So let’s start with Cranium. The salon has just celebrated 20 years in business (the party looked pretty darn special), and with 10 staff on the books (including Kelly’s 14-year-old son), Kelly describes them as one big family… “some days we are really happy and helpful, and others we’re busy and flustered. At the end of the day, we’re there for each other and we all need each other to achieve our clients’ goals and our own personal goals”.
Spoiling their clients is all part of the salon ethos at Cranium, along with providing a professional atmosphere and world-class results. Cranium is known in the area as ‘the salon that wins all the awards’. We’d say that’s an ethos on point.
And that leads us to the online education empire. Cranium has long exceeded industry benchmarks thanks to the years Kelly has dedicated to developing easy to understand techniques that enable her team to perform at their best, every week. Enter Cranium Concepts – online business courses that cover all aspects of salon business from start-ups to established enterprises, designed to foster great teams and productivity.
But it’s the green warrior behind these businesses that has our sustainability senses tingling.
“I believe it is our responsibility to practice our business (to profit) morally not profit over moral values,” says Kelly. “To be a success in life and business I believe in a holistic approach. My influence? My conscience… I love looking after others and caring for them, surely the world we live in deserves as much?”
About seven years ago, Kelly underwent a substantial environmental audit of Cranium and implemented as many changes as she could. Since then, she has continued to seek out better ways to make her salon as sustainable as possible – she even asked her plumber once if she could recycle her own water!
“The thing I love about sustainability is the immediate effect – the lack of waste! Waste is no longer rubbish; it is reusable and has value. I love this!"
“To me, sustainability is leaving the world in a better place. Thinking about our future and the future that exists without us, being mindful instead of having my head in the sand. Thinking about how my actions impact and the ripple effect we all create.”
And Kelly definitely believes she’s not alone in these values. “We all have recycling bins at home, and local councils and shopping centres now provide recycling bins; I imagine this is from public pressure to have those services readily available.
People – our clients – are far more informed in this day and age and they want to align with like-minded businesses.”
Cranium joined Sustainable Salons in 2016, and as soon as Kelly told her staff about the program and its benefits, she says they were in “boots and all!”.
“My team are amazing and are always looking for ways to improve our business,” Kelly enthuses. “Millennials are incredibly passionate regarding this topic; statistics predict that by 2025, 70% of the workforce will be Millennials – this is just another great reason to get on board with SSA.”
Kelly also says that her clients love that they are helping with every visit, with some mentioning that they would actively seek out these businesses if they knew programs such as this existed in other industries.
The sustainability message rates as an equally important part of Kelly’s salon business education. “I implement this into my courses because I truly believe in it.
“I educate businesses on how to get great value for money and how to build a salon brand. Sustainable Salons is such a far-reaching program, and I feel that in terms of ‘value for money’ you would have to look long and hard to get the results and impact that Sustainable Salons does for the Green Service Fee that each client contributes.
“Our industry is all about caring. If we really care, I think we need to seek out ways to help people make more informed decisions about how we treat our planet and to care for people that need our help… whether we know them or not.”
Sustainable Salons Australia provides the most comprehensive waste free systems to the professional hairdressing industry. We collect and recycle 95% of a salon’s waste and reward the salon for their recycling efforts!
Contact us here if you’d like to become a member of Sustainable Salons Australia.
