Ep. 18 The Stern Truth: The Power of a Team with Jenny Randhawa

Jenny Randhawa is a small business owner and entrepreneur. She owns three blow dry bar locations, aptly called Blo, in the Lower Mainland. Her entrepreneurial journey started in 2007 but hasn’t stopped yet. 

I talk with Jenny in this episode about juggling her early years with her kids with balancing her franchise. She talks about building the business by leading her team and how putting the systems in place helped her locations grow.

We get into the impact that COVID had on her business. Being more open and flexible with scheduling allowed her and her team to maintain business, even becoming more successful, over lockdown. 

Jenny’s confidence in her business may have been shaken but has never been broken. She strongly believes in being accountable and open with a growth mindset. The importance of being able to pivot is a great lesson that Jenny shares.

I put Jenny on the spot to ask, “What would you say to someone who can’t make payroll or pay their rent?”. Tune in to this episode to hear what she has to say.

Reach out to Jenny below:

Email: jen@bloblowdrybar.com
Website: www.bloblowdrybar.com

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Marshall Stern: So in today's episode, we sit down with Jenny from Blo Dry Bar and we talk about her journey through growing, expanding her company to multiple locations, and then the pandemic hits, and how she pivoted that and how she was able to continue to grow her business through building a team. Grab a piece of paper and pen and take some notes because you're going to get some great insights from our episode.

[00:00:28] Enjoy.

[00:00:34] Hi, I'm Marshall Stern and I've spent over 35 years leading and growing multiple small businesses. I know firsthand the struggles of entrepreneurship, feeling isolated, lonely, overwhelmed, and feeling like you have to do all by yourself. I've been through multiple recessions, and I have felt the highs and the lows.

[00:00:53] I've been there and I get it. This podcast is here to change that every week. I will bring you straight talking advice, real world strategies, and honest conversations about what it takes to succeed in business without the fluff, the gimmicks, or the sugar-coated. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress, then you are in the right place.

[00:01:17] This is the Stern Truth. Welcome back everyone to the Stern Truth Business Unfiltered. And we have another special guest for you to meet today. Jen, how are you doing? 

[00:01:31] Jenny Randhawa: I'm good. How are you? 

[00:01:32] Marshall Stern: I'm doing great. Now you, I want you to introduce yourself because you'll do it best. But I think we've known each other for a few years now.

[00:01:40] I know I had you inside of doing a member spotlight a few years back in the business inner circle. But I just want you to share with us a little bit about yourself. Your business and your journey? 

[00:01:51] Jenny Randhawa: Sure. I could go on for about an hour just on the intro, but I won't. So my name is Jenny Randhawa and I own Blo Blow Dry Bar here in Vancouver.

[00:02:02] I have currently three locations. Once upon a time I had about five but now we're at three, so I have one in Yaletown. South Granville and a new location that just opened in Lower Lonsdale in North Vancouver. So many of you have probably heard of Blo because it's the holy grail of blowouts, but for those who haven't, Blo is a blow dry bar that it's the first of its kind in North America.

[00:02:31] It started here in Vancouver in Yaletown in 2007 and quickly grew to three locations within a year. South Granville and there was one in the Four Seasons Hotel and I jumped on board very early on when they announced the opening. And I'm sorry, I'm just going to, yeah, so I came on board in 2009 and I took over the three corporate locations in Vancouver in 2010.

[00:03:02] And I had already an existing franchise location in South Surrey. So yeah, so in a matter of six months, I basically had four locations overnight, and so I've been running this business ever since. 

[00:03:17] Marshall Stern: Wow. So it's been around what year was it? 2007. 

[00:03:21] Jenny Randhawa: So 2007 Blo originally opened. 

[00:03:23] Marshall Stern: Nice. 

[00:03:23] Jenny Randhawa: Yep. In Yaletown and then South Granville and followed by Four Seasons.

[00:03:29] And I bought the three locations off corporate in 2010. Yeah. 

