5-5: The Four Stages of Change

In this episode, Jennifer discusses the four stages of change and shares her personal experience of making significant changes in her business. She explains how she went from a service-based pricing model to an hourly pricing model, and the challenges and work involved in implementing this change. Jennifer emphasizes the importance of integrity and transparency in making changes and encourages entrepreneurs to step outside their comfort zones. Her father also shares insights on the importance of early adaptation and the challenges of bringing a team along during the change process. The episode concludes with good wishes for the new year and a reminder to embrace change in business.

Takeaways

• Change is an inevitable part of business and can lead to growth and improvement.
• The four stages of change are the idea, the work, the challenge, and fulfillment.
• Implementing change requires courage, communication, and a clear vision.
• Resistance to change is common, but it is important to stay focused on the long-term benefits.

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Jennifer Faith Dempsey has been in the beauty industry for over 10 years. For the last 5m years, she has owned J. Faith Hair Studio. She brings her experience on how she balances entrepreneurship and motherhood. Check out Jen’s blog.

Staci Joy Dempsey is an insurance agent, a mom, and a busy non-profit volunteer. She truly understands what it means to be an entrepreneur. Staci serves as the podcast's host.

Jack Dempsey is the dad who heads up this busy family. He is a founding partner in Dempsey, Weiss & Associates, an Elmer, NJ-based insurance and investment firm that began more than 30 years ago.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

the whole month of January.

Speaker 2: 0:04

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Business of Business podcast. Two daughters and their dad. I'm your host, stacy J Dempsey, and, like always, thankfully I am here with the dad and the other daughter, dad and Jennifer. Good morning, good afternoon to the both of you, wherever you all are in the world.

Speaker 1: 0:23

Good morning. Good morning and happy new year.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Happy new year. How about it? Here we are just cruising, cruising right on into 2024. And we're super excited today because we have a really great topic to talk with all of you guys today about, and that is the four stages of change. And boy, change can be a really great thing. Change can be an awkward thing. Change is in an inevitable situation, but change is here, and so Jennifer brought up this topic because she has some new and exciting things going on inside of her business. So, jen, why don't you start us off with your four stages of change?

Speaker 3: 1:16

And scary right and scary things. I think you know I'm always very honest on the podcast, so I'm not going to change in 2024. But you know I've set up before seven years. In business, the year of 2023 has been the most challenging year and you know it's funny when you work inside a particular industry and you grow up with, you know within that industry you're taught so many different things and so kind of that. That verbiage of like this is just the way things are. This is the way we do things within this industry, and it wasn't until, you know, this past year that I started to question those things and question. You know there must, there has to be a better way, because the way that I've been doing things have led to extreme burnout that I've never felt before, and so I intentionally went out seeking a different way and I've made a lot of changes so far.

Speaker 3: 2:21

One of the biggest changes I've made, you know I shared with you guys before.

Speaker 3: 2:25

I always work with a business coach, always have, always will, and so I've had a business coach for the last seven years same person, love her, grew so much with her, she taught me a lot.

Speaker 3: 2:38

But I decided to move in a different direction and I hired a new business coach with different methods, different ideas, and so, again, when you do something for so long and your, your network, is the same, you can feel kind of like you're just kind of staying in the same place. So I felt like for me it was important to kind of get in the room with different people and continue to grow, and that's exactly what I'm planning to do in 2024, making major changes with inside of my business that I am so excited about but are very controversial inside of my industry. So this kind of idea for this podcast came out of a meeting I had with my business coach, just kind of working through some of the things that I've been struggling with. So, do I start it? Do I start it or do you start it? Stace, do you want to tell them or you want me to tell them?

Speaker 2: 3:34

I want you to tell them, because you're the one in it I will say you know, to preface all of this, that you know as Jennifer's sister 2023, there was a lot of, I think, dissecting apart the pieces of her business that were really keeping her stagnant, the challenges that seemed to be coming up that were just never ending, and being able to really pick apart the things that she loved about her business and about what she likes to do versus the things that were just really dragging her down physically, mentally, emotionally, even financially. And how could she dissect those things apart so that she could still do what she loves with her business but also alleviate some of the things that were just continually weighing her down? And I think at some point in the summertime, in my backyard, maybe over a glass of wine, I was like, well, you, clearly… Probably a bottle of wine, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:45

Okay, remember dad's here but here. But we were able to finally identify this is the part that is really not good and it was kind of that HR component of her business. So now that we identified it, how do we change it?

Speaker 2: 5:05

And obviously I'm not in Jennifer's industry, so we didn't have that answer then. But being about to identify it and then say that's the part that needs to change then allowed, I think, jennifer to have a new set of eyes, to say okay, now, how do I pursue this change with the same enthusiasm as I did when I first became a hairdresser, when I knew I wanted to have my own business.

