The art of small talk - louis

This was my first training-free week and it felt seriously weird! I'd never thought I'd miss eductaion, but I really did. The good thing is that you never you stop learning in the salon. Whenever I have free time, I'm always looking around to see what people are doing and what I can learn from them. As I've said before, my absolute favourite thing is to watch Robbie our colour technician. The man is a genius! When he's busy, he'll ask for a helping hand to colour someone's ends or hold the foils and it's all really good experience.

One of the things I really like about being a junior is that there are plenty of different tasks that make up your day. An average day could involve shampooing, neutralising, rinsing off colours, helping out busy colour technicians and doing less glamorous tasks like cleaning and stacking up shelves with products. Whatever the task, some of the most important skills you need are communication skills. Most people who come into the salon want to chat so you have to be able to make small talk. I'm not a shy person, so I've never found it that difficult to talk to people, but like anything it gets better with practice and I have now got the hang of the best way to start conversations. Something else I've learned is that people love it when you remember things about them, so I always try to make a mental note of holidays, new jobs, or children's names to bring up the next time I see them. I've also learned that you have to take the lead from your clients and if they don't want to talk you shouldn't try. It is their time and you have to create the experience they want to have. Just to finish, this week, a survey came out that said hairdressers are the second most satisfied people in their careers. I'm not surprised; we are happy folk! Contrary to what many people think, there is a lot of stress that goes with hairdressing, but we spend our days meeting and speaking to lots of interesting people, we listen to their woes and help them to leave the salon looking and feeling one hundred times better.What's there not to love?