10 Minute Beauty Business Podcast with Lexi Lomax

I’m ready to get real with you about the thing I see over and over in my DMs: another stylist just walked out the door, and you’re back behind the chair rebuilding the same team. In the intro, I’m also catching you up on how I’ve been staying priority-focused as a mom and business owner, and why good systems matter when life happens.

Today I’m breaking down why constant stylist turnover is almost always a leadership problem (and why that’s actually good news), what great leadership looks like in a salon, and how to stop leaning on perks and team dinners to do the work of real culture. If you’re tired of hiring, training, and watching good people leave, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• Why the common denominator in your turnover is you, and why a problem you caused is the best kind of problem to have, because you can change it

• What great leadership really looks like: setting expectations before there’s a problem, holding people accountable without being the policeman, and having uncomfortable conversations right away instead of letting things build into a walkout

• The real cost of stylist turnover: recruiting, interviewing, training, building a clientele, lost clients, and you back behind the chair

• Why a handbook nobody reads means you have suggestions, not standards, and why you can’t out-hire a leadership problem

The Monday Club:

The community and core curriculum where salon owners work on leadership, accountability, culture, systems, and marketing, so you can build a salon that doesn’t need you to be the most important person in the room every day. Learn more: https://www.lexilomax.com/monday-club

I’m still coming down from birthday week (mini golf tournament, a getaway with my husband, and a salon team that spoiled me rotten), and now I’m ready to get back to work. Last week I stopped mid-recording to write myself a note: we need to talk about how to plan your CEO year, and what it actually looks like to run your salon like a CEO instead of just reacting to whatever comes at you.

Today I’m breaking down what’s on the scenes versus behind the scenes for a salon owner, and the four things I want you to block on your calendar before 2027 starts. If your CEO day is the first thing to get canceled when things get busy, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• The on-the-scenes vs. behind-the-scenes framework, and why the 90% nobody sees is where your business actually gets built
• What CEO work really looks like: reviewing your numbers every quarter, planning marketing months ahead, and developing your team instead of just managing them
• The four things to block on your calendar: a weekly CEO hour, a monthly half or full day, a quarterly planning event, and real time off that’s already scheduled and protected
• Why you have to build the net before you leap, and why a plan beats manifesting

The Monday Club:
The community and core curriculum that gives you the framework and accountability to make your CEO work actually happen, with other salon owners moving through it alongside you. Learn more: https://www.lexilomax.com/monday-club

It’s October, my birthday month, and the Libra in me is feeling it. But I’m skipping the small talk because it’s Q4, and we have roughly 90 days left to decide what kind of year 2026 turns out to be. There are about 11 Fridays before Christmas. What you do right now determines how your year ends and how you set up 2027, and none of it should wait until January.

I’ve been running a quarterly audit on this business, and it reminded me how much I love teaching business planning. A little planning goes a long way, and I’m bringing more of it back to the podcast. Today I’m walking through the four things I think every salon owner needs to be doing right now.

In this episode:

• Why the clients who fill your January are Googling salons right now, and how a visibility leak in October shows up as a slow Q1
• How to look at your website like a stranger would, and what Google and AI tools need to see when people ask for salon recommendations
• The quick wins that make a big impact: updating your Google Business Profile and hours, getting Yelp set up, and keeping your booking experience clean

• Why you need to put real time off on your calendar before the year ends, and for all of 2027, because a depleted owner makes reactive decisions instead of strategic ones

Salon Visibility:
The training that builds your digital footprint so new clients can actually find you, on Google, on AI search, everywhere they’re looking. This is the foundation everything else gets built on. Learn more: https://www.salonmindsmastermind.com/salon-visibility

I'm in celebration mode this month, and I'm using it to talk about the people who make my salon what it is. Every Thursday, Belle walks into Ooh La La, makes her rounds with hugs and compliments, and sits in Nadine's chair, just like she has for 35 years. Clients often ask me what makes our salon feel the way it does. My answer is always the same: it's the people. But the people don't just show up that way. You build it, you attract it, and it all starts at the top.

Today I'm sharing a few of the women on my team and what I've learned in 19 years about curating a team of incredible humans and creating a place they want to stay. If you've been saying "we just can't find good stylists," this one is for you.

