There is in fact a farewell tour. After four years and 89 episodes, Sam and Jen are wrapping up the Salon Rising Podcast. In this episode they tell you why, in their own words.

There's no drama here. They're tired, in the honest way anyone running a salon, raising a family and standing on the floor all week will understand. One Monday a month in the studio had started to cost more than it gave back. So they're doing what they've always told Australian salon owners to do: check back in on what still feels purposeful, and put down what doesn't.

It's warm, funny and full of gratitude. They laugh about the early episodes and how many times they said "absolutely". Then they get into the business lessons they'd pass on to anyone building a salon today.

What we cover

• Why Sam and Jen decided to end the Salon Rising Podcast after 89 episodes
• Knowing when something costs you more than it gives back
• Their favourite episodes and the guests who shared their stories so openly
• Why it's okay to pull a dream apart and build a new one
• Know your numbers, still the number one business tip
• Checking back in on your purpose so you don't miss the chance to pivot
• Learning the thing that scares you, one hour a week at a time
• Checking your ego and learning to back yourself
• Why Salon Rising isn't disappearing, just getting simpler

This chapter is closing, and they're leaving it grateful, not resentful.

Most salon owners know how to build. You hire the next person and take the bigger space. Very few know how to take it apart again when it stops working, and do it in a way that leaves everyone looked after.

In this Mini Moment, Sam and Jen are joined again by Siobhan from Siobhan Hair Artistry. She walks through exactly how she went from a leased six chair salon with three team members back to just her and her mum. It started with a lease conversation she didn't want to have. Then came the harder one with her apprentice, which she only had after she had quietly found a salon ready to take her on.

For any Australian salon owner thinking about going smaller, this is the practical side nobody talks about. It covers the order she did things in and how she kept it fair. It also covers what happened to a full book of clients once the team was gone.

What we cover

• The sudden resignation that started the rethink
• Deciding to reduce your team and your responsibilities
• Moving from leasing a whole salon space to renting two chairs
• Finding your apprentice a good salon to go to before you tell her
• Giving plenty of notice and keeping every change within Fair Work
• Handling clients when your own book is already full
• Why some clients won't follow you to a senior's price point
• Working side by side with family in a small salon

You built it once. You're allowed to build it again.

FAQs

How do I downsize my salon team without burning bridges?

Plan each conversation before you have it, and give people as much notice as you can. Siobhan gave her apprentice eight weeks and had a new salon lined up for her first, so the news came with a next step.

Can I reduce the chairs I lease in a shared salon space?

It depends on your agreement, but an honest conversation with whoever you lease from is the place to start. Siobhan went from leasing a six chair space to renting two chairs, with a three month notice period for any changes.

What happens to clients when a salon downsizes?

Tell clients early and move them into the calendars that can actually hold them. Not every client can come with you, and some won't want to pay a senior's price, so it helps to accept that upfront.

Mentioned in this episode:

💖 Celebrating Our Podcast Partner – Christophe Robin, proudly distributed by McM Imports

We’ve partnered with Christophe Robin and MCM Imports to bring you something beautiful:

➡ Experience the Christophe Robin Discovery Box — curated by pro ambassador Monique McMahon.

➡ Inside, you’ll find her handpicked favourites — the hero products she swears by in the salon.

It’s your invitation to explore the range and discover why Christophe Robin has become a quiet obsession among stylists who know their craft.

Click the link below to request your FREE Christophe Robin Discovery Box, exclusively through McM Imports. 👇

MCM

💛 A Limited Time Offer From Our Amazing Sponsor, Timely 💛

➡ Timely is the easy to use booking and payments system that puts salon owners in control of the whole client experience from the first booking to final payment.

➡ Salon Rising listeners get a 14 day free trial plus 50% off their first 3 months.

➡ And when you activate with Payments, you'll also get a free Touchscreen terminal, worth $349 + GST.

Use the code SALONRISING at checkout or click the link below to get started. Once you're set up, your Timely contact will take care of the rest. 👇

Timely

https://www.salonrising.com

Your team won't sell retail. You've tried paying them more and dangling incentives, and the shelves still aren't moving. It's one of the most common frustrations in Australian salons, and it's rarely the team's fault.

Tiana Baxter is back with her new company, SELLÁ, and this time she's talking about the thing she knows best. Sales. She has a hard truth for owners too. However you sell is exactly how your team will sell.

Sam and Jen talk with Tiana about why selling got such a dirty name and how to recommend product from conviction instead of pressure. It's practical and honest, and it will change the way you walk onto your salon floor.

