How to Attract the Best Clients.
How to attract the best clients https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQaVeN3Fong A lifestyle salon coach, and welcome to how to attract the best clients training. I don’t know about you, but for me, when I started my salon, getting clients was really easy to start with. And then it dried up. So we’re talking about like, now, if you’re growing your business, you obviously need to get more people in the door to fill the staff members as you grow. And I presume if you’re being successful, and you’re having more staff members, you are going to need clients pretty fast. And this is one of the strategies that will show you. But let’s dive in and talk about how to attract the best clients. I remember, it wasn’t that long ago, where we were sitting somewhere. And they were saying to me that they didn’t care about what clients they’ve got. They just wanted plants with a heartbeat. That’s all. What we’re going to cover today is for you to not have that attitude for not have the attitude of, well, I don’t care what client walks through the door. I mean, that’s how it was many years ago, well, now we’ve moved forward, and we can sort of pinpoint what type of clients we’ve got, what type of clients we work best with, who loves us who we love doing. And then we can target them. Now we have the capability. And we’ll go through that right now. So we’re going to cover right now is, who is your ideal client? What are you really good at? What can you do? Well, why should they choose you. And these are the most important things right now that you can get down on a piece of paper, because that’s where you’re going to start as you move yourself forward. But let’s start right back at the beginning and talk about this guy here. I was sitting in a room and he says to me, it was a marketing conference that I was holding in Australia. And I said to him, hey, what type of clients do you want, and he said, okay, as long as we got a heartbeat, then that’s all I’m after. Now we’re going to target these people. Because, for example, if that’s you, by the way, then take this advice, he’s since closed down his business six months later from that conversation, he didn’t last, maybe because he was not being able to target the ideal client. So here’s an example. That if you’re going to put some posts out there to attract clients, and your clients, you’re gonna say, are anywhere between one years old and 99. And we’re gonna write mixture in between, which is what you first say, without thinking about marketing. Now, I’m not gonna pop it, you’re here, when I’m trying to get through really more than anything else is that you got to have your core clients. For me, my core clients between the age of 40 and 60, that were laid the did lunch, husbands had their own businesses. That was the majority, I did outside that, of course, I did the older lady and the young people and the newborns and everyone else in between. But the majority of what we did well, was that type of client. Now, one of the beginning, when you opened your salon, you might have found that you got busy really quickly, you see if you’re good at what you do, people will tell people will tell people tell people and referrals will grow and grow and grow. But then eventually, they run out because they only have a network of people that they can tell. And once they’ve told everyone about you, there’s no one else for them to tell. So that dies, then you don’t know someone else’s hair and they tell a few people. So you’ve got to be able to get fresh blood that people that don’t know you as yet people that weren’t referred to you into your salon to start that referral process again. So it’s one of the things that when you start really well there, you flatline after using three, four or five years, it’s because you ran out of people in your town that know you exist. So your marketing, it has to be really important to make sure you get it right. So who is your ideal client, you hear we get knocked about all the time using niche and all that sort of thing. But what we want to do is just figure out something really, really simple. It’s like, Who, who do you do? Well, you know, like, are you think about all the clients you do your long hair specialists or curly hair specialist have blonde hair specialist, or dark hair specialist? Do you like covering gray hair? Do you like coloring? Do you like cutting? What is it that you do? Who’s your dream client. And if you don’t know, one of the best advice I can give you is go into your database right now and pull out your top 30 spending clients. And that will give you an insight of what you actually do well, and then your next job after that is you’re going to find them. Sometimes they walk past you’re going to spend some of your time energy and effort and money on window displays. Or maybe sometimes you’re going to have to go to them and do old school leaflets. Maybe you find they’re going to be on Google and they search for you. Maybe you think they’re going to be on LinkedIn and you know all the social media places there is going to be out there are the people that you want. Where are they? So where are you spending all your time? And what are your results? You see to me if all my clients are on Instagram and Facebook, why
