Ex-Aveda specialists’ courses have salons seeing more green
Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal - by John Vomhof Jr. Staff writer
Virginia Meyer, left, co-founder of the hair-coloring consultancy Red Chocolate, with New Reflections salon owner Diane Keller, one of the firm’s clients.
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At a time when many consumers are waiting longer between haircuts and opting for do-it-yourself hair-color products instead of professional dye jobs, some salons are turning to a local company to help them boost their sluggish sales.
Minneapolis-based Red Chocolate, founded last year by former Aveda Corp. executives David Adams and Virginia Meyer, provides extensive hair-color training for salon groups, promising to boost salons’ color sales and, in turn, overall revenue and profitability. The company works closely with stylists and managers to enhance every aspect of a salon’s color service, from client consultations and advanced coloring techniques to pricing and waste reduction.
Salons that have completed the training program — which include six days of training spread out over a few weeks — report that their hair-color sales have increased at least 5 percent, said Meyer, the company’s chief operating officer. Some see much more: St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Mission Aveda Salon & Spa reported that hair-color services now account for nearly 58 percent of all service revenue, up from 42 percent before.
Those gains can have a major impact on a salon’s bottom line because coloring services are a highly profitable piece of the industry.