What we cover

• Why sales became a dirty word, and why being called a salesgirl is a compliment
• Frameworks over tactics, and why tactics make selling feel manipulative
• Why owners need to live on the sales floor instead of visiting it when numbers dip
• The consult question that hands your client the whole problem
• Asking better questions so you know exactly what to recommend
• Product, people and payoff, plus the three Rs for every client
• A simple team training exercise to get retail moving this week
• The payoff of the payoff, and why you're selling confidence, not conditioner
• Why the sale starts after the client pays
• Your money thermostat and why earning more can feel unsafe
• The story behind the salesgirl name and building a business on faith

SELLÁ® — Home of the Salesgirl™ is a sales education company founded by Tiana Baxter, teaching women how make more money in business without becoming more ‘salesy’.

Through sales psychology, communication and self-mastery, SELLÁ teaches women how to get seriously good at selling without pushy tactics or awkward scripts.

It’s about learning to sell in a way that feels like you, while building a business that makes a lot more money.

Find Tiana and the world of SELLÁ on Instagram @tianarose.inc and @sella.inc

Why won't my salon team sell retail?

Most of the time, your team sells exactly the way you do. If you only step onto the sales floor when numbers dip, they learn that selling is something you visit rather than something you live.

What should hairdressers ask instead of "What are we doing today?"

Ask what your client is loving and not loving about her hair, and how she's finding it at home. Her answers show you what she wants and give you a real reason to recommend the right product later.

How do you recommend retail products without being salesy?

Use the three Rs, which are your recommendation, the reason why, and the result she'll get. Talk about the payoff instead of the ingredients, and only recommend products you genuinely use and believe in.

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.salonrising.com

💛 A Limited Time Offer From Our Amazing Sponsor, Timely 💛

➡ Timely is the easy to use booking and payments system that puts salon owners in control of the whole client experience from the first booking to final payment.

➡ Salon Rising listeners get a 14 day free trial plus 50% off their first 3 months.

➡ And when you activate with Payments, you'll also get a free Touchscreen terminal, worth $349 + GST.

Use the code SALONRISING at checkout or click the link below to get started. Once you're set up, your Timely contact will take care of the rest. 👇

Timely

💖 Celebrating Our Podcast Partner – Christophe Robin, proudly distributed by McM Imports

We’ve partnered with Christophe Robin and MCM Imports to bring you something beautiful:

➡ Experience the Christophe Robin Discovery Box — curated by pro ambassador Monique McMahon.

➡ Inside, you’ll find her handpicked favourites — the hero products she swears by in the salon.

It’s your invitation to explore the range and discover why Christophe Robin has become a quiet obsession among stylists who know their craft.

Click the link below to request your FREE Christophe Robin Discovery Box, exclusively through McM Imports. 👇

MCM

Monday hits and you are already behind. The phone has messages on it from Saturday, the book looks fine until you actually look at it, and you have no real idea what last week made. So you open the salon, get in the chair, and tell yourself you will sort the rest of it later. Later never comes, and by Thursday the whole week feels like it is running you.

In this Mini Moment, Sam walks Jen through exactly what she does every Monday. Not a theory about admin days. The actual list. The appointments she moves, the confirmations she chases, the wages and bonuses, the accounts she gets down to the dollar, the inbox she empties, and the running to do list she keeps beside her the whole time. She does it in rounds through the day rather than one long block, and she has done it from a hospital bed.

Jen adds the other half of it. She runs a lot of the same work through AI and her software so the sorting is done before she sits down. Two salon owners in Australia, two different setups, the same rule underneath. If Monday is messy, the week is messy.

What we cover

• The Monday non negotiables Sam has never skipped, no matter what
• How to read your appointment book properly and find a full hour of wasted space
• Chasing confirmations and working the cancellation list before you post to socials
• Wages, super, bonuses and getting every account down to the dollar
• Paying credit cards off weekly instead of waiting for the month
• Clearing the inbox to zero and keeping a live to do list while you do it
• Why Sam refuses to touch any of it on a weekend
• Putting your projected numbers on the board on a Tuesday morning
• Using AI and your software to do the sorting before you start
• Going back over Instagram messages to make sure nothing got missed

Start with a real Monday and the other four days stop feeling like a fight.

FAQs

What admin should a salon owner do every Monday?

Check and rework the appointment book, confirm every unconfirmed booking, work the cancellation list, then do wages, bills and accounts. Finish by clearing the inbox and writing down anything left over so nothing is carried in your head.

How do I find more appointments without getting more clients?

Look at the gaps in your existing book. Fifteen minutes here and there across a day can be shuffled into a full extra appointment, which is why Sam moves clients up and down before she does anything else on a Monday.

