Ep 13 - Reopen. Close. Reopen Again? How to Best Prepare with Jaime Schrabeck

00:00 Tracy Donley: You are listening to ASCP Esty Talk, where we share insider tips, industry resources and education for estheticians at every stage of the journey. Let's talk. 'Cause ASCP knows it's all about you.

00:16 TD: Hello and welcome to ASCP Esty Talk: Back to Business. Let your setback be your comeback. And I am your host, Tracy Donley, Executive Director of Associated Skin Care Professionals, otherwise known as ASCP, and I am here with the one and only Jaime Schrabeck. Well, you guys, she is a writer, an educator, a manicurist and owner of Precision Nails in Carmel, California. And if that isn't enough, she advises the California State Board of Barbering and Cosmetology, she also works with attorneys as an expert witness. Basically, what I'm describing here is this is someone who really knows her, you know what? I'm so excited to hear your take on everything, so Jamie, let's just jump right into it. When do you think that beauty and skin care professionals should open up?

01:12 Jaime Schrabeck: This is all in my opinion.

01:13 TD: Okay.

01:15 JS: I would say that we are looking to our governors and our health officials to tell us when that time is. We know that certain governors have actually laid out, especially when it comes to testing, these requirements that they wanna meet, these targets that they feel are appropriate to make everyone safe or as safe as possible before we start again. We should be paying attention to that. We're going to get warning, we're going to have an announcement and we'll likely have at least a week to get ready to take on our clients again.

01:49 JS: That time will give us the chance to connect with our clients again, let them know what our schedule might look like because we may be reducing our hours, we may be spacing our clients much further apart on the schedule in order to accommodate the cleaning that we're likely to be doing between clients. A lot of that remains to be determined. And as states will roll this out, I hope that states that are opening later will look to what states that are doing it earlier do in order to make it as smooth a process as possible. It's not gonna happen all at once, but we should be learning from what some of the earlier states are doing.

02:25 TD: Very good. That's great advice and, I think, good opinion, for sure. We'll see what happens. Okay, so the next question is, are you preparing for a potential second or third or even fourth wave of this pandemic? I know that that probably sends shivers through your spine to think about it right now, but are you looking at that and do you have an open reassess strategy?

02:57 JS: That we've been able to shut down and survive to the point where we can reopen proves that we can do this, as painful as it is. And it's certainly been painful. That being said, if we take the precautions that we're told that we need to follow and we're doing everything that we're supposed to be doing, that's going to give us some assurance that we will have done everything in our power to avoid a second wave or a third wave. But as we realize and as health experts are telling us, that's likely to happen. Now, whether it impacts us to the point that we're going to be shut down again or scaled back, we're just gonna have to be open to that. I think that one of the biggest problems we have is that we react emotionally to these things. It's not personal. We're not being singled out because you own a particular business. It's because it's what's best for the industry as a whole, and particularly what's best for consumers.

03:54 JS: We're doing this to protect everyone. I think we have to embrace the fact that that part of our business is out of our control. So if that order were to come down and we did have to scale back or shut down completely again, I would urge everyone to accept that. Don't react with anger. I know it's upsetting, it can be frustrating. It's going to plunge us perhaps into a deeper depression, and that's certainly mental health is something we need to think about, but we just need to do everything we can to be compliant, to make our best effort, so that we can avoid that happening. But if it does happen, because it definitely is a possibility, we have to be willing to trust the experts again and comply.

04:40 TD: Comply, comply, comply. On that same note you had just mentioned, we might get depressed or bummed out if that happens again. What are some of the things that professionals can be doing right now to alleviate some stress or anxiety or just maybe even depression that they're feeling about the stay-at-home order and not being able to work and connect with their clients?

05:08 JS: Just as I'm not a lawyer or an accountant, I am not a...

05:11 TD: You aren't?

05:13 JS: No, I'm not.

