Episode 18 Transcript
Welcome to Giant Stories, a podcast inspired by people and brands with meaningful stories to share. I’m John Kyker, your host and president of Medium Giant, a fully integrated creative agency in Dallas, Texas. Today, I am thrilled to welcome one of the most dynamic marketing and operations leaders in the beauty and retail industry. Jennifer Macey is the Group Vice President of Full Service at Cosmoprof, a cornerstone of Sally beauty. Sally Beauty Holdings and one of the most recognized professional beauty distributors in North America. How am I doing so far? Oh, you’re doing awesome. Keep going. Let’s double down. Let’s double down right now. The top is a study in versatility and vision. She. She built her brand shops at seven eleven, leading national and regional marketing strategies for fresh food categories across a fully integrated multichannel platform. From there, she joined Sally Beauty Holdings, where she steadily rose from director of Marketing Operations to VP of Marketing Strategy and Chief of Staff, earning a reputation as a leader who could bridge creative brand thinking with operational rigor. Now at Cosmoprof, Jennifer is doing what few leaders can, helping to run a one point seven billion with a B dollar business while simultaneously transforming how it operates from the inside out. From launching Cosmoprof Direct and growing it to over four thousand stylists, to orchestrating a Salesforce powered CRM strategy across sixty thousand accounts to spearheading the D a a employee resource group. As its executive sponsor, Jennifer is redefining what bold people first leadership looks like at scale. A natural builder in a connector. Just a really cool freaking human being. Jennifer brings the same energy to her team that she brings to the business, and whether that’s launching a first of its kind direct sales program or developing the next generation of leaders. And we are so excited to have her. Jennifer, my friend, welcome. Oh thank you. You made me feel so good about myself. You want to do my resume for me next? Yeah, I know my buddy, my buddy Chad or Claude could definitely help us write that pretty well. Well done my friend. Well, I’m super excited to be here. Thank you for asking me to join you. You bet, you bet. So, uh, we always start our podcast episodes by asking our guests to tell a little, tell a little bit about themselves, and tell their story, how they got there and their perspective. So I will turn it over to you and we’ll go from there. Yeah, sure. Um, well, I am actually a Cleveland, Ohio native, uh, born and raised there, moved out here to Dallas probably about twenty years ago this December, I think it is. Um, but yeah. Are you still a Browns fan? That’s my question. Let me tell you something. Sports and Jennifer do not get along unless I’m like, have a beer and I’m sitting in the bleachers, then I’m good with it. Um, my husband is, though, a die hard Browns fan, so we, we just humor him during football season. Yes. We just humor him. Exactly. Um, but like you mentioned, I have, uh, like twenty some years in marketing. Um, and I love marketing. That’s why I have my undergrad in and, you know, for, for marketing, I think, um, what always drew me to that discipline was that there’s an art and a science behind marketing. There’s so many layers to it. It’s not just about pretty pictures and messaging and all of that. There is a pretty heavy analytical side to it that I think is really intriguing, and I think it helps understanding how people, how people respond, how people behave, and what really makes folks tick. And that, you know, that that served me well and the twenty years that I had practiced marketing. Um, I think for me, I’ve always had this desire to do something more. And I wasn’t quite sure what that was. And, um, I’ve always worked with operations in some capacity, whether it was the restaurant industry or whether it was, uh, with 7-Eleven, with the franchisees. And I will tell you, 7-Eleven was probably my, my most challenging, but most rewarding role that I think I’ve had in my career. Um, and you were there, you, you worked with me during that time period and we were down in it. We were down in it. I mean, guys, this is a, this is a company that is ran by West Point graduates. So what I will tell you is they do not mess around. Yeah, and not in a bad way. I don’t mean that to say that they were not pleasant to work with, but there was definitely a rigor and a discipline that that team brought to the table that greatly has influenced me in my career. And I’m very, very thankful for that. But I think they also helped me kind of understand a little bit more of the operations side and, um, you know, growing and continuing to learn in that role opened an opportunity for me to come over to Sally beauty. And again, continuing in the marketing role. And what I’ll say is, of course, the beauty industry, that is so much fun. There are so