Should salon owners do admin on the weekend?

Sam says no and treats it as a hard boundary. Jen replies when she genuinely has capacity, but flags anything that needs proper thought and leaves it until she is back in work mode.

Mentioned in this episode:

💛 A Limited Time Offer From Our Amazing Sponsor, Timely 💛

➡ Timely is the easy to use booking and payments system that puts salon owners in control of the whole client experience from the first booking to final payment.

➡ Salon Rising listeners get a 14 day free trial plus 50% off their first 3 months.

➡ And when you activate with Payments, you'll also get a free Touchscreen terminal, worth $349 + GST.

Use the code SALONRISING at checkout or click the link below to get started. Once you're set up, your Timely contact will take care of the rest. 👇

Timely

https://www.salonrising.com

💖 Celebrating Our Podcast Partner – Christophe Robin, proudly distributed by McM Imports

We’ve partnered with Christophe Robin and MCM Imports to bring you something beautiful:

➡ Experience the Christophe Robin Discovery Box — curated by pro ambassador Monique McMahon.

➡ Inside, you’ll find her handpicked favourites — the hero products she swears by in the salon.

It’s your invitation to explore the range and discover why Christophe Robin has become a quiet obsession among stylists who know their craft.

Click the link below to request your FREE Christophe Robin Discovery Box, exclusively through McM Imports. 👇

MCM

There is a version of salon ownership where you grow the team, fill the chairs, take the whole space, and still lie awake on a Sunday night doing sums in your head. Siobhan from Siobhan Hair Artistry lived in that version for four years. She started mobile with a plastic basin and a bag of colour, moved into a home salon, rented a chair, then ended up renting the entire hair space at Cliff Newport with an apprentice, her mum and a team around her. And in her own words, she had no clue what she was doing. No break evens. No idea what the business had to make in an hour just to stand still.

Then last June she smashed into the back of a car on the motorway, fractured her sternum, and was back on the floor two weeks later doing foils with a broken chest because the bills did not stop. That was the moment the maths stopped being about the business and started being about her.

Six months ago she made the decision she had been avoiding. She let go of the apprentice she loved and went back to just her and her mum. She is busier now than she has ever been. She is also less tired, she knows exactly what she needs to make every week, and her clients keep telling her she seems like herself again. This is a conversation about what it actually costs to hold a team together when the numbers underneath are not working, and what happens when you finally stop.

What we cover

• Building from mobile hairdressing to a home salon to renting a whole salon space
• Employing a team with no break even figures and no idea what the business had to make
• A senior stylist who quit on her first day
• Why your team will never be invested in your business the way you are
• The car accident, the fractured sternum, and going back to work after two weeks
• Letting go of an apprentice she loved and finding her a job with a friend
• Knowing your weekly numbers before you employ another person
• Income protection and super when you are a sole trader
• Fair Work, hard conversations, and why so many Australian salon owners have stopped hiring
• Being busier on her own and less tired than she was with a team
• Why you have the right to change your business, whenever you want

She did not go backwards. She went back to the thing that was working all along.

How do I know if my salon is in fight or flight?

If your body is braced every time your phone lights up, if you check the schedule five times a day, and if you cannot remember the last week that felt calm, you are in it. Siobhan spent four years there and only recognised it once she was out.

Should I let staff go if my salon is not making enough money?

There is no single right answer, but the starting point is knowing whether each week is profitable before you decide anything. Siobhan let her apprentice go because the business could not hit its numbers consistently once anyone was sick or on leave, and she found her a job with a friend rather than leaving her without one.

Mentioned in this episode:

💛 A Limited Time Offer From Our Amazing Sponsor, Timely 💛

➡ Timely is the easy to use booking and payments system that puts salon owners in control of the whole client experience from the first booking to final payment.

➡ Salon Rising listeners get a 14 day free trial plus 50% off their first 3 months.

➡ And when you activate with Payments, you'll also get a free Touchscreen terminal, worth $349 + GST.

Use the code SALONRISING at checkout or click the link below to get started. Once you're set up, your Timely contact will take care of the rest. 👇

Timely

https://www.salonrising.com

💖 Celebrating Our Podcast Partner – Christophe Robin, proudly distributed by McM Imports

We’ve partnered with Christophe Robin and MCM Imports to bring you something beautiful:

➡ Experience the Christophe Robin Discovery Box — curated by pro ambassador Monique McMahon.

➡ Inside, you’ll find her handpicked favourites — the hero products she swears by in the salon.

It’s your invitation to explore the range and discover why Christophe Robin has become a quiet obsession among stylists who know their craft.

