Less than a decade ago, female club managers were few and far between. Now, they’re more prevalent than ever and enjoying success — enough that it’s impossible for the industry to not take notice. At the EXPO’s “Why to hire female club managers,” two current GMs — Spearmint Rhino’s Amanda Laine and 2024 GM of the Year Heidi Santanello of Diamond Cabaret — outlined the reasons why women may prove more effective than men as club managers.
(NOTE: This story appears in the November 2024 issue of ED Magazine.)
Editor’s note: This seminar was not intended to put down male managers but rather examine the growth of female managers in the industry and the different types of skill sets they offer that can complement a club’s operations. The following is an edited excerpt of that seminar.
Let’s face it: gentlemen’s clubs don’t exactly resemble the establishments that carved the industry on the map from the 1970s and ‘80s heydays. But, one common denominator between the titty bars of yesteryear and the clubs today? Women stir the drink.
Sure, as entertainers — that is indisputable. But, what has become more commonplace is women running the clubs themselves, sources of enlightenment rather than solely entertainment.
That was evidenced by GMs Heidi Santanello — eventual winner of the ED’s 2024 GM of the Year ED Award — of Diamond Cabaret, Sauget, IL and Amanda Laine of Spearmint Rhino in Lexington, KY. Both were speakers at the EXPO seminar on the importance of hiring female club managers. The seminar was sponsored by CWA Merchant Services and moderated by ED Publisher Dave Manack.
In addition to sharing their experiences, Santanello and Laine discussed advantages female GMs may have over their male counterparts, whether or not former entertainers can be successful managers and how to best integrate a female manager into your club’s operations.
Female managers are the best at what they do. They work harder. They understand the entertainers a lot better than the men do. They’re easier to work with, and they’re better at quelling problems that are in the club. … It’s really females that are making it happen.
— Jim St. John, as quoted by Manack to open the seminar
MANACK: When did you start your career in this industry and how did you get the idea you might want to transition to a managerial role?
SANTANELLO: I started in 1991. After 15 years, I decided I wanted to go in a different direction. My boss at the time approached me about becoming a server supervisor and working with the servers and doing all the training, which was a great skill set for me. I loved that aspect, and I did that for a very long period of time, and then gradually moved my way up, and now I am the GM of Diamond and it’s wonderful, and I love it so much.
LAINE: I started in college around 2006 and I never wanted to be a GM. I was forced into it (laughs) and it’s been great. It’s been a great journey and I’ve enjoyed it.
MANACK: What obstacles did you face, if any, when you decided you wanted to become a manager? Were there people that resisted it and told you you weren’t going to be successful? How did you handle those obstacles?
LAINE: I’d been a waitress, VIP host, manager. So, the front of house was easy for me. The back of the house — there were some learning curves with that, definitely, but Spearmint Rhino has a huge team … so they really helped get everything on the right path.
SANTANELLO: There are always obstacles. I think there’s a lot of jealousy also. I danced with a lot of young ladies, and all of a sudden, I moved up into a different position, and they didn’t. There’d be questions like, ‘Why did you get to do this? Why didn’t I?’ There were a lot of men in the same boat, questioning my promotion. You have to prove yourself and it’s the same for a man or a woman. There’s always going to be jealousy and people who think they deserve it more than you do. You have to fight for it and prove your naysayers wrong.
MANACK: What was your biggest challenge as a GM? How did you overcome that challenge?
SANTANELLO: No one ever said to my face, ‘You’re not going to be a good manager.’ No one ever did that. It was behind my back that people said, ‘She’s not going to make it. She’s too emotional. She’s not going to be able to do this.’ You have to have help. You have to have a huge team to get you there. I set goals for myself. I know what I want to accomplish in my life, and I’ve hit every single one of those goals so far. I know what I want to accomplish next year. I’ve already mapped those goals out and I already have a plan to achieve them. When you tell me that I can’t do something and that I’m too emotional and I’m not going to do it, I wake up every morning saying I get to prove this person wrong. I get to do what I love. I get to make people happy, and I get to do work. That was my main motivation: I’m going to prove you wrong. And I did.
