Episode Transcript
[00:00:17] Speaker A: The Combing through the Crime with Lori and Ashley where true crime meets the beauty industry.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: We're pulling back the salon cape to uncover the real stories of fraud, theft, scandal and sometimes even worse all happening behind the scenes of salons, spas and beauty businesses.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: These are true stories reported in public articles, news outlets and police reports. We didn't make them up and they're definitely not our opinions.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: We're just here to share the facts, ask the questions and reveal what really happens behind a chair.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Now let's comb through the crime.
[00:01:07] Speaker C: I've been a licensed cosmetologist for 41 years. I don't look it. There you go. There's some math right there. I've been with Paul Mitchell for 38 of those years as a national educator for them. Absolutely love it. I have always been in Morgan Hill. I have moved my location many times. I've had employee based business, I've had renters, I've had commissions that get the gamut Covid changed a lot of things. I'm on my fifth location in my little account and that's kind of like my back journey. So first all good.
Yeah. Her story. So I had a full so rewind for a second. In year 2000 I had a little chair salon, two chair salon and I found out that the building was for sale and so little business tip with that but I found out when businesses buildings are for sale nothing happens quickly. I didn't know that so I kind of panicked. So I decided that I wanted I had, I called it an entrepreneurial seizure. So I decided to expand and go full and hair salon because I was a young mom and I had two kids and I would like to get my hair done and back here at the same time. Wouldn't that be cool?
So I jumped that and I increased from two employees to 16 employees. So so that was a lot. Hired a coach, did a business plan and I needed a manager. So put an ad out, hired this gal and she was amazing. So she helped run the front desk. She was very creative, ran the team.
And then the recession hit. So fast forward 2008 recession hit and we had to close the boss. I had fallen down because we had like a 25% drop in business and it just wasn't great. And then I personally do hair and makeup so coaching on how to do a facial and how to do a massage I found a little more challenging and just a different breed of people run those kind of businesses. So it's all good and that whole journey. So I right sized it nodding like that she's a guy. I get it.
So I right sized it, I called it, we moved to another location. And then this person, I guess I could keep saying her name right. Doesn't matter.
So her should say so they all should be nameless. I can say her name, all that right. So Roberta was my manager and then she was very talented, doing care, but wasn't a cosmologist.
I had licensed cosmetologists and then I would work with them on a program. So I would have a whole training program for a year. They would protege with me and that's how I grew my assistants and that's how I grew my staff.
So all of the staff that ever worked for me had been through my program.
But she being super talented, didn't want to do that. So she decided that could she do an apprentice program. So in California you had to have, I feel like it was 2,400 hours. The normal used to be 1600. So they would have to take classes off site and then in addition then work in the salon. And I would have to, you know, sign up that she did whatever. So she did that. And so she was a manager and she did hair. She was again quite talented. Just in all my years, like a gifted person just, you know, innately had it. She could do makeup, so forth. So she did that. The apprentice and management for two and a half years never really took a vacation. And then one day she did and my front desk coordinator at the time came in and different person, she said, hey, there was a couple checks left on the desk. And I was like, well, that's super weird because I trusted my manager to go make the deposits for me.
And I thought, well, the checks would never be left out, so what would happen with that? So then I did a deep dive and double checked, like things didn't get deposited. This is super weird. So then all these like little flags came up. So every night we do a closeout. I used Pro Solutions software is my software that I use. And every night we would do a closeout of like the reports of this is what the drawer was, this is what the deposits were checked, cash, so forth. And then what every stylist did is that gets stapled away.
So then I thought, I'm going to go back and look and see what the deposit was for. When she was there, not there, gone. And they didn't match.
I was like, the cool part was the day we do a report, it's a timestamp, boom, that's done. And then I can go back and say, can you give me this date on that date so I can write it again three weeks later, whatever. And they didn't line up big differences. And I went, oh, sugar, shit, that was good. Prior to that, my sister is an electrical engineer. She was my manager way, way, way back. And I had her do a deep dive on me on it. So I pulled out all the paper. She did like an audit. Intent. Yeah. And Intense Excel, you know, this was. This. We ran back and we found out that she was all trading for two and a half years. The numbers. So how she did it. This is the COVID part.
