The VIP Suite at IMAGE Studios with Matthew Landis

Matthew Landis Introduces IMAGE Pro Academy: The Next Evolution in Salon Suite Education

• IMAGE Studios • Season 4 • Episode 38

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In this special episode of The VIP Suite, Matthew Landis and Kenzie Bowlby unveil the highly anticipated IMAGE Pro Academy, an all-new learning platform designed to empower independent beauty and wellness professionals. 

Discover how the Academy will offer shorter, more flexible live classes; on-demand learning modules; exclusive master classes with industry leaders; and a vibrant community forum. Matthew and Kenzie share their passion for helping Pros thrive, discuss the importance of understanding your “why,” and explain how IMAGE Studios continues to evolve to meet the needs of solo entrepreneurs.

 Whether you’re brand new or a seasoned pro, learn how the IMAGE Pro Academy can help you grow your business, stay inspired, and shape a fulfilling, sustainable career. Don’t miss the details on upcoming courses and how to sign up!

The VIP Suite is the official podcast of IMAGE Studios, created for independent beauty, health, and wellness professionals who want to grow their businesses and thrive in salon suite life. Hosted by Director of Education, Matthew Landis, each episode shares real success stories, marketing tips, and business strategies from top beauty entrepreneurs and wellness leaders.

This episode is sponsored by GlossGenius, the all-in-one salon software designed to help independent professionals book appointments, accept payments, manage schedules, and build strong beauty brands. Learn more at glossgenius.com.

Don’t forget to follow, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Connect with us on Instagram @imagestudios360 and visit imagestudios360.com for more information about IMAGE Studios luxury salon suites. New episodes drop every two week. Subscribe to hear how beauty and wellness professionals like you are building powerful, independent careers.

Matthew Landis:

Welcome to The VIP Suite, the podcast for Salon Suite professionals who are building bold, brilliant businesses. I'm your host. Matthew Landis, former salon owner, business coach and lifelong advocate for entrepreneurs in the beauty and wellness industry. Each week we spotlight industry MVPs, from hairstylists, estheticians, nail and lash artists and a wide array of solo entrepreneurs who are creating success on their own terms, you'll hear strategies for marketing, client, growth mindset and overall Salon Suite success, plus honest conversations about what it really takes to thrive. This season, we're going even deeper into growth, grit, community and all the messy magic that comes with carving your own path. So hit subscribe, turn up the volume and welcome to The VIP Suite where independent beauty and wellness pros come to shine. Well, I am so excited to be on the other side

Kenzie Bowlby:

Welcome back to The VIP Suite. This is Kenzie of the mic today. I don't often get interviewed, so it's really Bowlby. Here I am the Marketing one of our classes, read our fun to be here talking to you. And I, you know, I've been with IMAGE Studios since 2009 I had my own studio in Salt Lake City newsletter or join our webinars. You already know Matthew's for seven and a half years, and from the very beginning, as a passion for helping beauty, health and wellness professionals grow in thriving businesses, and today, we are company, we have always offered business and marketing education giving you an exclusive look at something brand new, the IMAGE to our pros, because we saw in the market, there was so much Pro Academy, our exciting new learning platform launching in January 2026 so Matthew, before we get into skills based education out there, how to do a great haircut, how to do a great facial or massage or micro what do you love most about working with our pros? needling, whatever it was, there's a ton of skills based education, but there really wasn't much in the way of business and marketing education, especially for solo entrepreneurs, especially for people that are self employed. Most of the the business education out there was really geared more towards traditional salons. So as a company, it's always been really important to us to be able to provide as many resources and tools as we can, for our image pros for our Salon Suite owners renters to be successful, because we know that if they're successful, we will be successful. And you know, we have nearly 2500 pros now, and it's just so exciting, because I think the number and quality of people that we attracted IMAGE Studios over the last 15-16, years has just been astounding to me. Thank you so much for sharing, Matthew, so you've been a part of the IMAGE family for some time. What's really kept you inspired throughout the years?

Matthew Landis:

Well, this company is always looking for and when I say this company, it's funny. It's not this monolith kind of thing. It's these really incredible collection of people. It's you know, a company, it's a collective of really brilliant, imaginative and creative people. And so what I love about this company and this group of people is always seeking to do better, to be better, to grow and evolve and to provide our pros with the most beautifully designed spaces, and also the kind being a part of this company for so many years, it's that really, that creative drive and that evolution that keeps me interested and excited about being part of it. We are really kind of on this evolutionary journey in this coming year.