[00:03:34] Marshall Stern: 2010. Okay. Nice. So been around 18 years. 

[00:03:37] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah.

[00:03:38] Marshall Stern: Time flies. And you have two kids? 

[00:03:40] Jenny Randhawa: I do have two kids, yes. Jax, he is 11 and Ava, she's 11, turning 12, and so she's going to be working with me very soon. 

[00:03:49] Marshall Stern: Okay. So my question right now is how do juggle it all?

[00:03:54] Jenny Randhawa: I feel like the early years, the first 10 years were really hard and that's when the growing phase is happening in the business. Back then I basically was dragging my kids along with me to meetings, to interviews, to picking up inventory, to checking out the locations. They were with me at all times.

[00:04:15] So as they got older, obviously, they start going to preschool, daycare. School. So I tend to try to get all my work done while they're basically at school and I try to free up my evenings obviously for them and dinner and homework and all the fun stuff. So I may not have long work days, but there's a lot of stuff jam packed into those.

[00:04:40] A few hours and now you know, the businesses are established. The two locations, especially Yaletown and South Granville, they're established. So it doesn't take as much energy and effort. It takes a different kind of effort, more oversight, I think. Whereas the new location, which just opened about four months ago, is my new infant baby.

[00:05:02] That does require a lot of time and effort and energy. I'm just remembering back to the old days now with the new location. It's very different. 

[00:05:12] Marshall Stern: And these are all corporate locations? 

[00:05:15] Jenny Randhawa: They're, no, not anymore. No. They're all franchised. 

[00:05:17] Marshall Stern: They're franchised, 

[00:05:18] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. Since 2010. So I was the first franchise partner in the system back then.

[00:05:24] I was, yeah, I was the first franchise partner, but also the first multi-unit owner in the system. I've grown up with them and we've all worked together to establish systems and processes to make things work, whether it's a single unit or a multi-unit. So yeah, I've seen all the growing pains with corporate.

[00:05:43] Marshall Stern: Okay. So you said at one point you had five locations. 

[00:05:45] Now, again, were they, were those five corporate locations or they were franchise? All separate franchise. 

[00:05:50] Jenny Randhawa: All franchise, yeah. So I'll back up in 2009 when I signed on to be part of Blo the original agreement that was that I would open one location in South Surrey.

[00:06:01] So I did that in April of 2010 and the three original corporate locations, downtown Yaletown, South Granville, and Four Seasons they were corporate owned and basically my 28-year-old risk taking self messaged them, messaged corporate and basically said, you need to sell these corporate locations.

[00:06:24] And they said why don't you buy them? And I'm like, ah, I don't know how I'm going to do that, but okay. And so basically six months later I ended up owning three more locations. 

[00:06:38] Marshall Stern: Wow. 

[00:06:38] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah, so within April to October, I had overnight basically four. 

[00:06:44] Marshall Stern: Four locations. 

[00:06:45] Okay. And then there was a fifth one at some point. 

[00:06:47] Jenny Randhawa: And now North Van is technically the fifth, right?

[00:06:50] Marshall Stern: Yeah. Okay. Okay. 

[00:06:52] Jenny Randhawa: So I don't own Sout Surrey anymore. I sold that off in the first two years. And then Four Seasons, the hotel, I'm sure anyone who's part of Vancouver remembers when the hotel itself closed down. So because we were in the lobby of the hotel, we also had to close our doors. 

[00:07:12] Marshall Stern: Yeah. I'm sure there's, we could probably be on for a while, there's highs and lows. We're here to talk about really the journey and the Stern Truths behind the journey. What would you say would be the real truth, the Stern Truth, over what's helped you with the success to get to the point where you're at? 18 years is staying power.

[00:07:33] I know you you've been involved for 17 of those years. But what's, what would you attribute the success to? 

[00:07:40] Jenny Randhawa: Number one, having a great team. What I inherited back then in 2010 it was a very junior team that didn't have processes in place. We didn't have systems in place. There was, it was just all over the place and we were running around trying to just basically put out fires.

