There’s an old saying: the teacher will appear when the student is ready.
Unfortunately for most business owners, they leave it till they’re on their last legs, the bailiff hammering at the door, the kids starving, the bills piling up like autumn leaves before they seek help, and join.
Long-term Members will be familiar with some of the names – Tegan Messineo, who was just 21 and pregnant with twins when she sought out WSM, and built her one-person business to a two-salon enterprise with ten staff, while she looked after her babies at home. Tracey Orr, who has been with us for more than 7 years, started her two-person salon in sleepy Tasmania, which is now a million dollar salon.
WSM member Nicole Lopez – enjoying the two-wheeled and four-wheeled fruits of both hard work and smart-thinking
Nicole Lopez is another one. When Nicole joined WSM in July 2011, her Perth salon was already growing rapidly (notably, not in a recognized affluent area, but one of the city’s poorest). But as Nicole reveals in this recent letter to me, success isn’t neat, clean and stress-free – something I’m sure she reflects on as she cruises the streets in the new Mercedes convertible or astride the shiny black motorcycle that a combination of hard work and smart thinking has brought her. This is a lesson in honesty, ambition and achievement.
I’ve bolded some of Nicole’s words for my own comments at the bottom of her story.
“When you said I was the WSM Salon of the Week I was not sure if I was worthy of such a privilege.
My life leading up to this moment has been full of challenges and thinking that I hadn’t yet reached my goal made me ponder my success up to this point, AND the fact I am almost always overwhelmed and stressed with anxiety surely couldn’t make me a success either?!
Owning a salon, much less all three types together, in my case Hair, Beauty & Day Spa, has proven to be the biggest challenge I have ever lived. I am passionate about business and succeeding, and doing all this without knowing there is something to fall back on! I believe that to succeed in life you need to take the plunge and do what you need to do to succeed, even if it means sacrificing everything to make that one thing work.
I believe that life hands you opportunities and it is up to you to grab them with both hands. That’s why, when I bought my salon and it was quiet and lonely, I took to the front door andwelcomed each person as they walked past to admire my A-Frames.
If there was ever a person who walked up to the front window to look at my signage I would take advantage and leaped to the challenge of making them my salon client. We are surrounded by salons, 5 in just our complex. And to any person looking from the outside in, everyone is quick to judge whether I made a good choice in buying the salon I did, in the area I did with so much competition around me. But in my eyes there is no competition because I have made people/clients aware (and advertised) why they should be coming to us and not to the salon next door.
Some of my secrets to fast tracking success has been to be the first point of contact to every client, phone, walk-ins and client bookings. I don’t work on the floor (and never have as I knew this would hold me back in the present and of course in the future when trying to pass the clients away) even though I am a qualified Hairstylist. As the business owner, no one ever sells the business as well as you do. I pushed through the financial strain this caused (by me not working on the floor) and made it my job (that if I wasn’t going to be doing clients) I would be trying anything and everything to get people to walk through our door. My weekends are non-existent – through my own choice – I spend every waking moment on the internet searching and Googling anything and everything that may involve free advertising, promotions or YouTube videos on ways to advertise for free. Or ways to bring in more money that wouldn’t involve me spending money.
Every day I am presented with new challenges that sometimes make me want to run and hide under a log or fly away to another country, I mean I am a normal person. I suffer from stress and anxiety and am naturally quite shy. BUT when I think about my business and how much I want to succeed it all disappears and I just do what I need to do to service our clients and become the most reputable salon in Perth – and become wealthy in the meantime.
To date, my motivation to dowhat it takes has benefited me in so many ways. I would never wish my anxiety away as this is what drives me to do what I need to do! It gives me my enthusiasm and it gives me my driving force for life! So unless I hadn’t pushed through all my life struggles and fought to take my business to new heights, today I wouldn’t be riding my very own 800cc shiny black motorcycle and driving a beautiful Mercedes SLK 350 silver Convertible!”
Key points that I’ve highlighted with bold text:
“without having something to fall back on”; during World War One, British officers would often stand behind the Tommies as they lined up to go ‘over the top’ into the teeth of the German machine guns. The officers carried pistols. The Tommies knew if they refused to attack, they’d be shot by their own officers.