So because she had all the passwords to get into things, she would close out like it was normal, and then she would go back in and modify the transaction. Very creative. So how that works, like, well, why didn't I catch that? Because I would never go back and go, oh, that date didn't match. Example, just to keep the math really simple. So she did hair that day and only her book. She didn't mess with mine or any of the status. Only when she did hair. That was the caveat. So if she had a $500 day, like real monies, she would modify it to make it a thousand dollar day.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:28] Speaker C: It's a little $600, something small.
So then I would pay her commission on. If she did a thousand dollar day. On not real money. Right. So not real money. And then she did that. And then she would also throw like person somebody's hair and throw it on account. Which means like they're. There's a. Maybe they'll pay it ahead of time or it's a gift card or they're gonna pay it for future. And then that was not real money either. So that was the other way that she would alter it. So those are the two big ones. So then we just ran the totals and the sequence was anytime she works is when there was a discrepancy.
So we.
Those papers. And then it took me a bit to kind of go like, oh, shit, this really did happen. Oh, crap, this is bad. Oh my gosh, this is really bad. And the math was getting close to $50,000. And so then I'm like, I think I should call the police. I think this is a crime. I think this is. Yeah, right.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:18] Speaker C: So. But she was a friend. This is the crazy part about the personal side. And, you know, statistically, embezzlers are people, you know, or it's a family member, so they get close to you.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: So true.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: It's so true.
[00:07:29] Speaker C: It's crazy. She. She actually, like, I borrowed her car, we hung out, you know, her kid, babysit my kids, you know, we shared clothes. Like we were friends. Wow.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: I was gonna ask you. You trusted this person, but you're like, you did. This is somebody that you considered a friend and you had trust in her. So when you found those, like, had she have never gone on vacation, who knows how long this would have gone on?
[00:07:55] Speaker C: Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crazy. And then the other side thing, the whole nother tangent was when I first hired her, she was on unemployment, and the unemployment office came back and said that she got overpaid.
So they garnished her wages. Every paycheck we had to give back to the Santa Clara county sheriff's office.
$25 a paycheck. But the pain of the for me was I had to write the check out, print out this little paperwork, fill out the envelope, and mail it in.
So I trusted her to do that. So I would write out the check and then I go in, like with the envelope, with the paper and have her handle it. So in addition to her stealing all the money behind the scenes.
This is so crazy. She. It's a computer check by the computer check, you know, like typed out in the. Not my handwritten. She would take it to the bank, write it out, put her name in it, and the bank cashed it.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
Wow.
[00:08:54] Speaker C: That's like.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Was that red flag to the bank that was accepting this?
[00:09:00] Speaker C: She's a narcissistic sociopath, so she's good. Wow.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:09:06] Speaker C: It's my bank too. So, like, why would I write a computer check out to Santa Claus Sheriff's and you write your personal name. So she did that like five times. I didn't catch it because why would that come back and go, that wasn't who was.
You know, I mean, in my quick. Right. But then it's made to this. I didn't know that it crosses to somebody else. Right. So that was a weird flag. So.
So I decided to call the police. And I went in and actually talked to the DA and they go, you have a case. And I go, oh, a case. You have a really big case. I go, I have a big case. Yeah, this is really big. This is a really big white collar crime. I go, oh, okay, great. So they put it together and then we need what day she was coming back to work. And we typically had like the police there. And I was actually outside going, oh, my God, I don't know. And I'm like, okay, I gotta do this. I gotta do this. I didn't want to do it. She was a friend of mine. And then I know I had my sister actually kind of tucked me off the edge because I actually couldn't believe it either. But I mean, the data was so clear, you know, and then, you know, then I take it to the next level. Cool. You just took away, you know, my kids college. But, like, this was so.
But yeah, she had her world believing that this was entitlement, like she deserved it, so. And they all believed her.
Quick forward police came.
They.
