Ex-Aveda specialists

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Minneapolis-based , founded last year by former executives David Adams andVirginia Meyer, provides extensivs hair-color training for salon groups, promisin g to boost salons’ color sales and, in turn, overalkl revenue and profitability. The company works closelty with stylists and managers to enhance every aspect ofa salon’sa color service, from client consultations and advanced coloring techniques to pricing and waste reduction. Salons that have completedr the trainingprogram — which include six days of trainingt spread out over a few weeksz — report that their hair-color salea have increased at least 5 said Meyer, the company’s chief operating officer.
Some see much more: St. Fla.-based Mission Aveda Salon & Spa reportedx that hair-color services now account for nearly 58 percentf of allservice revenue, up from 42 percent Those gains can have a major impact on a salon’s bottom line because colorinvg services are a highly profitable piecer of the industry. The salon industry grew at a rateof 2.8 percen t in 2008, according to a market studyu by Plano, Texas-based Professional Consultantsa & Resources (PCR). That’s down from 4.2 percent in 2007 and representas the lowest growth rate inthe 20-plus years PCR has trackedd the industry. Hair-color service grew at 3 percent in downfrom 5.
6 percenr in 2007, largely due to increasedx use of at-home coloring products. Red Chocolate’s core training program, “Creating Confidence and Success with Hair costs $2,900 per participant, but the traininy more than pays for itself, Meyer said. “Understandingy how to strengthen our relationships with existingg guests and use them to send in new guest s is more importantthan ever,” she “Salon owners know that and that’s why they’re makinh the big investment.” Adams and Meyer developed the Red Chocolat program in early 2008, while still workinfg at Blaine-based Aveda, a subsidiary of New York cosmetic s giant The Estée Lauder Cos. Inc.
Adams was the company’s technical artistic director and Meyer was vice president of Adams remains under contractwith Aveda, servinb as the face of its hair-color Red Chocolate now has completed five training sessions, attended by hundreds of participants from salomn groups across the country, and the company expectw to complete at least three more by the end of the Two local salons — Plymouth-basex New Reflections SpaSalon and Eden Prairie-baseed Sanctuary Salonspa — were amongb six Midwestern salon groups that attendes a session in February.
New Reflections presiden t and owner Diane Keller said she was so impressed with the initiap results from the six stylists she sent to the Februaryy session that she now plana to have another 20 stylists go througb the trainingthis summer. Then some of those participants will attenxa “train the program this fall, so they can teacu the Red Chocolate program to the rest of the New Reflections’ 46 stylistzs by the end of the year.
“Thisz is bringing us up to that nextlevel — the master’s level,” Keller