For beauty business news, beauty store owners turn to Beauty Store Business. Beauty business trends, beauty business profiles and more!
Issue link: http://beautystorebusiness.epubxp.com/i/567674
20 October 2015 | beautystorebusiness.com join at a more economical price point. One of the changes we made was creating the E-Membership; you can see the ben- efits of this complementary membership at probeauty.org/join/. Also, we now offer a customized membership experience. Members can build their profiles to get what they need from the association and avoid what they don't need. I think it's much more in line with what we all do as consum- ers—it's simplified and streamlined to make the experience easier and more customizable. Right now we have more than 2,000 business members and close to 25,000 individual members. What are the PBA's goals for the coming year? We'll continue to stay focused on build- ing our membership base. The scale of our membership is really important for some of the other work we're engaged in. We want to continue to refine the membership experience, getting any speed bumps out of the way to make it as simple as we can. In a big-picture perspective, we want to expand our visibility. We're looking at top-line visibility for the PBA: our corpo- rate image, visibility, tagline and voice. We're looking at it from a new perspective, approaching it from the top down. We have a lot of visibility through our individual programs; many people know about us through Cosmoprof North America [July 24-26, 2016; PBA Beauty Week: July 23-26, 2016; both in Las Vegas], the International Salon and Spa Expo (Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2016, in Long Beach, California] or the North American Hairstyling Awards [July 24, 2016, in Las Vegas] for example, but they don't necessarily know about the PBA as the organization. It's time to flip the pyramid upside down. A few years ago we weren't ready, but we are now. Please tell us about the PBA's efforts in shaping public policy. If there is any one reason we need to put the PBA on the map as a unified associa- tion, it's being active in the government affairs and advocacy side through public policy. There are numerous issues that have a big impact on our industry. The single biggest challenge now on the states side is the issue of deregu- lation of vocational licensing, including cosmetology. There is a movement afoot to get rid of licensing. Simultaneously, we need to introduce recommendations on how to reform the state-licensing model for the professional-beauty industry, and there's no doubt it needs reform. We have a 50-states licensing landscape that is very different from one state to the next, so that has become a major focus for us. If we lose professional licensing, what else goes with it? It's a domino effect— from the health and safety of consumers to professional-product designations to liability issues. If anyone can perform these ser- vices, it damages the reputation of working professionals and can harm the consumer. We'll continue to devote the maximum amount of time and resources to this issue, and we're working with other folks in the industry to help make it happen. We still have to monitor other issues as well. On the federal level we're heav- ily engaged in a U.S. Food & Drug Administration reform piece, working with other groups in the industry—such as the Personal Care Products Council and the Independent Cosmetic Manufacturers and Distributors—and even those in the nonprofessional health-and-beauty aid space. We're all interested in product and consumer safety. We want to ensure that if a reform bill goes forward, the issues of the professional-beauty indus- try are heard and our members are pro- tected. I believe that we've represented the professional side of the industry very effectively. We're looking out not only for the manufacturers, but also the salon technicians and the workforce we represent—as they have day-to-day exposure to these products. We want to make sure that they're protected as well as the consumer. We also have other small-business and tax issues: wage-and-hour issues; worker classification; healthcare reform; and departmental labor issues, such as overtime rules and regulations. We want to ensure that small businesses aren't ignored, and their biggest issues are payroll and staff time. Does the PBA have any new initiatives for 2016? One of the challenges for us is getting too wide, considering the size and diver- sity of our membership base. We want to make sure the things we're doing have enough depth and impact. So, for the first year in a while, nothing brand-new is added to the slate for 2016. Now it's about pursuing effectiveness and mak- ing sure that what we're already doing is meeting our goals and helping our members—and, if they aren't, making decisions to move on or change it up since we only have finite resources. On the show side we have great momentum working with our partners in Italy on Cosmoprof North America so you'll see a lot of focus and investment to make sure it stays the premiere business- to-business event in the industry. We launched the Beauty Pitch program for 2015, and we want to make sure it works in 2016 and beyond. We have plenty on our plate right now, and we want to make sure that we're doing everything well. The PBA's inaugural Beauty Pitch program, won by 100% Pure, was a great success. Will Mark Cuban return for the PBA's Beauty Pitch program in 2016? How will the trade association improve upon it next year? And then the years after that? "We launched the Beauty Pitch program for 2015, and we want to make sure it works in 2016 and beyond." Images courtesy of The Professional Beauty Association