I told them the wrong kind of car that she had. I thought she had a Camaro, but she had, like a Trans Am or something. So she actually came into the salon, which was not the plan.
And I had to, like, deep breath. And my sister's hiding the office and my other. So I called the police back up, and I'm like, she's inside and he is. Okay, well, walk her outside. I go, okay, great. I said, hey, can you talk to me outside? And we went out. And then the police handcuffed her and took her off. And then I felt like I was gonna throw up.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: What was she trying to come for? Like, when she came back to the sun, was she trying to, like, talk you out of work? Just, like, what was she there for?
[00:11:01] Speaker C: To work.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: Oh, she came to work.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: No idea. Nothing was going on. Whoa.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Because you had not. Nobody had confronted her, done anything yet at that point? Oh, gosh.
[00:11:12] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Uncomfortable probably, right?
Did you tell her. Did you tell her before the police came, like, what you had discovered?
[00:11:21] Speaker C: No. No. Because if she was crazy enough to do all that, I didn't actually know what she was gonna do.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:26] Speaker C: Yeah. So then, like, the next shift came in and that song coordinator, like, her best friend, and she's like, where's Roberta? And I go, well, actually.
And, like, explain the story. And she's like, what? No way. That can't be. And then she split, and then another employee came in and went, no way. And then she split. So I had four people quit that day because they didn't believe me.
Add that to my wound, and I'm like, I would want to lie about that, right?
Yeah.
Wow. Yeah. So that was intense. Because.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Did you recover those four employees at all or were they. They were gone, and they have not come back.
[00:12:04] Speaker C: The one I did, she finally got away from her for a couple weeks. Because if she kept going close to your circle, like, she just wouldn't manipulate stuff, right? And then actually, she did come back for a while, and then it didn't really work out. So she kind of moved out of the area and I'm like, you know, I can't have that. So I did an SOS to all of my long term stylists and said, hey, this is what's going down. And they went, I can help you one day a week, Sharice. I can help you one day a week. And I'm like, okay, cool. So all my girls rallied back up and people jumped back in and picked up some gist. Actually stayed with me for one of the girls came back and she's been with me now since that. So she was one of my first assistants. She works in another.
So one day a week she actually still comes back because she was hanging out with me. So my network and I. Yeah, because like clients to take care of. Right. Like, what do you do?
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Oh my God.
[00:12:52] Speaker C: You know, she got arraigned. She only actually served jail time, like four weeks.
And then she didn't have her high school diploma, so she'd been lying her whole life. Basically entered to a day school where she had like a bracelet on your ankle thing, you know, and then everything go get to get her ged. So our system paid for her ged. So she did four weeks in jail, four weeks doing the ged and then she was out until for every six months the probation officer would reconnect with her because it wasn't a drug crime. So why I call her, they don't talk to him as much then at that point I'm kind of mixing up my story a little bit. The court, we did go to court officially. And then in the court part, you can do what's called a victim statement.
So I wrote down like a. And in a victim statement, the coaching is you can't accuse them. You can't be like, ah, coming out to you. You just have to tell your story as like me, it's the victim, how I feel. So it's a way to like pay your space, whatever needs to be said.
She went out and got 20 different letters of what a good person she is.
At one point went, I think this is all fine, but I don't really believe any of this, so we're just gonna push this aside. So I told my story and in telling the story of a normal court case, there's like orange people in orange suits of committing crimes. Like there's nobody there. You're just like, it's this whole crazy court thing. And then he basically said, you need to pay her back and then make, you know, you guys set that up. Monthly. And then it goes through a third party so she doesn't write a check, a check directly to me. So restitution, as they would call it. And then I immediately got a check for a thousand dollars and something cool. And then I got a check the next month, like 125, 220 and all these random reader mouth. And then months would go by, I wouldn't get anything right away. I thought, you know what, I need to let the probation officer know who I am. And I am a real person and this is a real business and you hurt somebody and this is not okay.
