Archive for salon clients
7 Secrets to Recession Proofing Your Salon or Spa – Part 8
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Recession Busting Secret Number 7
Decide Where You’re Going and Set Clearly Defined, Time Limited Goals to Get There
It’s my observation there are two types of business owners and entrepreneurs; merry-go-round and elevator entrepreneurs. Merry-go-round entrepreneurs go round and round and round and round the same motions, over and over and over and over again (see how mundane it is), getting nowhere but dizzy (and a bit sick)and certainly not making any forward progress.
These are business owners who arrive in their shops, offices, garages, salons etc. with no clear idea of what they’ll do that day and just ‘see what happens’.
On the other hand, elevator entrepreneurs are constantly finding the fastest, easiest ways to ‘jump’ to the next level. Always testing, always trying something new, always tweaking, and never giving up.
These are the ones that get to their businesses every day (if they’re not at their home office busy working on attracting new clients and looking after current clients) with a rock-solid clear plan of what they want to achieve that day, that week, that month and that year and what skills they need to get there.
Both types require work, but one type gets to a whole different destination to the other. The difference in the ultimate destination is quite simple setting clear, time defined goals.
Here’s an example…If I told you there was a million pounds sat waiting for you on an island in Hawaii and all you had to do was go find it within 48 hours and you could have it, could you do it?
There are over 100 islands in Hawaii…It’ be quite difficult wouldn’t it?
If I now told you which island it was on, would that make it easier? Of course it would, but still nigh on impossible as the island I’ve put the money on is the Big Island which has 4,000 odd square miles.
If I now told you which road it was on and which house it was at, could you find it? Getting easier right…
If I told you where to book airplane tickets, which airport to leave from, which airport to go to, how to get a car, and gave you a GPS system and the exact address of the house where the money was, could you now find it? Of course…Of course…
And exactly the same principles apply to your journey with your business from where you are now, to where you want to be.
You must know exactly where you want to get to and then simply work backwards identifying each step you need to take along the way.
Setting clearly defined, time limited goals is the ultimate secret to beating recession and achieving all the success you want from your business and your life.
Time for Me to Shut Up
Ok, that brings us to the end of this ride. Please unbuckle your seat belt, stand up, step to the left and get going.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the secrets I’ve shared with you as much as I’ve enjoyed writing about them.
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7 Secrets to Recession Proofing Your Salon or Spa – Part 7
Posted by: | CommentsRecession Busting Secret Number 6
Focus on Niches and Extract the Riches
Geez, we’re getting through a lot!
Quite frankly I hadn’t planned to ‘spill the beans’ quite this much. I am stout believer in giving to get but this is getting silly.
Right, two more secrets to go – however, I could sit here and write at least 101 of the flippin’ things. What I’m giving you here are essentials.
Let’s pick up the pace a tad, my fingers are getting tired.
Riches in niches.
Now, imagine I’m a fishing fanatic.
Would I pay more for a 2 week general holiday in Alaska with a lodge and access to outings I could book once I was there?
Or, a specialised Alaskan fishing holiday which included a lodge on the best lake with the best fish, rods in the lodge, bla, bla, bla?
The second one…Obviously…
Right, and therein lies the secret.
Specialisation allows you to charge premium prices vs. more generic competitors. And it affords you a stronger position in the minds of your customers.
And, keep in mind that YOU control to which audience you specialise.
So, should you specialise to under 30s looking for a sun, sand and s*x on a budget of 200 quid or affluent time abundant fishing fanatics over the age of 60 with a net worth of half a million or more?
This is both about WHAT you sell and WHO you sell it to. I insist that the very best recession response strategy is to change WHO you sell to…
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7 Secrets to Recession Proofing Your Salon – Part 6
Posted by: | CommentsRecession Busting Secret Number 5
How to Have All Your Overheads Paid for on the 1st Day of the Month Before You Serve One Client
Out of all my recession proofing secrets, this is probably the fastest way to bring rapid stability to your business and give you such an enormous advantage over your competition they simply will not know what ‘hit them’.
I first realised its power while doing a 5km run on a tread mill at my local gym about 5 years ago. I was on the last 1km, pushing hard and trying to keep my mind off my puffing and panting by thinking about how to help my clients. I’d renewed my membership that day and ‘plumped’ for the joint membership of £64 per month (which was clearly good value as a single membership was £44 and my fiancée had wanted to join).
My membership number was 2,343 and I’d asked the chap if that was the number of members they had. His response was ‘No, some of those have expired, we have around 1,700.’
Ok…back to the treadmill…
I did some quick maths in my head. £44 times 1,700. Um, that’s £74,800 a month. Even if 50% are joint membership that’s still £64,600…Per month…Every month, even before anyone has been to the gym!
But what really got my attention was whenever I’d been in the gym (and I had until recently been going twice a day), there were never more than about 15 people in there!
