to say, we can have people, we can show them the ropes, we can pour our passion into people, and see what comes of it.
- You know what's interesting?
Is when you have a business like this, and you're just starting off.
I can just picture you and your husband, Tyler, sitting there.
And talking at night and going, "Well, if you did this, you're already doing this now."
Why couldn't you 3x it over here?
- Yeah, and I have to say, that's his mindset.
He's very much like the architecture mindset.
Get a problem, find a solution, and then get onto the next.
And I'm not so much like that.
So, I think that because I'm a little bit more conservative in my leaps, and he's such a big thinker, that both of us together have been able to create some really cool things.
- Yeah, but what I find interesting about the dynamic of both of you is, number one, you worked together.
But two, you have to have your mindset, in my opinion, to start the business off.
Because his mindset might of derailed, because you could of gone all-in too soon.
So you took these baby steps, I'm gonna call them that.
- Yeah, they were.
- And then, all of a sudden you bring in a different mindset and now you're running two tracks down your head.
- Absolutely.
- That's how it is, right?
- Yeah, I really think we are running a dream machine right now.
- And I go back to the 60-70 employees, because I always had the mindset, when I was at Children's Home and other places, I'd always sit there and say, "As CEO, or as owner, or whatever you wanna call it, "it's my job to not only take care of the business, "and the mission and my own family.
"But it's also my job to take care of my team, "and their family."
- Absolutely.
- Not just the employees, but also their family.
- Yes.
- I know you well enough to know, that you have that same mindset.
Because I know people that work for you.
And you have people that have been there awhile.
- Yeah, yeah.
- So what's the magic sauce there?
- You know, treating people like you wanna be treated, honestly.
And I think it can really be that simple.
Don't expect anything out of somebody that you're not willing to do yourself.
And treat them like you would wanna be treated.
And I know that sounds very simple.
Sometimes in business, it's not implemented that way.
But I carry myself with that every single day.
And it has, it seems to work for us.
- Yeah, it's funny.
There's a lot of leadership books out there that talk about that the owner, the CEO, should be doing every job.
And the people that are successful, I do find do that.
And I'm gonna give you an example.
You're probably not gonna remember this, but five, six years ago, I asked for a donation for one of our events.
And you actually delivered it to me.
And so, when you sit there and say, "Okay."
You're a busy woman.
You're running a big business, and you've got a lot of people, you've got a lot of liability, too.
- [Jenny] Right.
- And you're sitting there, and I said "Hey, will you donate?"
Whatever it was.
And all a sudden, you hop in the car and go, "Matt, I'm just driving by."
I'm like "What the heck is going on here?
This is awesome."
So there is a culture and a mindset right there.
- Sure.
- And people that work with you, I like to call them your team, so to speak.
So they come in, and they see that.
And emulate that, and wanna continue to work with you.
- Right, right.
- That's awesome.
All right, locations.
So do you have more than your main location?
I'm not talking the barber college, I'm just talking Carpo Bello.
- Yeah, so our flagship location is Peoria, Willow Knolls.
And then our second satellite location is in Washington, Illinois.
- Yeah so, two great locations.
The Willow Knolls location is in the perfect spot.
All right.
So when you talk about, now, I'm gonna sound really silly in some of the questions, because I'm just not one of these spa guys.
- Yeah, it's okay.
- But I do want to go through some of the services that you offer.
So, you do offer massage, right?
- Correct.
- Now, I ask, I'm gonna ask all these questions, because when you're building a business, you have to align yourself with all these different experts.
So how do you sit there and go, "Okay, "I need hairdressers over here.
"I need massage specialists over here."
Because you can't just grab somebody off the street and say "Hey, go do it, go rub that neck down."
- [Jenny] Right.
- They have to be qualified, you're paying for that quality.
Therefore, the customer pays for the quality.
- Yes.
So we have in our facilities, what's called an associate program.
Which is for all of our departments.
So if we have a student that is recently graduated, somebody new to the area, looking for employment, we kind of run them through what we call, our master's program of the beauty and wellness industry.
So they get proper training, they get some Carpo Bello culture training.
