One group of 10 reusable seats for the Associate Accelerator Program plus one copy of the Educators Edition.

The Associate Accelerator was created from Chris Baran’s forty-plus years of experience in world-class salon and facilitation training in consultation with incredibly successful salons with the singular focus of saving time for salon owners so they could stay focused on their vision for building their business. To do that, the program has to:

1. meet or exceed the owner’s standards of excellence in real-world salon education
2. make it easy to hand off responsibility for the day-to-day to a lead educator
3. deliver client-ready skills fast

We didn’t stop there. The time problem isn’t solved just because we hand it off to somebody else. The lead educator has the rest of the team plus their own chair to worry about. And the owner needs to be confident that the problem is solved. The program has to:

1. make it easy for the lead educator to manage associates at all experience levels
2. make it easy for associates to learn and practice on their own time without supervision
3. provide the framework for sustaining those high standards

And of course:

1. make it practically fly itself so there’s time for revenue and for advanced education with the rest of the team

Because associates can use the videos to learn and practice on their own, educators have as much as 90% of their time back and owners are free to grow their vision. Now we’re talking.

While we agree that the owner should always know what’s going on in their salon, this is a job for your lead educator. Set them up with the Educators Edition. They should absolutely coordinate with you, but this is definitely a job they can do, and once it’s up and running it is so easy. Your job is to build the business. Focus on your vision. That’s why we did this. For you. Because we dig you and you deserve it.

Uh… mannequin heads. Tripods. Really, this is everything you need to train your associates and free up 90% of the time you’ve been spending on training. YES, it’s ludicrously affordable — for now.

Really really. The magic of this program is that it’s built around real-world salon services. You don’t need to know everything about hair to perform an excellent shampoo service, for example. And when your associate takes that task over, your experienced stylists are free to take on another client or upsell another service. What’s insane is us giving away the first month’s subscription for free when it’s empowering your salon to make new revenue in two weeks. You’re making money with the program before you even have to pay for it.

Make sure you have enough mannequins on hand for your associates to practice with. Start by checking out the Educators Edition. Then, so long as educators stay ahead of associates, everything is pretty easy-squeezy with less work and zero friction.

Here’s a rock-your-world idea. Have everyone take the program, even if they’ve been with you for years. Here’s why:

1. A group learning experience is awesome for team unity.
2. Everyone will be on the same page, so anyone can step in to help train.
3. Probably most important for you as the owner: this will establish your official salon minimum standards of excellence. You’ll never have a better opportunity to get rid of bad habits.

From the Team Courses page you can purchase a course for multiple people and invite them to take that course as a Group. Group Leaders (and you) can track member progress and quiz scores as they go. Find out more about managing your Groups here.

They will receive a Welcome Email with login instructions and general navigation info. All they have to do is click and login.

“Progress” is recorded when someone completes the tasks on a page and taps “Mark Complete” at the bottom, or when they pass a quiz. When an associate has marked a skills segment as complete, they’re telling you that they are ready to be assessed. Educators should check in with a little constructive feedback as much as each associate requires. Everybody’s different. Some associates will be extremely motivated – they’ll practice like mad at home and badger your educators to schedule the assessments. Those are my favorite.

The Assessments are milestones that test for client-ready services. For example, when an associate successfully completes the Color Retouch/Refresh Assessment, you can be confident they are ready to perform that service for clients while they continue working toward their next skills milestone.

As soon as your associate passes an Assessment, you know they meet or exceed your salon standards and you can confidently put them on the floor performing that service with clients. You don’t have to run them through the whole program before getting them out there.

But, I hear you asking, how long does it take to get through the whole program? It depends. Some associates are super motivated. They will practice at home every day, and they’ll be bugging your educators to schedule the milestone assessments sooner. Other associates may need more in-person guidance, and their progress will depend a little more on educator availability.

We think that in three months most associates will be directly contributing to enough new revenue to cover the cost of their employment and training. The important thing is that your associates are generating revenue with the services they have mastered while they learn new ones, all while taking less time from you and your educators.