So I went to go meet him. I don't think that come talk to the probation officers because he was just like, yeah. I went to shake his hand. He's like, huh? I go, no, legit. Like, I just. He's like, why are you here? I got explained. You need to get to know me. This is what happened. So as you speak with her, I would really like my mind you back. So when he's like, okay, okay, I threw him, I think completely hysterical because people come in there like turning a pee for doing drugs and stuff. It's a very weird environment. Probation office, I think I've never been. So that was a weird thing. And then that went over well. And then that person got promoted. Then there was a new probation officer. He was a little challenging to work with. And then her court case eventually came back up. I want to say it was two years in and then that's where probation either could continue or it's going to go away. And that's my chance to talk to the judge again. And then I asked the probation officer, when would that be? And he said it could be between, you know, like April 1st to May 30th. And I go, that's a huge window. And he said yes. And I went, okay.
So in that process, I moved salons and then I filed a report for the restitution check into the new salon. And then by the mid May, I reached out to him and went, hey, you know, I haven't heard anything.
The court case already happened. I go, you didn't tell me. I sent you a letter. I go, where'd you send it to? He sent it to my old salon. I go, why would I think you don't have my address if my restitution check comes to my correct address?
And we've been corresponding via email and phone calls.
So he didn't go, I didn't go. And they were off probation.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: Oh my gosh.
[00:16:20] Speaker C: So I was like, okay, now how do I recover from this financially?
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:25] Speaker C: So I thought, okay, I got really resourceful. I have insurance. Like, maybe my insurance would cover that. So I called insurance company and they initially said no. And then I pulled out all my paperwork and I did the deep. Devin. I'm like, it feels like this should be covering here. And so then they came back and said, yes, send us proof. And I went, okay. So I literally sent them that proof. I showed the DA and they came back and said, that's not enough.
And I said, okay, what do you need? And I said, I have, you know, two and a half years of three to four pages of paperwork. Two bankers boxes. Visualize that, right?
Yeah, we need that. And I went, so they would cover for me to like $20,000 back. And so I went home and I told my husband. My husband, I make Chief Acres box of coffees, because obviously I'm not going to send my original. So we sat there and scanned, you know, for days.
Yes. Boxes of coffee. Wow.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Well, that's something I was going to ask you about too, is. So initially, in the article that I initially read about this, she had initially denied that she was taking any money. She denied it. And then it wasn't until later on that she finally confessed to it. And she said it was because she did not like her employer and that this was a form of retribution.
Right. So, like, what the heck? So with her initially denying it, like, how hard was it for you? Was it pretty easy to, like, get this case when you went in? Like, it sounded like it wasn't terribly hard. And why is that? Why is what went to court and got her in jail in the first place. Not enough for your insurance company to prove that it was also guilt?
[00:18:02] Speaker C: I think, because what I showed the DA was like the three random days of the journey. They wanted to see the whole timeline. So that that was the all. And I thought, well, that was interesting. The DA didn't want all of that. That they believe me. So, yeah. And then her denying it was let's know this is the truth. So that was her kind of manipulating and also getting her world to believe that I was wrong.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Yeah, because you said you guys were friends. So for her to say I didn't like my employer, I deserved to falsify this and take her money was wild.
[00:18:36] Speaker C: Well, and then the backstory of that is when we have the full day spa, and then the recession hit. I had 16 employees and I gave her a managerial bonus based on volume of retail. So when we hit that bonus level she got more money. Well, when I now have six employees, you're not even getting close to that retail number. So that bonus went away. So that was her like, well, you took money from me. I'm like, well, you have business, so there is no extra money to have. So if you don't want this job, this is what I can offer you.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: And, you know, I feel like, I feel like just the. I don't know how to call it, but employees in general in our, in our industry just don't understand.
You're an owner and you're still behind the chair.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Right?
[00:19:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: For a reason.
[00:19:21] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: So, like, I feel like they just don't have any concept of the overhead and the time and the energy that goes into building a beauty business. And in this, in this industry, there's so much that goes into it every day you walk in the door, it costs money unless we're producing. So it's, it's unbelievable, the entitlement that comes out on the other side. And it's just, it's. It's crazy how they just don't understand it 100%.
