Creativity, curiosity, and connection. These are the values of Matthew Landis, owner of Matthew Landis Atelier in Salt Lake City, Utah. Matthew started his career in 1995 in Salt Lake City where he apprenticed as a hairdresser. In the early 2000s, he spent time working in New York City, Atlanta, and Miami Beach before returning to Salt Lake City to manage Sanctuary Day Spa. After seven years working at IMAGE Studios, in 2018 Matthew opened his own salon, Matthew Landis Atelier, in the chic neighborhood of 9th & 9th.
Matthew has been a color educator for most of his career, teaching for companies like Aveda, Davines, and L’Oreal Professionnel, and continues his partnership with IMAGE Studios as their Industry Expert and business coach. He is also the official hairdresser for ABC4 Utah, serving as stylist to their news team, and is a regular guest on Good Things Utah.
“Growing up, people like me didn’t become hairdressers, or at least that’s what I thought,” says Matthew. “I was a 4.0 student, most-likely-to-succeed, and was on the path to becoming an accountant or lawyer, but at 24 I had a quarter-life crisis. I met a bunch of hairdressers and saw how much fun they had – they got to wear cool clothes, listen to great music, move around all day, be creative, have a flexible schedule, and more than anything, make a lot of money. So I thought, well why not? Later, I got hooked up with Jason Olsen of IMAGE Studios who was starting this new Salon Suite concept. He’s an absolute genius and so supportive of entrepreneurs and business owners that he created this incredible environment for self-employed people in the health and beauty industry to thrive. Now I have a five-chair salon of my own.”
Over his career, Matthew had used a variety of booking and payment apps, including Booker, Mindbody, Vagaro, and Schedulicity, but found that none of them did everything he needed from them. From complicated setup to clunky appointment booking systems to payment processing that involved third-party companies such as Square, Matthew always found it cumbersome to deal with multiple solutions. As the IMAGE Studios Industry Expert, he decided to go with the solution they recommend and signed up for GlossGenius in July 2020.
Matthew was immediately impressed at how easy switching and setting up the app was – he used GlossGenius’ White Glove concierge service to transfer over all of his client information, notes, calendar, and services. All he had to do was provide a short bio that automatically populated on his beautiful new booking website. Matthew saw the benefit of using GlossGenius the very first time he checked out a client, cutting down what was a seven-minute process to just a couple of minutes. With the ability to keep a credit card on file, checking out clients after future appointments is even faster.
“Having everything in one place – from booking and website confirmations to payment processing and sales reports – it makes all the difference,” says Matthew. “Before I might have had to use two or three apps, all of which I was paying for, and I had to switch back and forth. But the first thing I loved about GlossGenius is that they did the setup for me – I went to bed one day and woke up and everything was done – it was just so easy. And it sounds so inconsequential and trivial, but I cannot stress how important the checkout process is. With GlossGenius, the checkout process is so much faster and smoother. I can take the money for the service, sell the client retail products, and make another appointment all in fewer steps and using just one app – which is incredible. I was delighted the first time that I used it and it’s one of the main reasons I have a near-100 percent rebooking rate.”
Matthew’s favorite GlossGenius features are the ones that help him stay organized. GlossGenius charges a flat 2.6 percent fee regardless of how a payment is processed, and he can track all revenue from credit cards to checks to cash and Venmo and see them all in one P&L report. He can upload all of his various expenses, including the vendor and category, and keep pictures of the receipts. GlossGenius also sends Matthew a text message with client notes before they arrive and another text message reminder after the appointment that he can respond to with new notes, which automatically populate in their client file. And when it was time to raise his prices, Matthew was able to set the email marketing parameters in GlossGenius to just the clients he had seen in the last two years.
With GlossGenius, Matthew can run his salon without the need for a receptionist, and whereas other apps charged him for each team member he added to the system, he pays the same $24 a month even though he has given staff access to the GlossGenius platform. Every Monday, GlossGenius sends Matthew a weekly review email that shows him how much time and money he has saved – about $30 a week just in payment processing fees.
“I teach a class on retirement and investing, and as I tell my students, if they take that $30 a week and invest it in the S&P 500 for 25 years they can generate an additional $600,000 for retirement,” says Matthew. “But GlossGenius also saves me hours and hours of potential frustration – I haven’t had a single minute of frustration with GlossGenius. As for the client notes feature, it’s an absolute game changer, it’s the coolest, most genius thing I’ve ever seen. Clients will say ‘Oh my god, I love what you did last time, do the same thing,’ so taking good notes is critical. I’m taking way better notes than I ever have in my entire career because I don’t have to remember to do it – it’s part of the whole process. GlossGenius makes communicating with clients faster and more efficient all around, and when it comes time to file my taxes in the Spring, I know I have all of my reports ready to go. Having used GlossGenius, I wouldn’t use anything else, and for anyone looking for a new solution, I would say that in 24 hours from now you’ll have a whole different, elevated, upgraded, sleek, and sexy experience for you and your clientele.”