[00:07:58] It was more of a reactive approach rather than a proactive approach. So maybe that did work for a couple years before I had kids. But once I had my daughter in 2013, I still tried to do that, but I just found I wasn't getting anywhere. The business wasn't growing and my team wasn't thriving and, it just wasn't how I had pictured the whole thing.

[00:08:23] And mind you, having three locations all at once and never having owned a business in life or leading a team in life I was still learning too, as a new entrepreneur and, business owner. So I think it really did hit me in 2015 that I needed to change something if I really wanted to see the business thrive.

[00:08:42] So I sat down and just figured out what is it that I need help with and what is it that I can delegate and who can help me with this? So I made that list up first, and then I looked at my team and said, I picked the four or five people that I knew would really help me and we're really committed and loyal.

[00:09:04] And I said, hey guys let's divide this up. I need managers at each location. I need somebody who's leading this area of the business and this area. And everyone stepped up. And so once that happened, we put systems in place, processes in place policies. We started really pushing on our policies. I saw in just in the three first three months of doing that in 2015, my business grew 40% just in three months.

[00:09:33] And that was because we were following systems and processes and rules, and somebody was responsible for certain parts of the business that were impactful to the day to day. And so once that happened, things got a lot better. I started attracting better team members. I was able to develop team members into managers, regional managers, district managers.

[00:09:57] Yeah, so there was just a lot of stepping back and seeing what, what can be done and finding the right people to help you with that. 

[00:10:07] Marshall Stern: Okay. So we're talking 2015. 

[00:10:09] Fast forward five years to 2020. And the entire world shuts down. 

[00:10:14] How did you navigate that? How did you navigate it and come out of it on top?

[00:10:20] Jenny Randhawa: At that point, so we all closed down March. My Four Seasons location actually closed January, two months prior. So going into COVID, I had just the two locations and I know this is the complete opposite of what majority of the world. Thought of that whole closure period, the three months. But for me that was a welcome break.

[00:10:45] I can't describe it, but basically for me, I had not had a break in 10 years in the business and I always just dreamed of being able to just not think for a minute or have a week off or not worry. So when that break came, I don't know, maybe the stress hormone disappeared or something, and I was able to finally think.

[00:11:09] But during that time, I sat back and I thought, hey, we're going to reopen in three months. How are we going to do things different? Because we're coming out of this, we're going to have half the chairs that we normally do. How are we going to survive on half the chairs, half the space, basically. And we worked on that and then I had my teams complete buy-in that we were going to schedule differently.

[00:11:36] We were going to in terms of their availability, I needed all hands on deck. I needed flexibility. So I really tried to use that time on. Putting in the ideas that I had always dreamt of doing prior to COVID. And so I used that time after to implement all of that. And so once we reopened in June of that year it was like it was crazy.

[00:12:01] It was like a faucet turned on and we were full from day one of opening and now it wasn't so much about trying to attract clients, trying to bring in more clients. It was actually trying to figure out how to manage the demand. How to manage the schedule. How can we be more efficient in less space? So it was a totally different way of thinking.

[00:12:28] And that was, is more of like an abundance, like that whole abundance thinking and feeling. That's where we were at, it wasn't more, it wasn't a scarcity thing, it was more of an abundance thing. And we were now managing how do we fit in the same number of clientele, same number of appointments in less space.

[00:12:49] And so we did that really well. We navigated that really well. We had the team on board was just the best team that I had at that time, up until that point. My team now is amazing as well. But we all really were flexible. We thought of solutions together. We worked together on how to make it, how to make it work so.

[00:13:10] It worked really well. So now the last four years, five years, we've been number one in Canada and number two or three, depending on where New York is sitting or all the other bigger bars are sitting, but we're, in the top five for sure in North America.

[00:13:28] Marshall Stern: Nice. 

[00:13:28] Jenny Randhawa: I'm proud of that. 