[00:19:54] Speaker C: Yeah. I've actually run the ridiculous number. Like in 2024, all of my expenditures was this. What I brought in was this. And I broke down to the ridiculous how many days I'm open and what it cost me to run my business.
It's a lot. It's a lot. You know, so I'm like, did you.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: Show that to your staff?
[00:20:15] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. I have, yeah. But I have a really small staff now because of COVID So just a whole nother field. Right.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: You know, that's what it takes sometimes to get them to understand Ashley. Like I have done that with a team that I was with before is literally took the P and L and broke it down line item by line item. Because they don't see all of the expenses that come in and go out within a business and they don't understand it. That's where I think you hear a lot of stylists or service providers, like, saying, oh, percent is not enough and you want all the money and all of these things. Right. So it leads to things that happen like this. The challenge, though, Sharice, within your business is it wasn't like she wrote herself a big business check. She didn't write herself a grant. This was over a three year period in $50,000 or close to it. So it was small enough for you to maybe not notice, which she, you know, as soon as she noticed that you were not noticing that behavior kept on going. And then she felt comfortable with what she was doing, therefore, she took a little vacation and somebody else noticed what she was doing and.
[00:21:25] Speaker C: Wow. And then, like, the last five days before she left, she got really, like, crazy. Dollar amounts, you know, like dollars.
Wow.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Oh, my God. My heart goes out to you. That's just. That's really tough stuff to go through.
And even just on top of it, that she was a. She was a part of your family, essentially, she was a part of your family. Like, that's just really, really sad. And I'm sure. I'm sure, you know, look at you now. You've really come out on the other side of it. But I'm sure that was a really tough spot to be in.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:02] Speaker C: So I.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: My heart goes out.
[00:22:04] Speaker C: It was a long time of a lot of healing because I couldn't be giving her my power because, you know, it was. That was very challenging. And then I did find out that she continued on to do some other things. I had people that she went on to not stay in her world because I made sure she couldn't get her cosmetology license. I called the apprentice board and.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Very good. Very good.
[00:22:24] Speaker C: Not okay.
And then other people that she went on to work for some kind of insurance company, they reached out to me, went, you know, she's doing. So she. She continues to do it, in other words.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: And then patterns. Those are those patterns that continue to happen.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: And then randomly, last year, I think eight, 18 months ago, I randomly got a big check from her and I had, like, sit down, like, a big check, like, $20,000.
And I.
So I called the restitution office and they said it probably had to do with. She had to file taxes.
And so you have to clear all your outstanding, you know, garnishment debts before you can get any kind of refund. So she still, to this day, it has not paid me back in full.
But we're way closer than we were.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: Do you have a hard time trusting people now?
[00:23:16] Speaker C: I did for a long time. Yeah. And then the added part, the insurance company. This is a little nugget. They came back and said, what are you doing different? Otherwise we can't insure.
That's a great question. Let me figure that. Yeah, the biggest.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: I actually love that. I love. I kind of like that.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: I did. And I was like, oh, let me do a deep dive, because I got. This is never going to happen to me again.
So I don't let you know, I never let anybody else do my positives again. So there that went off the table. And then my software did more things than I thought it could do. And I think that probably true for a lot of salon owners is like, you know, kind of like I need my phone to do this much, but your phone can do that much. It's kind of thing. So they had it. I could set it up where anytime a transaction is modified, I get an email.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:24:03] Speaker C: That would have, I would have caught it right off. Like, why are you modifying this?
You know how that is. I'll send you to color and it's 100, but now it's 120. So you modify the price. Right. So that was weird. But I wouldn't know that they did that. So now I knew that. And then, then I would cross check the close out time. And I did get cameras. You mentioned that earlier. So I got cameras that. It goes to my phone. So anytime I can see somebody in the salon, when they're leaving the salon, I get the motion detectors or records at all. So randomly, you know, like say after hours, somebody came doing some hair but didn't ask me about it.
