Episode 29 | Host: Trev Warnke | Guest: Joey Furlan

🔥 Why This Episode Matters

Most entrepreneurs focus heavily on marketing, growth tactics, and scaling strategies. But many of the most successful local businesses are built on something far simpler — consistent service and strong relationships.

For service-based entrepreneurs especially, loyalty isn’t something you buy with ads. It’s something you earn over time through reputation, trust, and delivering quality work day after day.

In this episode, Trev Warnke sits down with Joey Furlan, founder of Hair By Joey in Prescott, Arizona, to talk about what it really takes to build a business where clients keep coming back. Their conversation highlights the discipline, craftsmanship, and relationship-building that drive long-term success in service businesses.

🎧 Listen to the Episode

👤 Meet the Host & Guest

• Trev Warnke — Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Profile

  Trev Warnke is an entrepreneur, coach, and co-founder of Brotherhood Beyond Business. Through the Brotherhood community, Trev works with male entrepreneurs who want to build strong businesses without sacrificing their health, faith, or family.

• Joey Furlan — Profile

  Joey Furlan is the founder of Hair By Joey, a barbering business serving the Prescott, Arizona community. Known for his attention to detail and strong client relationships, Joey has built a loyal customer base through consistent service and a reputation for quality work.

• About Hair By Joey — Website | Facebook | Instagram

  Hair By Joey is a barbering business based in Prescott, Arizona focused on delivering professional haircuts and building long-term relationships with clients. The business has grown primarily through word-of-mouth and repeat customers who value consistency, craftsmanship, and trust.

📌 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why reputation is the most powerful marketing tool for service businesses

• How consistent craftsmanship builds long-term client loyalty

• The importance of relationships in growing a local business

• Lessons from building a barbering business through word-of-mouth

• Why discipline inside your craft matters more than chasing trends

• How service entrepreneurs can create repeat customers instead of constantly finding new ones

• The role community trust plays in building a sustainable business

🧩 Episode Summary

In this conversation, Trev Warnke sits down with Joey Furlan to discuss the realities of building a service-based business from the ground up. Joey shares how his journey into barbering eventually led to the creation of Hair By Joey, where the focus remains on consistent service and strong client relationships.

Rather than chasing quick growth strategies, Joey explains how his business has grown through reputation and word-of-mouth referrals. By focusing on the client sitting in the chair and delivering quality work every time, he has built a loyal following within the Prescott community.

Throughout the episode, Trev and Joey discuss the discipline required to build trust over time. In service businesses especially, the smallest details — showing up consistently, doing the work well, and treating people with respect — are what ultimately build long-term success.

The conversation reinforces a core Brotherhood Beyond Business principle: strong businesses are built through character, consistency, and relationships. When entrepreneurs stay committed to those fundamentals, growth often follows naturally.

🕒 Episode Timestamps

[00:00] Introduction to Joey Furlan and Hair By Joey
[03:15] Joey’s journey into barbering
[07:40] Building a client base in Prescott
[13:20] The importance of reputation in local business
[18:45] Lessons from running a service business
[24:10] Relationships and client loyalty
[29:30] Advice for entrepreneurs building service-based businesses

💡 Quote Highlight

“Your reputation becomes your marketing when you consistently take care of the people in front of you.”

🚀 Next Steps

👉 Download our Your Circle is Your Ceiling eBook

👉 Learn more about Our Method

📚 Resources & Links

• Follow BBB on: Website | Instagram | YouTube | X | Facebook | Buzzsprout Podcasts

• Watch the full episode on YouTube

• Want to listen to future episodes: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Buzzsprout

🚀Full Transcript

Trev Warnke (01:02)

And your business name's Hair by Joey, right? All right, guys. Welcome back to another episode of Brotherhood Beyond Business Podcast. Today we're our Prescott chapter, and we're going to talk with Joey from Joey Frohn, as I said.

Joey Furlan (01:04)

That's right.

Joyful

on.

Trev Warnke (01:15)

Joey Frohlan from Hair

by Joey. We're just going to have a conversation today about his business, his life, his faith, and just dive into everything we can about this man, all right? So Joey, just give me a quick snippet of who you are, what brought you to Prescott, because I know you're not originally from here, and just a little bit of a life story from him.