Kenzie Bowlby:

I'd love to dive in more about how your own experience as a salon owner really shapes the way you You know, I had my studio there in Salt Lake City for seven and a half years, and I owned salons. I owned huge salons with 50-60, employees. They were commission based, so I was on the other side of that as well. And then I went to a smaller, more intimate model in a studio. And what I personally found was that smaller is better. When I left that the world of big salons behind what I found is I had a lot less stress and I made a lot more money. So I am a firm believer in this model, not only for making more money, but just personal satisfaction in general. And that's been my evolution. And then having my own studio, I really understand the challenges that come with being the business, not just working in the business. When you work for yourself, you are the business. And so I understand the joys of owning your business, the excitement of having that kind of freedom to do what you want. But I also know how challenging it is to not only be this creative, artistic service provider, but to also be the CEO, to be the the admin assistant, to be the marketing manager, to be all of those things in one that is a really tough road sometimes, and support that these independent beauty professionals today. it's a lot to take on.

Matthew Landis:

Before we kind of dive into all the fun, exciting updates we have in store, I have some lightning I would say super creative. I'll say super creatives. round questions for you. So what is one word you would describe an IMAGE Pro

Kenzie Bowlby:

I'll let I'll let it go. Love it. Absolutely love it. What would you say is the current song that's like this soundtrack to your life right now?

Matthew Landis:

Well, it changes all the time. You know, I love the new Taylor Swift album. I've been listening to that on repeat, but one that I go back to over and over again is express yourself by Madonna, because it's got a real punch to it, and it gets me going.

Kenzie Bowlby:

Now, if you were to give business advice in three words or less, what would you say three words or less?

Matthew Landis:

That's tough. Understand your why.

Kenzie Bowlby:

Can you dive a little bit deeper into the meaning behind that?

Matthew Landis:

Yes, we get so caught up in what we should be doing and what we think we need, like, I need to be better on social media, or I need to plan for this, or I need to do this, we sometimes forget why we're doing it. And if we keep come, if we understand the why it's something that we can keep coming back to, and it can inform the decisions that we make. So really understanding why did I go into this business in the first place? What keeps me showing up and what is my sense of purpose? And I think when you understand that everything else falls into place a lot easier. Yeah, absolutely. Having that sense of purpose really is a driving motivator for kind of the decision making and moving throughout life. So we forget. Sometimes we get we get so caught up in what we think we ought to be doing that we forget why we're doing it.

Kenzie Bowlby:

Thank you so much, Matthew, let's really dive right in. I'm sure everyone is eager to hear what we are here for the IMAGE Pro Academy. What is it?

Matthew Landis:

IMAGE Pro Academy is the evolution in our image pro success programs now, we have listened to what our pros have said they wanted, and we've listened to their challenges and pain points and how they want to access education, and we've really created this program around your feedback as image pros. And so one of the big obstacles is time. People said that, you know, I don't have time in my schedule. So what we've done is created more dates and times for those classes. We've also made those live classes shorter so they you don't have to invest as much time in those classes. And we try to get straight to the point, because we don't want to waste anyone's time. So we're offering more classes, shorter classes, and now we're adding master classes. So we're going to have a lot of great industry leaders, special guests, coming to talk about different things like goal setting and systems and wellness and all these wonderful topics that our pros have asked for. Our pros have also asked for more on demand education. So we're going to be adding on demand self guided learning lessons, which is really exciting, so people can access the education in their own way and on their own time. We've also added a community forum so people will be able to come together and discuss education and challenges that they're having with other pros in that community forum and just help build a stronger image studios collective. And so we've got some really exciting things coming down the pike. We've got round tables on taxes. We've got all sorts of fun things coming, and I can't wait to share it with everyone.

Kenzie Bowlby:

Super exciting. It sounds like we're going beyond the classes here. There's some additional features. So it's really going to be that all in one package, one stop shop for education for our pros?