So that was peace of mind for sure. So those are kind of two big nuggets that I just.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Yeah. There's so many stories that we've talked about so far that had there been cameras in the business would have helped with any of those situations.
And cameras are not necessarily meant to like intimidate the, the employees or you know, anything other than to protect your business. It's there, it's there. You know, most businesses have cameras inside or outside, and it's there to protect your assets and your business and protect your employees. If anything else were to happen. Probably, maybe if you had cameras at the time, you, you, you might not even have noticed this.
[00:25:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Because it's on a computer behind a screen. You can't necessarily see from a camera what, what's happening. So now you're getting notified if any transactions are changed. You are the only person that does. Do you do regular audits on your reports or anything?
[00:25:37] Speaker C: Yep. And then now I'm at a point with my business model. I don't even have a salon coordinator. I am the coordinator.
You know, my, I don't have an assistant, you know, chief bottle washer, but a lot more freedom.
I have a lot of balance in my life, so it's a good space too.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Do you think you'll ever get back to a place of a 16 employee salon business or do you think you want to stay boutique?
[00:26:06] Speaker C: Boutique for sure. Actually it's interesting conversation because In California, you know how the law, the labor Lawrence is.
I know you guys know a lot about that.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:17] Speaker C: There's a. A newer trend that I have seen where salons are offering a day rate, but it's like, if you don't work, then you don't pay it. And I was like, I should just do a day rate since myself, and I'd make a ton of money. Yeah, right. But then I'm like, nope, I cannot go to some else's salon and deal with all their stuff. I haven't reason. Like, I have atmosphere. My branding is purple. Clients come in here, love it. I can bring my dog to work. She's a yellow lab. She's amazing. A realistic therapy. I just have a lot of love and light in this, and it lights me up every day.
So I don't really want to go smaller and I wouldn't want to take stuff. But I'm thinking for finances isn't the goal. It's the balance and the wealth of my life.
But it's a query because the renters have way bigger advantage.
Like we were talking earlier about what's overhead daily.
They don't pay that.
Wow.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: I. You can tell that you. You can tell that you have a great balance in your life right now. You're so light and you come across in such a really awesome way.
I'm so happy for you. It sounds like you really have found a great place in your life where you put. You. You probably surround yourself with people that feel the exact same theme as you do. Lift you up. I think that's really important. That's a great, great takeaway from what a crazy, you know, spot you were in.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: It's that, like, get bitter or get better. Like, you could be very bitter and angry still to this day, because that is a lot of money. Like you said, it's children's college funds. Or today is probably like a quarter of it.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: But it.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: You could be very upset about that. And it feels to me, in talking to you, that you found, like Ashley said, a lightness from it and learned some things from it. We know that we came across your story by chance, but we also know that this happens to people way more frequently than what we probably hear about. Do you have any lessons or any words of advice for other business owners to maybe prevent this or if people are not maybe auditing or checking these things? Like, what would you say to other salon owners in the. And what you had learned?
[00:28:26] Speaker C: That's a great question, because I think part of my practicing in you Know, internal therapy at the salon because our client therapist too, embezzlement is very common, very common. And of course it was a, you know, topic of conversation. So I had a lot of conversations with clients and mine is tiny compared to some like 200,000, 500,000 million 10 advice, I would say, you know, I mean, I say put the fail safe positions in there, try to have a check and balance. Your person that's running your bookkeeping can't be the fails. They have to have a cross check. They can work the books really easily if that's what they're. They know how to finagle it. And your bottom line still looks like okay, but you don't really see it until it comes back forward. There's got to be another person that comes in and checks and balances. I think that would be just for your own, you know, therapy afterwards is. I just finally got to a point where I had to send her love and light because I'm like, this is not healthy for me.
Space of like letting that go and she's on her own journey and people were like, aren't you really mad at her? And I go, I was, I was pretty upset for a while and then now I'm not. So how to fix that and make me okay? And it also is not okay. So I. That was kind of a general answer, but I think the cross check would be the nugget.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you do anything like if you were going to bring new employees in today, I know you want to kind of keep yourself small, but if you were going to do you do anything different.
