18 July 2012

What is the most important part of your salon spa business?

Which order do you give the most importantance to in your salon business?

The salon. The stylist. The client. - The client. The salon. The stylist, or even The stylist. The client. The salon

I think each is of equal importance, because each are equally required for success.

The reason the order can be stated correctly any of these ways, is because I see the order not as a process with a start and end, but as a cycle that follows this order no matter where you start.

The only distinction I'd add to this cycle is to view the owner as another part to this cycle with different needs from the salon than the stylist has.



When the order is looked at as a cycle, the question of importance of which part should the focus begin with, becomes a simple answer of; whichever part you happen to be, the next one in the cycle should be of greatest importance to you.

So if you are the stylist, the client is most important. If you are the client, the salon should be most important to you. (Shock, not the stylist!) The salon should in turn be looking after the owner's needs and the owner in turn the stylist and so on.

When things go counter to, or short cut the order of this cycle, problems occur.

Owners who put clients before the stylist, undermine the team and allow skills to stagnate.

Clients who focus on the stylist loyalty instead of salon loyalty, forever get caught short when they are on holidays, maternity or leave all together.

Stylist who want more from the business in terms of perks, bonuses and flexibility, without first giving full professional consistent service to clients, make it impossible for owners to re-invest or reward them out of abundance and budget surplus. (I'm forever getting asked by salon owners what a budget is, but that's another topic.)

A salon that is setup to only focus on the client experience without providing career fulfillment or a platform for owners and their teams to progress in the industry will only at best be another mediocre statistic, rather than a recognised industry name.

For more benefits to understanding this process as a salon spa success cycle see this following page at http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/Targeted-Salon-Support.aspx

11 July 2012

Turn slow salon days into profitable ones by asking.......

What type of clients would you like to fill those spaces? Where would you expect to find them? It's important to target to your desired audience.

If you are in the habit of recording good client information of each visitor you already have coming to the salon (and you should), then you may already have a good source of information ready to contact about referring friends, who are likely to be acquainted with more people just like them, so run some marketing reports from your salon software, (if you don't have a salon computer that can do this - its a likely cause for not being able to combat having slow unprofitable days), to find out who your best clients are and design a promotion for them to pass on to their friends by special invitation.

Otherwise you will need to go hunting outside the salon. Fitness Clubs, for example are full of potential clients, who are affluent enough to own a gym membership and body conscious enough to want to look their best - perfect salon clients! If your serious about filling your slow days, you can turn on the flow of these clients into your salon like a tap, by approaching the Fitness Club management to include a FREE service with your local salon in their New or Resigning Gym memberships - Let them word it as if they have arranged the free salon service with you on behalf on their joining gym members, or better still co-brand the offer as a cross promotion.

The only strings attached is to stipulate the days and times the free service may be redeemed. Avoid the temptation to heavily discount, as remember:

* You are targeting the perfect type of potential new client

* Its better for a team member you are paying anyway to work on a client, than have no client in at the time

* Discounting gives out the wrong perception and actually devalues your brand

* No strings attached offers have a higher redemption rate

* Once a client is in the salon you can value add, make further recommendations and have a chance to re-book the client. (It's actually essential that the team member actually asks the new client to participate in all these)

If you don't have time or confidence to hook up a branded Host Beneficiary (cross promotion) we can do it for you.