[laughter]

05:14 JS: I am not a healthcare professional either. And it's such a strange situation to be in, because I know many of us talk about, "I'm the therapist in this relationship with my clients. They're always bringing me their problems." And here we are now, essentially cut off from our clients, we're in the position where we may need some help. And I would hope that we would position ourselves to have resources. I certainly don't try to counsel my clients in any way where they would be much better served with a healthcare professional or medication, if that's what it requires. Which there's nothing wrong with any of that. We all need to feel comfortable asking for help and knowing where to go.

05:55 JS: So I would say that certainly there are things that you could be doing to take care of yourself, whether it be trying to get adequate sleep and exercise, and perhaps not absorbing as much of the information. You don't need to be checking every 15 minutes. I feel for the people who are literally spending their time calling unemployment, hundreds and hundreds of times. And just like, why are you doing that to yourself? That's like torture. I wouldn't be doing that, if I were to advise any one. Don't make it harder for yourself in that respect. But if it's not enough and you're still feeling those feelings, you do need to reach out and you do need to get help. And that help is available for free. That's one of the things that we can get without being in close proximity to the person who's able to provide us help. We can use telehealth, we can use a phone call to access excellent mental healthcare.

06:51 TD: Great advice, good tips. I think that's really great too, 'cause I think as care providers, a lot of times our normal reaction is to provide care and nurturing, and so I think it's great though that you're recommending professional health and professional resources. Very good. Okay, so what do you see as the principal changes that will need to happen to your day-to-day practice?

07:16 JS: Speaking for my own salon setting, there isn't as much that I need to change that I think others might. And that's because going into this, we already worked by appointment, we were already keeping track of who we were seeing, we know how to contact all of our clients, we had them pretty well trained to come in and set their things down and we would go wash our hands. Those kinds of things were already in place. But now I'm thinking about, "How can I make my life easier as a salon owner, as a service provider, provide excellent service, but meeting all of these guidelines and requirements?" Which we haven't quite seen yet, unless your governor has happened to take that extra step and said, "Hey, we're opening on this date and here are the guidelines."

08:06 JS: Setting that aside 'cause we don't know what that looks like quite yet. I know that I'm going to try to minimize as much as possible anything that the clients will be touching. I don't want them opening a door. If they need to use the restroom, I will walk them out and open the door for them, so they can go in and use the restroom. I wanna minimize the touching that's happening within my salon space so that I don't have to do as much cleaning when they leave, and I don't have to worry about someone coming behind and touching something before I have a chance to take care of it. When we talk about insurance... Before, we'd talk about, "If you spilled some water on the floor or some sort of liquid, don't just walk away and tell yourself, "I'll get back to that and clean it up." Because someone could slip and fall in your space."

08:51 TD: Yeah, we say that all the time.

08:51 JS: Well, now we're worried about people touching something. So we really need to be more mindful about what processes we're following and making sure that we're completing each step and not getting distracted, because it is gonna be a little different. It'd be like learning something that you know in your heart and your mind, you've done so often like, "This is second nature. I could do this in my sleep." We're gonna be hyper-aware now.

09:18 TD: Yeah. And I think to your point, that distraction aspect. 'Cause now you're being forced to be even more detail-oriented. And I think we mentioned before, a lot of people in this industry, they may not be as detail-oriented as much as they are artists and they're more on the creative side, so it's gonna take some changing of behaviors.

09:41 JS: I don't wanna discourage anyone's creativity, but those creativity aspects have their boundaries, and the boundaries are the rules. So be as creative as you want but...

09:52 TD: God, you sound like a mother! [laughter]

09:53 JS: You're in the box, you have to still stay in your box.

09:57 TD: Very good. Very, very good. Okay, well, another question that I wanted to ask you is, especially during this time, more than ever, people are showing their true colors. What do you think makes a real professional, a true professional? What are some of the qualities or characteristics or aspects that make a real, true beauty professional?