[00:29:52] Speaker C: Something? I pay for the money to do a background check now.
Yeah, I was against that and I was like, oh, so you know, cost me money as an employer. Right. But y', all, I was hiring for a front desk. She had like a lien on her house. And I was like, well, that's public knowledge. So now I need to know why. And then why are you financially not set? And I don't know, whatever the story was, I don't mean to go into that, but it gave me a flag and we didn't end up working out. So background check, something I do now because I'm like, you know, if I had done a background check on this girl, I wouldn't hire her because I would have found a whole bunch of.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: Stuff prior now for this person, I mean, it is on background check. So if anywhere in the future they do a check like that, they will, you know, somebody will see that and it will be a red Flag. So yeah, that's. That is a really piece of good of advice. Right. So like have somebody double checking your transactions and your books. Don't have, don't rely on just one person, even if it is a family or a close friend or somebody you share shoes with. Right. Just like that. Checks and balances and then background checks. I think that could be huge. I don't know how many, I don't know how many salons are doing background checks. I do know some do. Yeah. Some of the, some of the bigger salons I do know or larger corporate salons do that I know of, but not all of them do. And they just feel like they've got a good interview process and can feel people out. But to your point, people can play tricks on you.
So.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Yeah, and I've done a background check where a lot of stuff has come up and I've had. It was an awesome interview. And I was like, so I really want to hire this person.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: I brought it up.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: I mean it's right on. It's obviously they have to consent to it. They have to say yes, it's okay to do a background check. And so when that happens, they already know that it's going to come up. Right. I do. Give them a moment, a space to explain it to me.
Give me the explanation. And then, and then we make an educated guess as a team. If it's something where, you know, nine times out of 10, I'll make my own, you know, own determination at the end. But when it comes to a situation like that, we make it a decision as a team, lay it all out.
This is what it is. This is why it happened. You know, what do you guys think? And sometimes we just go for it.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: Or sometimes you ask people actually ahead of time, like, do you tell them, like, hey, you're, you're, you know the word I'm looking for, they're approving or whatnot to do the background check.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Is there anything that we're going to find that you want to tell us about ahead of time? Do you ask them that? Like, is there anything you want to share beforehand?
[00:32:27] Speaker B: No, I don't ask them that. But they have to consent.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Background check.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: So that, so to me, that's their, like, either they're gonna bring it up or, you know, they're gonna say no and then we're not, you know, obviously not gonna move forward. But, but yeah, there, there's a space where they can for sure they have.
[00:32:50] Speaker C: Is we make mistakes.
And I learned and now I do this because of that, like, you know, giving people grace, I guess, just because there was some bad. Just give me your story. What was shifted? What have you changed?
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm all about that.
[00:33:06] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: This is. Well, I'm glad that you're on the other side now of this situation, and I'm glad that you have some new practices in place to protect yourself and your business and preventative measures from this happening again. And I'm sorry that this did happen to you in the first place and that somebody took advantage of your friendship and the relationship that you. You had.
[00:33:29] Speaker C: Had.
[00:33:30] Speaker A: And we appreciate you sharing and being here and telling your story and putting it out there, because I can promise some people that probably are doing what you did do, which is trust everybody and just think it's okay and not double check anything, are probably going to maybe look at some reports or double check their business or do a lot of.
[00:33:50] Speaker C: I'm sure I just thought of. She was crazy enough to put me down as a reference and said, you know, did she work there or is she there? Like. Like put down there. She's still working for me. I loved it. I'm like, well, actually, she embezzled $50,000 for me and she got arrested. 2000 felon. So, like, okay, thank you.
My number. I'm gonna tell him what's going on.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: Yeah. The puzzle pieces are not maybe connected in the right way to do that, everybody.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: Because, you know, legally, you have to be really careful. Yes, they. Yeah, they did. And I'm like, oh, no, this is a public knowledge. She got arrested.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: I was gonna say, yeah, you were totally in the right to bring that up.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: Yeah. That's not an opinion in that case. Right.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:34:49] Speaker C: Sam.