Matthew Landis:

Exactly. We're trying to simplify things and put everything in one place so they'll be able to go to one place to find all of our digital downloads, our business models, all of the replays of the classes, a portal for The zoom classes. Again, that self guided education and a lot of other a lot more. So you mentioned we've been listening, and how would you say that this pro feedback that we've been receiving has really molded what the Academy will be upcoming? Well, we really do listen to our pros, and we take that feedback seriously, and we really love getting feedback. So I feedback is invaluable, and I really encourage our pros to reach out to us and let us know how we can help. And I have learned so much. I've been the in this role for about five years now, and I have learned so much from our pros, and really helps mold and guide our programs to meet those needs our pros have expressed. For example, one of the roadblocks to accessing our education that we heard was that it doesn't fit with my schedule. So we want to create education that fits with your schedule, so that you can do it in your own time and in your own way.

Kenzie Bowlby:

Now, would you say that this program is more beyond education, right? There's some there's some empowerment here for our image. Pros, what does it really mean to have empowering education as an IMAGE Pro. I love the word empowerment because we're not telling anyone how to do things or what they should do, because this is your business. We believe in creativity, freedom and success. So that freedom element to us is extremely important. How you run your business is entirely up to you. We want to just help provide tools and resources for you to be able to do that easier. So we take that very seriously, because we want you to be able to do things in your own way and operate your own business. So I will never tell you how you ought to do something. I'm just going to give people tools and resources that might help them do it better. So I know we've had business and marketing courses in the past, and something we currently offer, can IMAGE Pros expect those to evolve with the IMAGE Pro Academy?

Matthew Landis:

Of course, because the world keeps evolving. Some things stay the same, like for example, when it comes to marketing, referrals are still the number one way people get new clients. But when we think about marketing, for example, there's so many different tools and resources available to our pros, so it's important for us to stay up to date on those. For example, we're adding a course this year called Sweet intelligence, which is AI for the Salon Suite Pro. So how can you incorporate AI into your business model to help make things easier for you and move things along, provide inspiration for marketing, help you really target your ideal client, making sure that your marketing is more effective and more efficient and that your business systems are easier for you to manage.

Kenzie Bowlby:

I mean, AI is kind of everywhere nowadays. It's not all about just streamlining and efficiency. It's also something that can really save time on these bits that would take pros a lot of time before.

Matthew Landis:

You know, especially when it comes to marketing for me, for example, the hardest thing is to come up with new ideas is to come up with inspiration. And so I use AI a lot to help me really get inspired and to come up with new ideas and to just make things move a little bit quicker and easier for me,

Kenzie Bowlby:

I will say that I am also a proponent of AI and using it for that brainstorming that's usually some of the longest bits that I spend when I'm thinking of content. So some

Matthew Landis:

People think AI might stifle creativity, or that it takes away that sort of originality. But I find it to be the opposite, because I use it in more of like a brainstorming session that I would do with somebody else. So I really think of AI more as a personal assistant, not as somebody who is doing my job for me. It's also taking up a lot of the tasks that I don't really enjoy doing and that take up a lot of time, and it's just moving things along a lot faster.

Kenzie Bowlby:

So you've mentioned some of the new features that we can expect with the image pro Academy are going to be some master classes and on demand courses. Can you dive into what those are exactly and how they're going to be a little bit

Matthew Landis:

different? One of the classes that I'm most

excited about is Goal to Grow:

SMART Goals with my friend Mireya Villarreal. She is the founder of Pink Pewter. If you go to pinkpewter.com you can find out what she's about. She is an incredible industry leader. She's doing very similar work out there, and really trying to empower pros all the way from Beauty School to people that have been in this business for decades into running their businesses and continue to be inspired. And so she's going to be joining me Wednesday, January

28 for that Goal to Grow:

SMART Goals with Mireya Villarreal. And so that's a really exciting master course to really dive into that. Why? Why are you doing what you're doing? And what goals do you have? If you don't know where you're going, where do you even begin? And so we're really going to help get more focused on the direction that we want to be going with Mireya.

Kenzie Bowlby:

And with these on demand courses. Is this something that our pros can complete on their own time? What can we expect inside those courses?

Matthew Landis:

So the on demand courses are coming in February of 2026, and we're very excited about that. For example, the first course that we will be uploading is our raising prices for the Salon Suite Pro. So our pros can go to that learning management system that we're going to be providing, and they can do that at any point in their journey. If I'm always thinking about my prices, I'm always thinking about raising my. Prices. So at any point when I have questions or I want to go through that process of trying to decide what my prices should be, how much I want to raise them, when I should raise them, and then really implementing those new prices, I can go to that on demand, Learning Library, and I can take that course at any point. I can take parts of it. I can go back to it for reference at any point, and I've broken it up into smaller chunks so that you don't have to watch an hour long recording. For example, you can just go back to a three minute video or a two minute worksheet, or whatever it is that you can access in your own way and get whatever you need out of it to help move you forward.