10:23 JS: That you phrased the question the way that you did, I think is really interesting because it would have been very easy to say, a true professional is one who complies; one who honors the license that they hold and upholds the health and safety regulations and any other laws that apply, whether they be labor law, tax law, OSHA, whatever it is, that you're doing everything to be the ideal professional. Now, when we think about how people are responding and knowing that those responses, especially as we're venting on social media, those responses are being seen by more than just our colleagues. And even that is problematic because I'm thinking to myself, "Well, there's someone I may not wanna ever work with in the future or collaborate with."

11:13 JS: Manufacturers are able to see this, your clients are able to see this, the general public is able to see this. So I would caution everyone to rather than react in a way that would make me think, "You know what? Even when the rules are in place, I'm not sure your clients can trust you to do the right thing, because the way you're responding now is so either adamantly opposed to any kind of boundaries or rules, or you're already looking for all the loopholes and the gray area." And that's not what we should be doing right now. We should be earning the trust of our clients. If we already have it, we have to maintain that trust. And earning the trust of legislators and local officials who will be regulating us. So we don't wanna be in a position where we're gonna get the knock at the front door where the local police have been sent out because someone's reported us for having done something wrong.

12:13 TD: Yeah. This ultimately, to your point, is our time to shine. This is the time that we're gonna get noticed, whether it's good or bad. So let's hopefully get the good out of our local governments and show them what an amazing profession that you all are a part of.

12:35 JS: When new guidelines do get announced and if they get announced as requirements, those aren't just being announced to us. It's not like some secret code that we're going to get and we'll get to see them. Everyone will know. Journalists will know, our colleagues are going to know, our clients are going to know, our potential clients are going to know. And I imagine that we're gonna be answering a lot of phone calls and perhaps responding to emails to people within our communities who have not been our clients before who are considering perhaps going to a different salon or spa for their services. You need to be prepared to answer questions.

13:12 JS: I would warn you, though, don't put yourself in a position where you're spending all of your time just talking about your services. Why not record a video? That'd be the thing to do, would be to record a video where you're walking through your salon, where you're saying, "Welcome and let us show you where you'd be having your services, and these are the things that we do to protect you while you're here. This is how we clean and disinfect between services. This is how you need to contact us. We look forward to hearing from you." If you were able to record something like that as a professional when you know what the requirements are, don't waste you're time recording it now, we're not sure yet what that's gonna look like, but I think that would be a way that you could market your salon and shine, as you say, because I think that's important to shine, and save yourself a ton of time.

14:00 TD: Yeah, I love that idea. And also it's progressive. And if you know how to communicate already with your clients, like they're used to how you communicate, they're gonna respond even more so to a video of you walking them through what to expect. I think that's great. I love it. Everybody, I wanna see your videos, #ASCPSkinCare, please. Okay, so next next question. Tell us some tips that you've been thinking about for bringing your team on board, or employees on board, as to some of the changes that you're making, and what does that look like?

14:37 JS: As a salon owner, I'm not expecting employees, particularly employees that are being furloughed right now, to be paying nearly as much attention to what's happening as you are. You're the one ultimately responsible when you're the salon owner with employees. Now, if you've got booth renters, those booth renters are individually responsible to stay on top of announcements from the government or guidelines that may come out. But I think the moment that the guidance drops, whatever that looks like, then we definitely need to communicate directly with our team members to let them know, "This is what's happening. This is what we have permission to do, but this is our plan." And I think that needs to be a group conversation. I've been seeing some of this on social media, where if you make the decision unilaterally for a team that you're responsible for, particularly with employees, they may not be ready to come back. You have to, essentially, negotiate this as if you're rehiring them.

15:34 TD: Interesting. I have not heard many people speaking about it in that fashion. That's very interesting.