[00:13:29] Marshall Stern: Yeah. And you know what, so it's interesting.

[00:13:31] So you said when this, when the lockdown first happened, that it was actually, you didn't use the word relief, but it was a time you weren't like it was, you were calm, it was calm. 

[00:13:42] Jenny Randhawa: It was calm. Yeah. 

[00:13:43] Marshall Stern: I felt the same way. For me it was only a few weeks because my business was my signage company.

[00:13:49] I had a signage company at the time. It ended up becoming an essential service. And we went from zero to like April being our worst month ever to May being our best month ever. And then it went back to like down, because we did everything in May. But I remember in, I guess mid-March it was for those few weeks, it was just this, the entire world was shut down, so it was this feeling of just can't do anything just calmness. And I remember just being outside with my kids playing basketball

[00:14:15] Marshall Stern: And spending time and – different times.

[00:14:18] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. 

[00:14:19] Marshall Stern: And I thought I was odd for feeling that way, but I'm glad you, yeah.

[00:14:23] Jenny Randhawa: I loved it. It was peaceful, it was calm, it was. Just relaxing. And I actually, it was funny because all those years I always wanted to learn about all our products more in detail, like the ingredients and actually what they do.

[00:14:36] And I could never spend that time doing it. So I just used to rely on my educators. But you, that time I spent learning about our products and every week I was actually sending out about a thousand text messages to our database. Yeah, and asking if anyone needed a product. And then people were asking me questions about what do you think I need and what's best for my hair?

[00:14:57] So here I am now for 12 weeks learning about products and I just felt that much more I don't know, in tune with my business. Just more grounded, so it was nice. I met a lot of clients during that time and went to their homes, dropped off product and all that kind of stuff. So it was a different aspect.

[00:15:14] I was focusing on social media and product education.

[00:15:18] Marshall Stern: That was my next question because a lot of companies, when they shut down, they just shut down. 

[00:15:23] Sent their employees home, got rid of them, laid them off, whatever. But we did the same thing, like you engaged your clients. You kept them informed. 

[00:15:31] Jenny Randhawa: Yes. 

[00:15:32] Marshall Stern: Which is important. And that's why when you reopened 

[00:15:35] They all came flooding back. Plus they were tired of doing their own hair. 

[00:15:38] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah, they were. I had people walking into the doors and they were like, thank God you're open. I never used to own a bottle of shampoo and I'm so grateful for you guys and never know, knew how much I needed you.

[00:15:52] So we have a lot of weekly clients that come in. They come in once or twice a week. So they have memberships and they're loyal guests, so they really did miss us. 

[00:16:04] Marshall Stern: Okay. Were you ever, during the pandemic, during this time and probably the more of the three months rather than when you reopened, were you ever scared for the business? 

[00:16:14] Jenny Randhawa: Never. 

[00:16:15] Marshall Stern: No. 

[00:16:15] Jenny Randhawa: No. I already had experienced really scary times in the first 10 years. I should have shut down many times. I was in the red a lot. There were times where I never had a business loan. I could never get a business loan. I was living off a I was operating my business.

[00:16:32] A three four location business offer a $10,000 credit card. So there was many times I could have, I was scared and should have shut down. And my banker, my accountant, my lawyer, everyone was like, how are you still alive? How are you still here? Anyone else would've shut down already. So there was plenty of scary times I've had before.

[00:16:54] This was not scary for me. 

[00:16:56] Marshall Stern: So those earlier years prepared you for this big moment. 

[00:17:00] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. 

[00:17:01] Marshall Stern: Yeah. So you used the word, the term I should probably should have shut down. No, you should've. Because it was, you learned from it, right? And this is what prepared  you for what we none of us knew was going to happen.

[00:17:12] Jenny Randhawa: Yes. 

[00:17:13] Marshall Stern: What do you think? Were people – Okay, a question I like to ask my guests is, what do you think separates those who succeed in business? Whatever success looks like, right, because it's different for everyone. But those who succeed and are, or on the right path to succeeding from those who just consistently struggle, and eventually quit.

