Dettie Panis: 25 years of making Leyteños beautiful

A HOMEGROWN beauty parlor in Leyte is doing probinsyanos proud for keeping them in step with the latest beauty and hairstyling trends in Manila. It also offers complete services that can be found in some of the best salons in the national capital. That parlor is Dettie Panis Salon & Spa.

The story behind the business’s success is as interesting as its owner’s who built her chain of salons from the ground up. Today, the salon has six company-owned branches and two franchised outlets. The Ormoc branch just celebrated its first anniversary last May 17.
 

Who would have thought that this mini-empire started at a home garage? Who would have thought that a simple desire to save on haircutting expenses would spawn a chain of salons where people from all walks of life run to in order to look and feel good? But that is exactly how Dettie Panis started out in the beauty industry.
 

It was 1987 and Dettie was on her 2nd year in law school at the now defunct Divine Word University in Tacloban, the capital city of Leyte. As a 30-year-old mother of four, she was enticed to enroll in a four-week extension class on haircutting at Leyte Normal College (now university).
 

Her reason for doing so was simple: to trim on haircutting costs. It turns out that a simple trip to the barbershop with her kids turned costly because they had to stop by for ice cream or other foodstuff. If she can do her kids’ hair, they don’t have to get out of the house, she thought.
The calling
 

Dettie never really thought of becoming a hairstylist, a field far from her degree in Commerce major in Banking and Finance, although she had an inclination for arts (including dressmaking) while growing up in Leyte, Leyte. It was also at that point when she was trying to carve her own niche.
 

It was just a year after the Edsa revolution and Dettie lost her job as an aide of the late Governor Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez, who had to step down from power. Going to Law school seemed to be the next logical step so she can join the profession of her politician husband, Atty. Peter Panis.
 

But now a new pastime caught her fancy so Law school had to take a backseat. She became a fast learner of haircutting that after the four-week extensive class, she flew to Manila right away  where she enrolled in classes on advanced perming and cutting as well as salon management.
 

Upon returning to Tacloban, Dettie buckled down to work and began her beauty parlor right in their home garage with only P1,500 capital. It was the best time to be in the business because of only few competitors. The people she met in her previous work along with the connections of her husband who went on to serve as city councilor for 17 years helped in attracting customers that the limited space at the garage soon wouldn’t suffice.
 

She opened her first real salon along the busy Real St. near her kids’ school to be close to them. But Dettie didn’t stop there. She believes beauty is a continuing evolution because of the changing her trends, reason why she continually attends trainings in Manila and abroad.
High level of professionalism
 

Dettie is the only stylist hereabouts who earned a diploma in Creative Cutting at Vidal Sasoon Academy in London and attended courses on classic and contemporary haircutting in Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur under Toni & Guy. She also attends an annual beauty convention in Hong Kong regularly.
 

Another success ingredient is the way she runs her parlors professionally. She puts a cap on the earnings of each branch to maintain service quality. For example, a gross income of more than P50,000 a day at her main branch in Zamora St., Tacloban means that the salon received more than the ideal number of customers.
 

This means its 24-man staff was overworked. This has actually happened which prompted her to open another branch in nearby Salazar St. to decongest the main branch. She would rather sacrifice income to sustain the market. But even that new branch was soon packed, resulting to the opening of another branch in Gaisano Central.
 

Dettie Panis Salon & Spa has now three branches in Tacloban’s downtown district that are just a stone’s throw away from each other. “Hindi naman kailangan malaki ang income everyday,” she says. “You just have to target a certain income in a month, say 10-15% to cope up with overhead.”
 

Straining her workers to earn more is a losing proposition because whatever extra money she makes will just go to the hospital if they get sick. This is also the reason why she maintains a workforce of 13-15 in one branch including janitors and two receptionists.
 

Being the most integral part of the business, Dettie believes hairstylists shouldn’t be made to clean the salon which is the responsibility of janitors. Receptionists are also important because they establish the first relationship with clients and give the first impression about the salon. They also schedule the customers and entertain demanding clients who don’t like to wait.Regular trainings
Many long-time regulars want Dettie to personally attend to them. But she assures customers they are in good hands with her stylists whom she teaches everything she knows. Her salon is the only one of its kind in Region 8 with its own training center accredited by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority where she sources her talent pool.
 

In the Ormoc branch for example where she stays three days a week, Sunday nights are allotted for the training of its staff. The gathering also serves as a meeting wherein they discuss problems that arise during the week and how to deal with them. But by sharing her skills to her employees, isn’t she worried some of them might start their own parlor business?
 

Dettie isn’t a bit bothered by the prospect. She is already considered royalty in the industry that the mushrooming of budget salons everywhere isn’t a problem. She even considers it a personal contribution to her workers’ growth if some of them decide to go on their own.
 

Competition has never been an issue for Dettie. During the early days, she was the only who was regularly stocked with salon products that even competitors from other parts of the region run to her. This arrangement prompted her to become a franchisee of Beauty Magic Marketing, a store selling beauty products and equipment for budget salons. It is run by eldest son Peter Julius and has branches in Tacloban and Ormoc, Leyte; and Catbalogan, Samar.Presyong probinsya
A fully furnished and well-decorated salon is indeed welcome in Leyte but many locals are intimidated, thinking its services are expensive. But Dettie assures that customers will get their money’s worth considering the quality products they use from Davines and also her own signature products not sold in other parlors. She only insists on using only organic products.

Moreover, prices of budget salons may come cheap but the services offered are mostly inferior. For example, foot massages in budget salons target only the feet that the customer will have to pay another fee to include the calves, leaving him paying more compared to the complete Happy Feet package with additional features offered by Dettie Panis spa.
 

Dettie further clarifies that her services are competitively priced with other Manila-based salons that have penetrated the provincial market. The blunder of these Manila-based salons is that they maintained their prices even on their provincial branches. A P1,500 hairstyling from these kinds of parlors costs only P950 in Dettie Panis salons.
 

Another mistake Dettie is avoiding is opening more branches than she can handle. Preparation for a new branch takes one to two years which includes hiring and training personnel beforehand who will be made to sign a contract on what branch they will be assigned to. In fact, Dettie thought of opening the Ormoc branch as early as 2006 but had to carefully study the market first. She spent P40 million for that particular branch.
 

At present, a Dettie Panis salon offer hair perming, hair straight therapy rebonding and Korean curls while its spa gives full body massage, Swedish, hilot, combination, etc. Her business will soon become a complete beauty company with the entry of her dermatologist daughter Dr. Yohann Kae Panis. They now have underarm whitening and will soon introduce laser skin peeling and slimming services.
 

Since she is constantly invited as resource speaker and demonstrator on starting a salon to students, Dettie also plans to turn her training center into a full-pledged beauty school not limited to her own salons. Meaning, even her competitors can source stylists from that school.
There are many ingredients to success but the most important Dettie cites is passion. “You have to be passionate in what you do,” she shares. True enough, there are many expert hairstylists who are not successful in the business as they go from one salon to another.
 

“An entrepreneur who is only after the business side of the industry without passion for the craft will not last for two hours inside a salon,” Dettie says. “He or she will easily get bored.” Dettie Panis Salon & Spa is preparing for its silver anniversary on October, a fitting celebration for an institution and the woman behind it who have kept the people of Leyte looking good. by Felix N. Codilla III

(West Leyte Weekly Express issue of May 14-20, 2012)