15:40 JS: For as comfortable as you can make your clients, you have to make your employees even more comfortable or the staff working within your salon, because their risk of exposure is likely higher because they're the ones seeing 10 to 12 or however many people they're seeing each day relative to the exposure that the client is having. That may be they're one an only exposure to someone else for that entire day, is just coming into your salon or spa.

16:08 TD: Yeah, or even that week for that matter.

16:10 JS: I think as owners, we're responsible for doing the bulk of the thinking when it comes to refining our processes, but we need to involve our team because they may not say things if they don't feel comfortable. They may just grumble or say, "Hey, I'm not coming back." We don't want them to do that. And they may have better ideas than we have.

16:35 TD: I love that, I have to tell you. Because I think you're gonna get so much more buy-in from what you're saying, and they're gonna feel part of the process, and hopefully, it's going to ease some of their insecurities too.

16:48 JS: It'll give them a much better opportunity to not only contribute and take ownership, but when it comes time to explain to clients, "What are you doing and why are you doing it that way?" if the answer is, "Because our boss came up with this idea." That's not very convincing for the client. It needs to be, "Hey, because we got together and we applied what we know, and we wanna make sure that we're keeping everyone safe, so this is what we came up with." I think it needs to be that team effort in order to get everyone to feel not only comfortable about it, but comfortable explaining it to somebody else who doesn't have that same knowledge, someone who's not in the industry. You should be able to explain what you're doing and why.

17:34 TD: Hey guys, I need to take a quick break to tell you about our bi-monthly digital magazine created just for you, the independent esthetician, it's Skin Deep magazine. The digital edition is free to all licensed estheticians. What? That's right, it's free. Now, if you are an ASCP member, and you really should be an ASCP member, you get the beautiful print version of Skin Deep magazine as a part of membership. This magazine is chocked full of resources, techniques and science from the top professionals inside and outside the industry. So go to ascpskindeepdigital.com and subscribe today. It is free. And that link will be in the show notes, so check it out. Let's get back to the chat.

18:25 TD: When do you think that you should start communicating with your clients about what the changes are, what it looks like, when it's time to start scheduling? What does that look like?

18:38 JS: My clients know that I don't necessarily communicate with them if we were open, none of this had happened, until I need to. So I wasn't necessarily bombarding them with, for example, marketing emails. They would get a notification email in advance of their appointment that would come 48 hours. Otherwise, if I didn't need to talk to them, we weren't communicating with each other as much. So now, I think it depends on how long this goes on. Initially, when orders came down to close, I know some salon owners who were literally calling clients day by day and putting themselves through these conversations. And maybe it was a way of coming to terms with it or connecting, but that's a grind. And when you realized that this was gonna go on for a couple of weeks, I hope that you did something that was more effective and saved you some time, which was to send out an email to those individuals that were on your schedule during that time frame. Interestingly enough, when I check my voicemail, very few messages left. Which is good because I've set the standard that the best way to get a hold of me is through email.

19:50 TD: And it shows too that you've properly communicated. So that it's not that you're getting this huge array of voicemails on a regular basis, you've properly communicated with them. So with that proper communication, did you say that you are sending some kind of a regular notification, or do they know that you're going to basically let them know when it's time to schedule and get on board?

20:22 JS: Within hours of the order that forced us to close, we had generated an email that we blind copied to everyone who was on our schedule through the initial end date of that order. So it was about three weeks worth of clients. So those clients received the same email just letting them know, "This is what's happening, we're cancelling your appointment. We'll let you know what happens next." Then we sent another email out about a week later, we sent another email. And then we've sent out a third email. And then we've actually expanded it to include clients who were on our schedule through the end of the year.

21:04 TD: Interesting.

21:05 JS: Because if they think that... For example, if we get the go-ahead to open on June 1st and they previously had an appointment scheduled on June 2nd, and I'm not even checking the calendar or even know what days of the week those are, but that they're not gonna have an appointment on June 2nd. I want them to be aware that we are starting over with the schedule and we'll rebuild it because, again, we don't know exactly who's coming back. We don't know how much additional time we're going to need either during the service or between services in order to accommodate clients.

