INSTYLE May-June 2019

INCONFERENCE
Natalie Morris and
Rochelle Fowler
The newly launched
Blond Absolu range targets
the 18-34 year old market
and comes with a strong
online and digital strategy,
compared to the traditional
Kérastase consumer that is
traditionally older than the
average haircare consumer.
Nailing the market
and future areas for
development, Kérastase is
adapting to meet the needs
Nicole Griffith
of the consumer who wants
and Angela Reilly
it all. The first guest speaker
of the conference was Sally
Healy who explained to
guests the key elements
that made up the mentally
well workplace and key HR
metrics. “A positive culture
starts with shared values –
younger generations are into
values and are wanting to
ANDERS SORMSN NILSON.
change the world,” Sally said.
Sally then went on to encourage every guest to nominate two
values they wanted in their salon and define a story around this to
let the brand do the work.
“Involve younger generations in team values and decision making
so they will be right beside you,” she said.
Sally spoke of the numerous ways you could attract the type of
team that you wanted.
She advised of the importance of having a second interview with
everyone as prospective staff can often be well rehearsed with
saying what you want to hear, but not necessarily being able to back
it up.
Tina Winchester then spoke in more detail about mental health
and some of the signs and symptoms we can look out in the people
around us. As the director of Mentally Well Workplaces, Tina used
the approach of understanding rather than trying to change a
culture when there were limiting mental health factors. “It’s not
about them and us, it’s about all of us,” she said.
Anders Sorman Nilson is a true futurist and uses emotion and
universal realisations to explain the differences between digital and
analogue – for Anders it’s all about winning the digital minds and
analogue hearts’ of tomorrow’s customer.
“We are all getting digitally hacked at exponential rates but the
perfect blend of analogue and digital is to move friction seamlessly,”
Anders said.
The cost of friction (time wasted in a business or waiting to pay or
checkout) has true costs to business.
In a decade of disruption, Matt Church spoke about finding
50 INSTYLE
“We are all getting digitally hacked
at exponential rates but the perfect
blend of analogue and digital is to
move friction seamlessly,”
true heart, courage and positive acknowledgement to
everything we do.
“The best achievements come through encouragement,
not through competitive demand,” Matt said. To learn is
to sometimes forget what we know and Matt spoke about
how sometimes we had to unlearn before re-learning to
embrace the new . He talked the audience through brands
that had reinvented concepts and charged more for a
cheaper product, proving that with consumers, convenience
was king.
One of the most talked about speakers in Australia and
now globally, Amanda Stevens, is known for her concept of
selling to women. For her presentation, she focused on the
future of the customer experience. She said understanding
the consumer was all about mastering the business of being
busy and finding happiness in an uncertain
world where health and true connection
was the new wealth.
She stressed the importance or removing
anything that was going to prevent
people coming to you, including Zip Pay
and Afterpay.
“Within a tyranny of choice you need as
many ways to touch consumers as possible
and the key to true connection is to find commonality through
celebration, customisation and connecting your customers to each
other to create a network of loyalists for your brand,” she said.
Leadership influencer and body language and vocal intelligence
coach, Louise Mahler, hit hard with some home truths about body
language that all do subconsciously. As an expert in psychology and
face to face engagement, she had the entire audience realising their
retail consultation, greetings and body language were all needing
some serious work.
Making her way through the room the day before she spoke
on stage, Louise was most likely reading the guests, making
connections and watching body language to perfectly tailor an
interactive session. She managed to get several guests on stage and
show just some of the many subconscious things we do when we
don’t have confident body language.
Overall, there’s no denying that the state of play is more
complicated now, whether it be recruitment in the age of Tinder,
trying to create a true brand voice in a crowded market or finding
what you can master in a decade of disruption. One thing everyone
took away this year, and it wasn’t just one actionable anecdote from
a speaker, was a perfectly curated success formula marrying the
best line up of speakers to create true change across mindset first.
Where guest experience is key, team empowerment is met with
a myriad of challenges and the future and next steps can be blurry
and instilled with fear, Kérastase enabled you to detoxify any
business blockages for an even stronger 2020 and beyond.
For more information visit www.kerastase.com.au