I finished my run red faced and sweating, stumbled over to the gym manager, legs like lead and asked him:
Of your active members, how many actually use the gym?
Did the active members that didn’t use the gym complain about the money they’d paid but not used?
His answers were as I expected. Only about 20% of members used the gym, and they’d only had 2 people ask for their unused gym money back in 18 months!
That means the model they use can sail through even the most severe of recessions. Plus their stable cash flow means they can easily allocate big ‘chunk of change’ to go find affluent new members and spend a lot of money to get them! Had they been reliant on single transactions, not knowing how they were going to do from one month to the next would have left them needing to be frugal about spending money.
You can and SHOULD use this model in your business immediately. A percentage of your clients will happily pay you a certain amount of money every month, automatically billed via direct debit or credit card in return for two things:
a) Getting more value than they pay. If they automatically bill for say £50 a month, give them a little more in ‘monthly money’ to spend with you e.g. £60. You’ll still make more!
b) Treat them as VIPs’… Have a range of V.I.P ‘bragging’ benefits e.g. fast booking, dedicated booking number, free gifts, member lounge, and member parking…
Even at just 100 members to a program like this you’ve banked £5,000.00 a month before you’ve completed one treatment. Plus, member clients will very often outspend their ‘monthly money’ because once they’re in your shop, on your website or whatever if they buy products for £25 it feels like they’ve only spent £25 (as the automatic billing happened in the background)…
Can you see what a dramatic difference this can make to your businesses profitability, stability and ability to weather hard times?
The key is to adapt the strategy to formulate a win-win for you and for your clients. And there is ALWAYS a way to do it!
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7 Secrets to Recession Proofing Your Salon or Spa – Part 5
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Recession Busting Secret Number 4
Tap Into Your Acres of Diamonds
Your salon or spa clients spend much more money on your type of products and services and related products and services than you ‘extract’ from them. Way more…And, their capacity to buy ‘stuff’ is much, much, much higher than you think.
Depending on whose marketing research you read, it costs up to 20 times more to get a new client than it does to get repeat business from an existing client. So where should you be focusing? Pretty obvious right? On existing clients.
Yet, 95% of salon/spa owners insist on focusing on looking for new clients rather than nurturing and maximising the ones they have. They scramble around throwing money in all directions hoping to get new clients into their business. Not realising spending a fraction of that money on their existing clients could generate huge returns.
Some businesses don’t even know who their clients are (and if that’s you, fix it!!!)
A few months back my mother had a problem with her boiler not working. In traditional ‘good son’ fashion I offered to help her get it fixed (and not get ripped off).
So, I grabbed the Yellow Pages, flicked through to the boiler repair section and had a look at the ads.
First of all, it was nigh on impossible to make a choice between them as they all looked pretty much the same.
- Name and logo at the top of the ad.
- List of services
- Some industry seals of approval.
- Telephone number.
How the heck was I supposed to make a choice (important – is your marketing the same as everyone else’s)? In fact I couldn’t so I sort of just waived my finger around and plumped for one that ‘the force’ attracted me too.
Picked up the phone, dialled the number.
“Yep” came the response.
“Hi, I need someone to look at my boiler.” I replied.
“Can’t do it today mate.” Was the reply.
“Ok, thanks, bye.” Was my response.
Flippin’ useless. It’s great he’s too busy but I doubt he will be for too long…
Waived my finger around the page again – picked another company, dialled the number.
“XZY Heating” came the response.
“Hi, I need someone to look at my boiler.” I replied.
“Ok, sure we can help. The first appointment we have is Friday.”
“I was looking for something sooner.” I responded.
“Sorry, that’s the quickest we can get to you.”
“Ok, not to worry, thanks anyway.” I responded.
Second attempt down the drain. This was getting painful, blood pressure was rising. Anyway, on the third attempt I got a polite lady and indeed someone to come see me that day.
They arrived on time and fixed the boiler. Great!
Now, when we were in my Mother’s cellar with the boiler and the technician had a torch (because there aren’t any lights in there); on the side of the boiler I spotted a sticker from the person who had fixed it last time.
Aha, I thought that’s who it was. They did a great job too, and at a good price.
But they made a ‘school boy’ error.
Had they simply kept in contact with me at regular intervals using something as simple as a monthly 2 page newsletter I would have called them in a shot and they would have got the work.
Even better, had they put me on a monthly continuity plan where I pay a little a month for peace of mind that if things went wrong they’d fix them I’d be happy and they’d have a stable, reliable cash-flow boost that could sail them through even the deepest recession…
Building and maintaining relationships is fundamental to prospering in un-prosperous times. Whenever your clients think of what you offer you need to be at the top of their consciousness.
To make that happen you need to be more than just another provider of what you do. You need to build a strong and continuing personality bond with your clients.
Think of it like when you visit the hairdressers.
When they’re in the salon it’s easy. You talk about yourself, your family, hobbies and ask them questions about the same.