21:37 TD: Very smart, very smart. 'Cause that could have been a real conundrum when you would go to open back up and Jenny's like, "I'm ready. I've had my name on the books for six months, so let's do this." What are some of the other things, advice that you would be able to share with our listeners and members and readers? What other things would you like to share with them?

22:04 JS: How much time do we have?

[laughter]

22:07 TD: Well, it could be a whole another podcast, lady.

22:09 JS: It could be. I think the one thing I really wanna share is that we choose to be in this industry. We choose the types of services that we want to offer, again, within the boundaries of the rules. We also choose our clients. And now we've been able to reflect on the fact that we love our work, we miss our work, we miss our clients, perhaps some of them more than others... I will leave that at that. [laughter] But as we get the chance to come back to this work that we love so much, let's come back with a renewed commitment to give our best to our best.

22:52 TD: I love that. Talk to me a little bit, while we're talking about our clients and our favorites, talk a little bit about the importance of trust, your clients trusting you and you trusting your clients. Share some of your insights on that.

23:10 JS: The fact that they're your clients and that you see them on regular basis, I would hope indicates that you have a healthy relationship that is mutually beneficial, where you take care of them, they take care of you, no one feels taken advantage of and everyone's there for the right reasons. And by that I mean, obviously, you are there to earn a living. You're there to earn money, you're not doing this for free. They are there to compensate you for a job well done. They are not there to take advantage of you or to guilt you into doing more than what you're able to do, or willing to do. For example, you shouldn't be giving away free services because you feel pressured to do so. So that being said, this relationship that we have with our clients is something that we share where we don't call them customers. We have this word "client" because it's an elevated relationship. We need to prioritize those individuals who provide the foundation for our business if we had to strip down our clientele to the people that matter most to us.

24:22 TD: Yeah, and I think that's the really important part. Right now while maybe your doors are closed, your business isn't closed but your doors are closed to clients, this is a good time to think about maybe some of those clients that maybe don't make sense to come back for you. Maybe it's the clients that it's not a healthy client-practitioner relationship. So this is a good time to part ways. And I think a lot of times... I know that you don't have a problem doing this, but a lot of times, there's some practitioners and estheticians out there who may have a hard time saying "No" or saying, "This isn't a good relationship. I don't wanna keep going down this path so this is a good time to part ways." What else would you advise in that matter?

25:13 JS: That's never an easy conversation to have, and because we're changing not only our schedule, we might be changing our services, we may be changing our prices in fact in order to accommodate the extra time and perhaps extra PPE that we'll be required to wear and perhaps have our clients wear, I would expect some pricing changes in most practices and most salons. If you start rebuilding focusing on the clients that are most loyal, that are the ones that take care of you the best, and we know what that means. The ones that respect your time, that show up, who show appreciation, the ones that you would be willing to go above and beyond for. But they know better than to ask or they don't ask just expecting. So I think starting to rebuild with those clients as your priority, you can fill your schedule with those clients and put the others on a waiting list.

26:10 TD: Yeah.

26:11 JS: You may never get to them. You may never get to them because we may come back and we may only be open a certain number of days a week when normally we'd be open more, or we may need to condense our hours. So I think the combination of the reduced capacity and the increased demand, you should be able to choose your clients even more carefully. And there may be clients that not only may not be a good healthy client-practitioner relationship, but maybe getting services just isn't the right thing for their health anyway. No matter what precautions you take, you would not feel comfortable, it's too great a risk, and you don't want to put them in that position or you in that position, and you just need to let them go and perhaps give them permission, 'cause you don't wanna make them feel obligated to come back either. I think that's one of the things that I see communicated when we do too much griping. We know what's happening. Do you want your client's guilted into supporting you or do you want them to feel good about supporting you?

