Mikey and Rino from Manifesto, winners of Educator at the Modern Barber Awards 2023, reveal what it takes to become an educator in the barbering industry…
When did you decide to explore the education side of your business?
Rino: When Mikey and Corrado opened Manifesto we started to realise when we were employing people that the only thing they had learnt from their training was the trending cuts like a skin fade. We started to educate our team once a week and then created a course called Classic Now which teaches our barbers the ‘Manifesto way’.
Mikey: It was really important for us to teach our team to have the same kind of ethos and vision of Manifesto, which is a combination of barbering, hairdressing, and session work. This was why we created Classic Now. We’ve done it in-house and now we are sharing it.
What skills would you say you need as educators to make your course a reality?
Mikey: I would say one of the most important things is that you need to be approachable. You need to give off a certain energy where people feel like they can ask you questions, Manifesto really works on making sure we are seen and known as approachable people because that is important in education.
How did you start to put the Classic Now course together?
Mikey: One thing I learnt from my own education is that to be creative, you need to learn and master the classics. Once you’ve done that you can then be creative. Manifesto is a forward-thinking brand that adapts with change when it comes to trends, so our starting point was researching the haircuts we were doing with our clients and our models, then we came up with the six Classic Now haircuts.
Rino: We also wanted to teach our members of staff to be comfortable in adapting to what each client wants and know that they can pick it up from one of the looks we have taught them.
Mikey: We had a few evenings where we got the dolls heads and worked on the haircuts we wanted to do, the terminology and the technical points. We really wanted to focus on simplifying it and making it easy for us to communicate, and then I went off and worked on the head sheets for everything.
What experiences have made a big impact on you in a positive way?
Mikey: Somebody from our team, Dylan, who joined us, went through our education, and excelled and exceeded from it.
Rino: Another guy that doesn’t work at Manifesto anymore also made a big impact. He helped us realise that sometimes you can be too close to something, and it takes someone from the outside to inspire you. I asked him one day “Why did you join Manifesto?” and he said, “Because you cut hair so technically, but you style naturally” and that’s when we found the way to articulate our philosophy ‘Cut Technically, Style Naturally’.
What would your advice be to people who are considering building their own education programme?
Rino: Education is dedication. It’s not what you look like on social media. Sometimes, I call Mikey and I feel very tired but I’m still doing it because I love it.
Mikey: I think when you are teaching people, you need to make sure you are giving one hundred per cent, if you go into it half-heartedly, then it’s either going to be for you or not. If people are paying money to be educated and inspired, you need to be able to give time and effort. We’re constantly thinking about what’s next and how we can keep inspiring rather than doing the same thing over and over again.