This post may shock some of you. It may throw you into an irate, foaming mouth rampage like never before, but I encourage you to just hear me out before you launch into a firey attack. I have a theory about all these people on social media who have unrealistic expectations surrounding pricing in our industry and it starts with us (hairdressers) about 10 - 15 years ago. It was around this time that people started setting up home salons. Before that, some hairdressers would cut family and friends hair in the kitchen. It was a social, family affair and your brother was probably out the front giving your car an oil change as payment. It wasn't a "business", it was just what you did. (Not me though. I've NEVER done hair at home. It gets everywhere.) Suddenly, hairdressers decided to set up a little salon at home. With 1 chair, a portable basin, in a garage, spare room or even a laundry. Things have changed now and there are loads of these set ups. There's generally 2 types of home salons and they are made up from the 4 assumptions below. Some are fancy and some are not. Some are legit and some are not. Let me ask you this; Would you respect and maybe even have something done by a plastic surgeon who conducted surgery from his home, even though he had a fairly swish set up? No? What about having your car spray painted by someone who did all of his work in his shed out the back of his house? No? What about a sandwich shop, restaurant or a cafe that operated from their own home? Hhmmmm.... No again huh? If you are COMPLETELY honest (even if it's hurting you to do so) you would not expect great, professional service from any of the businesses I've mentioned above. And even if you did take your business there, you'd be expecting a bargain basement price. I'm not saying that they wouldn't offer a brilliant service or that home salons are dodgy hairdressers because, that is simply not true. Some are AMAZING hairdressers and so professional. But once the salons went home, it changed societies opinion of our industry. All I'm saying is that, it has lowered people's perception of our value as professionals. I own a salon in a suburban part of Sydney with around 12,000 residents, 4 salons, 1 barber shop, 1 bank and a little supermarket. In my small town there are over 10, (TEN!) of these "home hairdressers." They don't affect my business as we are a professional shop front, have had between 20 and 30% growth in turnover year on year for the past 5 years. In fact they give us a few clients, when the outcome isn't what was expected and we fix it. But where they do hurt us is that they are dropping the professionalism of the industry. When people can get haircuts for $10 or $15 or a "full head" of foils for $50, it confuses clients by not creating "worth" in our industry. It's allowed 1st, 2nd and 3rd year apprentices to do hair from home and it's socially acceptable. Well, it's not! You then have the other home salons that have set up at home because of having kids or shit bosses or want to be their own boss but can't open a proper shop front due to lack of money, time or know how. These guys are lowering the standards by simply having a home salon. No matter how fancy it is, or how amazing or how many chairs, you are still conducting a paid "professional" service at home. As stated above with other professions, whether you wish to admit it or not, it's hard to respect a "profession" that is done in a spare room at home. Or worse. Your shed. Somewhere, the line between hobby and professional salon have been blurred and what is suffering is the respect in our industry. So when you have someone on social media asking for bridal hair for $30 or a haircut for $10 or a colour correction for "cheap, less than $80".... All that started when hairdressing went home. Do you pay for your teams education? Or are you a stylist that pays for any extra education out of your own pocket? If you are either of the above, where you spend this budget is imperative to the success you gain from it. In any investment into your business, you need to ask "What is my return on investment?" (R.O.I.) This term is often used when talking about marketing but it should also be applied when discussing any investment into your business or your career, especially education. In my opinion, you need to invest where you currently make the most money. Take my salon and its turnover for example. - 73% comes from colours and colour packages - 22% comes from haircuts and blow-drys - 5% come from up styling, perms/sets. This information is available to us from our salon computer software system and is based over a 3 year period. If you have a computer system, reports like these are vital when it comes to running your business. They give us an idea of what OUR clients WANT. From these numbers, clearly we make most of our money from colour work. So this is where I spend the majority of my education dollars for my team, as the return on my investment is greater than if I sent my team to up styling or perming