They get paired with a higher level service provider, so they can make sure that all the things that they need in a brand new company can be supported.
- Okay, so let's focus on training for a minute.
So I always find this part, the part of a business that's the hardest to implement.
How did you come up with a training process, almost like your own school, so to speak?
- So, to be honest with you, is that we fell on our face quite a number of times.
And knew that we had to develop something that was going to work for us long-term.
- That's normal, right?
And so, how long did it take you to come up with a formalized training program?
- I would say probably 12 to 18 months.
- That's not bad.
So, you feel pretty solid.
So let me ask you this, someone, let's say my daughter's coming through, and she's looking for a job.
And you sit here and you grab her and you say, "Here's what we're gonna do."
You put her through program A to Z.
And then, you train her.
What makes that person get trained by you, and not, and then leave?
Is that possible, I'm guessing?
- So yeah, it's 100%.
We set up correct expectations I would say, that our company is going to give this much time and energy into you.
That is something that we do expect back.
And a lot of new service providers who come into the company, we have student nights for them.
We have job shadowing days.
So most of our employees don't come in blindly.
They have a little bit of a grasp of what our company can offer them as.
- Yeah so, I'm going back to that visual.
You and Tyler sitting there at night, mapping things out.
And here's why I'm bringing this up, because I think it's very important.
You've got the beginnings of a business.
And the visions of other business.
You've got the training piece, which is very important.
But then, I'm gonna go to moral and culture.
The moral and culture piece is what keeps these people, these team members on the bench, right?
- Mm-hm, mm-hm.
- So, you have to have all of those.
If there's a hiccup, and I always go to the, right now there's a teacher shortage.
Right now there's an RN shortage.
There's so many different, non-profit shortage.
And it's something that actually drives me nuts.
So I ask every entrepreneur, and every CEO that I talk to, how can we fix this?
And so what I've come to the conclusion of, is that really at the end of the day, the culture is what keeps someone aligned.
Keeps someone wanting to come to work each day.
- Yeah, I agree.
- Because you're not only in the feel-good business, so to speak.
Because I remember, I was telling you earlier about my grandma.
She would always, she couldn't wait, every Wednesday was her hair day.
And that was her special day of feeling pretty, and feeling good about herself.
So you have to put smiles on people's faces every day, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
We call it in our companies, that we're on stage all the time.
- [Matt] That's great, I love it.
- Yeah, we're on stage.
And our companies also have a, what's called our Happiness Project, which is a work/life balance.
So the majority of our service providers, don't work more than six hours per shift.
And they also don't work more.
Our full-time is between 24 and 30 hours a week.
- Well, that would make some people happy, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
- And you have your own family.
And so you understand, you can relate to everybody.
So, the other thing that I find interesting, and I don't even have this written down.
But I was wondering now, is you get those pieces in place, then how does the marketing and the branding of the name, how do you implement that?
Because, that's a whole another skill set.
- Yeah, I think that you just have to make sure that you are exceeding guest expectations.
And a lot of it, they, fortunately for us, they've done themselves, our marketing.
- [Matt] Yeah, word of mouth.
- Word of mouth.
We have a social media director that does all our our socials now.
And we also have a leadership team that hones in on each department that we have in our companies, that kind of is the overseer.
- So your role is owner.
- Mm-hm.
- What's Tyler's role?
- Everything else.
- Everything else.
- I'm with personnel, he's with everything else.
- Do you have, so, you still have to have an accounting system, or some sort of system there.
- [Jenny] Absolutely.
- HR.
- [Jenny] Mm-hm.
- You know sometimes, the reason why I'm bringing this up, is because sometimes people will sit there, and they'll go, it's just a haircut place.
It's a business, and it's big business.
- And that's what we're trying to change.
At least just in our own local communities, is that it's a thriving business.
It's a super-important business.
And we're doing a lot for the community, in terms of turning out professionals that support local commerce, all of the things.
Employment opportunities.
It is a true business.
I think long ago they thought, that just exactly as you said.
It's a place to get your hair cut.
After COVID, I think we've become, looked at, as a little bit more important of a place now.