Joey Furlan (01:33)

So I was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. I was born in 1969, 56 now. Grew up Catholic and then...

discovered porn around 10 and kind of just got into porn and heavy metal during my teens and just kind of lived the world-weekly way. Turned out I could sing. I pulled the singer card off the deck of life at 16, which is just right around the quarterback card in terms of the awesome card you can pull off for life. And when I realized I could sing, I was good. And so I immediately started putting bands together and then I hit Seattle.

in my 20s right when the whole 90s grunge thing was going, blowing up, becoming everybody's music. And so it was heady times, I cut some records and then I put together an 80s tribute act and played out on Friday and Saturday for about five years. Made great money, had a ton of fun. And then around 31, that lifestyle just wasn't working great. I had...

married I landed a 22 year old when I was just 17 which is a lot like my pastor's joke it's like when if the dog actually catches the fire and it's chasing and unfortunately that marriage just struggle I was addicted to porn marriage so we split up when I was 32

was 30, I went bankrupt. I took a big swing at real estate. Me and a buddy bought 13 houses in three months on real shady credit. And then the dot com thing in the Northwest flipped and all of sudden we couldn't find renters. I went freaking bankrupt. So 31, I was bankrupt. My dad had died. My family kind of exploded when my dad died.

and then I got divorced. My plan at that time was staying with three bands and was just gonna go live a debauched lifestyle essentially. I managed to stay faithful other than the barn, but at 32 I was really gonna get going. God put a really pretty Christian girl in front of me who invited me to church.

Trev Warnke (03:37)

that.

Joey Furlan (03:43)

It was a small church at the time called Morris Hill and nobody knew it would blow up to be one of the biggest churches in the early 2000s. And so I joked that Jesus put me in a headlock. So I met Amy in 2002, 2003, February.

Carlo had been praying for me forever. The one real serious Christian brother in the family. I went over to his house and just said, dude, I think I'm in. And that was a crazy time.

2003 and she had brain tumors. So my whole walk with Christianity, Trev was a walk of growing out of being this egotistical rock star type person and growing into becoming a humble servant and a faithful follower of Jesus Christ with heartbreak after heartbreak.

stability and all those things, but we went through about six brain surgeries over nine years. And the final one in 2010, the tumor had begun to push on her brain in such a way that it was like 41st dates that drew Barrymore with the, where she just her short-term memory.

surgery team was like this thing's just going to keep going.

It's unlikely that her memory problems are gonna get better. And so I'll never forget one of the hugest moments of my life was 2010, New Year's Eve. I had to make the call.

just bring her home. And so I decided to bring her home. She passed away that April and that was just, can you imagine that whole walk with Jesus was what CS Lewis or Tolkien calls the long defeat. So I fought the long defeat and then that was it. It was just quiet. We never had the kids, never, you know, just...

So, but God had a plan. He told me as that was finished, he said, he told me the Holy Spirit came into my heart, finished well, and you're not gonna believe what I have for you. And sure enough, he had an amazing girl. She was somebody that we'd known, that Amy and I had known through the church, a young gal who had moved out of state, came back to state. Anyways, long story short, we can talk about that later if you want, but Amy passed in April and Jessica and I got married.

in September.

It's been a crazy fricking ride since then. So we could touch on that stuff that you want. Basically 2011 we got married. By 2016 we knew we wanted to start a family and we knew it wasn't going to be in Seattle because we didn't like the weather, didn't like the politics, we didn't like the traffic, we didn't like the anti-Christian vibe. And that's when I called an acquaintance of mine, Greg Osadu, who runs Founding Fathers in the Town.

and said, tell me about Prescott. I'm thinking Flagstaff or Phoenix, but how far is that from your little town? And Grant's like, forget Flagstaff, forget Phoenix, come to Prescott. So he invited me here. He said, cut hair for a month, keep all the money. You may just come here, check out the town. Because we were thinking Bend, Oregon. We were thinking New Mexico. We were thinking Colorado. We were going to do a tour. But he said, start here first. And he was driving to Phoenix that day. We talked for two hours.

sent her some pictures and said hey this looks really cool. She's like I'm in. So we came down here celebrating 10 years. was February 2016. We rolled into town and bought a house three months later. Beautiful home here in Prescott.

classes in 2016 in September and we began to foster a little boy in January 2017. Big interesting story with all that and then our kids are three kids. We adopted a sibling group. We got the call on June 28th 2017, hey we got three kids down here in Phoenix can you come pick them up Monday? We said those are our kids we're on our way.

them up, three little bags of clothes and we said we're gonna adopt you guys and they have you go through a year to make sure it's a fit. A year later, 2017 adoption went through and then 2018 January we got pregnant with our first bio kid. Me while I'm building my business, doing my thing and then 2019

Grant was going on to his next big thing. I worked with his shop for three years and at that time I decided to shut down my Seattle operation.

design a beautiful studio here in town. So was just me and 150 clients to start with in 2019 and that's just grown into

So five kids and now I have a beautiful salon in two spaces. We've got about 5,000 active clients, 10 world-class hairstylists from New York, Austin, LA, Scottsdale, and just a wonderful, wonderful environment. And here we are in 2026 and I feel like we're just starting in a lot of ways.

