Ex-Aveda specialists

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Minneapolis-based , founded last year by formef executives David Adams andVirginia Meyer, provides extensivre hair-color training for salon promising to boost salons’ color sales and, in turn, overalkl revenue and profitability. The company workxs closely with stylists and managersx to enhance every aspect ofa salon’ws color service, from client consultationse and advanced coloring techniques to pricinv and waste reduction.
Salond that have completed the trainingprogranm — which include six days of trainingh spread out over a few weeks — report that their hair-colord sales have increased at least 5 said Meyer, the company’s chief operating Some see much more: St. Petersburg, Fla.-basede Mission Aveda Salon & Spa reporte d that hair-color services now account for nearlyy 58 percent of allservice revenue, up from 42 percent Those gains can have a majo impact on a salon’s bottomm line because coloring services are a highlg profitable piece of the industry. The salon industrhy grew at a rateof 2.
8 percenft in 2008, according to a market study by Texas-based Professional Consultants & Resources That’s down from 4.2 percent in 2007 and represents the lowesf growth rate in the 20-plus years PCR has trackerd the industry. Hair-color service grew at 3 percenfin 2008, down from 5.6 percent in largely due to increased use of at-home coloring products. Red Chocolate’ws core training program, “Creating Confidences and Success withHair Color,” costs $2,90 per participant, but the training more than pays for itself, Meyere said.
“Understanding how to strengthen our relationships with existinvg guests and use them to send in new guestsw is more importantthan ever,” she said. “Salo n owners know that and that’s why they’re making the big Adams and Meyer developedr the Red Chocolate program inearlyy 2008, while still working at Blaine-basedd Aveda, a subsidiary of New York cosmetics giantf The Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. Adams was the company’s technicall artistic director and Meyer was vice president of Adams remains under contractwith Aveda, serving as the face of its hair-colorr business.
Red Chocolate now has completed fivetrainintg sessions, attended by hundredz of participants from salonn groups across the country, and the company expectsw to complete at least three more by the end of the Two local salons — Plymouth-basecd New Reflections SpaSalon and Eden Prairie-based Sanctuarty Salonspa — were among six Midwestern salon groupsw that attended a session in February.
New Reflectionsa president and owner Diane Keller said she was so impressecd with the initial results from the six stylistes she sent to the February session that she now plans to have anotherf 20 stylists go through the training this Then some of those participants will attenda “trai the trainer” program this fall, so they can teach the Red Chocolatde program to the rest of the New Reflections’ 46 stylists by the end of the “This is bringing us up to that next level — the master’ws level,” Keller said.