[00:17:41] Jenny Randhawa: I guess I can only share what's gotten me through those really challenging moments. So there was times where I couldn't pay rent or maybe I couldn't make payroll. Like I didn't think I could make payroll, but I did. I always made payroll. There was times where I couldn't pay for our supplier bill for another two weeks.

[00:18:06] There was so many times where I was struggling financially, but none of those times I thought, this is the end of me, or this is the end of the business. I would have a really crappy three days. I would allow myself to cry for one full day, just one day because you need to release. And it wasn't crying oh my God, this is the end.

[00:18:33] It was crying like, wow, this is so hard. And so yeah, I would allow myself to cry for one day. Second day I would be like, okay, we're going to think of a solution. We're going to think of, how do we get out at this? What is the problem? Is it a cashflow thing? Is it a HR thing or is it, education thing?

[00:18:53] What is the problem? Is it a price point thing? Like our, our service price, we have blowouts. They're, now, they're $59, but back then, when we started it, they were $33. So I would sit back and think, what is the actual issue? And by day three, I had a three four point plan on how to tackle it.

[00:19:14] So I think I always thought of a solution-based like I would think of things on how to fix it, rather than sitting back and thinking, why me? I would never pity myself. I asked for this, I wanted this, I saw the potential in it. So I have always, even to this day, I'm going through a pretty big change right now.

[00:19:37] I think, what can I do systematically? What can I do with the business to change what's going on? Change the problem. So I guess maybe, having that mindset of what can I do to change it rather than how am I going to, this is awful. 

[00:19:55] Marshall Stern: Rather than the why me? Yeah. Okay. So I'm hearing a lot about people, processes, plans, and pivoting because you've pivoted many times. 

[00:20:11] Someone's listening to this and they're going through one of those times right now where it's like they're scared, they maybe can't pay, can't make payroll, or they can't pay their rent, what would you say to them? 

[00:20:28] I know I'm putting you on the spot here.

[00:20:30] Jenny Randhawa: No, I was just thinking back when that kind of stuff happened to me. I remember there were times where I had maybe like nothing in the account, and next day, payroll was due, rent was due. Visa was due, you had to buy shampoo. I had, all this money supposed to be coming out of the account and obviously there's panic and wondering how am I going to get through that?

[00:20:54] So I remember back then, a lot of times I would just have really straight honest discussions with whether it's my landlord. Or whether it's my banker anyone, I would just ask, I would just have honest discussions and say, hey, I need four more days, or, hey, I need five more days. So that got me through the challenging moments.

[00:21:16] Or my banker, I'm like, I know you have a $5,000 limit. I know you can push it to 10. Can you please do that for me? So having just really good relationships with not only your staff, but also all the people surrounding you in your world is really important. And then I think like over the years I've always gotten, I don't know, lucky or I don't know what it is.

[00:21:42] I've just been able to have really smart, good staff around me, and there's always somebody in that group of people that is, you can tell they are loyal to you. They're committed to you. They're committed to the business and the clients, and they want to see it succeed. And I think rather than thinking, I need to do all this myself, reaching out to them and saying, I need your help.

[00:22:10] Can you do this for me? And many times, almost every single time they're going to say yes. So even now, for example for the last, since 2016, I've had a district manager who's helped me basically run the operations for all the locations so that I can, be a mom as well.

[00:22:30] So my district manager, her name is Helen incredible girl. Woman, I should say. She's been with me for about five years and basically she's me, but a little tougher and a little stricter. I'm like, staff say I'm too nice, but she's a little stricter version of me. And anyway, she had to take a leave unexpectedly in November, and it was actually three days prior to me opening the new location.

[00:22:59] And it was three days prior to having our busiest month ever in December. And so it was, it's been really challenging because she runs a huge part of the business and here I am supposed to be on the, looking over it strategically and implementing new ideas and all that kind of stuff. But when she left, I was,

[00:23:21] I've been left right now to manage basically three locations. One, a brand new one, which takes, as I said, different kind of energy. But also running the day to day at all three locations is really challenging. And so for the last few months, I struggled and got through it. It was slow season in January, February, so you know, I could manage it.