In this episode:

• Meet the team: Nadine, Laura, Jackie, and Faith, and what makes each one so great

• Why culture isn't a value statement on your website or a monthly team meeting, but the sum of every tiny leadership decision you make
• How clients feel your culture the moment they walk through the door, and how that feeling turns Google and Yelp searchers into a community
• Why "we need new talent" is often a leadership problem, and why becoming a better leader comes before hiring or firing

• Why your ideal client evolves as she ages, and why long-term loyal clients are still worth celebrating

Salon Visibility:

The training that builds your digital footprint so new clients can actually find you, on Google, on AI search, everywhere they're looking. This is the foundation everything else gets built on. Learn more: https://www.salonmindsmastermind.com/salon-visibility

I'm back at "turn up season" energy, and I'm sharing where my head's at going into the last stretch of the year. After a few seasons of running my own salon on autopilot (thank God for good systems), I'm coming back to my 11 out of 10, and this episode is one of the first things I want you to take action on.

Today I'm talking about one of the most expensive problems in the salon industry, and the sneakiest one: the client you lose without ever knowing she was there. There's no notification when someone finds your salon, starts to book, and quietly closes the tab. This episode is about how to find those leaks in your new client journey and fix them, especially if you're running a hybrid or rental salon with stylists on different booking platforms.

In this episode:

• Why losing a client mid-booking is invisible, and why it might be costing you more than you realize
• What I learned from having multiple stylists on multiple booking systems, and how that friction sent new clients straight to competitors

• How to audit your new client journey step by step: count your clicks, check your booking page, and review your confirmations, reminders, and follow-ups
• Why "we'll get you in within 48 hours" is losing you bookings, and how to give people a way to book now (even if it's just the consult)

• Why visibility is only half the equation, and how your back-end experience has to match your front-end marketing

Switching to Mangomint:
Moving my whole salon onto one system meant one booking experience for every stylist, every time. If you're curious whether it'd work better for your salon, grab your first month free with my link: https://www.mangomint.com/referral/lexi/

Salon Visibility:
The training that builds your digital footprint so new clients can actually find you, on Google, on AI search, everywhere they're looking. This is the foundation everything else gets built on. Learn more: https://www.salonmindsmastermind.com/salon-visibility

I just spent four days in Coronado hosting my one-on-one clients for our annual retreat, and I came home fired up about Q4 in a way I haven't been in a while. Not because I have a shiny new three-step plan, but because being in a room with that many smart, badass salon owners for four days straight surfaced so many small, specific shifts worth making before the holidays hit.

This episode is me walking you through exactly what I'm doing right now, in September, to get my own salon ready for the most revenue-dense stretch of the year. It's about getting hyper-specific with marketing instead of just turning up the volume on what you're already doing, why the software you use for that matters more than people think, and why visibility work has to start months before anyone's actually searching for you. I also share a stat from one of my clients that made me nearly spit out my drink.

In this episode:

• Why "know what you do and who you do it for" isn't just a tombstone statement, and how to actually connect it to service-to-product, product-to-service, and product-to-product marketing that converts
• How I'm using client and retail data to build hyper-targeted campaigns around specific services instead of generic holiday promos
• Why I switched to Mangomint, and how having every piece of client and service data in one place is completely changing how personal and specific my Q4 marketing can get
• Why November is too late to start on visibility, and what 90 days of SEO indexing time actually means for your salon's Q4

• Why refining your SEO and keywords is never "done," and the Ad Libs–style keyword doc I gave my clients at the retreat to help them get specific fast

Switching to Mangomint:

I finally made the switch after years of jimmy-rigging Zapier and Square to work for a hybrid salon. If you're curious whether it'd work better for your salon, grab your first month free with my link: https://www.mangomint.com/referral/lexi/

Salon Visibility:

The training that builds your digital footprint so new clients can actually find you, on Google, on AI search, everywhere they're looking. This is the foundation everything else gets built on. Learn more: https://www.salonmindsmastermind.com/salon-visibility

I looked at my bank statement and thought, "WTF am I paying for all of this?" Editing apps I forgot I signed up for. A JotForm plan that ballooned to $90 a month. Slack at $137. A pile of Zapier automations quietly duct-taping five different platforms together, and every time one broke, it cost me time I didn't have. None of it felt like a big expense in the moment. All of it added up to something embarrassing.

This episode isn't a framework or a three-step plan. It's me walking you through exactly where money was quietly leaking out of my business, what I changed, and why now, before Q4, is the time to do your own audit. I also get into a hiring shift I made instead of adding a new position, a retail line I'm swapping out after years of loyalty to bigger brands, and a genuinely big personal win I almost didn't let myself celebrate.

