L.O.G. 177 Personal Safety with the Braid Babes

Okay, let's go ahead and get started. First off, a big welcome to Emily, Tory, and Chelsea from Braid Babes. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you for having us.

So, I know everyone listening right now is like, "Okay, Braid Babes on The Human Behavior Podcast show? What is this about?" So, I have a, actually, kind of gift for those who watch the episode on YouTube. There's not as many viewers as there are listeners, so I figured I'd pull up real quick for all of you to see. Right here, I have had my hair braided before. That's me and my wife in Cabo San Lucas a couple years ago, where there was what I would call a significant amount of alcohol involved in that decision. Getting that out the next morning before I traveled back to the United States, I was both laughing and crying.

I'm convinced that you've smoked more reefer than anybody I know to first of all have done that, and second of all, to bring it on the show today. Now, we have a very liberal, non-drug testing policy at Arcadyan, but... yeah, our companies, we know that we have a very, very strict no-drug-testing policy. We will...

I have that same picture on my desk, but I have your face cut out and my face superimposed. That's your wife, so that's good to know. So, I want to start off. You got a bunch of questions for us that we're going to jump into today — different things about safety and security, what you're doing. But Emily, I'd like to throw to you. Tell us a little bit about what Braid Babes is and what you girls do.

Yeah, so Braid Babes, we're mobile braiders. So, we have a team in each of our cities: we're in Buffalo, Nashville, and Scottsdale. Our clients will book us for single appointments if they're going on a date or attending a wedding. But then they'll also book us for their daughter's birthday or for ladies' nights with their friends or a bachelorette party. And then we even will do the whole wedding group for her bridal, which is really, really beautiful. We started in 2019 and we're planning to go national city by city, and we just launched Scottsdale right now, so we're super excited about it.

And we're huge fans, just so you know. We share a very close friend that talked about you guys when he first met you. We're huge fans, and I can't wait till you get to little Gunness in Colorado, or at least Denver, where we could drive up. My wife and I have a thing where each quarter we have to drive all the way to Montrose to get our mani and pedi. We make a whole day out of it because it's a couple-hour drive one way. So, this is a delivery service. You actually... Brian, I like your comment, "They show up in your house alone and unafraid." But the reason that we wanted to talk to you folks today is because that doesn't mean that you're also showing up confident and competent in every instance. So, our CEO, Shelly, generally asks the question, "What keeps you up at night?" And what was cool, Brian, is we got a whole page, a couple of pages, of what keeps the Braid Babes up.

Yeah, so we're going to throw you guys to ask us questions. And just know, this is such a relevant topic to discuss because not this many services and industries are going this route anyway, where people are getting a lot of in-home services. I mean, already, obviously, you have food delivery and all that kind of stuff, which is off the charts.

Laundry.

Laundry. Yeah, cleaning, laundry, air braiding, dog grooming, everything. So you've got people showing up. So I kind of look at it from two perspectives: one, the person hiring someone to come into their home, right? They have their own concerns. And then two, obviously, huge concerns for you girls and for anyone in that industry. You don't always know what you're showing up to. You're showing up to someone's house, so there could be a lot of things that could go catastrophically wrong. Now, most people are well-intentioned, and I'm sure most of the time everything is great. But how do we identify those situations where, "Hey, you know what? Something seems a little off here. How do I avoid a catastrophic event?" And that's what Greg and I specialize in. So, we just love it to throw it to you to ask the questions, and then we'll kind of go from there. So, I don't know who wants to go first. You can volunteer, or Emily, I think you're kind of overall in charge, right? So maybe you assign it, or you take it.

It sure is. I don't know, I think these two run the show these days. Yeah, and you know, on the note of what keeps you up at night, I just want to add to that, like that's the number one question you get as a founder. Everyone asks me what keeps me up at night, and this has always been my answer: I am sending braiders into strangers' homes, and all we need is the wrong person to realize that for sixty-five dollars, they can pour a braider to their home. And that it scares the heck out of me, for sure. And I've always told Tory that too. I'm like, "You know, our business could go to a zero-dollar evaluation with the snap of a finger." And I've always told her that. I'm like, "It's a huge risk. We have a huge PR event of something terrible happening; this business will be done." So, we want to really protect our braiders, protect the company.

Absolutely. And just even having that concern, you're already starting off on the right foot. Right? That's what we would say, "Alright, what is our main concern? It's our people." So, you're already starting to develop that culture as you guys are. I mean, I know you're already establishing a few cities, but you're going to be growing. And when I said, "Same thing," I told my wife about this, she's like, "Oh my God, that's amazing!" Now she's asking about, "Hey, can we have a franchise out here in San Diego or something?" I was like, "I'm just talking about this one thing. If you want to have a business conversation, I'll introduce you, but let's pump the brakes." So, I'd already say that one, you're starting off at a good foot: "What's our concern with our people? What do we need to focus on?"