[00:23:43] But now as we've been wrapping up in March, I was like, oh my God, there's so much to do. And it's getting busier in the bar and we're hiring more people. I have more staff now. There's just so much to do. How do I manage it? And so I sat down again, made a list of everything that needs to be done every day and every week, every month.

[00:24:07] And then I sat down with my managers and I said, hey, I need help. This is what I normally, this is what Helen would do. But now we're going to divide it up. I need you guys to do this with me. And so these young ladies, managers at each location have been stepping up and they've taken care of things that I didn't think they could take care of.

[00:24:28] And I even had a staff meeting with one of my locations last week, and I just said, hey, like I cannot do all of this myself. I cannot micromanage. I can't babysit, I can't check in each single day with each single person. You guys are adults. You've been here at 10 years. Let's pick it up differently now.

[00:24:47] And yeah. So things have been better and it feels better. I feel lighter, and I feel like we're going to have a great summer. 

[00:24:54] Marshall Stern: That was a lot. It's the attitude. Obviously you take action from that, but it starts with the mindset, starts with the attitude. Like you talked earlier about scarcity versus abundance, and it's having just that or the can do attitude. 

[00:25:06] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. 

[00:25:12] Marshall Stern: As opposed to, why is this happening? There's a place to look at why, like why is this happening so we can fix it? As opposed to why is this happening to me? There's a difference to distinguish that.

[00:25:17] What about support? So would you say your main support then is like the team around you? Your staff?

[00:25:22] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. Through the main support. What I love about them is that they're all also young too. They're all in their twenties and thirties. A lot of them have been actually with me for about 10 years.

[00:25:32] So I feel like we've grown up together and learned each other's ways and all this kind of stuff. They're loyal. I know they're loyal. I know their heart's in it. They wouldn't be here if they weren't, so I trust them, right? Yes, my staff. The other piece that's really supportive is other owners in the business.

[00:25:52] So my friends in Ontario or Indiana or California, in Texas, I have friends, in the system from all over. And so we have our own chat groups that we bounce ideas off of, or if we need to vent, or I'm having a really crappy day, I'm really worried about my numbers, or I don't know if I can reach my targets, whatever it is, or, just sharing even, I'm doing this promo this month, or I did it last month.

[00:26:17] They worked really great. Why don't you guys try it? So there's a lot of collaboration and a lot of just emotional support that you get from surrounding yourself with other business owners. 

[00:26:31] Marshall Stern: I love that because as business owners, entrepreneurs, most of us are, unless there's significant other or friends are entrepreneurial, we're usually pretty alone in our business.

[00:26:40] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. 

[00:26:40] Marshall Stern: Because you, you have a strong team, which is awesome, but you, there's certain things you're not going to go to them with. That's certain things that you need to have other people on the same business, level. 

[00:26:51] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. 

[00:26:51] Marshall Stern: Especially when things get tough, you're not going to go to your stuff.

[00:26:55] When you're having a tough time making payroll, you need to figure things out. Don't scare them away. 

[00:27:00] Marshall Stern: Okay, before we wrap up, I'm curious what would be one, if you had one piece of advice for entrepreneurs? 

[00:27:10] Jenny Randhawa: So this past year I've been focusing on my health a lot more.

[00:27:15] I think in the past I've always been health conscious and all that, but this past year and a half I really focused more on it and more consistent on it. So I feel like when you're taking care of yourself physically and nutritionally and all those kind of things, you're actually a much more focused and energetically aware person within the business.

[00:27:37] And I don't know, I think that's really important, taking care of yourself. The other piece is, again, I guess, not having negative toxic cruiser type people around you having the driven people around you. 

[00:27:58] Marshall Stern: I love that. That's great. It's great advice for all of us. 

