On Monday, September 12, 2016, more than 300 salon professionals from 12 states gathered at the Hyatt Regency Newport Beach for the Sola Sessions,  part of Sola Salon Studio’s effort to broaden its exclusive Sola Sessions education and networking events to all beauty pros.

Sola Salon Studios, one of the largest and fastest-growing salon studio franchise in the United States, sold out its first two Sola Sessions in Denver and Minneapolis, respectively, and due to increased demand from Sola entrepreneurs, expanded the event to accommodate more members of the Sola network.

“When we launched the Sola Sessions earlier this year, we did so with the intention of offering Sola entrepreneurs with the very best education opportunities in the industry,” Ben Jones, Sola’s Chief Executive Officer, says. “The decision to expand this event to be inclusive of all specialty areas, and not specifically on hair, is another step that we’re taking to make our Sola community even stronger.

“Over the last six months, we have had stylists, nail technicians, estheticians and makeup artists join Sola and sign leases in advance just so they could participate in the Sola Sessions. That in itself speaks to the power that Sola has in our industry.”

With a focus on brand building, marketing and social media in the morning, and artistic learning in the afternoon, the Sola Sessions featured top educators from various aspects of the professional beauty industry. The event featured education delivered by Sola Salon Studios, Passion Squared, Ideas That Evoke,  Wella,  Aquage, theFactory and Redken. Additionally, Hattori Hanzo Shears, Dermalogica, CND and KLASS Beauty hosted “Side Sessions” education throughout the day on a secondary stage.

 Kim Bennett Horvath, Sola’s Culture Ambassador and event emcee, kicked the event off by sharing a recent Steve Harvey video about taking a leap of faith. As the first-ever stylist to take the leap with Sola, Kim inspired the audience to continue believing in themselves as business owners. She reminded the audience that sometimes, when you jump, the going gets tough, but you’ll never thrive without making that jump in the first place.

 Jennie Wolff, Sola’s VP of Marketing and Education, shared three tips that she recommends for getting started in marketing. 1) Learn something new every day; 2) Always continue trying new things; 3) Know when to bring in a professional. Throughout her Marketing 101 presentation, Jennie shared tips for where and how to learn by recommending Sola tools such as the Sola Pro video education and the Sola blog, where new topics are covered regularly.

She also gave an overview of marketing, calling the heart of marketing “storytelling.” She shared her recommended marketing wheel made up of 8 marketing tactics, including websites, referrals, Yelp and social media, that all work together to make up a recommended integrated marketing approach for Sola professionals. She shared that it’s not important to execute marketing in all 8 channels, but that it’s important to not put all of your eggs in one basket and rely on one marketing tactic to spread the word about your salon. 

Kelly Ehlers, founder of Ideas that Evoke and representing Wella at the Sola Sessions, covered the Art of Social Media. She encouraged stylists to find out which social media platforms their clients are on before deciding which ones to join. She highlighted the importance of knowing where your demographic is and starting a conversation with them there. Ehlers encouraged stylists to create an in person experience that reflects their online experience and vice versa. She shared that once you know who you are and what you want to be known for, that clients should get that feeling not only inside your salon, but on your social media channels as well.

Luis Alvarez, Nicole Gary and Nogodar Martinez demonstrated glamorous updos and beautiful styles for long hair. Stylists learned how to do a haircut with disconnection and also learned an easy way to do a chignon in less then 5 minutes. In addition, Aquage demonstrated a chanel cutting technique for long hair. 

Educator and artist DJ Muldoon joined us with stage artist Manny San Martin. DJ shared his philosophy in hair cutting and demonstrated techniques for removing weight and length for shorter cuts (and also shared when it’s best to keep it). Manny displayed many ways to change texture and movement to his styled model. They both represented an example to step out of the "cookie cutter" way of being a hairdresser and unleash the creativity to try something new.

Representing Redken, artists  Justin Isaac and Carmody Homan kicked off their show with a rowdy dance party, then got right into chopping it up. Justin demonstrated a bricklaying color technique as well as sharing about blurring pop colors and color blocking along with  cutting techniques taken straight off the runway from fashion week.

The next Sola Sessions will be in Charlotte, NC on Monday, November 14, 2016. 2017 Sola Sessions dates to be announced.

For more information about the Sola Sessions,  visit https://www.solasalonstudios.com/sessions