And I think being risk-averse is smart, as long as you're being averse to the right risk. So, it can't be just a general panacea of, "Oh my gosh, this is overwhelming!" That's why people quit business or don't start in the first place. The idea is that it's got to be measured and tempered against reality and against utility. So, I love that as well, that you're putting thought to it. And again, this isn't unprecedented. I think it's important—our listeners are going to wonder why these females are on. And my thing is, look, shut-ins and old folks, and people that need an escort service have been ordering stuff like this for a long time. And they get their barber, for example, to come over, a house cleaner, or somebody to cook a meal and put some sandwiches in their fridge for the rest of the week. So, what you came up with is an ingenious, novel concept that hasn't been done before, but the process isn't unprecedented, and that's where I think the magic is. So, if you're listening right now and you've tuned in, listen for a while and get your yellow pad out because we're probably going to tell you stuff that's going to make you safer at home or make your business safer as well.

Yeah, yeah. So, let's fire away. Let's go ahead with your first questions.

Alright, so what we did is we asked our entire team—we have a team of about 60 on their own in the company now. And so we asked them, "Hey, what scares you?" And so we have these kind of scenarios, so we'll kind of start shooting scenarios.

Yeah, perfect.

The first one: "There was one time I had a male client who kept telling me how cool I was. He kept asking to smoke together. It made me feel uncomfortable, but I finished the braids and never went back. He called and texted me every day for months. I just told my manager what was going on, and I blocked him. He also told me that because of him my braids would go viral and we would make it big, and then didn't let me use the photos I took."

Okay, so there you go. There's a lot already. First of all, I say anybody that saw Brian's photo earlier knows who this is. (Laughter) Emily is speaking directly about Brian, but go ahead. So, that's a good thing, right? So, one of the things you do is, you're in an uncomfortable situation. So, especially if someone is asking you questions or saying things and you feel uncomfortable, what's difficult to do in the moment is to try to come up with a way to de-escalate it or change the subject, or create a lie and say something. It's really tough to do in the moment. What you do is you prepare beforehand, right? So, one of those things for something like this is the beauty of what you have is, one, it's a company and a professional service. So, you kind of just put it all on that, like, "Hey, look, we have certain legal requirements. We have certain company policies that forbid us from doing that. So, even if I wanted to, I really can't because I might lose my job." And, "Hey, I appreciate this, but not quite losing my job." And so, what that does is it starts to set a little bit of boundaries, right? And so, once I have some boundaries established where I say these certain things about, "Here's how our procedures are," "Hey, I'm required to maybe check in when it gets started," or, "You signed a waiver saying we can use your photos," or whatever it is, you stick to sort of that company policy because now I have a script that I'm going to use every single time, whether it's a good, bad, normal, everyday situation. Right? I have to know that stuff anyway. And once you establish those boundaries, you now sort of have a baseline here. So, you drew a line in the sand. Now, what you can do—a normal person would go, "Oh, okay," and they then wouldn't cross that line or they'd stay on that. But now, if once I say I drew that line in the sand and this person takes another little step and goes, "Well, what about this?" I go, "Alright, I see where they're going with this." Right? They're going to continue this behavior, and I have to continue to put up those boundaries. So, that's kind of like one example I would do, and it just—you go back to what your policies are. Everything is, if you didn't write it down and you didn't tell everyone about it, it wasn't a policy, and it didn't happen. Right? So, if I can write that stuff up, it gives everyone, it puts everyone on the same page. Greg, I know you probably want to add to that.