courses. If the majority of your income comes from extensions or up styling, send your team to courses in those areas to increase knowledge, ability, speed and competence. There are always a lot of up styling and extension courses advertised at various wholesalers and on social media. These types of courses make us FEEL like hairdressers and a lot of stylists love it. But if it's not what your clientele is after, you are throwing money down the drain! If you specialise in up styling or you wish to, then by all means go ahead but view the facts first. Do your research. Where does your turnover come from? What do your clients want? What makes you the most money? At the end of the day, as a salon owner, you are in the business of making money. Your profits need to be spent wisely and in areas that are only going to give you a HIGH return on investment. Don't throw your profits away. Imagine, walking past that awesome clothing or shoe shop and everyone inside looks as cool as ever... The staff are talking and laughing among themselves. You stare in from the outside, your anxiety rising. You want those shoes for the party on the weekend!!! You are going to have to go in… You walk in and the staff stop talking immediately and stare at you! (HOLY CRAP!!! I’ve interrupted them!) “Yes?” One staff member asks. “Uuuummmm….” (I feel so embarrassed! They’re all just staring at me! Run! RUN!!!!!) Ever had this experience? At least once I bet! Did you know that this is why 85% of people HATE walking into a hair salon they haven’t tried before and so stay with the salon they currently go to... Unhappily! They feel like the nerdy kid in school trying to approach the cool girls to be their friends. WHICH IS CRAZY!!!! No wonder it’s so hard to get new clients when we create barriers for them on our own!!! There should be 5 NON-NEGOTIABLES that happen in your salon: 1. Team members should not congregate together on the salon floor or in the back room. A single animal in the wild would never approach a pack alone. 2. All “non salon” chat should be left till “non salon” hours. 3. Don’t leave your salon empty of all staff. A potential client needs a target to hone in on when they walk through the door. 4. Every client that enters the salon should be greeted with a friendly “Hello” by all staff members within ear shot. This includes eye contact and a smile. 5. Never make a client wait! Not for your greeting or your conversation. The more your conversation flows, the more comfortable they will become each second. Remember, your salon feels like your home to you and your team. It also feels like YOUR home to any new potential clients! They wouldn’t feel comfortable walking into a stranger’s home! So greet them with a warm welcome and make them feel special, warm and included, like they have made the best decision of their life stepping through your salon door. We all love a good transformation but why I love this one is because it's all done with 1 colour line. RPR My Colour. The starting colour was a blend of tint on top of tint and in the ends was a favourite.... DIRECT DYE!!! 😫 The goal was to get her to a balayage/root stretch look with grey or pastel violet... Of course in one go. I told her during consultation that I doubt it would happen without compromising too much of the fabric of the hair but we'd do all we could to protect it with Olaplex. However she may need to lose a few centimetres anyway as it'd been AGES since her last cut. I also advised that she needed to give me no time limit or budget limit. She said "OK!" Happy days! 😎 We used RPR lightener (bleach) with 30 vol and Olaplex. We applied roots to ends in fine sections and laid them in foil to keep moist. After processing for 60 minutes, we then reapplied with 20vol and RPR lightener with Olaplex all the way to the scalp and again through to the ends. Processed for a further 40 minutes. All up, we were able to lift her to a level 10. After lightening, we applied the first gloss. We wanted to get a slightly darker look through the root area so did a root stretch. Using RPR My Colour, we mixed for the root area 32 mls 9.12 + 3 Mls violet concentrate + 5 mls LS (light silver). Then for the mid lengths and ends 32 mls 10.12 + 3 Mls violet concentrate + 5 mls LS (light silver). This first one was to neutralise and yellow in the hair so when we did the final colour, it didn't go green. Processing time was 30 minutes. This was after the first gloss, the condition was Oh Kay..... But not the best, especially the bottom 3cm. BUT, we still hadn't applied Olaplex step 2. The second gloss, we again used RPR My Colour. We mixed 20 mls of 8.12 + 15 mls 9.111 + 2 Mls violet and 3 mls LS plus 60mls 5vol for the root area. Then for the mid length and ends 10.12 + 15 mls 9.111 + 2 Mls violet and 3 mls LS plus 60mls 5vol. We processed for 30 minutes. We love using concentrates. It really kicks your colours up a gear. After processing the second gloss for 30 minutes, we rinsed well and applied Olaplex step 2 for 20 minutes.
