00:07Having a great haircut is just the best feeling in the world. I've been coming to
00:12Gadzooks for about 11 years. I've been coming here since probably January. I'm
00:16here at Gadzooks today to have a consultation. Oh my god this place is
00:19amazing. It's extremely inviting. It's just a place where you want to keep
00:23coming back to. I'm here at Gadzooks to get a different experience and someone
00:27to really understand my hair. I'm in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a town that spent
00:34more than a hundred years making steel and the last 30 figuring out what to do
00:38next. Turns out that Bethlehem is a great place for second acts and that is
00:43exactly what brought me here. I've been throwing this out just for you Kim. Oh
00:48you are so sweet Jason but I'm not cutting your hair today. I have a job to
00:52do. I thought this was your job. No not here it isn't. You're gonna be with Lindsay.
00:56Oh okay. I'm thinking a pink mohawk.
01:05That is Kim Miles. For 20 years you would have found her on television. She won HGTV's
01:11Design Star, got her own show out of it and spent two decades on camera as a
01:15designer and a host. Now you find her here in a strip mall in the Lehigh Valley
01:20running a salon that's older than the Brazilian blowout. Most people buy a
01:24business to invest in themselves but Kim and her husband Scott bought this
01:28business to invest in the people that are already here. Kim you've had a whole
01:33fancy TV career. Why this? It all began with hair Jason. It's the alpha and the
01:40Omega. Right? I gave my first haircut when I was 12 to my dad. So hair was the
01:46first love. So I have been entertaining this idea and we've been turning it over
01:50and over. So we're at the front desk that's where it begins for the customer.
01:56Where did this business begin for you? When we bought the business it had
02:00started to taper. The owner who created it was moving toward retirement. So you
02:05inherited a business that was existing in the community and familiar but not
02:08bustling. Not at all. So that that was the first job. Okay how do we lift this
02:13back up? But if you open a salon yourself you probably wouldn't have called it
02:20Gadzooks. The reason we kept the name was it was Legacy. Yeah it has been here for
02:28over 35 years. You cannot buy that kind of name recognition and community bedrock.
02:36So how have you navigated that tension between inheriting things at work and
02:41also seeing things you might want to change? You'd be curious and you shut up
02:45and you listen and I said to the team I'm not gonna change a thing for the
02:50first six months except I'm gonna make it prettier inside. Earning trust organically
02:57just by by not doing. Yeah yeah. Not many business owners have the confidence to
03:06institute a shut up and listen policy. I don't know if it's confidence as much as
03:10just experience. The key is to know what you don't know and to be okay with that.
03:16Not knowing isn't the failure. Pretending to know is where you run into
03:19trouble. But bringing change is gonna upset some people. Did you lose anybody as you
03:24came here? We lost our two highest earners. Whoa. Within the first six months. Oh that
03:29must have been freaky. It wasn't great. But we're really proud of the fact that we
03:34retained everybody else. How else are you investing in this staff? We have a
03:38dedicated education program, 401ks, year-end bonuses, maternity leave, paid
03:43sick days, mental health leave. People don't expect that out of a salon. No it's not
03:47they can get it. So I wish I had that. Right? By bringing that here and making
03:52that just bedrock of what we offer, that is such a differentiator for us as far as
03:56being able to hire competitively.
04:01So you're an HGTV designer. How did you redesign this place? Um very slowly.
04:06Yeah we started with this front space creating kind of a living room space and
04:12then if you don't feel like you have design chops when in doubt just put a
04:17plant on it. Oh. Oh. So it's happened. Just like that. Actually I went really hard on
04:22plants. I have a garden room on the other side. Oh let's check it out. I know community
04:26building is really important for this business. So what does it really mean to
04:30build community? For Gadzooks it means hey we're here and this is what we can do
04:34for you. So for example all the plants you see in the space it's a local small
04:40business. Our idea is why not support another small business? Let's put her
04:44merch in here. Reaching out to local hospitals. We offer a 10% discount if
04:49you flash your nurse's badge. Reaching out to local high schools around prom
04:52season and offering value. We are only as good and as strong as our community
04:58and how well we lean on each other and take care of each other.
05:03You could have probably just made this Gadzooks come here for Kim and it would
05:09have made a lot of money. But I cannot be here guiding the culture and observing
05:15what my team needs while also focusing behind the chair. If I am paying forward
05:20all of my knowledge by training my team then my energy can be spent amplifying
05:24what we're building. We really believe that the long way is the right way when
05:31you're doing it the right way. So you've owned Gadzooks for a year now. Where's
05:35this going? We want to transition this business into an employee-owned model.
05:41What does that mean? Giving our staff opportunity to invest in something they
05:44have real control over. We hope by making this an employee-owned company that this
05:50outlives us. It will mean that we own less of our company. Our role going forward
05:56with Gadzooks is creating opportunity for all the people who are going to come
06:00through these doors in the future.
06:0735 years on the same corner. Now one year with a new owner. No investors, no
06:12second location, no plan to sell.
06:15They do a great job and when somebody comments on my hair I always tell them where I go.
06:20She writes messages on the sidewalk before you walk in and it says hello gorgeous and
06:24that's how you feel when you come in and that's how you feel when you leave.
06:27You look beautiful. I feel fabulous. Come on. Thank you. Thank you.
06:31She's a great stylist and she instantly knows what you're talking about. That gives you a good feeling.
06:37Puts a little spring in your step. Looking forward to coming back month after month.
06:41I can't wait to come back here. So Kim will not be doing my hair today and that's for the
06:46best.
06:46She has better things to do. Every business owner faces a choice. Are you building yourself
06:51or are you building something bigger than yourself? The second way is the long way. But as Kim said,
06:57the long way is the right way.
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