That's why I'm here, buddy. So, Shelly would say two words: "Yeah, no." Our CEO is probably the smartest human that I've ever dealt with, and she would say, "No way." That behavior doesn't go. Start it early, set the boundaries early, so then you know if the person continues pinging those boundaries that you go, "Okay, this is when we cut, and we're out of there." So, from a physiological standpoint, I'll just answer the science. From a physiological standpoint, the word that you used, "uncomfortable," is hugely telling. Uncomfortability is part of your electrochemical neurotransmitters warning you that there may be an encounter. Now, it's okay to be uncomfortable even after you've dived off the three-meter board, to get a little shaky in the knees when you get up there again. Okay, that's normal. So, going into somebody else's house, strangely, you want to be uncomfortable because you want to look for exits. You want to think your way out of a potential trapping or ambush situation. But by the same token, if you're starting to get physiological indicators that this just doesn't pass the smell test, this just doesn't feel right, that's your brain screaming at you, "Danger! Warning, Will Robinson! Time to have an exit strategy!" The idea is that this piece of what you're saying is called part-task training, internal "down and in" for your folks. And what you do is you say, "Okay, ladies, we're going to act this out." We all sit around the table and assume roles, and then some person does that, "Hey, I like your hair. Can I touch it?" "Well, no, you can't touch it, and you can't touch me. Back off." I get this all the time, so it's easy for me to talk about it. And then, what you get is you get to the point where you could conduct a rehearsal. Why do you do a rehearsal? Because then you can feel what right looks like, you can see and smell and taste it and touch it. And that's valuable because then when it comes up in the future, you go, "Bing, bing, bing! Something's out of order here. I don't like it." The problem with the human condition is the more we repeat a behavior, the more it becomes so usual that we miss the warning signs. "I've been in 20 houses today," you go. And so by the 18th house, I kind of mentally checked out, and I'm just pulling air. Well, what's the difference between a copper (police officer) on a traffic stop? He's been on nine, and none of the nine traffic stops gave him a problem, and now this person pulls a gun, fires a shot. You see what I'm saying? So, we have to be emotionally present, and we have to be psychologically and cognitively aware of the situation we're in at that moment. And that's not called situational awareness; that's called critical thinking skills: "Where am I right now? What am I doing? What do I need to get up and out of here if I have to?" So, this is a great question because it's multifaceted, and you could build a whole training program out of just that question.

Yes, because what you're talking about too is, what Greg is discussing here that we talk about is, you've always seen in these cases where someone after the fact goes, "You know, I had a feeling something wasn't right. There was something that felt off." Okay, well, the reason why people keep going through this for exactly what Greg said: "Well, I've done it 37 times before, nothing bad has happened, so I'm sure I'll be fine." Right? And remember, when the bad situations occur, when something catastrophic happens, it's never when you had a full night's rest, you had a nice breakfast, you were thinking about how you're going to do. When does it happen? It's when you're running late, you've got 10 million other things going on, you're not paying attention to what's going on. That's when those things occur. It has to do with human attention. If all you had to do was what we do and focus and watch people, you'd get really good, really fast. But you can't do that throughout your day, right? You have a job to go do. So, I always like to frame it with that: "Alright, remember during those times where it's highly stressful, you're running late, you're trying to get somewhere? That's when you get there and you take that second, you literally take a breath in, back out, and go, 'Okay, now what am I here to do? Alright, what's going on?'" If I get in that right state of mind, it'll help me notice those things.

And Brian, if I can dovetail on what you said, let me give you a story. I deal in stories a lot. So, first of all, remember that... yeah, I know. Because it's okay to say no, and it doesn't matter because the client isn't always right. And you as business people know that the client is not always right. It's not worth making the money if you have to endure something that you're not comfortable with. Part two of that is living up in the mountains. I had a dude ranch and guest ranch in the mountains for a dozen years, and the idea that guests fly into Denver every day and rent a car to drive up into the mountains to go skiing and riding and rafting. What happens is there's a thing called winter in the mountains, and it snows this high (gestures with hand) out here. And the people that get the rental car think that, "Well, it's going to be just like driving in Boston or Philly or Tampa, or wherever the hell they live," and it's not. Speed limit out here is 70 or 75 in some stretches. All of a sudden, you get an elk on a road that's a thousand pounds, or you get ice, or you get snow, and they go, "Oh, well, I have four-wheel drive." Four-wheel drive is not Harry Potter's magic wand that comes down and makes the conditions better. So, if you don't rehearse for those specific conditions, you may find yourself in a dangerous or debilitating accident or a life-altering experience. So, why would going into somebody else's house be different? Every house is different, even if it's in the same block, and even if it's in the same apartment complex. So, if you don't rehearse for those situations, "What do I do if? What if they start talking about this?" And guess what, it's easy, you can script it yourself because you're subject-matter experts. And then you're doing the right thing by reaching out and asking us a couple of questions for the marginal stuff that you may not be experts in. That answer the question. Let us know and cut in too if we're going too long, or I got some great notes.

Yeah, so we did bring up a lot in there: how to plan for that stuff, fit it within your company policies, and like Greg said, just rehearse. You can sit around with people and go, "Alright, if this happens, I'm going to play the person you're walking in." And seriously, just that little rehearsal, now I have something to draw on when I'm in that situation. Alright, so who wants to go? Who wants to go next? Tory, go for it.