Trev Warnke (08:45)

That's an incredible story. It's cool. There's so many things throughout that story I can relate to. My business partner that I first started my gyms with back in Chicago, he passed away at 34 from brain cancer. He was diagnosed with it, got it removed. like, hey, you'll be fine. obviously, he was two years removed. They're like, hey, cancer free. And then one day.

back, you know, instantly back and passed away a couple months after that. So here's that story and then the adoption story of me and my wife, that's something we're going to be going through here in the next few years as well. But just a cool story from like the thing that, without probably even realizing when you're younger, the entrepreneurship journey, but you went on with...

which is the idea that like the entrepreneurship journey is the relentlessness of overcoming whatever keeps coming in your face. You can say that about any other journey through faith whatever I just think of that on entrepreneurship side because you end up there at the end is the fact that like every situation that you went through you just kept on being like you just bet on yourself you bet on you and your faith and your faith in God.

Joey Furlan (09:31)

Enjoy.

Trev Warnke (09:51)

It's such a cool story. mean, for the whole podcast, what all you said right there is everything I need you to know about your life because it really, you show a younger age of talent that you had, right? And that talent allowed you to be able to create different things in life. But God continued along that path to show you like, this is a great talent, this is just a stepping stone on where we're going in your life. It's so cool to be like, well, I think about the, when I was young,

Joey Furlan (10:12)

Thank

Trev Warnke (10:16)

was really good at football, like that was my thing. And then I had a major back issue in high school, probably in college, going into college football. Major back issue that derailed that and put me on the path that like now had me go through all the different businesses I built. But if the path of the state football, I don't know if I would have ever gone down the path that's a better journey than I could have run. It's cool hearing your journey getting through that with your wife and overcoming that and the fact that.

God had that like even though you lost, I mean your first marriage obviously ended, but that's always tough. That's still part of the journey. I know a factor a lot of men that have gone through divorce but came out the other side saying like, I haven't given up on this and I've probably become a better man along this journey to be, I wish I could have been a better man in the first stage. know, how could I have been a better man here but now for my next wife I can be that version of what I need to be. And then obviously that ended.

she passed away but then God's like hey you've done you've been that faithful servant along this way and now here's in a century word of another great woman that you can leave you know so that is really really cool and I didn't even know all that stuff about you and I'm just like

Joey Furlan (11:16)

It takes a minute for you

to process, right? I do have quite a story.

Trev Warnke (11:20)

It chokes me up in certain ways because that's the journey. love hearing every entrepreneur that I talk to, none of them have had the easy path. Every single one has had the hard path in different ways. Everybody's learning path is harder than others, right? Every journey is different, but I've never had that, every person I run into, their path is always like, I've had to overcome a lot of things. So it's cool when I do hear that, I'm like, yeah, you're true entrepreneur because you found out how to run.

Joey Furlan (11:45)

That's right.

Trev Warnke (11:46)

What did you do? What got you into like hairstyle? Why is that?

Joey Furlan (11:50)

Great

question. it's 1992, I'm singing for an awesome metal band, I'm working at Daycare. My hair and pony tail.

After a year of the daycare, they raised me from $6.35 to $6.85 an hour. And the drummer of my band on the hand is a hair salon. And he pulled me aside, said, Joey, what's your plan if you don't make it to Rockstars? And I said, we're going to totally be Rockstars. What are you talking about? He's like, well, I know, but the outside chance that we don't, like, I don't know, honestly, maybe psychology. I don't know, I like people. He's like, listen, 75 % of hair is personality.

already had the personality piece you're a freaking lead singer or a part of the band. He said why don't you get your hair licensed and then you can get chicks from the shows to come out and get their hair done and get chicks who are getting their hair done to come out to the shows. I'm like that's a pretty cool idea so I thought about it for a whole year and then I thought...

Back then there was a book you could check out in library that comes out each year and tells you about every career, what the pros and cons are, what the average income is, etc. So I got that, looked through it, found out about hair styling, and my buddy's like, I'm writing these chicks checks and it's good money, And so I decided to, in Dungeons and Dragons term, multi-class. In Dungeons and Dragons you're a fighter or

but sometimes you're fighter wizard, Trev And so my initial business call are rockstar slash hair stylist. So I would cut hair during the week and I sucked. did awful. I mean, cut a chick's ear, know, hair coming off in the shampoo bowl because I over-processed it, color dripping down a gal's face, buzzing a guy's hair way too high. you know, I sucked.

Trev Warnke (13:16)

action.

