Meet Char Molique of Madison Avenue Salon in Granada Hills

Thanks for sharing your story with us Char. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
This is a family owned business. Char Sheri and Madison Thank you for choosing us!
My sister Sheri and I begin doing hair together 30 years ago. . We began working by in a salon while we traveled the states educating in other salons to hairdressers.  I  taught beginner and advanced courses on cutting skills and Sheri educated people on color correction and  chemistry. Together we build champions hairdressers.

Then in 1996 we bough our own salon and built up our own amazing team of solid hairdressers.  We named our new salon after my daughter Madison who was 1 year old and is now 24 years old.

Other salons ask… how do you find such great stylists, how do you keep them for so long and how do you stay so busy.

We tell them that we hand pick people who are open minded and want to learn from the best. We pay it forward, give back to our industry by teaching everywhere we can.  and we get involved in our community. We stay positive, continue our education and most of all we listen to your team.  Our team becomes our forever family.

To this day … My sister and I go to the all of beauty schools and teach our craft to open minded students. We inspire them to be the best versions of themselves and we know that the schools know us well enough to  recommend us to the students who are graduating. We inspired these open-minded hairdressers to come let us mentor them.  Once they come to us, we start them on an hourly rate assisting us for 1-2 years. Then once they are ready, they get their own chair right next to me and all of the walk in clients go to them so they can build their own business.  While sitting next me I continue to guide them while on a commission pay schedule. (We don’t let them fail) We are known for raising our newbies into strong business people.  Once they are making a steady commission for a whole year, we then put them on a rental agreement and they become their own boss inside of our salon.  We have done this for last for 24 years.  This amazing system works for the all of us.

COMMUNITY is . We get very involved with our community. One way we get involved is by giving away our service (free gift cards) to parents who love to do fundraisers for their children. We do this with Church’s, Schools, Cancer walks, Synagogue, Teams, other Businesses, Corporations, and Our Chamber of commerce. We believe that when parents go and pay for things for their children at a fundraiser, they care about the kids.  That is the clients we want in our chairs. Once they get one free service from us … they never leave us.  They become a client for life because we cared about their kids and because we are all amazing and well educated stylists.  This is how our business took off from day one. We got involved with our community and from saying YES !  24 years later we still do this.

Our team is the most educated group of hairdressers in the world.   We raise them to be their own boss ( business people ) who happen to be well educated in our industry and love what they do.

We lift others up. We inspire them to be the best version of themselves. We believe in people. We mentor people everyday because we believe in people and in our system.

Today my daughter Madison also works with us. She has been working here for 5 years and is extremely busy.  Yes we put her through our system just like everyone else. Actually she was born into this business.  As of this year Madison and her best friend Katie began their own business outside of the salon.  They go to festivals and set up a booth and braid the most beautiful braids ever seen. It’s a work of art. Check them out @sugar.braids on Instagram or @madisonavenuesalon

Everyone at the salon supports each other. We love and support our team because they become our family.

We are known for our mentorship program, our integrity, character and being no-nonsense bosses.

We had 7 people leave us last month to  start their own salon. Each of them wrote letters full of gratitude to us for teaching them all that we know and for belonging to a strong family business ♥️

All we ask from our stylists is to be willing to learn. We teach them that hair is everywhere. Hair is like sand on the beach … it is everywhere… there  is no reason not to be successful. We teach our team to greet people with a hug or a hand shake. We do this because we are about to change their lives in the next few hours, so we must connect and make a great first impression. We give them the best haircut, hairstyle and color of their life.  Their new style is always something that fits the balance of their face shape and skin color. We have an in-depth consultation, with a positive attitude and good energy.

Has it been a smooth road?
Of course there are obstacles and struggles.  When a group of people leave our salon it takes time to rebuild even with a system in place.

When the economy crashed we downsized to a smaller salon with less overhead and asked our renters to share stations so that they could afford to all stay together in the new smaller location. We also cut back on lights bulbs and we became very conscious of our water usage. We are still conscious.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Madison Avenue Salon – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
What sets us apart is our education and dedication to our team and clients. Our education is always current and on point.  We cut hair with five different scissors, razors and clippers.  We believe that you cannot build a house with one hammer nor can you build a haircut with just one tool. Our color chemistry is brilliant. We have our mixing kitchen in the center of the salon so that the clients can see what we’re doing and our confidence behind it .  There is no guessing with our hair colors.  We inspire other hairdressers to become great! We help new stylists to get on their feet at become fearless through education. We are a strong business minded FAMILY.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?

I love our little Christmas parades, the Cancer events, The October festival in the middle of Chatsworth Street.

What I absolutely love best about this community is that when a new business opens … all the other businesses support them especially in the world of social media

I have a lead that inspiration and other business have followed.  We welcome and talk about others in our community on our social media stories.  When we all connect and support one another in our community especially all of the new businesses. … we flourish !

I have no negativity for my community . I lead with positivity and if something goes wrong in my city, I get involved and help correct the situation. Getting involved is important . Be the change you want to see is our way of thinking.