How to set targets in your salon
How to set targets in your salon What would your team say if you offered them a round the world ticket and they can take their partner with them? How excited would they be? That is what I offered my staff to get my best years profit ever. Every year the team and I meet to set the next years goals and targets for the salon. On this occasion we set the target at a 33% increase. The carrot at the end of the year was the around the world flight. As you know, I set my annual target growth ( I still do this with my coaching clients) at 30% because that is big enough to make a difference to the team and get excited about it. Once the salon year target was set, it was broken down into biteable sizes so the team knew what they needed to take each week to help us hit the salon year goal. The teams’ target was broken down to a weekly amount and if they hit the target as well as getting rewarded with cash, they would be given a coloured marble. You see, we had a huge bowl in the back room and if any staff member hit their target they could place their marble in the bowl. They all had 48 weeks to hit their weekly targets and a possible 48 marbles to go into the bowl. At the end of the year, we would pull out 2 coloured marbles and send those team members around the world. Can you imagine the excitement and buzz that was going on in my salon that year? Do you think that would motivate your team? This worked because: The prize of an around the world trip was so BIG it was worth them pushing for it The weekly marbles kept the team focused on a weekly level. Everyone had a chance as it was a level playing field. You could have an off week and still be excited. That year we made the best profit ever as staff productivity was the best it could be and takings went through the roof. To be honest- The around the world trip would have only cost me around $10,000 but the value to the team was worth 10x that. What can you do to motivate your team? CASE STUDY I just read your mail before shutting down for the jubilee weekend. I may have ‘dropped out’ of your regular coaching session but I thought you might like to know what a massive huge impact those few weeks with you had on me and my business. I’ve gone from a negative £20+k loss per year and all the pain you describe in your email, to last year a £60k net profit – coming out of the pandemic still being closed for 3 months of the tax year!!! – and this year I’ve already beaten my Q1 target by over £20k, so it’s looking good. I keep aside 20% VAT, never go over 12% for cost of sales/purchase of stock, my wages are no more than 33% of takings and I’m finally paying myself a decent wage. I’ve upskilled my Managers, who also now truly understand their numbers and are incentivised on reducing stock spend as well as exceeding sales targets. We’ve been able to make salon improvements like a new brow bar, air con installed and repainting. I have a brand new Merc, new hair, theatre trips, shopping trips with the kids. But even more… I’m relaxed. I already know there is MORE than enough money to pay the next VAT bill, I’ve half cleared my BBL using extra takings after deductions, and am tax planning with my accountant to avoid paying loads of tax… not a conversation I’ve had to have in the past. And your rigorous financial planning is the root of this loveliness.
How to make more profit in your salon.
How to make more profit in your salon. How simple maths can increase your profit Take a salon that is doing 300k a year. Salon turnover 300k Average bill 70 Divide 70 into 300k = 4285 clients a year Divide 4285 by 52 weeks = 82 clients a week Now you can focus on increasing your salons taking and almost 100% will go to profit. Option 1 – Increase your salons’ average bill by 10% and work with your team to perfect your client journey and the clients’ experience. 82 clients a week x 77 = 6314 in salon takings a week x 52 weeks = 328k Option 2 – Increase clients by 10% and work on making your marketing better. 82 clients a week + 10% = 89 clients x average bill of 70 = 6230 a week x 52 weeks = 323k By knowing what to focus on, you can make an extra 20,000 a year and almost 100% will go to your profit. Need help? Lets chat CASE STUDY Shout out to this gun who is dedicated to growing his salon to give him the lifestyle. He joined me 2 years ago as a small salon owner who thought having a coach may be a waste of money, but would give it a month to see how things went. Fast forward 2 years and he has doubled his salon’s takings not once but twice and has now earned enough profit to buy a house in the heart of London. You cannot buy houses with turnover, only profit. Stay focused and figure out what it takes to get your takings up and your profits down. If you want to chat about how we can help your salon, You can access my diary here https://calendly.com/isaloncoac…/salon-business-chat-p-y-s Rich
How to fill white spaces in your salon?
