Business Spotlight: All in the Details

Mike and Jan Pearl weren’t joking around on April 1, 1990, when they opened the doors of Details Salon LLC for the first time. In its 23rd year this month, the salon has been a mainstay to its employees and some 2,000 customers in an industry with high turnover and frequent closures.

“Thank goodness it hasn’t been an April Fools’ trick,” Jan Pearl says in her husband’s narrow office as five stylists treat customers one afternoon in the 14-station, open-air salon.

A 34-year stylist, Pearl started her trade renting booth space for a dozen years between Springfield salons Innovations and Sophisticuts before striking out on her own under a different model. Considering industry trends and her own complications as an independent contractor stylist, Pearl decided to build a salon with stylists on the payroll.

“I was as busy as I could get, working really hard and long hours, so it was the next step,” she says of opening Details and entering the $40 billion national salon and spa industry, according to the latest data from the Professional Beauty Association.

Pearl is now among nearly 1,900 licensed cosmetologists in Greene County, according to the industry’s regulatory body, the Missouri Division of Professional Registration. Across the state, the PBA claims nearly 1,500 salon establishments are in operation with total annual sales of $689 million as of 2010.

“If there’s a strip center, there’s a hair salon in it,” says Mike Pearl, who handles Details’ financials, estimating more than 200 salons operate in Springfield. “Maybe for a month or maybe a year, then it’s gone before you hear about it.”

Jan Pearl says quality standards were among the goals in their business model, which counts the salon’s 13 stylists as W2 employees who are paid commissions.

“Everybody uses the same product, the same perms and colors. It’s a reflection on the salon,” she says, noting independent stylists working at the same salon could choose their own brands. “Customers see a color, they know it’s the same color we all use.”

The 2,500-square-foot space in the Southgate Center reflects its clientele – largely in the 30- to 60-year-old range, given Details’ specialty of hair coloring – and the Pearls just wrapped up more than $30,000 in renovations, primarily replacing the original green marble stylist stations with units built by CBS Cabinets. The final step is replacing the flooring, an estimated $10,000 job, with vinyl planks from Stoneridge Flooring Design.

“I like change. We move our stations every six months,” Jan Pearl says, noting Details’ stylists have worked there between five and 19 years, compared to an industry average of three years. “So you work by somebody different, hear different stories and get inspiration from other stylists. It gives them a change without having to move salons.”

Rates range between $35 to $53 for women’s haircuts and $27 to $34 for men’s cuts.

Jan Pearl has more than 300 direct clients to her name, and she estimates 100 of them have called on her cutting and coloring skills since opening day. Some customers are now into their 90s, she says.

Ted Andrews has been visiting Pearl for 30 years. He schedules haircuts every five weeks and considers them a necessity when budgeting his personal finances.

“There’s nothing more central to how you carry yourself in the workaday world and your personal life than your grooming. I’m rock-solid confident that Jan will always put my grooming on its best foot,” says Andrews, the department head for PJC Insurance’s corporate health division. “It’d be like going to the cheapest brain surgeon or heart surgeon. It’s in that category for me.”

With an emphasis on education, Details requires its stylists participate in two off-site classes each year. Pearl just returned from a cosmetology trade show in Nashville, Tenn., where she learned the next trends are disconnected cuts in geometric shapes for an asymmetric look – a style she now sports – and bright hair colors. She also says the ombre trend of darker roots and lighter ends is still popular but the contrast is not as bold. “It’s getting a little bit softer on the ombre,” she says.

Mike Pearl, the salon’s CEO and an accountant by trade, says hair and nail services account for nearly 90 percent of revenues, while retail product sales generate the remainder. Details, an alliance salon for the Goldwell brand, carries Redken, Aveda, KMS and American Crew.

Lori Nickols, a distributor representative for multiple brands through Beauty Systems Group, says Details is among the top buyers of Goldwell color nationwide. She estimates the salon spends more than $20,000 a year in Goldwell product.

“They’re my biggest Goldwell account,” Nickols says, noting she services some 300 salons across southwest Missouri.

Pearl says revenues grew each year until 2007. “The year after construction got hit, we got hit,” he says, declining to disclose revenues.

Pearl says customers slowed their frequency of visits and business was flat until last year.

“Before the recession, I would be booked six months in advance,” Jan Pearl adds. “Now, I can usually work people in within three weeks.”

Mike Pearl is projecting a 5 to 7 percent upswing this year.

“I haven’t had a raise in seven years, and that’s when the recession hit. We were just getting ready to raise prices,” Jan Pearl says. “We’re thinking about it again, now.”