I’m not suggesting instant death as alternative to commitment in business. But it’s all too easy to say “I’ll have a crack at it, and if it doesn’t work I can always go back to sweeping floors…”
“I took to the front door andwelcomed each person as they walked past…”
A few weeks ago I visited one of my favorite restaurants, for the first time in several months. Much had changed. Once thriving, the place was pretty much empty. The owner, whom I knew, was slumped at the bar, drinking a coffee and looking disconsolate. “It’s lousy,” he told me. “Business has just fallen through the floor. Nobody’s coming in any more. I don’t know what to do.”
Well just for starters, he could have gotten off his lazy backside and did what Nicole does – rush out and sell to people walking past the front door. Show some enthusiasm, passion, excitement. Money won’t get excited about you until you get excited about you. Instead of standing inside your empty salon, staring open-mouthed at prospective customers as they walked by, when was the last time you went outside your comfort zone, actually opened the door and attempted to talk to them?
“…why they should be coming to us and not to the salon next door…”
Most businesses don’t bother giving valid, well thought-out reasons why their prospects should buy from them rather than the competition. ‘Reason why’ marketing is so little used, yet so powerful. What written, verbal and visual reasons do you actively give your prospects? Anything? At all?
“…be the first point of contact to every client, phone, walk-ins and client bookings…”
The business owner’s job is not cutting hair. It’s doing what Nicole does – being the PPRO: the Prime Public Relations Officer. There’s nothing fluffy and wasteful about meeting and greeting. These customers are and will remain customers of the salon, not customers of an individual stylist or therapist.
Think about that the next time you worry about a staff member leaving and taking clients with them.
“I suffer from stress and anxiety…”
There isn’t a champion athlete who doesn’t suffer nerves as he steps up to the starting blocks. Sir Lawrence Olivier was always anxious on the first night of a new play.
It can’t be any other way. A certain amount of anxiety is necessary. Every day, you’re going into battle. Nerves are what give you an edge. I’ve never met a successful person who sails through life without a care in the world. And let’s face it, everybody has anxieties. I used to be a highly paid TV producer, often going to work – for somebody else – with a knot in my stomach. If I’m going have a knot in my stomach, I’d rather have it generating anxiety, and productivity for my own business than someone else’s.
If you have ever thought that marketing won’t work for your salon because you are in a small town then you should watch this video.
In this short clip, Suzy Poole owner of Body Divine in Kerikeri shares how she has taken her salon from a pretty dire state of affairs to a busy, profitable business in under a year, with big plans for expansion.
I was visiting Kerikeri for a couple of days this week and decided to pop in for a cuppa with Suzy and check out her salon. And I was really impressed with what I saw.
Suzy has created her own economy, while others around her continue to struggle on. In fact, Suzy’s business is growing so fast that she is in the process of expanding her existing salon and building a hair salon out the back.
What stood out the most on my visit to Suzy’s salon was the energy that she puts in to marketing her business, it’s clear that she has a great attitude, is incredibly passionate about it and a real ‘massive action’ taker.
And while I was in the salon clients were walking in and asking to buy one of her mini memberships that she had just released that morning. And as you’ll hear in the video, one customer even left a cheque in her mailbox with strict instructions so she didn’t miss out on one of only 10 memberships released!
Check out the video here….
For those of you who are not familiar with Kerikeri it’s a fairly small town in the Bay of Islands, population a few thousand.
Thanks for the grand tour of the salon Suzy and keep up the excellent wor
Most of us have had that horrible experience with a Yellow Pages or advertising sales rep in the past where they think they know best as to how your ad should look, we’ve gone with what they’ve said thinking that they are the experts, only to be left with an incredibly ineffective advert that looks ‘pretty’ but generates no phone calls and a large invoice!
Chloe Wilson of Unique Beauty, Timaru NZ
Well for Chloe Wilson of Unique Beauty in Timaru, New Zealand the days of trusting ad reps are long gone! She now trusts in one thing…her own opinion of how an effective advert should be constructed.
Since then she has been going guns blazing and has in fact tripled her salons turnover since joining Worldwide Salon Marketing around 8 months ago.
Here is what Chloe had to say….
“When I opened up my beauty salon in April 2011, it was very slow at the start, I spent over 6,000 on advertising that wasn’t working, in August I found WSM on the internet and started up with a 1500 leaflet drop to the surrounding area to the salon. I had 15 people book in from it and more from there just it just flowed.