Not just our company- - [Matt] I agree.
- But the beauty industry as a whole.
And that's encouraging for me to see.
- You know what I love about your business?
Is when I walk in there, the cleanliness.
I'm a clean freak, and I've said it a few times on the show.
So when I go into businesses, whether I eat somewhere, or go in, whatever it may be, obviously, I'm not getting haircuts from you.
But I want it to be spotless.
And your place is very, very clean.
- Yeah, it's the old cliche, like you have one time to make a first impression, right?
So, if they've seen you on your website.
Okay, if they've called you on the phone.
But if they're just walking in, that's your one time.
- That's right.
I mean, it's the linkages.
It's the things where you sit here and go, What's word of mouth going to do, if you get someone in there, and you tell your mom, "Hey, go in here."
And then she goes in there, and it's dirty.
- Right, exactly.
- It's irrelevant.
- Yeah.
- So, very cool.
- You're correct, yeah.
- Very cool.
So, what other services do you offer at Carpo Bello, and then I wanna talk about- - All hair services, all spa services, and all barber services in our companies.
- So you actually have a real barber in there, which is cool.
- [Jenny] Yeah, and a barbershop.
- Because I love that.
Are you gonna go get one of those little signs, the red and white- - Yeah!
We might!
Yeah!
- That would be kind of cool to get an old-fashioned one.
- Yes, yeah, absolutely.
- All right, so talk about.
I was gonna bring up one more thing.
So my daughters are, I talk about them every show, my older daughters.
They're 29 and 27.
I've never seen girls go to a wedding, every weekend it seems like.
And they're going to places like yours.
It's like the thing to do right now, isn't it?
Tell me about that.
Like, what do they do?
- Oh my goodness, it's probably one of our biggest departments in our salon company, are just weddings, as it is.
But, hair and makeup.
Special occasion hair, makeup we do traditional, and airbrush makeup.
Faux lashes, it is quite the to-do.
And it is a wonderful part of our business, it's so fun.
- Well, I picture, obviously the hair's one thing.
But I'm looking at, my daughter Carly sends me a picture, and she's got strawberries over here.
She's got flute of something, drinking over here.
- Champagne, yeah.
- Her hair's up here.
I'm just sitting here going, "What is going on here?"
- Right, right.
And the beautiful part about our companies is that you, it is kind of a one-stop-shop.
You can get all your skin services, your hair services, your nail services, get you prepped for the wedding.
- I love it, that's so cool.
So let's talk about; well, I'm all over the board today.
- [Jenny] It's okay.
- I have 5,000 questions I wanna ask you.
I told myself I'm not gonna bring up COVID anymore.
But I do have to bring up COVID with you.
Because, your business was one, very similar to a restaurant, that was just almost demolished mentally.
So here you are, an entrepreneur.
And you talk about getting your legs cut out from under you.
That's probably what you felt like.
And then, there had to be a time, and I'm asking you, was there a time when you sat there and said, "You know what?
"I'm gonna use this as an opportunity, "I'm gonna actually blow up when this is at the end.
"This is gonna be my time."
Did you ever think that?
- I have to say, me personally, I did not.
My husband, Tyler, thought about that the whole entire way through.
That this was our time.
- And the people that I've talked to in businesses that are thriving, or changing, I don't like to use the word pivoting, but I'll use it, it's easy.
But to make that shift, it's huge.
And you've not only made the shift, you scaled.
So here you got a whole handful of business across the country, that are going by the wayside.
The plus of it is, not for their businesses, but the plus over here was, you had 50 new businesses coming on, 50 going away.
But then, there's the businesses that kind of just stood and waited.
And kind of watched, and that was you.
And I was watching it.
I noticed it, because I follow you on Facebook, and everything else.
And you're sitting there and all of a sudden, you start going up.
And that's entrepreneurial beast mode right there, is how I look at it, that's pretty cool.
But, how did you handle the employee piece?
Because there's a moral piece tied to this.
- I think let's go back to the cultural piece of your company, right?
That was all of it.
Weekly Zoom meetings.