The hair tightened up and felt amazing! 😍 Check out our results. Our client was so impressed and after a little over 5 hours, her hair felt great, the condition was great, her hair was at her goal and she was loving herself stupid! We were so pleased with the results. I love RPR My Colour for work like this, they are so cool! No warmth plus, once you get confident and you add the concentrates, it's amazing for colour corrections. And all in one day! Happy Days! - Cassandra With all the pastels going OFF right now in fashion, your salon should be pumping them out. Light pastels, dark pastels..... All things pastel. There are the obvious ways of doing them. You know, like prelightening to as close to white as possible then applying a Pravana or one of the other similar brands on the market. But if you have a complete colour range in your salon, you should have a handful of concentrates collecting dust. I've seen salons only using concentrates to intensify violets and reds, or 99% of the time NOT USING THEM AT ALL! So I come to you with a totally cool and easy idea for you to try. Below you will see our before image. This client had been having foils but being at uni, we started softening her colour into balayage. This client loves the dusty, pastel purple/violet look and we wanted to work with the existing colour so didn't want to lighten any more. We chose to do a one step, full colour using 10vol, minimising regrowth but giving longevity to the colour. Here's our formulation and the thinking behind it. Using RPR My Colour we mixed in the one bowl 45 grams of 9.12 (ash/pearl) as we didn't want to lose any lightness (even though this client had from level 6 - 9 throughout her hair). We then added 5 grams of LS which is a light ash/silver concentrate, to numb out any warmth. Then we punched 3 grams of violet concentrate in for some pastel perfection. Then, as RPR My Colour is 1:1.5 mixing ratio, we added 79.5 grams of 10vol and Cureplex to protect the hair. We applied only to the lightened section of the hair, so basically, we kept the application 3 - 4 cm from the scalp and off the clients natural regrowth, but if it did overlap it was no big deal as it mainly added reflect. After application was complete, I went through and slid/pulled the colour off 4 or 5 super small sections through the top (half a cm wide or less) to give a little more dimension and texture to the finished colour. Processing for 20 minutes while eagerly awaiting the outcome was the hardest bit!
🙄 Seeing the clients face was perfection. She felt hot and sexy and the colour still looked fabulous 6 weeks later! The dustiness of it and the pastelising was perfection. Even as it fades, it will fade well and as no more prelightening was required, minimal stress was put on the fabric of the hair. This is any easy process and all up only took 1 hour and 15 minutes. (20 minutes for consultation, mixing and application + 20 minutes processing + 10 minutes rinsing and Cureplex step 2 + 25 minutes for drying off, waving and finishing). Just remember..... Your concentrates are for more than just adding some kick to a vibrant red. Play. Create. Enjoy. Fall in love with colour all over again. - Cassandra Why sell retail? Because you’re a professional! You shouldn’t be recommending any colour work you are doing in your salon if that client is going to go home and use a $2.00 shampoo and no conditioner on their hair! This SHOULD be part of your service! Ask every client: “So, you say your colour fades?" "How often do you shampoo and condition you hair?" "What do you use?” Clients are buying their hair products from somewhere, so why not from you? You can start by aiming for 10% of your total sales coming from retail sales alone. Most retail efficient salons will have retail sales at around 20% of their total sales. Some of the best are up near 35% and are able to cover their salon rent/mortgage from their retail sales alone! Here is a 5 step process to making a retail sale. 1. Consult the client about what they are currently using and what they like/dislike about the product. 2. Select the item/s you are going to recommend to them and place it on the station bench in front of them. 3. Explain to them the features and benefits they will receive when they buy it and none of the other crap. They don’t care if it has drops of lemon juice infused with unicorn horn! Or a fart from a pixie and blood from an owl sacrificed under a full moon! All they want and need to know is WHAT IS IT GOING TO DO FOR ME AND HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO COST? This is what the client wants to hear from you. “You said your hair was super oily and you are shampooing each day. This shampoo is lemon based for lifting and removing all that oil, which will help keep it oil free for longer. So your blow-dry will stay super sexy and not go all flat and limp LIKE YOU SAID IT DOES after you put in all the work to get it looking fabulous!” 