What Did We Learn At Wella RED Business Network Live?

From the genesis of the Bank of Dave to the power of ‘Careless Whisper’, discover the insight we brought back from the iconic business event

by AMANDA | INFORM

With more than 250 from across the UK and Ireland based at Manchester’s Kimpton Clocktower Hotel, the 2025 Wella RED Business Network Live was engineered to tackle the challenges impacting salon owners right now. Both inspirational speakers and real business leaders took to the stage to share practical insights, personal experiences and debate potential solutions for headaches that will arise from the Autumn Budget and impending changes to employment rights. Here are they big lessons we learned:

Stay On Top Of Your Records – Or Else
With big changes incoming to employment rights – from unfair dismissal to harassment, family leave to flexible working – Sally Hulston and Ciara Fulton from law firm Lewis Silkin insisted record keeping will be key to staying on the right side of the law.

Show The Brilliance Of Being Employed
With the Budget bringing rising costs, VAT headaches and now employment rights changes favouring workers, being an employer has arguably never looked so unattractive. But Hellen Ward – joined on a panel by fellow salon bosses Anya Dellicompagni, Natasha Grossman, Alan Simpson and Patrick Gildea – encouraged everyone to communicate to teams just why being employed is so attractive, to stem the flow of talent leaving for self-employment. “We need to make sure that ‘employment’ doesn’t become a dirty word,” she insisted.

Focus On Strengths
Leadership expert Mark Edwards warned of the impact of low engagement on business (estimates put it at costing £257bn a year!). “Gen Z have zero tolerance for not being inspired at work,” he warned, with ‘quiet quitting’ on the rise. “You need to focus on what is right rather than fixating on what is wrong.”

Do ‘Tiny Noticeable Things’

You need to be up for making changes, warned leading motivational speaker and author, Adrian Webster, and doing ‘tiny noticeable things’ are explosive. “They show you care,” he said, “and they can often cost nothing.”

Fun Fact – Hard Graft Is Still Key

Formula One team owner and chairman of McLaren Applied, Nick Fry, was frank. “The difference between those who are successful and those who aren’t, is hard work,” he said. “The successful people actually get on and do it.”

Someone who just got on and did it? Dave Fishwick, best known as the brains behind the Bank of Dave in Burnley (he’s also the biggest supplier of minibuses in Britain). His start came from making a £29 profit on the sale of a used car, while working market stall shifts and spinning records as a DJ at night… often working seven days a week. “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not trying hard enough,” he said. “Take the risk and 99 per cent of them will pay off.”    

Adrian Webster

Flip The Conversation
Communication expert Lee Warren shared tips on how to be more persuasive, all through the power of language. “If you’re talking about a weakness and strength, put the weakness first in the conversation, then the strength last,” he advised. “The response will be very different.”

Don’t Get Comfortable
Starting with a cement mixer and a car paint sprayer to make her first big batch of popcorn, Cassandra Stavrou MBE – founder of healthy snack company, Proper Snacks – plays ‘Careless Whisper’ at 1pm each day through the office to signal its lunchtime… and desk eating is banned! But don’t mistake that for any kind of weakness – her drive has seen Proper Snacks hit £100m+ in sales, and its growing. “An impatient business is a progressive business,” she argued. “Comfort zones become graveyards for ideas. Embrace ambiguity and embrace contradiction.

Cassandra Stavrou MBE