How to fill white spaces in your salon? To fill them fast use this simple email below. The secret to this email is…… It only goes to overdue clients. NOT TO RANDOMS out in the social media world. Adapt as you please, you can make it a text message but keep it short. The secret to this working is two things. FOMO by only offering 5 spaces and fear of missing out. You select the staff members that are excepting the offer. “Beat the clock Hi Kate If you have not been to [your salons name] recently, you wouldn’t have noticed how busy we are getting, As a result, we are sending out fewer specials. So this offer is really special. We are offering a beat the clock. The first clients to respond get the best deals, Colour and cut specials are as follows, Today 50% off Friday 30% off Saturday 15% off There are only approximately 5 appointments available so be quick and save, This offer will expire when all appointments are filled. We will not honour this special when all appointments are gone. Call now 123456 Richard Excludes full head foils, colour correction, “ Please let me know how you got on with this post CASE STUDY How we helped this salon owner make over £50k more. This client of mine has a really busy salon. She spends her time filling the white spaces in the diary and getting her team to hit 3x wage. Owning a salon is all-out getting clients to return, but you might have noticed that clients are less loyal and are definitely dragging out their appointments. It’s your job to fill the white spaces and if you want to take control and get clients to book the gaps you have, then you’ll need to offer a bribe to do so. Some salon owners say that they’ll never discount as they are worth more than that. But if you want to fill appointment times fast or fill the times people don’t really want, you should copy what big businesses do. Take airlines, cocktail bars, pubs, spas etc. They all offer some form of discount to book out times that are their quietest, like a happy hour or 2-for-1 early bird special. This salon owners works on our ‘Keep in Touch’™ strategy to fill white spaces every week and as a result has managed to bank over £50,000 in a ‘rainy day’ account. There is a strategy behind doing discounts and it’s NOT about being a discount salon. My go-to, to fill white spaces fast is my ‘Beat The Clock’ and if you would like the template to use it for yourself, comment ‘Beat the Clock’ below and I’ll get you a copy.
How to find out if your salon wages are too high!
If you are finding that money is getting a little tight, that is a good indicator that your bills are starting to eat away some of your profits and something is out of whack with your numbers. Your staff’s wages should be the first place to check and by using a simple wage checker, you can see if you are over staffed. So don’t panic if you are. You don’t need to sack anyone just yet. So a safe wage % should be around 35%-40%. If you start going over 40% you’ll need to keep, an eye on it, you. You won’t want to be over 40% for too long. Over 50% and you’re eating away a good chunk of your profits. If you’re over 60%, then you need to take action fast. On the other hand, if your wage % is between 30%-35%, then you are in what I call the sweet spot and maximising your salon profits. To work out your %, divide your staff wages into your salon takings and then x 100. This will give you your wage %. If your wage % is high, it’s probably that you don’t have enough clients for the staff you have and you are over-staffed. Now you need to act before it gets too high and eats all your profits. You need to get new clients in as fast as possible. Or you can work on getting clients that are overdue back sooner by tempting them with an offer or you can work with your team on the client journey and up selling services and products. If you need help working out your wage % or ideas about how to get your wage % down, let’s chat. Link to my calendar is below Talk soon Rich
Why every salon owner needs a mentor
Why Every Salon Owner Needs a Mentor The day you decided to go alone and open your own salon, you took the biggest gamble of your life. Depending on where you are on your salon journey, you might not know it yet, you might still be in the early stages, but what you have done is engage yourself to one of the most dangerous and fraught journeys that only 15% survive past 10 years. I have seen marriages fail, people lose their houses, some being sent to another country and people having so much debt it will take them a lifetime to recover. So why are we so keen to take this journey? For me it was a way out. I was young, I had a family and I needed to earn enough money to move from an almost-condemned flat. For you, it might be because you’re good at what you do, think you might make some money and be free to work less hours and spend time with your family. Whatever your reason is, I wish you success. I have been a salon owner for most of my life and a salon coach for 5 years and there’s not much I haven’t seen or tested to make a salon owner successful. I was recently asked “What makes some salon owners RICH and some salon owners struggle?” The answer is simple…..Knowledge. The more you know, the more you earn. Actually, that’s not entirely true. You could know everything and implement none of it. So the secret to success is knowledge + implementation. Simple right? One of the biggest mistakes I made as a salon owner was trying to do everything myself and learning by my mistakes. This cost me years. There are only two ways to get knowledge 1. To self educate : Watch a video, read a book, go to a seminar or any other form of education that you learn and then trial in your salon. Some may work and some will fail. You get to