Joey Furlan (13:37)

But I'm like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to figure it out. by the way, 95, right after I got married, most of the skin burned off my right arm in a terrible accident because I was doing construction part time. Three weeks in the hospital, massive skin racking off my right leg. This is months after I graduated from beauty school. Can you imagine? The agony was unbelievable. And of course, the challenge, I just got married in August and I got burnt in like September.

So that took me out for three, four months. But you always have to look for that little, what's the help gonna be? And even that prior to being Christian, I had that faith, I grew up in a real faith-based family. And the help there was the government said, hey, we can help you retrain. Do you wanna retrain? And I was like, rather than retrain, can you just help supplement my income?

just trappings and hairstyles. And I'm kind of a small government guy, but I got to thank the Washington government on that because they supplemented my income for 12 months. So my first 12 months of doing hair, because I was injured, I got a supplement and that helped me get over the hump. 12 months later, I was able to pay the...

and make life happen. So that's how I got into hair. And then I was going along working for other folks and then I took the big swing at real estate in 2000. Felt flat on my face. I mean, thought I was going to go to prison. When I called the family lawyer, hey, what happens if you do calling for a friend, if you sign real estate loans and this and that, like bankruptcy takes care of that, right? She's like, no, tell your friend that that's loan fraud. If there's any government people talking.

just calling for a friend. But the long short was that was really scary, terrible time. And again, you said, if you have an entrepreneurial mindset, you just go, okay, what's the next thing I'm to do? What's the next thing I'm going to do? And I knew early on.

All the way back to being 10 or 11 or 12, I get bored with other people leading the Dungeons and Dragons game. I'm a 45 year Dungeon Master because I can't have somebody else tell the story. I gotta tell a good story and I like to bring people on the adventure. I've never been competitive Trev I've never gotten into any sports, but when I discovered Dungeons and Dragons, that was my thing because even if you're the Game Master, the Dungeon Master, your whole point is to, yes, challenge the people, but to create an experience.

where everybody has a good time, everybody's elevated. So that was my first thing. And then likewise with the band, the coolest thing about being a semi-rockstar in the 90s was having my friends and family who didn't have a talent, but I had to bring them along for the ride.

So when I was able to open for national acts or play mass shows, I loved getting my friends on the guest list, getting my family on the guest list. So it's always been for me about creating opportunities and loving on other people. I'm not saying that to be self-deprecating. It's almost a curse. My 18-year-old daughter has helped me figure this out.

Trev Warnke (16:23)

Thank

Joey Furlan (16:41)

personality and one of those need to be needing people. So it's not like, just so, you know, I need that, but that's what drives me is creating experiences where everybody who comes in contact with me, my band, my D &D game, my business is gonna have a wonderful experience that makes their life better.

Trev Warnke (17:00)

I love that because I think that the way you said the need to be needed, that's the superhero in us all, right? And so think every entrepreneur has a superhero inside them that wants to lead in the thing that they're special at, I think about it with my business partners is we're all alphas, but I'm the alpha of the alphas. And the idea is like...

Somebody's still going to lead the group no matter how strong your group is. And I can feel that same thing. It's like whenever they're weak, I want to pull them along. You might be weak here, let me pull you into those things. I love the way you said that. You pulled people along with you. My dad's built a big corporation. My siblings work for that. And I just took on a consulting role with them because my expertise in business over the last 15 years has grown so much that now I want help my siblings because I don't want to move back to Iowa and run and be the CEO of this major corporation. So instead I'm going to be a consultant because I want to bring my siblings along without having to

back to Iowa. Where they struggle, where I'm strong. Let me just continue to pull people along with me. I love the way you said that. That's the part where my brain goes like, whenever anybody says, why, you you couldn't cut these business partners out. have a business partner here and there. And it's like, I like pulling the right humans along with me, right? I always think like these people are good people that need somebody to just keep pulling along this journey. What makes Hair by Joey, like what makes you guys special compared to like other salons or.

Joey Furlan (18:10)

Thanks.

Okay, my favorite part of my business, Trevor is answering the phone. Now, what business do you have where the freaking CEO, top dude, with 5,000 active clients wants to answer every phone call? That's kind of weird, but it does set us apart because something I freaking hate is you need some shit done and all you get is answer machines.

That's so frustrating and having five kids like trying to book appointments and waiting for people to call you back and all that, I've always hated that. And I love making people's day as I mentioned earlier. So people are astonished when I pick up on the first ring. I mean, unless my wife's giving me that look, I'm picking up on the first ring. I gotta turn my phone off because I can't, I love it so much. Thanks for calling here by Joey. This is Joey, how may I help you? All my kids know that. So now my kids, when they're in the car and I pick up on

like silent on the set, phone call, they'll say it with me simultaneously. They think it's hilarious because the client's often like, what did I just hear? Like three or four people go, that's a circle on Here By Joey, this is Joey, how may I help you? Anyways, so that's a very unique point. Another unique point is I am an aesthetics guy. So when I created this space, the first Here By Joey I created in my home, it was a home salon.