In this episode:

• Why I finally consolidated five-plus software subscriptions into one platform, and how much that patchwork of tools was actually costing me in money and time

• Why I built content creation directly into my assistant's job description instead of hiring or outsourcing it, and how that decision is paying for itself multiple times over
• The honest reasoning behind switching our retail line, including what's really happened to margins and manufacturer relationships with the bigger brands
• Why I'm cutting down the number of SKUs we carry per category, and the buyer-behavior shift behind that decision

Switching to Mangomint:I finally made the switch after years of jimmy-rigging Zapier and Square to work for a hybrid salon. If you're curious whether it'd work better for your salon, grab your first month free with my link: https://www.mangomint.com/referral/lexi/

Salon Visibility:

The training that builds your digital footprint so new clients can actually find you, on Google, on AI search, everywhere they're looking. This is the foundation everything else gets built on. Learn more: https://www.salonmindsmastermind.com/salon-visibility

I hired someone, trained her, sat across from her mid-shift, and watched her decide to walk out. Not dramatic, not a blow-up, just a quiet "I'm not sure" that turned into a goodbye. Someone I trust told me beforehand they didn't see it working out. I disagreed, went with my gut anyway, and my gut was wrong.

This episode isn't a framework or a three-step plan. It's me, mid-defining-moment, being honest about what CEO-style salon ownership actually looks like right now. Hiring, a software transition, and a deep dive into salon SEO, all happening at once.

In this episode:

• The real story of hiring and losing a new assistant in the same week, and what it taught me about trusting my gut even when it's wrong
• Why I believe the right people always stay, and the ones who aren't a fit self-select out, even when that's a hard thing to watch happen
• What's actually going on behind the scenes as I switch salon software, including the hybrid-model headaches that made the old system unworkable
• Why I've been going deep on my own salon's SEO, and the gap I found even after years of doing this work
• The mindset shift I keep coming back to: the longer you're in business, the closer your highs and lows get, and why that's actually the goal

Switching to Mangomint:I finally made the switch after years of jimmy-rigging Zapier and Square to work for a hybrid salon. If you're curious whether it'd work better for your salon, grab your first month free with my link: https://www.mangomint.com/referral/lexi/

The Monday Club:

Business education, community, and tools to build a salon that runs like a real business, including the full salon visibility work that gets you found by Google and known by AI. Learn more: https://www.lexilomax.com/monday-club

I have a salon owner in my world right now with an open station and an open suite. Two ready-to-fill spots. And when we looked at her digital footprint, if a stylist searched for a salon suite in her exact city, she wouldn't show up at all. Not because she isn't a great salon to work for. Because Google and AI have no idea she offers that.

That's the conversation this episode. Because visibility isn't just how clients find you anymore, it's how stylists find you too, and most salon owners are still trying to hire like it's 2011.

In this episode:

• Why your visibility work is a career pipeline, not just a client pipeline, and what I attribute most of my salon's longevity to
• What a stylist is actually looking for when she's choosing where to spend the next five years of her career (hint: it's not just culture and a pretty space)
• My Craigslist confession, including the bunny slippers, and why that recruiting strategy has never actually worked
• The "we're hiring" graphic problem: why posting that you're hiring means you're already behind
• How the salon business ecosystem works: visibility affects clients, clients affect your team, your team affects revenue, and revenue affects everything else

Digital Footprint Audits:
I'm going through salons' digital footprints one by one, showing exactly what Google and AI currently understand (and don't understand) about your business, plus where the gaps are.

Get yours here: https://lexilomax.thrivecart.com/digital-footprint-audit/

There's a colorist inside the Monday Club who told me this week that one brand guide edit changed everything. Same salon, same skills, same reviews. The only thing that shifted was how she showed up online. Suddenly her content performed differently, and she wasn't chasing anything new. She was just finally speaking the language the internet is actually listening for now.

That's the conversation this episode. Because the way people find a salon changed, quietly, over the last few months, and most of us didn't get the memo.

In this episode:

• What I'm calling "the Gemini effect": AI overviews now show up on more than 1 in 5 Google searches, and 68% of all searches end without a single click to any website
• The stat that stopped me mid-research: people click through 8% of the time when there's an AI summary, versus 15% when there isn't, meaning your website traffic is quietly getting cut in half
• Why ChatGPT's 900 million weekly users matter to your salon, and why your future client might ask AI where to go before she ever opens Google
• The two jobs of salon visibility now: being relevant to Google (the work you already know) and being known by AI (consistent details, real reviews, and content that doesn't sound like everyone else's AI-generated copy)
• The exact test to run today: ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini the question your ideal client would ask, and see if your salon shows up

The Monday Club:

Business education, community, and tools to build a salon that runs like a real business, including the full salon visibility work that gets you found by Google and known by AI.
Learn more: https://www.lexilomax.com/monday-club