try first hand and tweak as you go. This is the cheapest option and if you are young and have plenty of time, then this might be the option for you. I was recently gifted by a dear friend a curry cooking class via a Zoom call (strange I know, but with lockdowns it seems the norm now!), people said to me afterwards “ Why would you pay for that? You can Youtube how to cook curry for free?” Beforehand I would have thought the same, but let me tell you the difference between a free video telling me what to do and a mentor advising me as I cooked… With the video, I would have watched it and then copied step-by-step. To be honest, I thought I would be doing just that in my Zoom class. It’s not until you work with an expert that you see the difference. The live Zoom call started and so far it was no different to watching a video, except it was live. As the cooking started the mentor looked into everyone’s curry pot, he checked on our onions, some were not cooking enough other peoples were cooking too fast. He advised us what to do and what would happen if things went wrong. He checked our spices and got us to imagine the smell as they were being toasted. He checked the colour and guided us as we went along. This simple curry dish I was cooking needed at least 15 adjustments to stop it spoiling. The result was an amazing curry, but that’s not the end of the story. This week I cooked another curry from scratch and I knew the pitfalls and made adjustments along the way again. I was able to replicate what I had learned and implemented from my cooking mentor. The difference between the two is not that one was free and one cost money. The real difference is that if I had gone down the free route, I would never have known the mistakes and I would have always kept making them, never really mastering the art of a good curry. I would never understand where I was going wrong. As they say, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know, until you know it!’As a bonus, my newly learned skill can be replicated time and time again, adjusting with any cooking implements. I know what to do to keep the curry flavours on track. 2. Learn from someone that has been there before you: If you can learn from someone that was successful and paid the price with their time, you will be shown the pitfalls, the dangers and the fastest way to make success happen. Most salon owners waste years trying to fix a problem that they have and do not realise that they are fixing the wrong problems! The right salon expert knows what to fix first and this will save you those trial and error years. If you don’t have lots of time and want to jump the success queue, getting advice from someone who has been there, tested what works and teaches it, is a smart move. There is a cost to having a successful salon You will pay, either with money or your time. Being good at doing hair, nails or beauty is what got you thinking you could run a salon. That’s what 90% of salon owners think and I was one of them. I believed that I would be successful just because people liked me doing their hair. That was mine and other salon owners’ downfalls, I didn’t think about staffing, bills, marketing, client experience or any of the important things that need to be done by someone. Let’s talk about where you need to master more skills needed to grow a successful salon. Mastering your finances The main
Why most salons don’t make any money and what to do about it.
Why Most Salons Don’t Make Any Money And What To Do About It. Did you open your salon because you were good at your craft and people told you that “you should open your own salon and start making all the money for yourself. You’ll be great at it.” This is the biggest reason why salon owners open salons and the main reason why 85% of salons fail within 5 years. If you’ve had your salon longer than 5 years, you should be proud that you made it, but for 95% of you, you will sadly never make a good living from being an owner. You will always be a worker, working for your salon. The reason for this is because you don’t realise there’s a HUGE difference between owning a salon and running a salon. Salon owners that run their salons know that they need a different set of skills to be successful. It will involve skills like marketing, building systems, staff training, client experience and financials I’ve covered lots of posts about marketing, systems and the client journey before. You can see a recorded workshop that I did here if you want to get an insight into how it can dramatically increase your salon’s takings It’s not all about takings though. I’ve had salons that have had massive increases in money coming in and takings going through the roof and I was only one or two weeks away from closing my doors. I’ll share my personal story with you further along in this blog and what drastic measures I had to do to save my salon. Few people have a true understanding of how to run a salon and make it profitable and they realise it’s not about how much money they take, it’s about how much profit is left. This is the number one reason that salons close and what kills the salon owners dream. The lack of it can keep you awake at night and can consume your daily thoughts, make you feel sick and it can cloud your judgement of what you should be concentrating on. Salon owners that struggle to make good profits battle every day to keep their salon alive. They chase clients to fill their salon, they get scared to discipline their staff in case they leave and often don’t pay themselves a wage to keep money in the salon’s bank account. I call this the war zone, where every week is a battle to survive. Most salon owners in this zone work week-to-week to pay the bills with no financial buffer