A Salon Owner Shares his Secrets for Growing his Business

As we all know, working in the beauty industry can be quite competitive. Now more than ever, ensuring that you and your team are at the top of your game is important for your salon’s success.

Fady Assaad, owner of Hair Junkie in Ottawa, has been operating his salon since 1986. And for more than 30 years, he has utilized Redken’s Club 5^th Avenue (C5A) business development program to offer a customized approach to educating and growing his team.

“Our salon has always had a value system based on quality education for our stylists,” he says. “Redken’s C5A program has always mirrored our values by providing quality education with the flexibility to assist with our salon’s needs.”

Redken’s C5A allows salons to earn points for every dollar spent on Redken. C5A members can redeem points for everything from education to products to tickets for Redken events, saving salons thousands of dollars annually.

Now, Redken is relaunching C5A with some exciting new changes that include even more benefits for its members. In addition to providing customized education programs, free products, merchandising tools, and travel opportunities for educational development, C5A offers incentives like the Color Accelerator, which allows members to earn 50 per cent more points on all colour purchases.

C5A has also expanded its tier levels—Tribe, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Flagship Gold, Platinum, Flagship Platinum, Black and Flagship Black—making the program more accessible than ever. The points system ranges from seven points per dollar to 20 points per dollar, in which salons can earn from each of their Redken purchases. Plus, here’s the good news: C5A is open to all salons that carry Redken—including salons that also carry other brands!

C5A’s Flagship Black salons, such as Hair Junkie, also earn exclusive rewards such as Product Premiere, which provides salons with a sneak preview of upcoming product launches (one month in advance of the launch date), tickets to Redken’s Fusion or Symposium, and free regional education classes.

Assaad says his approach is to train hairstylists as soon as they graduate, redeeming his C5A points for education to strengthen stylists’ skills in everything from cutting, colour and styling, to consultation, retail, pre-booking and referrals. “It’s a complete guide that arms the stylists and gives them confidence,” he says. “The market is always changing. Right now, it’s all about social media and we get tons from Redken on that [including free classes and a 50 per cent discount on social media classes].”

“I could use my points to buy products, but it makes much more sense to use it to benefit the stylists. This is how you grow your people,” adds Assaad. “Eight of the senior stylists at my salon once washed hair, so we have a great history of growing our team of hairstylists from school to building their careers behind the chair. Without C5A, the money would come out of our own pocket. Now, it’s coming out of our point system and it helps a great deal.”