Keeping everybody abreast of the situation.
But getting CDC information out to everybody all at one time, we were constantly connected.
And I think that was so much help for even the mental health of our employees.
- How do you stay sharp?
Because you're sitting here with people, and people who do your hair, there's a talent.
And now, you're not practicing.
How do you stay sharp?
- You practice, mannequins, family, you keep practicing.
- Okay, that's what I was wondering about.
All right, new ventures, I love it.
Other businesses.
Let's talk about the barber school?
- Cosmetology school.
- [Matt] Cosmetology school.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- [Matt] Let's talk about that.
- Okay.
- [Matt] Tell me about it.
- So, let's go back 20 years, when I was just a stylist in the industry, and didn't think much forward 20 years.
I knew that there had to be more for our communities.
We had been blessed to have a lot of counsel, and a lot of people in our circle, for the last, I would say five to 10 years.
That have shown me that there's more to this industry than your typical beauty school.
In order to make it to the industry, you not only have to have technical, but you also have to have the business skill.
This is a business.
Whether you're an employee of yourself, or an employee of somebody else, you have to be taught that business.
And without that, there's burnout, there's not an environment to thrive.
And our area needs that.
So, we have partnered with Summit Salon Academy.
We are opening up our own Summit Salon Academy of Illinois.
It'll house a cosmetology program, aesthetics program, and a barber program, to start with.
- Wow!
So, what is the goal of that?
- So the goal is to turn out wonderful tradespeople that college is not for them.
That they have a creative mindset, that they have a skillset that they want to show the world.
And, we wanna give them the tools to become successful, and doing exactly that.
- So, is your goal for them to transition into your business?
Kind of like of OSF, and Unity or- - Not necessarily.
- Okay.
- Not necessarily.
- You just wanna produce people.
Because there's a sector piece, is what we're talking about right here.
You want people, that's how I am with non-profit.
Is more kids need to dream of being nurses, and firemen, and non-profit people, and special ed teachers.
And, your business.
- Right.
Right, so we just did a huge weekend with Skills USA.
I don't know if you're familiar with.
- [Matt] I had them on the show, I had the director.
- Yeah absolutely, which fuels my passion even more.
That there are high school kids that are starting this dream, and passion, for the trades industry.
And the cosmetology, barbering and aesthetics industry.
And seeing that, and seeing that there is support for us, not only as a cosmetology, aesthetics and barber school, but even for students in high school, that this could be a path, a very lucrative path that they could take for their career.
- I don't think people realize that.
It not only can it be a lucrative path.
But it can also give them the opportunity to dream, and do what you're doing.
- Right, absolutely.
- You know what I like about Tyler coming into the mix?
And I'm not just saying this because him and I are friends.
But, it brings a different grit, it really does.
Because you brought it, you just said it.
There's a business aspect to it.
And you can sit there and go Groundhog Day every day.
And it's the same thing.
But there's times you have to strategically make a move to be cream of the crop.
- Yeah, absolutely.
And that is 100% of what he's brought to our companies.
- Yeah, so, I'm gonna think of a title for him.
I'll come up with a little offline.
I gotta think of a funny, slash, serious title for him.
- Well, get him business cards made.
- I wanna end with this: Community.
You both love this community, your business loves the community.
I just really think businesses like yours, are what communities all across Central Illinois, and across the United States, they need them, because you have community first in mind.
Agree?
- Yeah, 100%.
- And what I've noticed with the team that you have, you actually have people, you've hired people that have that same type of mindset.
So I always think about when people are hiring people for their team, are you hiring talent sometimes?
Are you hiring what?
But you're also hiring good people.
- And I think the talent can come.
The good person, the good person is just within somebody.
So, hiring the good person, I think first and foremost, you can teach the talent, you can't teach the mindset.
- That's very, very refreshing to hear.
So Jenny McCoy, thank you so much for coming on the show.
We're proud to have you- - Thank you.
- And Tyler in the community.
I'm Matt George, and this is another episode of "Business Forward."
(lively music) (lively music) (lively music) (lively music) - Thanks for tuning into "Business Forward."
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