for rainy days. Being in the war zone has nothing to do with how busy your salon is or how much your salon has increased its takings compared to last year, absolutely nothing to do with how many staff you employ or how big your social media following is. It has everything to do with how you run your business and includes attracting the right client, converting them to return to you and delivering on your promise to them in an experience second to none. Once you have these 3 elements in place your foundations are laid to make sure that your team will be able to service enough clients to raise your takings and you will be able to balance the books by making sure your bills, stock spend and wages are all where they should be. It’s very easy to forget or ignore your profit and how it’s achieved because before you started working for yourself, you imagined the salon owner you worked for was making lots of money. Lots of profit. You did your days work and your wage was put in your bank by the end of the week. Did you ever think about your previous employer when the salon was quiet that you might not actually get paid? Did you ever think that the owner may not have enough profit left and couldn’t afford to pay you? Most don’t. But now your wage is dependent on how much profit your salon produces. So this keeps money constantly on your mind, in your thoughts and in your dreams. Welcome to the warzone. And that means on some occasions there isn’t enough left over in the pot so you juggle your money around, living week to week. You spend money that should be allocated for something else. Usually it’s tax money that gets borrowed first, then it’s stock money and before you know it, your wage is a day or too late. Some even skip their own wage to keep on top of the bills. This is the road most salon owners unfortunately go down. Does this resonate with you? Often, you have no idea why the salon is losing money. You’re busier than ever. You actually lie to yourself that the salon is doing good, believe you are doing better than you are and eventually money will come if you keep working harder and harder. I think you know the ending already, You eventually run out of weeks and something’s got to give. The reality is scary and you don’t want to think about it, but it’s all you can think about. If this sounds like you and your salon then you must act now and start being a BUSINESS OWNER and go and learn how to run your salon like a business. I’ll share with you this week in my FACEBOOK GROUP about a client I worked with who was in this exact predicament and how we turned her salon around, but only after she hit rock bottom. I’d like to share with you my story and what happened when I took my eye off the ball. We had great staff, clients that loved us and money was coming in fast and furious. Happy days, or so I thought. We were growing at a massive rate of 33% year-on-year. In fact, we were growing so fast I was looking for a second salon
How to stop your salon leaking money
To have a successful salon, you MUST have a basic understanding of how you attract clients and more importantly how to convert them into your clients. Most salon owners put a lot of time and effort into attracting clients, but pay little or no attention to keeping them. Remember, you are nothing without clients. Two key elements that you should be obsessing over when owning your salon are Why do they leave other salons and why do they come to you? How many clients are returning to your salon and how often? If you’ve been watching my webinars over the last couple of years, you would have noticed a pattern. I teach salon owners how to ‘attract’ the right client, how to convert that client to return again and again and how to ‘deliver’ a remarkable experience so they become loyal fans of yours. Attracting new clients When a good client decides to leave the comfort of their current salon they will shop around and look for a new salon that satisfies their needs. People don’t just leave a salon for no reason. Something has happened. That salon didn’t deliver on their promise to the client and the client is in search of a new salon to help them get what it is they want. This is as far as your marketing goes. It just says “Hey this is what we do!” If the prospective client is considering your salon as their next salon of choice they will not do it lightly. They WILL check you out. They WILL look at your sign above your salon, Google your website, they will head over to your social platforms and get some understanding about what your salon’s vibe is. If they like what they see and feel secure they will reach out and book an appointment with you. After all, people don’t want to move from salon to salon, they want somewhere that is reliable and looks after their needs. This is one of the main areas that you need to concentrate on. You need to know why they left their last salon and why they chose yours. These two important questions hold the key to attracting clients to your salon anytime you want. This is so important. It’s one of the first things we teach you at Lifestyle Salon Systems in Module 1. It takes a little bit of effort, but once you master it you will see a huge increase in new clients. Once you know what they’re looking for in a salon, you can start letting them know that you are an expert in it, or that it’s your passion. It will open up a whole new market of people that will start seeing your salon, where you were previously invisible to them. Client retention Then there’s what we call ‘the leaky bucket.’ There’s no point in trying to fill your salon with new clients if you are losing them faster than you are attracting them. Sounds like common sense but it’s the number 1 mistake most salon owners make. You are in a repeat business, business. Your sole aim is to attract clients that will love what you do and return again and again. So why do so many salon owners get this so wrong? Well it’s easier to throw out an ad or post to attract clients. It feels good to think that you can attract attention to your salon and it’s always nice to hear a client say ‘they chose your salon.’ But by focusing all your efforts on new clients and forgetting about the ones you have will have an impact on your salons takings. Your staff will always struggle to hit targets and you will always see gaps in your appointment book. You need to take control of this and have a plan to get your clients back. Some clients leave because you didn’t deliver on what they expected from you. This could be a marketing issue, where you’re attracting the wrong clients or your client journey is sub- standard and needs work. Take a look at both of these areas and decide which one is your problem that needs fixing. The benchmark for new client retention is around 25% and for your current clients it’s around 76% so potentially you can easily be losing close to half thousands and thousands over the year. Now that’s some major leak…… Most salon owners don’t know what to fix next and this is where having a coach separates you from the rest. Imagine being able to chat to a salon expert who has done all of this in their salon and lives and breathes these types of scenarios day in, day out? No wonder salon owners that have a coach make more money faster than salons owners that don’t. But clients not returning is not the only leak you have. Clients have started to drag out their appointments and visit your salon less and less. This is having a MASSIVE impact on your salons takings and success rate. This alone is setting your salon back thousands and wasting years and years. Look at the impact this is having on salons today. This happened in my salon too. Back in 2008 when the recession started to hit, my client visits between appointments were sitting around 8.2 weeks. That’s 6 times a year. I noticed more white spaces in my appointment book. I always checked my client retention and I knew I wasn’t losing clients, so this baffled me. My computer system was telling me my client visits hadn’t changed but I knew something wasn’t right. You don’t start to get gaps that appear for no reason. I spent all weekend looking into my numbers round and round until ‘BAM’ I found it. I called my software company to check why their client visit number was different to mine. I was shocked. Their system only tracks the last 90 days, which is ludicrous. Of course, your favourite
The Biggest Challenge Salon Owners Face After Covid, And What You Can Do To Fix It
Are your dreams of a great 2020 totally over? Do you feel that you are out of control, just want this pandemic to end and for the status quo to resume? I want to share with you how I overcame the world’s biggest recession in my lifetime and even grew my salon’s profits to be my biggest and successful year ever. When I opened my first salon in the UK, it wasn’t long before we grew to a team of 5 and were busier than ever. We could attract clients easily and had no issue finding or keeping clients. It was a breeze, to be honest. Then it all changed when we were hit with a huge recession in the 1990’s which lasted for over 3 years. My salon was in Coventry at the time – the main hub for cars being built and the motor industry was about to hit a huge decline. Factories that, at one time, couldn’t build cars fast enough, suddenly had no orders and people were losing their jobs everywhere. I didn’t see it coming, but with lost jobs, people stopped spending. I wasn’t prepared for this downturn and didn’t know what impact it was going to have on my salon. The phone suddenly stopped ringing like the phone company had cut us off. I often picked it up just to check it still had a dial tone. White spaces started to appear in the appointment book and they grew bigger and bigger, until we had more white spaces than appointments booked. The staff were getting restless and bored and I was feeling very much the same way. They were looking for me to do something, to reassure them that things were going to be ok, but I feared it wasn’t. I was struggling to pay the bills by this time and the pressure for me to perform like I knew what to do was taking its toll. I was winging it, like all the other salon owners and scared that I would be found out as a fraud. I was meant to be the captain of the ship and I didn’t know what to do. A lot of businesses were closing around us and the fact I opened with no debt and was able to work 7 days a week, somehow we managed to scrape through by the skin of our teeth. That recession cost me years of salon growth. It used up all the savings I had and knocked the stuffing out of us. I was burnt out. I lost my mojo and I didn’t know if I would recover. I knew if ever there was another recession like that again, I would give up the fight and go and get a job. But it’s not that simple. I’m not a quitter and I wouldn’t just let the staff down that rely on me, so I had to be better prepared for the next one. That recession of the 1990’s put me back years. So while the salon was not fully booked and I had time, I used it wisely to prepare in case there was ever another one. I started to observe what other salons were doing. Some salons didn’t seem to panic and returned to their usual busy salons very quickly, while many went into a price war as they were desperate to get clients at all costs. After all, there was now an abundance of new clients floating around and lots of salons trying to entice them in. Pretty much like what is happening today. I started to observe the