BUT, as soon as you leave, that relationship, that bond starts to fade…
And, if another salon ‘pops’ up with something that grabs your attention (or indeed another business eager to get a slice of their disposable income) then you’ll be off to them in a second and the hair salon will be scrabbling for a new client.
However, if the salon had built a strong personality bond with you built through continuous, repetitive contact even when you are not in there – then chances of you switching salon and being ‘unfaithful’ are slim.
So how do you create an ‘unshakeable’ personality bond
with your customers and clients?
Sending a monthly newsletter continues to be the best way to establish this bond for my clients and members. How many businesses like yours in your area contact their clients with a monthly newsletter containing stories about them, their lives, interesting news, gossip and offers? I suspect that may be none…
For close to £10 a year per client in printing and postage costs, you can generate hundreds, if not thousands of pounds in repeat business. You can switch from struggling and willing to accept any client at any price to having only the best, highest paying, and most loyal clients.
And writing then sending a monthly newsletter is neither difficult nor particularly time consuming.
Start providing one now!
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7 Secrets to Recession Proofing Your Salon or Spa – Part 4
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Recession Busting Secret Number 3
Attract Premium Price Buyers
I’m lucky enough to spend a lot of time talking to business owners about the challenges they face and also the successes they are seeing.
I was chatting to a beauty salon owner recently about how she was doing and some of the challenges she was facing.
Her salon is located in a predominantly Asian community and she is virtually flanked on either side by competing salons.
She employs 15 staff and runs a good quality salon providing good service to her clients.
Her single biggest challenge is competing with the salons almost next door that are able to charge much lower prices than her.
How?
Well, by having poorly trained staff, cash only businesses, a suspected lack of adherence to tax rules, little if any adherence to health and safety and little if any focus on providing quality client care…
She spends a lot of money training her staff, paying good wages to get good staff, paying her taxes, providing employee benefits such as holiday and bonuses. All stuff that she should be doing and is right to do in a quality salon.
Her perspective is that it’s just not ‘fair’ that another salon should be able to run a dodgy ‘ship’ and be able to take business away from her.
Of course whether or not it is fair is unfortunately completely irrelevant and the argument that ‘they’ll get what’s coming to them’ may impart a little satisfaction, and is likely a valid one but in the meantime she’s got to struggle, scrape and barely pay herself to survive. Not quite what she had in mind when she opened her salon.
And it is seemingly an impossible task to compete with
a business next door which charges lower prices for
the same products/services as you.
Stories of clients popping their heads in the door saying ‘why would I come to you when I can get the same treatment next door for less?’ were of course rife.
This is a very common and very real challenge.
How do you as a quality business, help your clients understand why they should pay more to come to you?
Clients, consumers, me, you, are more aware, more informed than ever and we are rarely interested in doing anyone a favour by paying more for something we can get cheaper somewhere else.
If I’ve got two items lined up side by side that are exactly the same and one shop is selling the item for £50 and the other £65, you can be damn sure I’ll be keeping the additional £15 for something else.
Why wouldn’t I?
However, if I’m looking for somewhere to take Tracey (my fiancée – and by the time you read this, who knows, we may be married) for a romantic meal and I line two restaurants side by side, one selling a 3 course set meal for £15 a head and one offering a gourmet a la carte menu with a professional lounge piano player, romantically decorated restaurant, a top quality wine selection and a beautiful countryside setting for £75 a head, I wouldn’t hesitate for an instant to opt for the chap tinkering the ivories…
You see, this challenge of competing with low price competition is fortunately something which can be easily solved and by solving it you can actually lay the foundations to become the most profitable and stable business in your market.
If it were true that people ONLY bought based on price then no one would buy a Mercedes, no one would go to expensive hotels, no one would buy holidays with Kuoni, no one would stay at the Savoy, no one would buy Chanel bags, no one would choose to buy Tesco’s finest food over ‘smart price’, no one would send their dog to a ‘dog spa’ (and they do exist) and I wouldn’t pick the higher priced restaurant…
Only about 10% of our population choose the lowest
price option for anything.
That means a whole 90% of the population are happy to pay above the lowest price and a whole chunk of those want to pay premium prices!
On top of that, lower price buyers are much more likely to complain, much more likely to switch to competitors at the ‘drop of a hat’ and much less likely to spend a lot of money with you…
High price luxury buyers tend by their very nature to be the complete opposite.
They complain less, they are more grateful, they spend more, are less likely to switch to competitors and are not only more likely to refer people but are more likely to refer people like them (bonus).
And even better, they are the least likely to be affected by the credit crunch, rising fuel prices, falling houses and economic uncertainty…
So…
For a second, ask yourself this question…
WHO you would rather serve?
Affluent clients with money to spare who are least affected by recession or low price buyers who can barely afford their rent when the price of petrol rises by 2p a litre?
The answer of course is obvious.
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