In Coral’s Corner: An Interview with Coral Pleas

By Molly Dennehy

Just spend a half hour with Coral Pleas, and you will realize that she is not your average businesswoman. Not only did she open her salon, Cutting Loose, during the economic recession in 2008, but she also turned it into a multi-million dollar company in less than 3 years. She is compassionate, humble, and clearly is not afraid to take risks. I sat down with Coral to talk about her decision to start The Pleas Formula, a consulting company offering advanced education for both hairdressers and salon owners, and her mission to elevate the standards of excellence in the beauty industry.

Molly Dennehy: Why do you want to help salon owners?

Coral Pleas: I feel like our coaching company has all come together in an organic way from our sales consultants giving other salon owners my information as a source of knowledge. We all need help at one point or another. It could be a small salon with five employees, a growing company that has fifteen to twenty, or even a company that has multiple locations but needs help doing it successfully. I realize that for us, independent owners, those booth rental salons are not going to go away. It is just a part our industry. What we need to do is become better salon owners. We need to better at communicating with our team. We need to be better at paying them and making sure that they are making excellent wages. We need to make sure that the salon is profitable so it can keep its doors open. It is about offering our team quality education and offering the guests an experience that they can’t get anywhere else. With all of these things, I believe we should work together as an industry, at least commission salons, to be able to compete with the booth rental salons that are coming around.

MD: You say you want to elevate the standards of excellence in the industry, what do you mean by that?

CP: I feel like we have done a fabulous job of raising the standards of excellence here at Cutting Loose. The hairdressers that we have in our company are some of the most talented in our area, and that doesn’t come by chance. It comes from investing in great education, so now it is paying off. What I would like to do now is raise the standards in our industry. I want to help make salon owners better business partners. It is important to understand not only the technical side of hairdressing, but also how to operate a successful company. In the same way, I want to inspire hairdressers to always keep that drive to learn and strive to achieve their goals. We have a team of talented stylists that offer balayage classes for all stylists in and out of the area to come and learn how to master the craft of balayage, increase their average ticket, and expand their knowledge. At one time I felt like I didn’t want to train my competition, and now I realize that our beauty industry needs help, it needs more education, it needs more teachers, more mentors. I would like to be part of that movement.

MD: What inspiration do you wish to bestow upon an owner?

CP: The inspiration I wish to bestow upon other owners is enjoy the journey. I realize it gets to be a heavy load sometimes, but if you are passionate and you love what you do and who you do it with everything is going to work out, everything is going to be great. We just need to pay attention as much in our business and on our business, then we are technically being a hairdresser. I have been doing hair for thirty years now. I’ve been a salon owner independently and with partners, and now back independently for over 25 years, and I can honestly say that I still love coming to work every day. I love being out on the floor with the stylists. I love watching young hairdressers grow into successful hairdressers. I just enjoy that whole journey. So the inspiration is to find your passion find the joy and the rest of it- just work on your business skills.

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