Click the link below to request your FREE Christophe Robin Discovery Box, exclusively through McM Imports. 👇

MCM

There is usually one part of your business you avoid looking at. The numbers, the ads, the software, the thing you pay someone else to handle. You are not avoiding it because you are lazy. You are avoiding it because you do not understand it, and it has been easier to hope than to learn.

That gap is where most owners get stuck. Not in the work they are brilliant at. In the bit they handed over and never checked.

Simone from Apotecari has nine years of this behind her. Staff who left and set up down the road. A house on the line to fund something she had no business running. Agencies on big monthly retainers doing work she had no way of judging. The turn came when she admitted she was the weakest link in her own business, and then did something about it. She is more profitable now than she was when she was paying other people to do all of it.

What we cover

• The highs and lows of nine years in business, said out loud
• Why every industry loses people to the person they trained, not just salons
• What it actually feels like to put your own house on the line
• The part of the business you have been avoiding, and what that avoidance is costing
• Why you should never hand over something you do not understand yet
• Knowing enough to ask the right questions, without becoming the expert
• Building the skill inside your team instead of renting it every month
• Where the growth came from once she stopped guessing

You do not have to know how to do it. You do have to know what good looks like.

Frequently asked questions

Should salon owners outsource their marketing?

Yes, once you understand the basics of what you are handing over. Plenty of Australian salon owners pay a monthly retainer for a long time before anyone checks whether the work is bringing people through the door.

How do you know if the person doing your marketing is any good?

You have to know enough to ask a real question and understand the answer. If you cannot tell the difference between a good month and a bad one, you cannot manage the relationship.

What do you do when a staff member leaves and opens up nearby?

It happens in every industry, and it is not a sign you did something wrong. Some people are there to build with you and some are there to build off you, and you rarely know which until they go.

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.salonrising.com

💛 A Limited Time Offer From Our Amazing Sponsor, Timely 💛

➡ Timely is the easy to use booking and payments system that puts salon owners in control of the whole client experience from the first booking to final payment.

➡ Salon Rising listeners get a 14 day free trial plus 50% off their first 3 months.

➡ And when you activate with Payments, you'll also get a free Touchscreen terminal, worth $349 + GST.

Use the code SALONRISING at checkout or click the link below to get started. Once you're set up, your Timely contact will take care of the rest. 👇

Timely

💖 Celebrating Our Podcast Partner – Christophe Robin, proudly distributed by McM Imports

We’ve partnered with Christophe Robin and MCM Imports to bring you something beautiful:

➡ Experience the Christophe Robin Discovery Box — curated by pro ambassador Monique McMahon.

➡ Inside, you’ll find her handpicked favourites — the hero products she swears by in the salon.

It’s your invitation to explore the range and discover why Christophe Robin has become a quiet obsession among stylists who know their craft.

Click the link below to request your FREE Christophe Robin Discovery Box, exclusively through McM Imports. 👇

MCM

Some seasons you do not get through gracefully. You just get through them. And then one day it is over, and you are standing on the other side wondering why it feels so quiet.

This one is just Sam and Jen. No guest, no plan, no idea where it was going to go. Sam opens up about the end of a chapter that ran almost three years and cost a quarter of a million dollars, and what it actually took to come out the other side of it still standing. Not the tell all version. The honest one, from a woman who is finally regulated enough to talk about it.

It is also a conversation about what a business has to do for you when everything else is falling over. Sam is blunt about it. If she had not known how to work her numbers, she would not have lasted. Seventeen years in, booked out, still not sure about hiring again, and finally choosing stillness over the chase. Jen brings the other half of the picture, a first six months of the year that tipped everything upside down, a business that has been genuinely hard, and why the changes she has made were measured ones rather than panicked ones.

What we cover

• Why knowing your numbers is what actually carries you through a hard season
• The real cost of a long legal chapter and how a salon absorbed it
• Building a team of people around you who tell you the truth, not what you want to hear
• Seventeen years in business and why staying still is a decision, not a lack of ambition
• Being booked out and still unsure whether to hire again
• The Monday spent filling the book and what it does to your nervous system
• Protecting your peace online, and knowing when it is safe to open back up
• Making measured changes in a hard six months instead of erratic ones
• Why no relationship, personal or professional, is a failure
• Scars not wounds, and why the timing of your story matters

There is hope on the other side. Sometimes it just arrives quieter than you expected.

Do you need to be good with numbers to survive a hard season in business?

You need to know your numbers well enough to see what your business can carry. Sam is clear that her financial literacy is the only reason her salon supported her family through three years of legal costs.