Kenzie Bowlby:

Absolutely, these online courses seem like they'll be very bite sized and digestible for anyone to just go back and refer to if they need a little quick refresher.

Matthew Landis:

That's also just going to be fun. I mean, there's going to be fun activities and ways to really sort of stimulate your brain, because I've been an educator now for 25 years, and I know that we all learn differently, so we want to be able to provide these learning opportunities in different formats, one that will hopefully speak to each person.

Kenzie Bowlby:

All right, Matthew, we've spent some time talking about what exactly our pros can expect from the image pro Academy. Let's dive a little bit into the why. So for someone who's brand new to running their own suite, how will this help them?

Matthew Landis:

So anyone that's brand new, or anyone that's been in the industry for many years, there's there's going to be something with image pro academy that I think that all of our pros will find useful for So for somebody new that starting out or new to image studios, we want to help you be successful on day one. We want to help give you the tools to really make you shine, and to help scale your business and to be able to look at the end of the day, my biggest goal is for you to make more money so that you can have more time for the things in your life that you love, and that's what it's all about to me. Let's make this easier. Let's make the most amount of money, doing the least amount of work and having the most fun that we can so that we can enjoy all of the aspects of our lives. And that's really the that's my why.

Kenzie Bowlby:

And for a seasoned pro who's busy and has maybe already found some success with their business, why would they care or sign up for the image pro Academy?

Matthew Landis:

You know, I've been in this business for 30 years, and I love education, because I get bored easily, and so sometimes I just need a little inspiration. When I was working in my studio, I love what I do. I loved doing hair, for example, I'm a hairdresser by trade, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't get burned out once in a while, and one of the cures for burnout for me was growth and education, so going back and learning new tools or looking at something from a different perspective. Really, it's something that helps keep me going and help sustain that, because that's the other side that we don't talk about, is sustainability. Sustainability is kind of a boring topic for a lot of people, but we really want you to be able to have a successful career, a sustainable, long, exciting, fun and fulfilling career all the way through, even after, because one of the things that we provide is our retirement planning. We have education and things to help set you up for after your career. We want to make sure that you have a fulfilling life now and later. So we want to help you plan for the future. And so that retirement workshop and those retirement pieces are also some really fun and exciting things to think about what's next, because there's always a what next, and we want people to be able to think about that and plan for that and get excited about it.

Kenzie Bowlby:

I'm sure everyone's eager to learn. How can our pros get ready to sign up for the IMAGE Pro Academy?

Matthew Landis:

Well, the first thing we're going to be doing is launching our new courses in January so they can register for those courses. We have SUITE INTELLIGENCE: AI for the Salon Suite Pro, We have SMART Goals with Mireya Villareal coming at the end of January. We have our Onboarding Course, and of course, we have our Raising Prices Workshop, and then we have more courses coming in February and March. Then coming in February, we will have our on-demand library going live on our on our site. So we're very excited about that. So to start, start with those live courses in January, sign up for those, and let's get you going.

Kenzie Bowlby:

Awesome. And what's the best way to stay in the loop about all of these classes and updates as we roll out the IMAGE Pro Academy.

Matthew Landis:

The best way to stay in the loop is to check your email every month for the IMAGE Insider, which we spend a lot of time putting together and getting you excited. But really the best way is to follow us on Instagram at @imagestudios360. That's the best way to stay up to date. There's also a link in our bio to sign up for the courses, and so we'll always have that information available to you through our Instagram account @imagestudios360.

Kenzie Bowlby:

Matthew, thank you so much for doing this interview. The new IMAGE Pro Academy sounds like a game changer. And to our listeners, watch your inbox and of course, our social channel. Details for sneak peeks, all those registration details and all of the opportunities ahead, the all new IMAGE Pro Academy again, with our courses launches in January and the on demand following shortly in February. And trust me, you are going to love what's coming.

Matthew Landis:

Kenzie, thank you so much for this time today. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to The VIP Suite. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and follow us on Instagram @imagestudios360 for more inspiration from our community of independent beauty and wellness pros interested in renting your own luxury studio or becoming a franchise owner, visit imagestudios360.com to learn more and take the next step toward building your dream business. Until next time, here's to beauty, health and wellness and building the life that you want you.