A salon business conference conversation that made a Coburg salon owner go rather wide-eyed, question everything, and skip the KPI dashboard session entirely.
Third session break. Conference center in South Melbourne. Susan from Coburg appears at my table, clutching three different handouts and looking rather like someone who's just sat through a statistics lecture in Mandarin.
Settles into chair opposite
Takes measured sip of Negroni
"Three speakers," she announces. "Three spreadsheets. Pivot tables. Customer lifetime value calculations. Something called a cohort retention matrix."
Slight pause
"I run a salon, Gordon. Not a bloody hedge fund."
You know what amuses me? The software industry's absolute conviction that what salon owners desperately need is more data. More reports. More dashboards. More ways to slice and dice numbers until you've forgotten what question you were trying to answer.
Leans forward slightly
What if you could just... ask?
That morning session about client retention? Forty slides. Statistical significance. Regression analysis. The speaker was terribly pleased with himself.
But Susan's actual question was rather simpler:
"Who are my best clients?"
Not "please generate a pivot table sorted by transaction frequency with cross-referenced demographic segmentation." Just... who are my best clients?
Takes sip
Gordon answers that in three seconds.
Ten names. Spending patterns. Last visit dates. Visit frequency. Ranked by revenue, or frequency, or recent activity—whichever matters to you at that particular moment.
The actual information you need to decide who gets invited to your new VIP colour service launch next month.
"That's one of fifty-one things Gordon can answer," I tell her. "Conversationally. No menus. No exports. No generating anything."
Susan's looking at me like I've just told her water runs uphill
"You're having me on."
I'm really not.
Susan's phone rings
She glances at it, silences it, looks apologetic
"Client asking about that bond treatment everyone's discussing. I have no idea if anyone's actually bought it yet. I'd have to go through... I don't even know. Product sales reports? Individual client histories?"
Slight smile
"Who's already bought the bond treatment?"
Seven clients. Names, purchase dates, quantities, which locations. Right there. While the client's still on the phone.
Book her in with someone who's already used it successfully. Mention that Emma loved it so much she bought three tubes. Watch that booking convert.
Try doing that with traditional software. You'd still be navigating through product reports when the client hung up to call your competitor.
Susan's fully engaged now
"Alright. So this morning's disaster session—'Understanding Tuesday Performance Metrics'—an hour of bar charts comparing weekday revenue patterns."
Waves hand dismissively
Terribly comprehensive. Utterly useless.
"Why was Tuesday so quiet?"
Gordon compares it to previous Tuesdays. Shows your roster was lighter than usual—only two staff instead of your typical four. Notes it was during school holidays when your regular mums are usually traveling. Points out you had three bookings that stayed unconfirmed and never converted to sales.
Not just numbers. Context. The actual understanding you need to staff better next Tuesday.
Rather more useful than a bar chart showing you that yes, Tuesday was indeed quiet.
Conference coffee break. Susan's trying them now on her phone
"Who's free this afternoon?"
Gordon checks who's rostered, who's qualified for which services, where they have gaps between bookings. Not just "available." Actually useful.
"Alice has 10am to 2pm free, then 2:45pm to 4pm. She can do cuts, colour, and treatments."
Walk-in client asks for a cut and colour? You know exactly who to offer, and when.
"Show me last week's numbers."
Complete sales summary. Revenue breakdown by services, products, vouchers. Payment methods. Staff performance—who's bringing in what. Client activity—five unique clients, three new, two walk-ins.
The full picture. Not forty cells in a spreadsheet that you have to mentally assemble into meaning.
"Who hasn't been in lately?"
Gordon identifies your lapsed clients. Regular visitors who've missed their usual booking window. One-time clients who never returned. The exact people you'd want to reach out to.
With their last visit dates, what they usually spend, how often they used to visit.
Takes contemplative sip
This morning's speaker recommended hiring a data analyst to identify at-risk customer segments using statistical modeling.
Or... you could just ask Gordon.
Susan's leaning back now, thoughtful
"So I just... ask it things. Like I'm asking you."
"Precisely."
Slight pause
You run a salon. You think in questions, not database queries. "Who's busy?" "Who's free?" "Which services are working?" "Which clients need attention?" "Why was yesterday terrible?" "Who should I call about the new treatment?"
These are the questions running through your head all day. Every day.
Gordon speaks that language.
Not because it's impressive technology—though it is, rather—but because that's how humans actually think about their businesses.
The AI isn't the point. The AI is simply the mechanism that lets you ask normally and get answers that make sense.
Announcement: next session starting in five minutes
Susan glances at her conference program
"'Building Your KPI Dashboard For Maximum Business Insight.' Ninety minutes."
She closes the program
"I think I'll skip it."
Slight smile
"I'd rather just ask Gordon what I need to know."
Takes final sip
Rather the point, isn't it?
When software finally answers one question properly, you remember all the other questions you've been putting off. All the spreadsheets you haven't generated. All the reports you haven't analyzed.
Not because you're lazy. Because you're running a salon.
Available now for Test Pilots. Five salons, preferably Melbourne.
Keep it simple. Keep it Gordon.