Is it a bad sign if you do not want to grow your salon right now?

No. Choosing to stay still, keep your book tight and protect your energy is a legitimate business decision, not a step backwards.

How do you make big business decisions when everything feels uncertain?

Make them slowly and on the information you actually have, not on fear. Measured changes you have sat with beat reactive ones every time.

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.salonrising.com

💖 Celebrating Our Podcast Partner – Christophe Robin, proudly distributed by McM Imports

We’ve partnered with Christophe Robin and MCM Imports to bring you something beautiful:

➡ Experience the Christophe Robin Discovery Box — curated by pro ambassador Monique McMahon.

➡ Inside, you’ll find her handpicked favourites — the hero products she swears by in the salon.

It’s your invitation to explore the range and discover why Christophe Robin has become a quiet obsession among stylists who know their craft.

Click the link below to request your FREE Christophe Robin Discovery Box, exclusively through McM Imports. 👇

MCM

💛 A Limited Time Offer From Our Amazing Sponsor, Timely 💛

➡ Timely is the easy to use booking and payments system that puts salon owners in control of the whole client experience from the first booking to final payment.

➡ Salon Rising listeners get a 14 day free trial plus 50% off their first 3 months.

➡ And when you activate with Payments, you'll also get a free Touchscreen terminal, worth $349 + GST.

Use the code SALONRISING at checkout or click the link below to get started. Once you're set up, your Timely contact will take care of the rest. 👇

Timely

You can be off the floor, home, sitting still, and your body still behaves like something is about to go wrong. The phone buzzes and your heart goes before your brain does. That is not you being dramatic. That is a nervous system that has been running on alarm so long it has forgotten there is another setting.

Sharelle from Miss Lash The Studio is back in the Inner Sanctum, and she, Sam and Jen have all been working on the same thing this year, from very different directions. This is a short, honest conversation about what actually brings you back down. Yin yoga for one, prayer for another, a Sunday morning at the markets before it gets busy. None of it is complicated. Most of it is free. All of it starts with deciding you are allowed to give something back to yourself after a day of giving it all away.

There is a lot in here you could start this week, and none of it asks you to add another thing to a life that is already full.

What we cover

• What a nervous system reset actually means when you are the one giving all day
• Yin yoga, prayer, movement, and finding the thing that regulates you rather than the thing that works for someone else
• Why a busy supermarket can tip you straight into overwhelm, and what Sharelle does instead
• Buffer time between appointments and how a spare half hour changes the shape of a whole day
• Rushing woman syndrome and why cramming wellness in does not help your nervous system
• Your phone as an invitation, not an obligation
• Turning off notifications and getting free of that little red number
• Five tasks on the list instead of fifty, and why ticking things off actually works
• The 90 second rule, and why you never reply to a one star review while you are heightened

Calm is not a personality type. It is a handful of small decisions you keep making.

FAQs

What is a nervous system reset?

It is anything that moves you out of fight or flight and back into rest and digest. For Sharelle that is yin yoga, for Samara it is prayer, and the point is finding the one that works for your body rather than copying someone else's.

How do salon owners get out of fight or flight during the working day?

Small resets built into the day work better than one big fix at the end of it. Buffer time between appointments, notifications switched off, and a shorter task list all lower the load before it builds.

Why should you wait before replying to a bad review?

A strong emotion runs its chemical course in about 90 seconds, so anything you send inside that window is written by the heightened version of you. Australian salon owners deal with reviews and client messages constantly, and waiting until you feel steady almost always gives you a better reply.

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.salonrising.com

💛 A Limited Time Offer From Our Amazing Sponsor, Timely 💛

➡ Timely is the easy to use booking and payments system that puts salon owners in control of the whole client experience from the first booking to final payment.

➡ Salon Rising listeners get a 14 day free trial plus 50% off their first 3 months.

➡ And when you activate with Payments, you'll also get a free Touchscreen terminal, worth $349 + GST.

Use the code SALONRISING at checkout or click the link below to get started. Once you're set up, your Timely contact will take care of the rest. 👇

Timely

💖 Celebrating Our Podcast Partner – Christophe Robin, proudly distributed by McM Imports

We’ve partnered with Christophe Robin and MCM Imports to bring you something beautiful:

➡ Experience the Christophe Robin Discovery Box — curated by pro ambassador Monique McMahon.

➡ Inside, you’ll find her handpicked favourites — the hero products she swears by in the salon.

It’s your invitation to explore the range and discover why Christophe Robin has become a quiet obsession among stylists who know their craft.

Click the link below to request your FREE Christophe Robin Discovery Box, exclusively through McM Imports. 👇

MCM