After having a few phone calls with Toni, I let her know how scared I was about putting this advert in the yellow pages – she reassured me it would work, so I stuck with it. The advert cost me $2000 and doesn’t just look like an expensive business card anymore.
When the YP came out in October I had 3 phone calls on the day of it coming out and about 20 the next week following. I still get phone calls every week for the deal in advert and just people getting other treatments.
Since November I’ve only had 3 quiet weeks and I’ve had fully booked weeks, working 3 late nights a week and I’ve tripled my income a week from $500 a week to 2,000-3,000 weekly. I have also 10 weddings this year as well which has brought me more people to the salon and 3 booked in for the end of the year (friends from brides has make-up done with me).”
For Inner Circle Members I have made the actual Yellow Pages ad used by Chloe available on the members website for you to see.
Thanks for sharing your success with us Chloe. I’m sure you’ll have inspired many salon owners to give their ad rep a good old kick in the backside the next time they try and tell them they know best!
Keep up the great work!
Chris Sanders, Director Worldwide Salon Marketing NZ
Isn’t it time you started making some real money in your salon and doing marketing that actually gets results just like Chloe got? If you are ready to take the next step in your business then click here NOW to find out more!
WSM member Bec Woodage started with nothing two years ago – and built her business by over 1000% with the tools and education she obtained as a Member
Investing in your salon business isn’t just about buying equipment, stocking with products and paying staff. If that’s all it took, any fool could make serious money in a salon or spa, instead of only 5% that do.
One of those 5% is Rebecca Woodage, the young owner of Perfection in Beauty in Sydney. When Bec joined Worldwide Salon Marketing, she’d just returned from an overseas holiday and purchased the salon she’d worked in for several years as a beauty therapist. All went well – until the salon burned down 6 weeks later.
Bec attended one of our seminars, but as she describes in this video below, was too afraid to sign up for the company’s marketing & mentoring program (and the Simple Salon Marketing manual) because “I just couldn’t afford it.”
But she bit the bullet a month later…within two years, her business had grown a massive 1000%. Her story is a classic case of investing in her business education, combined with persistence and dedicated implementation of her new-found knowledge.
Every stylist or therapist dreams of starting or buying a salon and one day selling out for a fat payday. Few achieve the goal. For most, owning a salon is run as an income model. If and when it gets sold, it’s usually for little more than small change, with not much more to sell than fixtures and fittings, and what’s left of a lease, the owner only too happy to get out from under a pile of debt, the on-going bills and the stress of being the main income-earner.
Only a tiny percentage build their business with an equity model – a deliberate strategy to turn the business into an asset worth selling.
But there IS a formula, a process that can turn the dream into reality. It’s called
starting with the end in mind.
Nicki Nolan sold her Garaldton (WA) hair salon after 3 years in business – “Very happy with the price – the buyers didn’t even quibble”
The young lady you’re about to meet followed that formula to a ‘T’ – and reaped the rewards.
Nicki Nolan built her business in the remote West Australian country town of Geraldton.
Notably, Nicki sought out an appropriate mentor – joining up with Worldwide Salon Marketing very early in her business life – and actively, aggressively used the marketing and other business tools that came with her membership. She followed a plan, took massive action, and persisted, rather than giving up and throwing her hands in the air at the slightest hurdle.
So how did she ‘live the dream’ when so many never even get close, after 20 or even 30 years in the business? For 95% of people who own and run a business in the beauty and hair industry, it will never be much more than a poorly-paid job. Few take the trouble to educate themselves on business and marketing. Instead, they plunge into business ownership on little more than a wing and a prayer, assuming that because they are merely good at cutting hair or applying skin treatments, little else is required.
To build equity – something you can sell – you need systems. Written and implemented systems for raising leads, converting them to sales, re-booking them over and over again, up-selling products.
You need written systems that manage staff, systems for stocking products, systems for managing accounts.
Having documented, rigidly-enforced systems gave Nicki the confidence and the know-how to create that ‘Holy Grail’ of salon owners the world over; equity, something she could sell to an interested buyer.
Just this week, Nicki walked away from her salon in the mid-west town of Geraldton with a pile of cash.
Any salon owner can follow this formula. It is NOT rocket science. Nicki had no special opportunities, no advanced education, no lucky breaks; She just did what worked
