Archive for spa clients
Stark Warning to Salons and Spas in 2009
Posted by: | Comments2008 saw the world economy take an unprecedented ‘battering’, 2009 looks sets to be just as turbulent. Most small businesses are simply fighting for survival. However, looking to just survive is unlikely to be enough. The age old business dictum ‘grow or die’ has never been truer.
The question is; how can salons/spas grow in a recession economy rife with bankruptcy from large companies to small?
Could there be a simple growth opportunity overlooked by 95% of salon/spa owners? I think so…
Back in the 1940′s right through to the 1960′s, there was an awful lot of adult ‘fun’ happening. More babies were born than ever in our history. Over the last 50 odd years that enormous population ‘bubble’ has been growing up and sliding towards us like a giant mouse in a snake.
In fact there are approximately 50,000 people hitting the ages of 45-65 every single month. Within ten years there will be more over 65′s than there are under 16′s.
Boomers own and control 80% of the country’s wealth, a collective pot of £175 billion. They have 30% more disposable cash than the under 50′s.
Best of all they’ve grown up with a whole different set of attitudes, aspiration and desires than their parents. No longer do they expect to settle down in front of the fire, watch Coronation Street and ‘wait for the inevitable.’
It astonishes me how little effort business owners commit to doing the one single thing that can help them not just survive but grow in recession – deliberately look to tap into this exploding affluent boomer (those born between 1940 and 1960) demographic. ‘Banging your head against a brick wall’ of prospects, customers and clients heavily hit by recession is wasted effort. Instead, go looking for those effected least and last – the affluent.
The premise is simple, ‘go where the money is’.
It takes a lot longer for an affluent/wealthy person with a high disposable income to be effected by rising household bills, lack of credit and job insecurity. They are the people who will be effected least and last. Even better, selling to the affluent can attract much higher prices and margins. Many business owners shy away from high price concerned they won’t sell enough volume but — to many, high prices signify quality, exclusivity and thus create desire. It is not 100 times more difficult to sell a Gucci® handbag for £1000 than it is to sell a simple clutch bag for £10 in Primark®. It’s not even twice as hard. It fact, given the right audience it is often easier.
Additionally, affluent buyers tend to complain less, be better repeat buyers and ‘birds of a feather flock together’ thus generating referral business is equally lucrative.
Moreover, the affluent boomer market is set to be the most lucrative demographic in history and any business looking for serious growth over the next 5, 10, 20 years should take steps to serve that market now.
However, attracting the affluent does require some changes. The three areas for change are:
- Change your WHO – define and deliberately look to attract the right affluent demographic for your salon/spa.
- Change your WHAT – don’t just sell simple products and services. Instead look to create memorable customer ‘experiences’.
- Change your HOW – careful consideration needs to be given to how marketing is used to attract the affluent. Special attention should be given to affinity, language and presentation.
Any salon/spa in any location can easily make these changes and position themselves as a provider to the booming affluent market. 2009 will be a hard year and the business dictum has “Grow or Die” has never been truer. Capitalise on this growth opportunity now, before your competition beat you to it or the recession takes its toll.
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All across the country beauty salons, spas and hairdressers are being hit hard by recession. Many will fail over the next year. Astonishingly very few know about, let alone tap into the 60 year olds ‘secret’ which means the beauty industry is the best place to be in recession. Here’s why…
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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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