2015 is flying by…..I can’t believe that it is July already, but it demonstrates what another busy year it has been at Tufties. At least the British weather doesn’t let us down, as I sit here to right this it is dark, dank, overcast with torrential rain clouds on the horizon!
The weather doesn’t stop us having fun at Tufties though. “Tanya” (get the pun!) our automated self-tanning booth is doing booming business and making sure that our clients have a healthy colour. If clients aren’t in the booth, you will always find a member of staff in there topping up their tan!
We have recently introduced COMCIT from Crystal Clear into the salon. COMCIT is a revolutionary non-surgical anti-ageing treatment and is the first of its kind in the world and the results are instant – defying the ageing process. Clients who have started on a course of the treatment have been delighted with the results, as have we in the salon. It has been such a success I’m going to write a separate blog on this shortly.
The big news this year though has been Tufties continued success in award competitions. Earlier in the year we ventured outside our normal Rossendale boundary and entered the Red Rose Business Awards which are open to businesses from across the whole of Lancashire. I’m delighted to say that at a glittering night at Blackpool Winter Gardens in March Tufties scooped the Small Business of the Year award. Considering that the competition from the other 5 short-listed finalists was so varied we were absolutely delighted to win. It is an amazing feeling to know that your hard work has been recognised by independent judges against other businesses from very diverse industry sectors. Within our category was a company that had recently been awarded UK Bullion Dealer of the Year and another that exported to 55 countries.
To bring us right up to date, following our success at the Red Rose Awards I decided to turn our attention to a specific hairdressing industry award and enter the prestigious national Hairdressing Journal Awards. The biggest challenge I faced was persuading Jonathan to help me with the submission as he said it was all too stressful! As always time escaped us and it came down to the final few days before the deadline to put together the submission. It turned out to be a very stressful few days with some very late nights / early mornings as we battled to get it completed in time to get it in the post. Jonathan can be a bit of a task master and is a perfectionist when doing these sorts of things so he ran me and Shelby ragged putting everything together. When we did complete it though I was very proud with what we had done. I know that many other salons employ PR companies to compile their submissions, whereas we always do everything ourselves. Despite the stress there is a major sense of achievement when you complete something of this nature. This was by far the largest and most comprehensive award submission we have ever put together, over 12,000 words and 35 separate attachments.
The big news is that I have just received confirmation that Tufties has been short-listed in the category we entered, Salon of the Year. There is a funny story attached to that, as letters had been sent to the successful finalists but I hadn’t opened the day’s mail. That evening we noticed on the Hairdressing Journal Twitter feed lots of Salons tweeting that they had been short-listed in various categories. I realised that letters must have been sent out so grabbed the day’s mail from my bag and quickly rifled through the envelopes looking for one with any distinguishing marks. Alas there was nothing. The disappointment was overwhelming! About 2 hours later I opened my mail and in a totally non-descript envelope discovered a letter from the Hairdressing Journal informing me that Tufties was a finalist.
The awards night is in September. We have now seen the other 5 finalists and we are really in with the big boys and I am really proud to have made the final 6 and be recognised with such exalted company and fantastic salons. It is a great vindication for everything that we do at Tufties Hair and Beauty and a great demonstration that we are on the right track. The competition is massive but we have been in this position before. It’s David versus Goliath. You just never know. Wish us luck……
Vicky.x