many interesting people that you get to meet over here. Um, I think, you know, the stylists that we work with are just very inspirational. Um, but, you know, we continue to do, uh, the marketing piece and then we did a rebranding probably, oh, I don’t know, three or four years, into my marketing role. And, um, that was super exciting. We were able to, uh, launch in Las Vegas and a lot of the learnings that we got from that, um, have been applied to what we’re currently doing now, uh, on the Sally side with Sally ignite, which if you haven’t, if you have a Sally ignite store locally, um, or looking on our store locator, go in there because that is an amazing experience. Um, and you just will see Sally beauty in a completely different light. Talk about Jennifer. Just talk about that real quick. So, uh, I think that a lot of our listeners probably know Sally from a fairly, let’s just call it vintage perspective of what the experience was to how it’s evolved now. And we’ll get into your side on the, on the professional side, but talk about that store evolution and, and how you guys thought about the Sally story, right? From a retail experience and kind of kind of a from to talk about that. Absolutely. So, you know, Sally beauty is a specialty retail. I think a lot of people kind of lump us in and try to think of us as comparing to Ulta or compared to Sephora, but that’s not a true comparison. Um, we have a lot of a majority of the brands in Sally are private brands that are developed and produced within our organization. The other, the other fact is that it is open to the public, which it’s funny that I say that, but a lot of people, they’re like, I didn’t know that Sally was open to the public. It absolutely is. And I think back in the day, um, you know, there was just that perception that kind of stuck with the brand for so long. The experience in the store was a bit off putting because it was high gondolas stuffed with product, very hard to navigate. Um, a lot was just, you know, cosmetologists were going in, people didn’t really realize that this was a place for you to come and just discover and play with beauty. Yeah, I think, I think a lot of people just thought it was more almost a fulfillment center, if you know, for professionals. Yeah, I think that’s very true. Um, and I think what we’ve done now is really number one, focus on the experience because that’s the most important thing. Like you got to take care of the customer and you got to give the customer what they want. And we listen to the customer. So understanding when you walk into our store, we cannot have it so overwhelming. We have lowered gondolas. We have wayfinding clearly placed throughout throughout the location. You can stand at the front of the store and you can see the full store. So you have a very clear line of sight of, hey cool, here’s the cosmetic section, here’s fragrance, here’s hair care. Um, and there’s a lot of cool little nuggets of just, um, stories from brands that are emerging. Um, there’s a, there’s a lot of, you know, up and coming brands that maybe aren’t as well known that we get to carry and we get to kind of help that awareness with it. And I think it’s really positioned, uh, Sally beauty as modernize in this day and age. No longer is it kind of, you know, grandma and place where she went and got her perms. This is a place where I can go and play around, maybe find a new lipstick, grab a new, you know, Hairspray, a shampoo and go about my day. So talk about you mentioned before, you know, that’s a very different experience than a Ulta or Sephora. When you guys think about your target customer walking in that store versus those, how do you guys, how do you guys suss out that segmentation? Yeah, I mean, obviously we have a lot of analytics going behind it, but when I think of it, I really think of it as the fact of it is it’s someone like me. It’s someone like me who has kids that are preteens, teens that want to be able to explore and kind of do it themselves, you know, in this right now, we’re in such a strange kind of time in the economy and just in this environment where, you know, visits to your salon, believe it or not, I’m not a natural blonde. I know that’s hard to believe, but I have to go every, you know, whatever, eight to I wish I wasn’t naturally going bald, but I can’t. I know we have something for that, John, I No. I’ll help you out. I’m just gonna own it. But, I mean, for the average, you know, the everyday consumer. Like, it’s not advantageous for them right now to be able to keep going every six to eight weeks to get their hair touched up. So there’s a lot of, um, resources that we provide at Sally beauty to number one, not just give them the product that they can do it themselves at home, but educate them on how they can do it. We also have something called a licensed colorist on demand, which you have the ability to basically phone a friend, somebody who is a licensed cosmetologist, who