Amy had a sort of aesthetic design that she liked and I dug it. It was kind of an Asian Zen thing and we began to quarrel a little bit about how exactly this would play out so she taught me and Irene a design person. 75 bucks an hour seemed insane to me back in 2006 but we paid this guy for 10 hours and he came and he brought templates, materials and things and so right from the get-go because that's how long it was built in the front of our home.

Trev Warnke (19:56)

Thanks

Joey Furlan (20:02)

Beauty was a huge component of the Hair by Joey deal. So when I launched my thing here, I could have gone some little mini mall. get it. Some people, all they have is five or 10 grand. They got to do the best they can. It's going to look somewhat generic and they can, you know, do some cool things. But I went in 40, 50 grand on that first space. with me and 150 clients, because I had that vision of what it could be. And then I probably did 70, 80 grand on our expansion.

which kept similar things but a slightly different color palette. And people tease me that I'm too feminine and floppy and gay because I'm not feminine, floppy and gay because I like aesthetics. Lots of people like aesthetics. And I think that's a huge thing. I've got...

themes like fountains, bamboo, bird of paradise, these become signature things that people connect with. In Studio One, it's all dark browns, coppers, golds. In Studio Two, it's lighter, sort of sandy colors, blues and silvers. So I don't accept a silver copy cup from Studio Two being in Studio One. It's like that needs to be in Studio Two. I have very strong aesthetics so people feel that way.

I think another thing that sets me apart is how happy my people are. Because I really don't give a shit about money. Beyond I need to be able to take care of my family. If I can take care of my family and take a little bit of vacation, money's not what motivates me. What motivates me is people being busy and people loving what they do. Because I've been given this gift where I get to pick the music, I get to pick the vibe, I get to create the whole environment, I work three minutes from home.

I want to give everybody who works for me as much of that as I can do. Just because I love them. If I hire you, I love you. You're now part of my inner circle and I want your life to be amazing. So a lot of places that where they're focused on money, they don't care about the people as much. I think you probably, it's a different feeling. When you come to Hair by Joey, you're working with somebody who's well taken care of and who knows their love. And the longer people work for me, the better.

seem to do. So that's pretty cool.

Trev Warnke (22:10)

Yeah, I mean, want to break

each one those apart because I think you said, I mean, they're amazing things. The first one is...

unique to entrepreneurship because I think most entrepreneurs, their first thing is they get out of sales. They instantly want to do it, even though the business coach in me would say, should stay in sales as long as possible, right? That's your money maker. That's the thing that grows. What's the thing that can move the needle the most? Sales. If you can have a low marketing budget, if you sell at a high percentage, you're going to do that low marketing budget all the time. can increase your marketing budget because you got to sell it. But most entrepreneurs naturally want to get out of that because they're like, I want to be more of the

recognition instead of the salesperson. So I love that because I encourage people to use it like, hey, this is the goal you need to take over more. I even, in my business, I answer all the emails and stuff that are from clients. I don't answer only one specific from clients because I want to give them that personal touch that I want to be able to this is, I'm going to go above and beyond. Yeah, I'm going to go above and beyond when I, like had somebody that had a software issue and the software issue wasn't our fault, it was the software itself's fault, but I re-reimbursed in three months. I mean, I didn't even ask for a reimbursement. just gave him three months worth of reimbursement.

Joey Furlan (23:12)

I had a gal call me two years after her service and said I was in there I heard you talking to the back room about how trashed my hair was and it really made me upset I didn't like it my hair broke off all that and I just said what's your address how much did you spend with us and I sent her a check because my late wife Amy she was a very fancy kind of

she worked for Starbucks corporate and she shopped at Nordstrom. She said Joey for him to do this we're gonna do Nordstrom level. I'm like what's Nordstrom level? She's like I can buy a dress at Nordstrom and go back five years later and return it and they would not care. The customer always right is taken way up to here and she says trust me every bad review every every complaint every issue if you just push a hundred percent for how can I make this better for this person from that deep heart

I still remember that gal's name, it's Swindleverse. I mean, two years, but still, it's little thing. Okay, you feel like you deserve this because you don't trash your hair or whatever, I'm gonna take care of you. And that's huge.