successful salons and find out what they were doing. I wanted to know which books they read and what coaches they were using. They had something that other salons didn’t, including me. I found out they were obsessed with 3 core elements of their business HOW TO ATTRACT THE RIGHT CLIENT, WITH EASE HOW TO CONVERT THE CLIENTS TO RETURN HOW TO DELIVER A REMARKABLE EXPERIENCE This was now my mission. To master all 3 elements in my very own salon. I knew I had to learn their secrets and as the salon was quiet, time was on my side. Over the next 5 years I went to every seminar I could. I invested a lot of my time and thousands of pounds to learn what these salons were doing and how they managed to grow their businesses, even in a dire recession. One of the things I found was that not all the people that were so-called ‘business gurus’ were masters at what they were teaching and I was taught a lot of systems that didn’t work in my salon. I persevered with my mission, looking towards other industries for ideas and strategies. I implemented my new findings, month after month, tracking our progress as I went, until I looked around my salon and it was full again, I had become a true master at growing my business. Not by winging it, but with a clear, concise, strategic plan. The only true test would be if we went into another recession, but I had to wait until 2008 to truly test if my hard work had paid off. In fact, we were about to head into the biggest recession since World War 2. Right now as the UK enters its biggest recession since records began and Australia’s first recession in 30 years, Covid-19 will affect EVERY business and every salon, be it hair, beauty or nails and the impact will be unavoidable for all. If your salon is less than 12 years old, you will have never experienced working through a recession before. You will need skills and the knowledge to get you through it successfully. Forearmed is forewarned, as they say and learning and implementing the right foundations will give you a fighting edge to survive. The only thing you can do now is be prepared and grind it out. You will be called upon by
Covid 19 – how it affects hair and beauty salons
The old saying ” save some money for a rainy day” has never been more true. The uncertainty of what will happen next- forced lockdown, self-isolation and staff getting ill is putting more pressure on everyone and I get the feeling that people are now ‘just wanting it to happen’ so they they get it over with. But this is going to be around for months yet, so here is the Good, the Bad and the Ugly truth of the situation you are facing. The Ugly…Some salon owners do not have enough cashflow to survive this crisis and they will regrettably have to close their doors. With clients cancelling their appointments and being scared to leave their home, these salon owners will be feeling financial pressure like never before. If this is you, then you need to look at reducing as many of your bills as you can.Can you reduce staff hours or salon hours and condense the working week? The Bad…This crisis is going to hurt some salon owners financially and they will feel cashflow-pain like never before. They have run their salons up to now with too much luxury and freedom. If you have ever seen any posts from me, you will have noticed me repeatedly harp on about not employing more staff until your salon is at 80% capacity and getting your staff to hit 3.5 x what you pay them. Not doing this eats most of your profits and cashflow, as wages are the biggest bill a salon encounters. Now is the time to set up systems to keep as many clients as you can. This is what we call ‘foundation building’ and many salons I see that wing it week-to-week, without foundations will be hurting right now. You can survive this and now is the time to tighten your belt with most bills and wages. Look at your staff and see where they need help, work on the client journey and give both your staff and clients more love. Do NOT stop working ON your business and use every resource you can. Marketing should be your key focus to grow your salon. Use internal and external marketing to fill those white spaces. Working behind the scenes is the best way to improve your salons takings now. The Good…I have been a salon owner for over 25 years and have navigated my salon through many hard times. There’s a lot of advice bouncing around the social world on what you should do. I have been there many times before and I will help you through this the best I can. Salon owners that have strong foundations and a good wage % ratio will stand the best chance of not just surviving, but thriving through this. Having a good wage percentage, these salons will have a buffer as their profits will allow for the downturn. The good news for salons that come out of this crisis is that they will build a tighter ship. They will make sure they have more profit every week and they will never want to be in this situation again. Every salon that goes through a recession comes out stronger. They will be more vigilante with their housekeeping and start treating their business more like a business. There is hope……. To quote Winston Churchill ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’ FREE SALON OWNER WEBINAR TODAY ‘Learn How To Generate Consistent Growth From Your Salon Every Month…Without You Doing All The Work!’ Learn the simple 9-step strategy that increases your salons turnover without you working more hours – taking you from the ‘War Zone’ into the ‘Lifestyle Zone’ and a successful business. Because the training is valuable please watch and implement before it disappears…. Hope you enjoy! 😊 Here’s to building great salons together. https://isaloncoaching.lpages.co/lifestyle-salon-plan/