It definitely changes the dynamic of the club. You have a mother figure now and a father figure. These entertainers are looking for guidance. We’ve always said, we’re their parent, their sibling, their psychiatrist, their life coach — just about everything that they need.
– Heidi Santanello
MANACK: What is it about women that maybe adds an element to the GM position that a man doesn’t bring?
LAINE: We’re women and we’re working with women. Men cannot relate to women in this industry the same way we can. Even with our dancers, or female staff, we go through a lot of the same things the other staff members or entertainers go through. We can empathize with them and relate to them and help them with firsthand knowledge on how to get through it.
SANTANELLO: I don’t think just because I’m a woman I’m going to be a better manager. I think it’s because I have a different skill set. I’ve dealt with what they’ve dealt with, especially as an ex-entertainer. I can deal with the fact that sometimes you don’t feel great when you’re up on stage and sometimes guests aren’t the nicest to you and sometimes you have bad managers. It’s not that they’re a man or a woman — they’re just not good. Like Amanda said, from a female standpoint, I think we can empathize with (female staff members) a little bit more. Sometimes they don’t like that because they don’t get away with as much. I think they think tears will work with men and the tears don’t necessarily work with Amanda and I.
MANACK: Can you talk about the relationships you have with entertainers and how that may differ from men and how that relationship may help the entertainer and club?
LAINE: Specifically with us, we have an all-female management group. We know them — they just don’t come to work. I feel like with some male managers, (the entertainer) is just a person in the building. We talk to them, we know what’s going on in their personal lives. We try to help them with goal setting, inside and outside of the club. They feel like they’re heard and seen. In turn, they feel good about themselves feel wanted and appreciated. So, they go out and they work hard for us.
MANACK: What’s the environment in a club like yours where all the managers are female? How does that differ from other clubs where that wasn’t the case?
LAINE: It feels like home. We celebrate everybody’s birthday, throw them a party. All of the female managers have good relationships with all the girls. You would think it would be very catty and full of drama all the time. But there’s no drama at this club. Everybody gets along, we all have mutual respect for each other and it’s the smoothest-running show I’ve ever seen.
MANACK: How does having a female manager in the club change the dynamic of the club?
SANTANELLO: It definitely changes the dynamic of the club. You have a mother figure now and a father figure. These entertainers are looking for guidance. We’ve always said, we’re their parent, their sibling, their psychiatrist, their life coach — just about everything that they need. That does change the dynamic, we bring a different attitude. I think the way we work and set goals as women tends to be a little bit different.
MANACK: In your experience, how as a woman have you been able to maybe de-escalate a situation with guests in the club that otherwise may have escalated?
SANTANELLO: There’s several ways to do it, but I’m watching everything and you can usually diffuse a situation before it starts. When it does start, if you walk up and smile at a gentleman, he’ll knock it off. I’ve often found one of the gentlemen is trying to showboat to another one and they don’t want to fight in front of a woman and they don’t want to punch a woman. You walk up, ‘One of you come with me, talk to me.’ The other tactic is questioning why are we fighting when there’s naked women here? That usually gets laughs and that ends it. We don’t have a lot of incidents.
MANACK: From when you started as a GM, how much growth have you seen in the industry with females in managerial roles?
LAINE: When I first started, we had one female and she did it short-term and went back to bartending. That was 15, 16 years ago. But up until the last four years maybe, I didn’t see any female management anywhere. It’s a huge process. People that are putting women into these positions are doing the right thing. It shows because those clubs that have female management are flourishing. This industry is based around women as a whole, so why not (put women in those roles)?
SANTANELLO: In 1991, I don’t think there was a female manager to be found. Amanda said the same thing, within the last four or five years, there’s been more and more female managers. I think a lot of it is the stigma of being a manager at a strip club isn’t as high as it used to be. When you say you work at a gentleman’s club or an adult nightclub, they immediately think you’re a dancer. When you say, ‘No, I actually run the whole thing,’ I have entertainers, servers, bartenders and other females coming up and saying ‘I want to be you. You’re my role model. I want your job.’ And I’m like, ‘Then come get it.’