27:18 TD: What would you say to practitioners right now who they're having stress and they're thinking about their future as it relates to the business? They love what they do, but they're not sure that they can continue moving forward as it relates to earning the kind of income that they need to be able to acquire to make it work.

27:47 JS: This may be one of the first times that they've actually thought about their future. Because I've had experience in the past serving on a jury for 2 1/2 weeks and not being able to work. Of course, that was just happening to me alone. It wasn't a situation where the entire country was essentially experiencing something at the same time. I've always thought in terms of, "What would happen if I did get sick or I wasn't available for whatever reason?" Or even beyond that, "Is there gonna come a point where physically I'm not capable of doing the work well anymore or my heart isn't it anymore? What does that look like?"

28:26 JS: And I don't think many people think about getting out of the business. They think about getting in, then they think about building out a business. There's no exit strategy. There's no savings, there's no propping yourself up in other ways, supporting yourself with resources around you that can help you when things get difficult. One of the best resources, and I know we'll probably talk more about other resources, that I've been able to rely on now are the relationships I have with my local chambers of commerce. And it's amazing that few salons belong to chambers of commerce. I don't understand that. They are obligated to support you and direct people to you, and they have so many resources for you. I can't even imagine.

29:10 TD: What are some of the things that even recently that you've gone to the chamber of commerce to get resources or tips or help with? What are some of those things?

29:21 JS: Well, first of all, they exist to support business in your local community. And where are your clients? They are in your local community. And you wanna be seen as part of that business community, not just someone off to the sides. You have as much right to be a part of that chamber as do the bankers, the real estate agents, the hoteliers, the restaurateurs. All of the different businesses that make up a business community, you need representation. And there are very few, sadly, beauty salons, spas, nail salons that are part of local chambers of commerce. And the fees for them are ridiculously low. It's like $350 a year.

30:02 TD: Which you can write off.

30:04 JS: Yes, it's membership, you definitely can write off. But they are bringing you all sorts of resources because they have a membership that's asking all the same questions specific for your area. Plus you can network among all of these different businesses. So they may not need your services, but if someone were to ask them, "Hey, where should I go to get a massage?" They'll know who to refer. It'll be you because they would feel that they could trust you, that you essentially have the same values because you belong to a chamber of commerce. But chambers of commerce are extremely well connected to local cities, to your state legislators, to your Congress people, very well connected. And that just gives you the opportunity to express your opinion to your local chamber and they'll shoot it right up the chain.

30:56 TD: I love that.

30:56 JS: They'll say, "Hey, these are what our members are concerned about. These are the issues that are most important to this community." And in fact, I belong to two different chambers. I belong to the chamber that's nearest to where my salon is, and then I also belong to a chamber that reflects another part of our county where a number of my clients come from but otherwise would be ignored. And it's interesting to see the balance because the chamber that's more local is more tourist-driven. And believe me, the chamber does an incredible job of reaching out to tourists and promoting the local businesses in the area, particularly for people visiting this area. But then the other chamber is more grounded in agriculture, which is another huge component of our...

31:44 TD: Interesting, okay.

31:47 JS: But I welcome clients from everywhere. I want clients that are... I do want clients that are locals, but their work could involve them in the tourist industry or their work could involve them, for example, in Ag or the non-profit sector or whatever it is. These are your ideal clients. Why not be a business among these businesses?

32:09 TD: Yeah. And I really love the aspect of how you said that they're so connected to local government, and then also too, even if it's... You never know where your next collaboration or partnership is gonna come from. It could come from the bank down the street. You never know if they want to offer something special to their members of the bank or the people who bank there. So I just think that you just never know. It's a great way, a structured way to get out there and network. And I know sometimes people hear the word "network" and they feel like, "Oh, I don't do that. I'm not a networker." But it sounds like they're very open and welcoming.