Trev Warnke (24:17)

In the world of...

more more businesses out there and bigger and bigger businesses. The one thing that separates every single business is true customer service. And the larger companies get, the worse customer service gets, right? And so these small entrepreneurs and small towns need to realize this is where I can win because I get one customer that loves me and then they tell 10 other people. And then my first question for you that has a recurring clientele, it's like, I'm keeping these guys forever because every single time we give them a great service, but also something goes wrong, I'm gonna take care of that.

another 10 years I can do hair for the rest of life. And then the sales side of it, they answered the phone call side of it, that's part of your guys' personality too. I'm saying the tone from the second they book their appointment that we're going to give you special attention.

Joey Furlan (24:52)

So.

I've talked to my marketing friends and they said, see Joey, the only thing is if you are the brand, it can only grow so big. And honestly Trev I don't care. I'm not trying to be a multi-millionaire. God's blessed my business way beyond what I thought it would be anyways. So it's all winning from here. You know, I heard a great thing the other day, you're either winning or learning. And man, that is true. I don't think I would, in five years, more than I've ever made in Seattle.

We doubled my Seattle best year last year on five years in.

Trev Warnke (25:34)

Too many many gurus go for scalability and I think scalability is a bullshit excuse for not doing work And so what I mean by that is like most people like how do I steal this faster? It means how I get myself out of doing the work, right? And I'm the opposite of like I'm also a person where money means nothing to me Where it's like I'm gonna do what's the best possible situation that I can make this business into money will come along the way ⁓

Joey Furlan (25:58)

I'm just like, oh my gosh. When I go

to business school, I just fumble along. But here's what I'm trying to say. I love people. That's something that you just... You know, anybody watching this, if you don't love people, it's going to be harder to be a successful entrepreneur. Because if what you're doing genuinely stands for love...

My experience has been, now you have to have some talent, I read tons of books and coaching and this sort of thing, but it's that heart of love for first my staff, then my clients. And you don't get that wrong too, you know? Because if you're going to have that attitude of, know, maybe some businesses are successful at treating staff with less care, but for me that's been a huge thing.

Trev Warnke (26:47)

Well, it's that idea that the client is always right and I don't believe in that. My staff is always like, I'm going to talk to my staff first. They're the ones I'm supposed to protect. That's right. And then I'm going to do my best for my client. Well, I got to protect my staff first and make sure because if I have this trust, they're the ones that are running my business for me.

Joey Furlan (27:05)

And if both people are kind of right, I just take the hit. What do I care about 150 bucks that I gotta refund to somebody? I don't take that out of my person's pay, go claw it back. I call them, I say, happened? And unless it's, man, I was really off that day. Because it's usually not that, there was some misunderstanding. And I say, okay, don't worry about it, I just wanna hear what happened.

Trev Warnke (27:27)

You're running a business great on that side and the aesthetic side I wanted to add in that too because

I would say a lot of businesses mess up that component. Maybe not to the level that you're going to, but when you walk into a space, any business you walk into, it's the impression of what the expectation is as soon as I walk in. I always think about this. Every business I walk into, how cluttered it is. I'm a very detail-oriented person naturally. And when I walk into a place, like, leaving my founding fathers over here. When I walk in, everything's in place. got everything at some points. And I love that as a person. When I walk in the door, it's the experience.

going to have from this point on, they're going to pay attention to the details and if now they're servicing me, taking care of me, the idea is like, there's detail. So I love that you're on point with that stuff. I'm a big brand new person on my marketing background and so everything, like you said, color wise, like when I do my Brotherhood brand, everything's always in these colors or when I'm our gym brand, everything in our gym matches that kind of stuff. On my marketing brand, all those different things.

Joey Furlan (28:28)

It's like cool when you walk into some place and it's got an aesthetic.

Trev Warnke (28:32)

It has a personality of its own. And that's where that brick and mortar side of things can take on a life of its own too. I'm not a, I own brick and mortar businesses, the gyms that I owned. I never owned a brick and mortar again after owning them because like just for me, my perspective is I wanted to be able to have a little bit more scalability, more flexibility, really. than scalability. That our gym didn't provide me that level. I still own those gyms, but it's the idea of like,

Joey Furlan (28:34)

Yes.

Trev Warnke (28:59)

The brick and mortar party creates own personality, whereas my marketing business, the personality is only me because otherwise it's the website. It's gotta be my personality. when the space itself can have this personality, it's another draw that pulls people. And the third component that you talked about was the customer service side. I'm not talking about customer service, take care of your staff side.

Joey Furlan (29:11)

That's right. Yeah.

Damn.

Trev Warnke (29:20)

I don't think anybody that has staff can overplay how important that is. It's like you talked about like the level of pay that you're giving them is probably better than most places around here.