4. Tell the client the TOTAL price of their visit today including the shampoo. Most people know their total available dollar amount before they enter. If their service was $60 and the shampoo is $25: “Your total today is $85 including your shampoo, cut and blowdry AND your new shampoo to take home.” 5. CLOSE THE DEAL! “How does that sound?” “Would you like a bag?” Total up the whole amount for services and any recommended retail and say “That will be $232 including your Shampoo and Conditioner.” These are all retailer tricks to get the clients sale. Be confident. Assume that they are buying it. Why wouldn’t they? It’s the best! And that’s how you sell retail in 5 easy steps! This is to all the businesses that love to learn. We have a very successful Facebook page here... We are the largest independent Facebook page for the Hairdressing industry in Australia. We love learning and have attended lots of seminars with Sydney Uni and had the pleasure of networking with some of the "most influential people in social media" according to Forbes Magazine. So I'd like to share 2 of my faves with you. Unmarketing. Scott Stratten is the president of Unmarketing and the best thing about him, besides his snarky, cheeky humour is that he tells you how NOT to market. There are a million books and web sites that tell you HOW to market your business but after a while, they seem to be confusing, annoying and all preachy preachy. Scott is a no bullshit guy with a lot of smarts about him. His pod casts and his books are hilarious and we have learnt many things from him. He is motivational without being cult like and he talks like a "real person". Not a business bore, banging on about blah blah blah. Check out Unmarketing on Facebook and like their page. They have a website, blog and podcast but it's easier to keep up with them starting with liking their Facebook Page. Perfect for those planning to grow your BUSINESS as a whole and learn how NOT to market. Short stack. Short stack is a fab Facebook page, website and blog as it talks to you in real people words about the constant changes to Facebook. They also communicate, how to get around their new algorithm's. Eg, how to keep your likers seeing your posts without always resorting to Paid Ads with Facebook. Short Stack have hot tips constantly for creating content and engaging your audience. They update their content as soon as Facebook changes any of their stuff. They will teach you how to beat Facebook at their own game by keeping your posts "newsfeed worthy". We get asked a lot about tips we have for planning, setting up and/or opening a new salon/business. Here are our top 6 things you should do when starting a new salon. 1) Have a contingency (extra dollars, generally 10% of your total budget) in your set up budget just in case there are hidden costs. Things like bonds on electricity and phone connections are often not known until you try to connect. A contingency will help even just to cover costs until people start stepping through your door. 2) Marketing. Have a good, strong marketing plan that you begin to implement BEFORE your doors open. Plan and implement your ongoing marketing AND NEVER STOP! Don't forget to include marketing and advertising in your budget from the start. People don't come in to a salon because you have expensive, fancy massage basins. They come in because you have marketed to them. They return to you because you delivered a great service and you continue to market to them! 3) Make sure all your council permits are in place. 4) Keep EVERY SINGLE receipt and set up simple record keep from the start. We recommend a good quality software system that can manage your appointment book and all your expenses. (Reviews to come) 5) Join Hair And Beauty Australia, especially if you are intending on hiring team members. They will keep you informed of all the latest information, laws and pay rates. They will also go in to bat for you if things do go sour with an employee. They can help with contracts and legal information surrounding them. 6) Have fun, focus and trust your gut. You are now not just a hairdresser! You are suddenly SUPERHUMAN! You are now a BUSINESS OWNER so please, behave like one and follow our tips. Your job is now not just cutting hair. Your job description now is; - Head of Marketing and Advertising - Accounts and Payroll - Business Manager - Complaints Manager - Financial Planner - Educator and Trainer - Stock Controller - Customer Service Manager - OH & S Officer - General Cleaning and Maintenance Officer Once you forget one of these, your empire will crumble. This is now your job description. Welcome to the game! You've heard the old theory that once you have a client visit 3 times, they are yours for life! BULLSHIT! You constantly have to work at it.
Clients aren't as loyal as they used to be. SOME ARE, Yes! But not the majority!. I'm not telling you to discount and all that other rubbish that people thinks goes into a clients decision making process because that's NOT how you get AND KEEP the good ones. If you saw our blog "Marketing Part 1 - Referral Programs", you're a champ and this is step 2 in our marketing series. If you didn't, click above to get with the program. .Here we go.... You got them into your salon for the fist time. Yay! Go you! Now you have to keep them! Hopefully, you have a highly competent salon software system. (If not, we will be blogging about the best ones very soon). If you don't have a computer system, unfortunately there's not a lot of easy, fast, cheap and free marketing you can do simply. You need to join us in 2015! Your competition are using them! If you do have a computer system, capture as many details as you can.