32:49 JS: They are. And one of the most ideal things about this whole situation is building a clientele of other business owners gives you such a perspective. If you had a clientele of only beauty professionals, I can't imagine, but if you had a clientele that consisted of other people in our industry, you'd be in this little bubble. But to have clients that have a wide range of experiences, whether it's in a corporation or in manufacturing or in Ag, as we mentioned before, there's so many different sectors of our economy, it gives you so much more information to draw from because you're gonna have some really interesting conversations. And the things that you do, the steps that you take as a business owner, those clients are going to understand because they understand business, they understand what it means to be responsible for themselves and for staff.

33:47 TD: Very good, I love that. So what else then? We've segued nicely into the whole idea of resources, so we're gonna close here, unless there's something else that you feel that we've missed or we need to make sure we're sharing. I know you said, "How much time do I have?" And I was like, "Well, we could have all day." But...

34:09 JS: A lot of these topics, I think, deserve a fuller exploration, so we should probably schedule some more time. I do have some demonstrations of some of the techniques that we use here at the salon.

34:22 TD: Well, I love that. Of course I definitely am planning to have you do some technique videos and pick your brain, and I think it'll be really fun to even dive down... We tried to keep this... You guys, we tried to keep this episode a little bit more relative to all the beauty and wellness professions out there, but we're gonna get Jaime back on doing some more podcasts and some technique videos that are maybe more specific to all the manicurists out there, 'cause I know you guys are craving for some good content and she's got it. Okay, so Jaime, tell us a resource or two that you would recommend. We've already talked about the chamber of commerce, but are there other ones? And it could be related to Covid-19, or it could be personal growth, or professional growth. What do you got for us?

35:12 JS: If you don't already know who your local officials are, your state officials, you need to find out, you need to follow them now so that you know what they're saying as they're saying it. I don't want you getting your information second-hand. You shouldn't be asking on Facebook what's happening, you should know what's happening.

35:30 TD: And if I could even chime in there, if you are an esthetician and you're one of our members of ASCP Skin Care, you can go to ascpskincare.com, and if you click on "state legislators", we actually have by state, you can click your state and you can find out all the different information. And if you have very specific questions, you can always call our Member Services and they will give you all that contact info as well. So there is no excuse.

36:01 JS: Your site has been one of the most comprehensive in bringing together all this information, so your membership certainly is fortunate that you behind the scenes have been doing so much work to bring as much current information as you can to them.

36:15 TD: Oh, you're so nice. I promise you guys I didn't even pay her to say that. [laughter] No, thank you so much. We do really try, and we're very lucky that we have a government relations team, we have a team of editors, and a whole membership. We have got around 70 people supporting you as a member every day. So thank you for saying that. Okay, what else do you got? You got more. I know you got more.

36:40 JS: I've plugged you, now I'll plug me. So the shameless plug is...

36:42 TD: Oh, I see.

[laughter]

36:45 TD: That works good.

36:47 JS: It works, right? The shameless plug is a new podcast that I have launched with my colleague, Ashley Gregory. It's called Outgrowth, which I think...

36:55 TD: I love the name. I love it.

36:58 JS: We're all experiencing it right now, whether it's our nails or our hair. Hopefully, it's our career. Maybe we're outgrowing what we've done before and we're looking for new challenges.

37:08 TD: Okay, I like that 'cause I'm thinking about the outgrowth that I am just gonna keep closing my eyes to and pretend it didn't exist.

37:17 JS: So what we're trying to do in this podcast that I think sets us apart from others, is we're trying to bring the most valuable information to the entire cross-section of the beauty industry and we wanna engage all beauty professionals in order to promote advocacy. We have so many different experiences. There's so much information, truly a wealth within our community, but we don't do a good enough job of coming together and sharing that with individuals in our state government or even in our federal government who are making decisions that essentially control how we work and the quality of our lives as beauty professionals. So we try to bring this all together and address topics that are timely and yet timeless, because we're in the process of connecting, for example, everything we're going through right now to larger issues like misclassification, or compliance, or liability, or personal growth.