Joey Furlan (29:29)

⁓

My people make two to three times what the average stylist makes in It's just that our deal is, here's our deal, I'm gonna hustle and do my end and feed you to clients and you're gonna kick butt with them and you're gonna get busy fast and you're gonna be as busy as you want to be for as long as you want to do hair. It's a pretty good deal.

Trev Warnke (29:35)

And that's why your brain, you didn't even make it.

Yes,

one of the things where I think sometimes the owner

The owner gap to the employee gap sometimes I found is too big sometimes when you look at people's businesses is the percentage that the owners taking home for the amount of business being done is almost too big a percentage I know almost entrepreneurs are gonna hate that concept, but that's what I look at when you have a staff Your ability to increase the amount of staff and make more money. You can always add more staff members They can't increase their pay without you making a choice to give them more so you should be giving that in my opinion ⁓

Joey Furlan (30:18)

right?

salons

in the industry start new people at about 28 % and then it scales up to maybe 50. I just start them at 50 and keep them at 50. I'm like at 50 I'm gonna work for you this ain't gonna be a great fit because that's just my deal. But I'm gonna start you at 50 and not only that I'm not gonna expect you to wander around here polishing shampoo bottles for no money. If you come to work for me you will be busy within six months and you will have life-changing money.

within a year, we'll be able to make a living in this town.

Trev Warnke (30:54)

And the

part that you're doing differently in most businesses is you're supplying the clients. There's a lot of businesses that you get paid this much, but then you gotta go find your clientele to then make money off your clientele. That's awesome.

Joey Furlan (31:04)

take

that responsibility on. spent probably $35,000 in marketing last year. There was a lot for a little small things alone, but the results speak for themselves.

Trev Warnke (31:14)

I

love the perspective that you brought in because a lot of people would have went into we do something special in our service and your thing was I don't do anything special like we are the best technician in the world. Your thing was like we take care of our people really well. Versus being like hey I'm really good at this technician thing which is not really that important.

Joey Furlan (31:32)

Now let's be honest here. I think I have incredible people, the best people, as Donald Trump would say. He's so good with his proletarian politics. But there's a lot of salons with great people, if we're being honest. So what sets us apart is how loved our people are. And people know when they work for me that that's what I expect them to push out of the clients. And that's what's different.

Trev Warnke (31:55)

I want to dive in next into your journey with the Lord, right? Like your journey into faith. Kind of tell me, because you found that church on Mars Hill. Found that church, from, give me a little bit of that journey of what's kept you along that path and then also move into Presgate, how that journey's continued.

Joey Furlan (32:01)

Mar- Marzo.

So Amy and I started dating and I would go in and on Sunday she was in church, you know, and so I would go in and I look at the sermon notes and think that's bullshit, that's bullshit, I don't really believe that. But this firebrand preacher, Mars Driscoll, who shout out to Mark, Trinity Church in Phoenix is where he is now.

He's still dying away. And what's interesting about Mark, people love him or hate him. He's a controversial character for sure. He's always treated me with love and respect. He and his wife showed up when Amy was dying and he had a church of 10,000 people and he spent time with me. He's a good man, but he's very controversial. But Mark, he's preaching the exact same stuff today with a couple, you know, he's a little more Holy Spirit.

these days, hands in the air type stuff, but it's the same message. Mark's always had a heart for families, particularly men. And so that was huge for me because my dad was very passive. He was a good man and stayed married to my mom's whole life, but he was what is called in Red Pill parlance, a beta. I didn't even realize there was such a thing. Until about 21, buddy Red Pill, you know, I'm like, shit, okay. So that,

you know, having that kind of church and somebody preaching me about truth and just no equivocating, know, heaven, hell, the whole thing, the Bible being true. And I began to meet Christians who are interested in cool things because it was a very cool church, interested in art and culture and music. My idea of Christianity was the stupid idea, the caricature of Christians that had been sold on Saturday night.

TV and all of the movies my entire life. Everything in our freaking life since 1969 at least when I was born has made an effort to lampoon Christianity and make it the church lady. know just that they're out of touch people. you know don't understand or embrace our culture, music, cinema, etc. And one of the really cool things about Mars Hill is that they were up for all of

So we would really have great debates and they were into reading all sorts of authors and everything, but alongside an absolute rock solid sense of the truth. So by the time Amy passed away in 2011, Marcel was beginning to have problems and the church blew up and Mark decided to move to Arizona and it was really like...

thing had always said is, it's not about me, it's about Jesus. So this whole thing blows up. Just look to where Jesus is and follow that. But to be honest, and I struggled to, I mean Jessica, who's my wife now, we struggled to find a church after Marcel because Mark was such a rock star guy and we were accustomed to that kind of preaching and teaching where it's just line by line going through the Bible, expositional.

through books of the Bible essentially with some topical stuff. So we came here to Prescott and we tried a number of churches. We were with the house church for a while but nothing quite clicked. And then my friend Ty Friedman invited me to the Orthodox Church, which is like right out of Lord of the Rings, man. It's crazy. It's the smells of bells and incense and the...