[00:28:01] Surround ourselves. It’s all our inner circle. Surround ourselves more with people who lift us up and even stretch us. People who are smarter, further ahead rather than. 

[00:28:10] A mentor of mine says, or once said if you are the most important person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

[00:28:18] Jenny Randhawa: That's right. 

[00:28:20] Marshall Stern: I always found that interesting. 

[00:28:21] Jenny Randhawa: So that's true. Yeah. 

[00:28:23] Marshall Stern: Okay. So people I'm going to put your info, contact info in the show notes and all that kind of stuff. But if people want to get in touch with you and they don't want to, they just want to memorize it, they don't want to write it down they want to reach out or whatnot, what's the best way to, to reach out to you?

[00:28:36] Jenny Randhawa: I would say email, for sure. 

[00:28:38] Marshall Stern: Yeah. 

[00:28:38] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah, Jen@blowmedry.com. I'm sure you share that on your screen. Yeah. We do have Instagram for my locations so Blo Vancouver, B-L-O Vancouver, and Blo North Van. I check all that constantly and I do have a personal Instagram, but it's not open I would prefer, yeah, email.

[00:28:57] Marshall Stern: Email. Perfect. Okay. Anything else you wanted to add before we go? 

[00:29:01] Jenny Randhawa: No, I always love speaking with you. It's always honest and straight. So yeah. I'm glad you reached out. Thank you. 

[00:29:08] Marshall Stern: No, thank you. And you definitely shared some, I knew you would, share some golden nuggets as my father would used to say. 

[00:29:14] Marshall Stern: And especially about, really, one thing I'm taking away from this is the power, like it's really the people. It all comes down to the people. Without the people, what do we have? It's all about the that.

[00:29:29] Marshall Stern: We can't do this ourselves. And one of my, oh, I have a question for you.Here's a question. Business book. Do you have a favorite go-to business book that you've read? 

[00:29:37] Jenny Randhawa: Not book, but a podcast. 

[00:29:40] Marshall Stern: Okay. 

[00:29:42] Jenny Randhawa: And that, oh my God, I haven't thought about it in so long. But it is – 

[00:29:48] Marshall Stern: Other than the Stern Truth, of course.

[00:29:50] Jenny Randhawa: Of course, yeah. Oh man, it's going to escape me now because I haven't thought about it.

[00:29:55] Oh, I'll send it to you. But basically what it is his name is Guy Raz.

[00:30:02] Marshall Stern: Oh, “How I Built This”. 

[00:30:03] Jenny Randhawa: “How I Built This”. Yes. That's what it is. It's my favorite. And he tells, he interviews well-known CEOs or, executives from well-known brands, and just the type of questions he asks are very different than what a normal interview would be. 

[00:30:20] Jenny Randhawa: And he actually focuses a lot on the struggle of getting things going and the roadblocks these owners or executives experienced early on in their businesses and how they got through those. And so I always find that powerful and it always allowed me to see there is a way out.

[00:30:40] You just have to pivot. You have to think of a new thing. So I love his podcast for sure. 

[00:30:46] Marshall Stern: Yeah. No, that's good. It is a really good podcast. And one of the things we're trying to do here is be, not the same, but similar in that I don't want to hear just all the successes of your company.

[00:30:57] Marshall Stern: But I want to hear the struggles you've had and how, like you said, like how you got through it and you shared some. Because it's not linear. Our growth. 

[00:31:06] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. No, not at all.

[00:31:08] Marshall Stern: Some days, some years it's this is it. I've made it. Yes. And then the next year, my best year in my signed business 

[00:31:14] Marshall Stern: In Sandbox, my greatest year in revenue wise, not profit per se. Although revenue wise was 2019. 

[00:31:21] And I thought we're there. 

[00:31:23] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. 

[00:31:24] Marshall Stern: Then we know what happened in 2020. 

[00:31:26] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. 

[00:31:26] Marshall Stern: So just when you think you've got to keep going, you have to keep going. You've used a lot of keywords here, including pivoting and that sort of thing.

