About us I started
barbering by accident. I originally wanted to be a
graphic designer or architect however one day my
cousin who now owns “Salvatores” in Stoke Bishop
asked me whether I want a part-time job working for
his bosses friend in Kingswood. At 15 I had nothing
to do on Saturdays therefore I accepted a part-time
Saturday job at Aldo’s on Two Mile Hill. Within a
year I was cutting and had decided to go full time
at Brunel College at Ashley Down. The two year
course would give me qualifications in ladies and
gents hairdressing, make-up, manicure, wig making
and beauty. By the second
year, because of my in-salon experience I been asked
to enter hairdressing competitions for the college.
Here our my
achievements- By the mid 1989,
my college course was over and I was in full-time
employment at Aldos. I stayed there for three years
building experience until I was asked by my cousin
if I would run a newly purchased shop in Stoke
Bishop for him. I saw this as a chance to earn more
and agreed to run it for two years for him at a
favorable rent charge. Saving all I earned gave me
the chance to buy my own shop at an already
difficulty start to the 90s. I had looked at the
huge Barclay Bank on Henleaze Road but City Glass
beat me, we then looked at Redland Hardware Store
(now Standfast) but with another shop across the
road £20k cheaper, my fiancee (now wife) and I
decided to go for the cheaper shop and spend the
£20k saving on the improvements it needed. I opened in
April 1994 and told the area by a special offer
£1.00 off leaflet drop of our existence. I can
remember that I had about 500 customers come in with
the vouchers. It was a success so I did it again in
another area. Most of you who have been coming in
that long can remember the numerous employees I’ve
had who have all now gone on to own their own
salons. Thinking about it probably half of Bristol
had a haircut by somebody I have trained. There was-
Mario who owns
Filtons Barber Shop in Filton With an interest
in computing from a young age and an interest in
grooming products I’d by chance cut the hair of a
fragrance rep at my Stoke Bishop shop. He’d put me
in the right direction and by 1997 I was retailing
hair and beauty products online. It was a simply
static page but it was getting me orders. From the
beginning, the orders grew by the amount I was
adding to the site and eventually peaked in 2002
when I was one of the first to retail GHDs online. I
have since split the online business away from the
barbering business and grown the site by adding
mirror sites retailing just one brand and now have a
large Amazon and eBay shop. Always trying
and doing my best has its disadvantages….queuing. I
loathe queuing, whether it’s in the Post Office, at
the bar or in the supermarket. My first attempt to
help customers not queue was by putting a webcam in
my shop which would update every two mins. It worked
in a way, if you could get to the shop in minutes
but having to travel, most customers would find that
half a dozen people had walked in. So we were going
in the right direction but the problem was not
solved. In 2002, I had
one of those Saturdays, the faster I worked, the
more customers were coming in, no lunch, no breaks,
not even a toilet break…was this healthy for me? At
one point I counted seventeen customers queued and
when it all kicked off between three customers about
who was next in the queue, I knew something had to
be done about it. So I asked everyone what they
thought of a booking system. Everyone was positive
but as they say, you can’t please everyone, some
people didn’t want to book “that’s what women do”
but they didn’t want to queue. So with the positive
feedback about the change I went ahead. If it didn’t
work we could always go back. But it work, weekdays
were fuller and Saturdays were calmer. I wish I’d
done it from the beginning, all those customers I
had lost because of the long queues. My challenge
today is to find a good enough trustworthy barber
who could help me increase my shop throughput. If
that never happens I always have my two boys who
could take over. Finally, I wish
I could advertise the system but think it would
probably go viral in Bristol. Just imagine all those
people still queuing at the barber shop. Achievements /
timeline |
|
||||
Salvatores Barber Shop © 1994 - 2023