There's no instruments. And I thought this is weird. Two hour services. The Easter service starts at 11 p.m. and goes for three and a half hours. It's crazy. So, I don't know. It's a bit like dating a gal who's really different from your last girlfriend, but you keep wanting to hang out with her and then eventually you start falling in love.

And so we did fall in love with Orthodoxy. So we go to St. George Orthodox Church here in town. The community in that church is unbelievable. And certainly no diss to the Catholics or the Protestants, but the Orthodox Church is really special. And we got all our kids baptized there. But we kind of hung around the fringes for a while. But now my wife and I teach Sunday school in class, and I sing in the choir. It's a wonderful, church.

Trev Warnke (36:22)

That's awesome. it's everybody's journey to faith. So you have some people that they were raised, like their parents raised them along the faith. My parents raised me in terms of we had, were Lutheran growing up and like attended church.

on the main, the high holidays, right? But it wasn't like a big part of our life. But we lived Christian values, what I would consider Christian values. My parents are like old school in that way. And then it took me to go to college and I went to a Christian college and private college and then got more into Bible then. And then when I went back, lived overseas multiple times, got away from it, came back to it. And just that journey back and forth so many times. My wife, she's Jewish. And so we,

like they were our family's practice kind of stuff. Me and her kind of, we went through a understanding of my faith in Jesus, kind of went through that, and she converted to Christianity, and that's been our path together, can dive deep into our religious beliefs and our faith and that kind of stuff since then. It's been, God continued to like, it's one of those things, like, when I think about faith is,

God's always, always holding on our heart. It's just our ability not to listen. know what And that was for me, for me to just like, I would get there and I'd be like, this is exactly where I want to be. And then I'd get the world, things would come back. Business would come back. I'd be like, I'm going to travel so much. Sundays, I watch football. Like all these things would keep coming back into my life where I'd always be like, man, I've got to continue to get these worldly things out and put my faith into that. And it's just...

Any entrepreneur that's Christian that's like, I believe I'm a Christian but I just don't practice hard enough. It's like you're not alone. Most people struggle with that. The practice comes over time.

Joey Furlan (37:55)

Yeah, don't go for that. I just finished chapter 7 and 7 halfs eye, the effect of people sharpen the saw and get your freaking butt in a good church. I don't care if it's hard. Just starting with marriage, the divorce rate for nominal Christians is identical to the secular divorce rate. The divorce rate of practicing serious Protestants and Catholics drops it from about 52 % down to about 18 to 20%.

and not to brag, but the orthodox is about 9%. So it's just, it's not because there's magic here. It's when you're involved in a body of people that hold you to a higher standard. Because marriages are struggling out here. And when I talk to a guy who's not engaged in a church, it's not like church makes it perfect. Because just going to church ain't gonna do it. You gotta be connected. You gotta be connected with other guys.

because the enemy is out with knives for marriage right now in a big way. I don't know if it's always been this bad, but I know seven people, good Christian guys, all just... things are in a tough spot. And if you're not part of a Christian community, you're hitting that 52%. You know, those are shit numbers.

Trev Warnke (39:10)

Yeah, in gospel too political, but on the American side, they're not presenting the sense that marriage is good, right? it's like, Christians are being attacked, married couples have been attacked for many years now, right? Yeah. It's like, but just because you're being attacked, that means that's the time to stand up as a man, to lead your family. And the male speakers. Which makes no sense, because like you spend...

Joey Furlan (39:31)

The whole culture is against it.

Trev Warnke (39:35)

Probably until the 1970s. It was just like this is the family that we're building right and then 1970 or maybe a little before that all the sudden that shift happened and that's not us moving away from Christianity that's the world coming that's Satan taking his levels of control.

Well, I'm gonna kind of wrap up on that for the day. I appreciate the conversation. I can talk for hours and we're gonna talk more and more over time, but I really appreciate you telling us your story, talking about it. think all things you're doing are the right things. And I told you about that John Julius book. think that's gonna be like, listening to you talk, you're doing 95 % of what he talks about without ever reading his stuff. But the idea is like, you're on a great path. I love the journey you have. I'm gonna be taking your, picking your brain specifically about some of

Joey Furlan (40:13)

Yeah.

Trev Warnke (40:21)

adoption stuff and just like your story over time. So I really appreciate your time today.