[00:31:34] Okay. So yeah, we'll put that in there. 

[00:31:36] Jenny Randhawa: To talk about that. My best year was 2023, and we were nailing every category. I had the right staff, I had enough staff. We were excelling in all the different areas of our business, whether it's makeup or, services or retail or whatever. We were excelling in every area, and I thought, this is it.

[00:31:55] This is amazing. I don't know how I'm going to go up from here. And last year, 2024, was a year that I didn't have enough staff and we weren't hitting our retail or service numbers, but we still matched revenue-wise the previous year. Which, it's good. It's still good. We were still number one, number two, or whatever we were, and then this year I was like, no, that is not good enough for me.

[00:32:22] I don't want to be at that same place. Even though it's great. It's excellent. I want to be even better. And so now we last few months, we've been carving out a strategy on how to do that. So I think I said this to my staff last week, I never want us to be complacent, even though they're, even though we're great already, I never want us to sit there at that place of comfort.

[00:32:45] So let's always push ourselves, keep growing, keep trying new things, and seeing where we can get better. And so that's what we've been focusing on the last, two months. Hopefully it works. 

[00:32:58] Marshall Stern: Well. It will. And because you have the right attitude, you have the, sounds like you have the right team.

[00:33:02] And it goes back to, the whole word pivoting word has been overused with the pandemic and whatnot. But you had to do it. You're constantly pivoting and I improving, unlike, look, there are companies that don't and then they it's pivot or perish, Look at Blockbuster.

[00:33:16] Blockbuster had it all. 

[00:33:18] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. 

[00:33:20] Marshall Stern: Say no more. One another really good book, I think I've mentioned it on this podcast before, or another good a good book. Aside from the E-Myth, which is the Bible of entrepreneurship, is WTF, I don't know if you've read that one.

[00:33:31] Jenny Randhawa: No, I haven't, no. 

[00:33:32] Marshall Stern: Which is Brian Scudamore. 

[00:33:35] Jenny Randhawa: Yes, I know him.

[00:33:36] Marshall Stern: So WTF is willing to fail and it's awesome because it's similar to what you would hear on Guy Raz on the podcast. Because it's all about Brian's from the leadership standpoint. 

[00:33:49] At a business owner standpoint, how he built one 1-800, but how he brought on the wrong people at certain times.

[00:33:55] And it's all about the people. It's all about bring people on that were better than him. Smarter than him. 

[00:34:00] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. 

[00:34:01] Marshall Stern: And he couldn't do without them. It was by having a vision, his painted picture of the vision, but then the mistakes he made. 

[00:34:07] Jenny Randhawa: Yeah. 

[00:34:08] Marshall Stern: And it's really, it's an honest conversation he has with I guess, the readers, it's a really good book. 

[00:34:12] Jenny Randhawa: Okay. I'm going to pick that up. 

[00:34:14] Marshall Stern: Yeah. Thank you so much, Jenny. 

[00:34:16] Jenny Randhawa: Thank you. 

[00:34:17] Marshall Stern: And for the rest of you, yeah, go into show notes, check it out. Send her an email. Go to Blo Dry Bar and there's three locations to serve you in the lower mainland. And of course subscribe and do all that kind of stuff with the podcast and share it so everyone can see and hear the amazing story that that she's told us about today.

[00:34:35] So thank you so much Jenny.

[00:34:37] Jenny Randhawa: Thank you. 

[00:34:38] Marshall Stern: We will see you all again next week.

[00:34:43] Thank you so much for tuning in to the Stern Truth. If you found today's episode helpful, we would love to hear from you. Please like, share and leave us a review. Also, if you'd like to be a guest in the upcoming episode or join us in one of our Moment Accountability Group sessions, simply email me to marshall@marshallstern.net.

[00:35:03] That's marshall@marshallstern.net. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button, so never miss an episode. Until next time, keep pushing forward and leading with confidence.