will get on FaceTime with you and will be able to walk you through like, hey, I just need to touch up this area right here. I got somewhere that I’m going. Here’s what I bought. How do I do this? Wow. Um, so it’s, it’s one of those things that, you know, um, it just expands itself to a broader audience. What I also love about it is that it’s, um, you know, my fifteen year old will come in there and just explore just like the lashes. I guess lashes are still a big thing. Um, especially with the fifteen year olds. There you go. Um, so they have, they just have a really cool variety. Um, and I think we’re in this position too of the name brands, big brands, this next generation isn’t necessarily not that they’re not loyal to big brands, but they’re much more open to understanding and trying something that maybe not as well known and, um, helping to kind of build that, that kind of following behind it. Well, so let’s talk about that because, you know, obviously the, the, the influencer component to that has a plays a huge role. How do you guys think about influencers and building the brand? What I will tell you is that we have some amazing partners that provide a lot of great influencers that we work with our education platform. As a matter of fact, if you look at Cosmoprof dot com and you go into our education or Cosmoprof Institute, there’s a lot of resources there for, um, for our customers to be able to go into and just learn tips, techniques, right? Business acumen, all of that. But these influencers are so key because they are the ones who touch the customers and the industry one on one on a consistent basis. So being able to have folks from Jpms or have people from Wella come on to our virtual education events, whether it’s color, the world or world of texture and have main stage presence to talk to people about cashmere Blonding, that’s a new trend that’s going on now, telling people how they need to do it, helping, giving them the helpful hints, the mistakes that they’ve made, how they can offset that, and really just bringing brand stories to life. I think that’s the biggest thing that I see them do, is they bring the personality to a brand like no other. So let’s take that story that that influencer, let’s take that store experience that we were just talking about. And then let’s kind of move over to a lot of what you’re doing now, which is supporting professionals. How do you think about the salary story vis a vis professionals? Because obviously you have your roots in supporting professional life. That’s the legacy of what Sally has always done. How has it evolved now? Like, is it I mean, I would I would think that some of that core promise to the professionals that you support is kind of what it’s always been. But how have you brought that into modern times considering how competitive that field is now? I think what we’ve done is the differentiation and the, the assortment that we have. I think that’s one of the biggest pieces that make it a little bit more, um, top of mind, a little bit more modernized, trying to keep it on top of trends. Um, whether it be not just the product itself, but whether it be just behaviors that the customers are seeing. Um, I would also say again, it’s the resources above and beyond the retail itself that give the stylist or give the customers what they need. Um, in order to still feel good about themselves, feel beautiful and whatever products that they choose to use. Very good. I love it. So, um, I would be remiss if we didn’t have a marketing podcast and not talk about AI just about a little bit. Seems like I love AI. Believe it or not, I love it. Oh well, I mean, we can like it. We can hate it doesn’t really matter because it’s here. So how do we, how do we embrace it? Um, and I think from, from an operation system, obviously there’s, there’s endless applications from an AI and inventory management supply chain and all that. So that’s obviously a critical part of it. But how else are you guys thinking about it in your day to day? How have you implemented it? What I would say is that we’ve been using it, and trust me, we’re just scratching the surface over here. Um, but a lot of it is to drive more efficiencies, uh, really at the support center. And I can tell you specifically from my team and my group, I use it on a daily basis and it’s to help because think of it like all of the things that people are doing, some of these things are so kind of mundane. They really can be done very quickly. You could throw it into copilot and have a spit out of a data analysis in two minutes, as opposed to somebody sitting at their desk spending three hours comparing figures and trying to, you know, understand and identify any kind of areas of opportunity and issues that we have. Um, I think it is going to continue to be very important. Um, as far as driving those efficiencies, but what I also see it doing is being able to help us make better decisions. Like that’s