Speaker 3: 5:33

when I started my business, yeah and it's funny, as you're saying that, stace, I know that dad is big on this and we've talked about this in the podcast. It's like if you have something inside of your business, you just delegate right, and I know dad is really great at that and he's been able to do that inside of his business. But it's easier said than done right For lots of different reasons. You might not financially be in a position to delegate. So anyway, I'm not trying to get off topic, but the four stages of change. The first one would be the idea. So the idea of this is not working. I need to change this, I need to move in this direction.

Speaker 3: 6:20

And as I'm thinking about it, I'm going to go back to when I first wanted to open my salon. And the idea of opening a salon was so exciting and you know what it would look like, what it would feel like, what it would be like. So the idea of change, something that you want to change, can be very exciting. And then the second stage would be the work. So the work you have to put in made more behind the scenes work of making a change possible. So at that moment it's going to the library, writing up a business plan, meeting with different professionals to figure out how do you even start a business, because I knew I couldn't go to dad and ask him that question and so kind of putting in that work behind the scenes of what do I need to do to make this happen? Maybe it's paperwork, or getting a new software, a new system. What's the work that needs to happen with this change?

Speaker 3: 7:28

And then the third step would be the challenge, because in all changes there's going to come challenges, or maybe sacrifice, or maybe a problem arises that you didn't think of when you were in the first stage, because you were just excited. And so the challenge for me is I'm excited about opening a business. I wrote a business plan, I have the idea, I have it mapped out, drawn out on paper, but how am I going to get the money or the capital to start? And once we can work through the first three stages of an idea, then comes fulfillment. That's the fourth stage of wow, I did it, I'm living it, I'm doing it, I made it to the other side.

Speaker 2: 8:15

Yeah, absolutely so. So, jen, why don't you share with our listeners what, what change, what idea you have come to to kind of prompt all of this? You know you're now in a, in a, you're in now stage one of a new change in your business.

Speaker 3: 8:37

Well, I'm currently at stage three. That's challenging stage. My bad, my mistake, but why? Yeah, this was months and months in the making, right? So, like I said, you know, I knew something had to change, and I that's when I intentionally went out into the world to figure out how I could change, because I wasn't sure. And so there, there's lots of controversy in the beauty industry on pricing and things like that, and so I wanted to change my business from service based pricing to hourly pricing, something that's been done for a long time, just not overly popular, especially in the area that I'm in.

Speaker 3: 9:21

So I had this idea of changing.

Speaker 3: 9:23

You know, I changed a lot of things, but this is the main thing is going to hourly pricing.

Speaker 3: 9:26

And then I had to put into in the work so, you know, obviously having a coach, investing in a coach, spending a lot of time with her on walking through my fears, firstly, and figuring out how this would work and how this transition would work, and then, and then, you know, announcing it to the team here at the salon and then working through those challenges of other people's fears and questions and concerns, and then announcing it to our clients and working through those fears and those concerns and those big question marks.

Speaker 3: 10:07

So I'm happy to say that this has been months in the making and today is the first day that we're implementing it. So we're not at the fulfillment stage yet, but hopefully I'll be able to come full circle and share that with you guys. But it's something that I wholeheartedly believe in and I think that at the end of the day, it's not what's best only for me, but it's what's best for my clientele, it's best for my stylist and it's what's best for the beauty industry as a whole. And you know it's when you do something. I think that there's something with entrepreneurs that don't let us get bored right or complacent, because then we come out kicking we're trying to figure something out. We need something that's going to get those juices flowing again, and this is exactly what it's done for me.

Speaker 2: 10:57

Yeah. So just to clarify for our listeners, jennifer has decided to change her business model a little bit. From you know, you come in and you want a cut, a color, highlights, and each individual service is a certain price and at the end you would, you know, pay whatever that price is. Now Jennifer will go from a set hourly rate and whatever you want to get done in that hour or two hours, it doesn't matter what the service is, you will pay her by the hour and in addition to that, her salon will also be going gratuity free, which I think is very interesting, very cool, especially now in the world in which we live in, where I feel like I know myself as a consumer. I'm a little, I'm a little tipped out, because it seems like everywhere I go and being that's being requested of me to leave a tip in the most nontraditional industries where I wasn't typically tipping, and so now to set herself apart by saying we're not going to be doing gratuity and we're going to be going to an hourly rate is making is allowing her to stand out from the, from the crowd, but also it's going to give her time, that she is going to have more of a personalized experience with her, with her clients. There's not going to be any more of the hustle and bustle of trying to finish one person and wash out another and start a new cut and kind of jumping between. It's going to be you have her full, undivided attention and I think that is.