38:17 TD: So you're breaking it down. That's what I'm hearing. You're breaking it down, right?

38:21 JS: We are breaking it down and we do that through our own observations, we pull in fabulous guest speakers. I know we're going to have you as a guest speaker soon, I'm so excited. I love doing the interviews.

38:33 TD: I'm so excited.

38:34 JS: Yay! So we wanna bring these resources to people at a time when they may not think that it's necessary, but they'll know that it's available, they can always go back and listen again. That's the beautiful thing about a podcast. You're not gonna absorb everything the first time you hear it. We do a really good job of highlighting the resources that we're referencing in the podcast in our episode notes, so you can click right through the links. We don't make it complicated. We're certainly not charging you for the information. So everything is there.

39:05 TD: That is wonderful. Well, I have listened to one of them and I loved it. I thought it flowed so great and I'm a fan, I'm gonna keep on keeping on listening.

39:17 JS: Oh good, I'm so glad.

39:18 TD: Yes, I encourage others to do it too. Okay, so tell all of our listeners and readers and members, if they want to get more information from just you, they're gonna go listen to your podcast, but if they wanna reach out to you, where can they find you?

39:34 JS: Sure. Let me go ahead and give you the location of the podcast first. It is called Outgrowth, and it's on all the places you would normally get your podcasts, but you can also link right through on the internet through outgrowthpodcast.com. And from there you can find Apple, Spotify, whatever you like to use. But for me personally, I actually do quite a bit through Facebook. I'm not an Instagram person, but I do really enjoy interacting on Facebook, and you can find me under my given name, my licensed name. It's Jaime Schrabeck. So it's spelled J-A-I-M-E-S-C-H-R-A-B-E-C-K. Go ahead and friend me, I will friend you back. That'll work. If you wanna see what I do for clients, I have a business page for the salon called Precision Nails, and you can find that on Facebook as well. But that's meant more to provide information to clients. It's not where I have these deeper, behind-the-scenes discussions that I like to have about our industry as a whole. I do that on my personal page.

40:40 TD: And you guys, we will have all this detail in our show notes as well, so you'll be sure to reach out to Jaime and see what maybe deep thoughts she's having or maybe kitty cat videos? I don't know.

40:53 JS: I don't have any kitty cat videos to share, I'm sorry. [chuckle]

40:56 TD: What? Everyone's got... I'm gonna send you a couple.

40:58 JS: I have cats but I don't share them.

[laughter]

41:02 JS: No, I actually keep my personal page very business-oriented because, again, clients can see it, other professionals can see it. You never know who's looking, who's watching, so I try to always represent myself in a way that reflects who I truly am as an individual, and I'm a licensed manicurist and a salon owner. And I'm thinking about these things all the time, and I'm often thinking about things before other people have thought about them. So I post things not to be provocative as much as to challenge you to think beyond where you are in this very moment so that you don't get stuck, that you make better decisions because you've thought through things more carefully.

41:48 TD: See, more good advice and words of wisdom from Jaime. I'm telling you guys, you've got to check her out. Make sure you go to her podcast and you'll... Oh, I forgot to mention, and if you haven't seen this issue that's coming out yet, she's gonna be in our first premier issue of Indy Stylist. She wrote an amazing article in there, so I encourage you all to look for that as well. Alright, thank you so much, Jaime. We appreciate you.

42:19 JS: Thank you, Tracy. Until next time.

42:21 TD: Alright, take care. Bye.

42:23 JS: Bye bye.

[music]

42:25 TD: Thanks for joining us today. If you like what you hear and you want more, subscribe. If you wanna belong to the only all-inclusive association for estheticians that includes professional liability insurance, education, industry insights, and an opportunity to spotlight your sick skills, join at ascpskincare.com. Only $259 per year for all this goodness. ASCP knows it's all about you.