the biggest thing that I’m getting from it. Because listen, I always believe like, no matter how successful you are, it doesn’t. You are successful because you have the right people that are around you and you, you are leading people the right way. It doesn’t always mean that you’re like a rocket scientist and you know everything, right? But you have to be able to have enough information to make the right decisions. And I do think that AI, the way that it is, you know, the way it’s been and where it continues to evolve is helping leaders like ourselves be able to get to get to a solution much quicker than we ever have been able to do in the past. So I’m starting to have conversations with clients now. Um, it seems like they almost have this epiphany like experience with AI. Like whether it’s a project or all of a sudden something like holy like, and just mind blown. And it’s, it’s almost like a, a total resetting of, of the compass for them on, on how they think about it. Have you had that in your role where you’re just like, you just did what in how long? And it did this? Yeah, I absolutely have. I mean, I’ve, I’ve had it as as simplistic as developing an onboarding plan. It sounds so crazy, but it’s the fact of like, so you could do it in your sleep sometimes when you’re onboarding a new leader, right? But being able to, um, put in and really put some thought into, hey, here’s my job description, here are the key opportunities that we really need to drive at this role. Here’s the strengths and why this person got this role. Here’s what I need them to be able to touch over the next ninety days. Help me put together a plan A thirty, sixty, ninety that will really set this this person up for success. Um, and man, it spit it out in like two minutes and I was like, Holy crap, that’s some good stuff. I mean, obviously you don’t take it verbatim, right? You got to go back in it and tweak it to make it the right, the right fit for everything. But it’s simple things like that where it’s like, man, I probably would have spent a good hour or two hours, uh, going through it just to make sure I didn’t miss anything, making sure that I was capturing everything. And you could plug it into ChatGPT and have something out in a minute. Yeah, it’s it’s frightening and cool and frightening. Frightening and cool. That’s right. Um, I want to talk about, uh, culture, uh, because obviously that’s so interesting. That’s so intrinsic with, uh, with the beauty category. And we just, we talked about influencers before, but how does Sally try and stay obviously not just with culture, but ahead of culture and see around corners and what’s coming because it’s so integral to the products that you, that you guys sell. How do you guys think about culture and the role that you guys play in it? You know, I think that the part that I appreciate and respect so much about the organization is the openness and the curiosity that it has, like curiosity is key. Our CEO, Denise, says that all the time, be curious, ask the questions. And I think she has set a culture not only at the senior leadership level, but it’s down to the our store associates of ask the questions, talk to your customers, ask them what’s important to them. Ask them what they’re seeing out there. Um, get out and explore and do some research. See what’s new in the industry. Look at our peers, understand what are they doing that’s working? What are they doing? That’s not working? Um, I think that is really the key to, to help, to help get ahead of it and to stay relevant. Love that. Um, I’m going to go and not in the wayback, but let’s go back to the 7-Eleven machine. So you, you had the, you know, like you said, toughest job, um, where you learn the most. What’s the one project you work on or that you worked on, that you’re that you’re most proud of. Because there were so many product launches and new brands that were coming to life when you were there. Yeah, we did a hot foods rollout, and I believe it was in Arizona where there was a lot of cross-functional partnership with like our real estate, our agency partners, um, and the franchisees. And I think why I’m the most proud of that one is the fact that it came together in a way that everybody wanted everyone to be successful. And there was just a mutual respect as we worked together to not only from an operations standpoint, getting the franchisees what they need, when they need it, helping them understand the financials behind it, helping them understand kind of the bigger picture and the implication that it means for their individual business, but then also telling the story to the customer, um, and being able to let people know, you know, 7-Eleven, it’s not just a gas station. I’ll tell you what, I’ve been in the commissaries of 7-Eleven and they are probably one of the cleanest, tightest run ships you will ever see. So I know that’s it’s kind of a stigma that we had to get over with customers. Like, why would