Okay, so this one, we do have kind of a policy around it, so I'll say kind of the question, the policy we have, and kind of what maybe you guys can let us know what we could be doing more for this one. So, this one is the thought of someone just booking as, say, a woman's name. We get there, it's a man. He says, "Oh, she's inside, just come on in." It ends up being a scam. There's no women, and there's just bad intentions. Our policy around this is we do need to see the person that's getting braided before we enter, and we require the person that we're braiding to have six inches of hair. So, if it was a male without six inches of hair, it would clearly not be the person that we're braiding that day. So, that's kind of the current policy we have. But what more we can kind of do about that scenario?

So, that definitely goes into one: what you have to do when you sign up. I don't know if you have to submit like a photo for a profile or about yourself. You know, you can make that stuff kind of fun and exciting for the user experience, right? And then you're also getting—that's also helpful to the person showing up to know, "Okay, I know who it is that what I'm expecting to see." But you're already having certain rules where you know, "Alright, if this person, one, if this is the person that booked it and someone else answered the door, it's simple like, 'Okay, well, can I see that person? Can I talk to them before I come in?'" And that kind of sets the tone. And then you already have your "no" like, "Well, we don't braid hair shorter than six inches," so they should know that. You showing up and giving people the confidence to say no, walk away, call and figure out something. Oh, sorry, I know Greg, you wanted to go too.

Yeah, spot on it again, Brian. And the idea is, I go back to the Shelly, CEO "yeah, no" theory. You can't solve problems. We train airlines; you can't solve problems at 30,000 feet. It's too late in the game; there's too many tangibles. So, solve it outside or on the front porch and solve it right away. So, you say this is, first of all, remember if a person does something intentionally like that, and they seek to gain an advantage in some other way, then that's fraud, that's a crime. You can't do that, and at least you have a civil recourse where you can sue the person. Now, look, we want to make this as simple as possible. You folks are in a business, but it's not pleasure. Okay? It can be pleasurable for you when you make the money and go to the beach with your significant other, but they're at the house. Look, you're not that much to our bottom line that I can't say no to you. And you have to train your personnel to do that, and it's not an emotion-based response; it's a safety-based response. "I don't know you. I'm taking a big risk just being here, and the amount that you pay me is cool, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to look the other way when you're not a rule follower." Rule followers are people on the highway that don't use their blinkers when they change lanes. Rule followers are people on the highway that go a different speed. What right do you have to endanger me and my family when I go out on the road? So, what's the difference in a business standpoint where a person's changed the rules on you and, "Oh, by the way, I'm going to ambush you with this information"? That's an all-stop right now: reconsider and no. And Brian said—you said something earlier, and if I could hit on what you said earlier about, "If it's not written down, it didn't happen"—that goes more than just policy. I institute, every time I go to an agency, I say, "You have to have a pass-down log." What that means is a yellow pad with notes that every other shift after you gets a chance to read. Now, I'm old school with that, you know, chalk on a thing, "This is where the hunting area is" in a cave. You guys have computers now. If you get a client that used a specific tactic, if you had a client that used a specific name, those types of things have to be on that pass-down log. So, you don't, one, waste money by going through that Möbius loop of, "No, it's the wrong person." And two, for safety, police reports are free. You go into a police station and make one. Calling 911 and saying, "I need an officer to escort me off this property," sends a couple of messages. One, to your person, "Listen, the cops are going to show up," and that's an important thing. Dog bites are as important as a homicide to a copper (police officer), a good copper. Second thing is, it shows the homeowner or the person that called you, you're not screwing around. Now, you don't want to get that in detail on every call, but you shouldn't have to because I'm assuming this popped up in your mind, Tory, because it was rare. It was one that happened, and it doesn't happen five or six times a week. If it starts happening five or six times a week, there's something wrong with your website, do you get what I'm trying to say? Or you're getting the wrong kind of clients. But if it's one of those Gladwellian outliers, address it by saying, "This is an all-stop. This is a no, and we don't play that."

And some of what Greg's talking about is interesting. From a safety issue, it's a business issue too. If you had some way for the different women that are working for you to, you know, rate the customer and write some notes on them, you're building a profile on them. Because you know you're going to have the same customer that argues about price, never tips, but is always calling and "I want you to do more." And if you're documenting that, it might give you reason to charge them more or do something else or create a different way to approach them. And so it's about business too. And then there's simple—we don't really teach what are called tactics, techniques, and procedures. We kind of talk about them, but we let people develop them on their own. But it's very simple too. You can have a rule for everyone showing up at the house where they leave all their stuff in the car first. They go make contact with the person, right? Find out, make sure everything's good, that it's there. And then they can go, "Okay, I need to go grab my stuff right now." Right? Because that gives them an automatic out built in. If they don't feel comfortable