Now you have to say Thank You! We recommend you say Thank You in 3 different ways and at 3 different times. 1) 1 day after first visit. Set up a "Thanks for your visit. It was so nice to meet you" SMS on your computer to automatically be sent out the next day. This is important as the client still has that "Oh I feel so fabulous with my fresh new do". It makes the client feel special and gives them that "Awwww...' feeling. 2) 3 - 5 days after their first visit, get the stylist who did their hair or a Senior member of staff, to phone the client just to "check in". This is to see how they are managing their hair and if they were happy with the service and the out come. Remind them, that if they are not 100% happy, they are more than welcome to come in for a "health check" and possibly rectify any issues, complimentary of course. 3) After 1 week, post out a "Thank You" card with an offer with an expiry date of 8 weeks from their first visit. The Thank You card and offer needs to be put in a handwritten envelope. Think about it, when you check the mail, you always open the handwritten envelopes first, don't you? If they re-booked, this will REALLY encourage them to return and feel special getting a "Thank You" deal from you. If they didn't re-book on their first visit, it encourages them to return before their hair looks too shitty and you can make them look FABBO again! Make sure they re-book this time. You need to train your clients from the start! If you follow our suggestions, you are well on your way to growing a loyal, respectful clientele that will appreciate you as much as you appreciate them. Even if they do try somewhere else, they won't get THIS level of professionalism. Create an experience. Create fabulous hair. Create the salon of your dreams! * Images and content are copyright and owned by hair pty ltd.
One thing I have learned is that for most of you, they would NOT be working to their fullest potential.
- $5 off your first visit. - 15% off your first visit. - Free treatment on your first visit. Come on!!! Let’s be honest! It’s rubbish! Think about who you’re trying to get in your salon. Clients who are ALREADY going somewhere else! Here is how MOST of them think: “I’ve been going to the same hairdresser for 8 years. The past few times I haven’t been super happy and I feel I am getting less and less important to my stylist. I’m made to wait longer and more often. I don’t get a bad haircut but I’ve lost that special feeling so it’s a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” Do you honestly think that $5 off or a FREE TREATMENT is going to get them to take the plunge and - Call up or walk into a strange salon - Leave the familiar, comfortableness of a salon she’s been visiting for years - Book an appointment with an unknown stylist - Risk a bad haircut/colour service and the embarrassment that goes along with it for sometimes MONTHS! Let’s get real people! If you were going to a hairdresser you trust but maybe you’re not super happy with, would a FREE treatment or $5 off be the big bait to get you to take the risks mentioned above? HELL NO! Some of the salons that are best at getting new clients, march into the street, hands filled with flyers or “invitations” with an offer of a totally free Shampoo, Cut and Blow-dry. NOT with an apprentice or junior stylist. It would be with whoever that client, being a new client, would be allocated to anyway. On this first visit, the idea is not to upsell products or talk them into having a colour. The idea is to give them a complete experience, make them feel a MILLION BUCKS, without them opening their wallet. All you want from them is a rebooking! That is all. This works well for a lot of salons and gets a lot of new bums in chairs but in my 10 years as a successful salon owner, I find potential clients are sceptical of something that is totally free. It is then up to you to follow through with “get ‘em back” marketing (featured in part 3). What I’ve found best is doing up vouchers that actually LOOK like money. The theory behind this is that we have always been taught NOT to throw away money so hopefully, your voucher. Doing a $50 voucher off your first visit is a great bait to get someone to at least give you a spin. Also, if an existing client gives one to a new client, they get $50 off their next visit too. We’ve had clients that hand out 4 per month then push those recommended people to follow through and visit us. Our existing referrer/client gets their whole visit for free. It’s complete motivation for them to hound their pal to get to your salon. You will have an expiry date on the voucher of course of about 8 weeks. These work! If you say they don’t, you are doing it wrong but here are 2 of the hottest tips to ensure a referral program works. 1. Make the offer STRONG! 2. HAND THEM OUT TO EVERY CLIENT. EVERY TIME! – Easy! |
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