I go in there for a hot dog? And, you know, I don’t know the quality of that, but what’s what’s a deli sandwich or something like that, right? One hundred percent. Right. Um, shoot, there’s still days where I’m craving me a big bite and I go in there for my big bite and, um, but yeah, I think that’s, that’s the part that I was most most proud of because, you know, everybody came together, they worked really hard and we had a lot of success with it. Yeah. So you mentioned franchisees and I was, I was thinking about the, uh, you know, the, the seemingly odd connections between 7-Eleven and Sally. But, but there is a connection there in that as much as anything, you’re supporting franchisees and you’re relying on these. I mean, I don’t know how many people know this, but 7-Eleven is almost entirely franchisee driven in terms of who owns and manages those stores. So you are you know, obviously they’ve got to, you know, adhere to, you know, the details of their franchise agreement, but still you’re relying on them to not just operate a clean store to your point, but to represent the brand, right. And, and to bring it to life in the right way. And, you know, you’re putting the, the fortune and the faith of, of, you know, or you’re putting your faith and your fortune at 7-Eleven in these franchisees. How do you think about that from, from Sally’s perspective as well? Because like, literally those, you know, the, the, the professionals that you serve, they are, they’re an extension of the brand. And if their customers aren’t happy, then that’s, I mean, obviously it’s going to come back on them, but they’re also going to be skeptical of the products that you, that you supply them with. Well, it all comes down to, to influence, right. And I think the influence you’re successful in that when you’re authentic with it. And, you know, one of the things that was most important to me when I first took this role specifically, was to get out in the field and meet the stylists, meet them face to face, meet the salon owners, talk to my sales team. Like, truly listen to them. Um, you know, we’ve all had those people who get promoted or get put into a role and they’re like, I have all the answers right off the bat. You’re doing this wrong. You’re doing this wrong. I mean, come on, that’s, that’s not how you’re going to be successful. There are things that are that are working for the group. So listen and understand why they’re working and then listen and understand why. Perhaps if you have an idea that you want to change, why are they doing it that way? Right. So I think that it’s, um, you know, the influence of the authenticity of truly being invested in doing good by the people. And when you, for me personally, meeting stylists, just like meeting franchisees, like they are salt of the earth people who are working extremely hard. Absolutely. It is my job and my team’s job to help them be the most successful that they possibly can. And I don’t take that lightly. Yeah. I think that, um, one of my biggest memories when I was helping out in stores on occasion with 7-Eleven would be, you know, we would send them, as you were well aware, every month, every other month, just a slew of promotional stuff that had to go up in store and you would go to stores and they would execute it here and there, you know, sometimes, well, sometimes not. And at first you, you get a little bit frustrated. It’s like, well, they’re not doing it right. But then I think when you step back and say, okay, what is preventing them from being able to do this? How can I help them overcome that barrier? Because when they execute, we know it’s going to work. We know it’s going to drive this data. We know that people are going to turn down that aisle and spend 30s more looking at what’s on that shelf. And it’s about the communication, obviously, and the impact of the pop. But it’s also like, how are you helping them solve their problem, right? And sometimes less is more. Yeah. Well, and you can’t do that though, I guess also, if you’re not to your point out there asking them the questions, how can I help you? And I think that’s oftentimes from a storytelling perspective, that’s so often overlooked because if you’re not even telling the right story, that’s going to resonate with them because it’s not solving the problem that they have. Then you’re wasting everybody’s time, right? I agree, I agree with you. Yeah. Um, well, Jennifer, this has been a lot of fun. Uh, it’s been fun. Thank you for for talking with me. I’ve missed working with you, Kiker. Oh, man. Well, I’m glad somebody has, so that’s nice to hear. But now, Jennifer, this has been great. And you know, congrats on your continued success and really excited to see, uh, how, how the Sally brand continues to grow. Thank you so much. I appreciate you and much, much, uh, best wishes to you and your company as well. Thanks, Jennifer. Take care.
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