Speaker 2: 12:39

I think that that again, that's going to set her apart and so in the area in which we live in, the other salons are not doing that and so I think it's gonna create a lot of positive conversation and a lot of curiosity in a good way and it's like Jennifer said, it's gonna be day one. But over the last few months I was telling Jennifer there were these Instagram reels where I was sending her before this kind of all came about, where you know, people were interviewing hairstylists and nail techs and I think maybe like lash consultants, where they were saying that's, they do it by the hour, they don't do it by, and they were saying like their hourly rate is a lot. You know they were very high priced but stylist, but these were, they were looking for a specific niche clientele and people were paying it and you know these weren't. I mean, we're close to Philadelphia, I mean these were somewhat big cities, but not all of them, not all of them. So I think it's gonna be a really. I think it's gonna be great for the business and great for Jennifer as well.

Speaker 3: 14:00

Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up, and I'm gonna let dad get in here soon, because you know how he gets when we start leaving him out.

Speaker 3: 14:06

I know the one principle that I stand on as an entrepreneur, inside of my business, is integrity. That's something that I take very seriously, and so when I made this change, the integrity behind it is it's very transparent. So, again, like Stacy said, I'm going from an a la carte menu to an hourly menu, and so it's very transparent. You know, back in the day when I first started doing hair, it was, oh, if you're a certain age, your hair could as this price. If you're a certain gender, your hair could as this price. And it's 2024, right, and we are elevating and moving forward with the times and becoming better with each decision that we make. And so that's really what it's all about is continuing to provide the best service that you can in the best way that you can, and you know the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing and expecting different results. So I knew that I had to do something different and it couldn't just be something small. I had to make a huge impact and stand really on my integrity and what I believed in. And same thing when I opened the salon right Seven years ago.

Speaker 3: 15:27

People are like what? You're crazy. You're making good money, you're a manager of a salon, you have a great mentor, blah blah, blah, blah blah. And it's like you know, there's always gonna be naysayers in any decision that you make or any change that you make. And you have to hold on to your why, on why you're doing it, because it's very easy to get discouraged, to say this isn't going over as well as I thought, so let me just not do it, I can't. I have to push forward with this change because that's what I believe in. So any entrepreneur out there that's looking to make a change inside of their business, this is the podcast for you. We're trying to encourage you to take a leap push outside of your comfort zone, because that's really the only place that we can grow is once we step outside of our comfort zone. And I'm uncomfortable in 2024, guys, I'm real uncomfortable over here.

Speaker 2: 16:27

Girl, I'm uncomfortable for you in the best possible way. How about it? All right, dad hit us. Dad is still here for those that are listening, no time.

Speaker 1: 16:38

That you guys forgot about me. But you know, I know this, jennifer. I know this has been, you know, obviously in the planning stages for a while. So the last couple of times I got my haircut done, I timed it. So my haircut takes exactly eight minutes to buzz and be done. So I like the hourly cause. Now I'm paying for eight minutes of your time, so I think that's going to be good for me. I like that.

Speaker 2: 17:07

So Actually, no, that's not how it all, how it works. You get the whole hour oh.

Speaker 1: 17:13

I do.

Speaker 2: 17:14

You do. Whether you decide to stay there and chat with her or not.

Speaker 3: 17:17

Eight minutes to cut your hair. The remaining of the time just quality conversation.

Speaker 1: 17:22

There you go.

Speaker 3: 17:23

Which I should probably pay you for, dad, it's hard to get you on the phone.

Speaker 1: 17:26

Okay, I'll take that. So you know, first of all, I love what you're doing, jen, and I think it's it is going to just really transform your business, take you to another level, and I love this topic because it's just, it's something that every business owner, every entrepreneur, needs to get comfortable with to the extent possible. And one of the things I would say about you know, the four steps is that, when it comes to making the change and having that idea, one thing I would challenge our listeners to is not just think about it when something's not working. You know, because when something's not working, yeah, I mean you can hang in there for a while and you can keep trying to do, as Jen said, the same thing, expecting different results. But there's a point when you either make the change or you're out of business, you know cause it's just simply not going to work. But I would just challenge our listeners to also think about it as because here's the hard part is making change when everything's going well, but you know that there's going to. You can see on the horizon that things are going to be changing and so you have to make the decision. Are you going to wait and then possibly be behind the curve of that change or are you going to be an early adapter and get ahead of it? And if you're going to be the early adapter, well then that's where these four steps come in right, because now you say, all right, I see something coming. We're going to have to make changes, you know, not to survive it, but to, you know, to really prosper from that change.

Speaker 1: 19:26

And so that's when you have to, all right, implement an idea and then put the work in. And that work, especially when everybody around you is looking at what you know, why are you making these changes? Everything seems to be going well, you know. That's when that vision has to come into play. That's when that communication because not only are you going to need to bring your customer base, your client base, with you, the bigger challenge is bringing your team with you. Because now you know you have to make sure you have that, and we've talked about this, you know several times before, it's where you need to have that, why you need to have a big, why you need to keep it in front of people, you need to keep communicating it and realize that, as hard as changes for you, as the entrepreneur, to implement, it's even harder for your team to start to come along and make those changes along with you, right? So you know that's going to be work, that there's going to be challenges with that and so, again, that's what you have to be ready for and you know, when it comes to implementing, now, you know if your employees are seeing, you know, hey, this clearly isn't working, then they're going to probably be more open to the change. But if it's more visionary in nature, then that's where you have to really be ready, you know, for you know the challenges of bringing people along with you.

Speaker 1: 21:08

You know, through, you know the implementation of those changes and that's really what you're dealing with now, Jen. To some extent, I'm sure, is because I'm sure your stylist, the people on your team, you know they're not looking at something as being broken or you know, or needing change. But now here you are. So, again, that's where you know the idea, the enthusiasm, the communication and maintain, really, you know, sticking to your why is absolutely critical. You know, we talked a while back, and maybe even more than once, I think we even put a video in our podcast around the sigmoing curve and that's exactly what the sigmoing curve tells us to do you know, as you're growing your business because, remember, you start, you know, at one point and you implement.

Speaker 1: 22:06

You know, you implement your business or you implement change there typically is a dip. Right, there is a dip. It can be a dip in revenue, a dip in, you know, with your clients, a dip with staff, but there's gonna be that. But then again, if you continue to stay the course and do it, you know, with enthusiasm and good communication, that curve starts to move back up again, and so you know, and that's where people are getting, especially if things are going.

Speaker 1: 22:39

Oh, that's where entrepreneurs because they went through that before when starting their business, you know they kind of went through that, starting it, seeing the dip. You know now they're seeing things start to really prosper, and now they're like oh, you know, I just wanna ride this out now. I just wanted to say, okay, we got through that, we wanna ride this out, knowing, though, that there might, there's, things on the horizon, and so that's where it takes a lot of guts and courage to say, nope, we're doing it again. You know, we're making these changes and we're probably gonna see some downturn, but we're gonna be ahead of this thing. We're not gonna get caught on the wrong side of the curve to where we can't recover because we're way too late to the game. So you know, when you do that, then all of a sudden you wake up and after the idea, after the work, you know, after meeting the challenges, then you're gonna wake up and see your business the way you truly visioned it and that's that fulfillment piece, right, jen?

Speaker 1: 23:39

So, so I think this is a great topic and I am super proud of what you're doing. You know in your business because, again, you're definitely an early adapter to this model.

Speaker 3: 23:51

Yeah, I think it's important for us to know that most people do not like change right. So when we're talking about, maybe, the customers that are coming inside of your business, the clients, your team, be aware that most people do not like change, even if they say they do right. Because what I'm experienced to is like I want this, I wanna go to the next level. I want you know, I wanna take my career to the next level, I want new clients, I want this, I want that. And then when you make a change, it's like, oh wait. Then fear comes in to people and it's like wait, I don't wanna step outside of my comfort zone, I don't wanna address fear, I don't wanna address the what if right.

Speaker 3: 24:37

So we need to know that you know, first and foremost of when you're approaching people with the changes that you're trying to make inside of your business. And it's funny, something that my coach actually taught me was sometimes people choose long-term suffering over short-term pain. And so when you're coming up to a challenge within your change, you know keep that in mind that yeah, that it's gonna dip. I'm sitting in the dip currently but what I do know is that once you pull yourself out of that and you start to have forward motion. That's when the fulfillment's gonna come in. But we have to know people and we have to know how they think. So keep that in mind inside your business too, because it's the same for all of us, no matter what business you're in.

Speaker 2: 25:35

Absolutely Good stuff. So in the coming episodes we will be checking in with Jen to see how things have been going, maybe some things that she's learned, maybe some feedback even that she's received from clients, from her peers, from her business coach. I will all be super eager to hear you know all the things that transpire, and so we'll be able to share that in some upcoming episodes. So, while everyone, happy new year. We hope that this episode has been helpful and has really gotten you to think about embracing some change that you might need to take in your own business. So, until we can be together again, be kind to each other and be kind to yourselves. Bye-bye.