by Greg Milner | Feb 29, 2012 | Advertising Tips, Featured, The Smell of Success
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
by Greg Milner | Apr 21, 2011 | Advertising Tips
The article that reveals the truth behind ‘scam ads’ created by ad agencies. Click to show a full-sized image
For years I’ve been warning salon & spa owners that entrusting their advertising dollars to the so-called ‘creatives’ at ad agencies is akin to standing in the shower tearing up $50 notes. Now, here’s proof, if any more were needed.
In my local paper this week, a long feature article from the head of one of this country’s best-known advertising outfits, The Brand Agency. Managing director Steve Harris out-and-out admits that
Ad agencies create ads to win awards, not to sell your product.
His very first paragraph is a killer:
“Creative advertising awards have long been the currency by which advertising agencies and their creative staff measure their success and ability.”
Not, you will note, by the quantity of actual sales the ad produces!
“Creative awards have no relationship whatsoever to the delivery of results to advertisers, the companies which pay for the ads to be developed and produced.”
And to add insult to injury,
“To produce these ‘scam ads’ the agency often finds a willing client to approve the workd and then funds the advertising production and pays for the advertising space to run the ad…these clients are taken on by the agency purely for the opportunity to produce an ad that will hopefully win an award.
“To win an award an ad must be the one most liked by a panel of advertising ‘creatives’, based on a set of creative criteria. It doesn’t actually have to sell anything…”
Well gee, roll me down the road and call me dusty.
It’s a refreshing admission from within the mysterious world of advertising itself that the smart business owner will keep his or her own counsel, continue to advertise and market their salons & spas ‘our’ way, and don’t get sucked in by the fools so willing to take your money to stroke their own ‘creative’ egos.
As famous ad man David Ogilvie was fond of saying,
“creative is what sells”
He might have added, “Not what wins awards.”
by Greg Milner | Feb 18, 2010 | Advertising Tips
A Salon Client Card Template For Advertising – is this the world’s WORST ad?
If you own a salon business or a day spa business, you’ve probably put at least some effort into crafting an ad that might pull some response. Unless you’re equipped with the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit® (or even equipped with the very basics contained in the new Lite program) you’re probably doing it blindfolded with one arm tied behind your back, but I give most salon owners credit for at least having a crack at it.
But this salon deserves to have the earth open up and swallow it whole, never to re-appear. This ad was sent in by long-term Inner Circle member Rebecca Skehan of Gaia Hair in Queensland. Like most Members who’ve been ‘converted’ and educated in the kind of Direct Response marketing we do (the kind that puts so many noses out of joint in the beauty industry), Rebecca has developed a keen eye for the wasteful, nonsensical, slap-dash crap that passes for ‘creativity’.
In fact it’s a burden that many of us carry. Many times, I’ve been taken aside by a member at one of our salon owner conferences, and told
“Greg, your system has ruined my life. Everywhere I go, I see small business advertising that’s so pathetic I’m constantly having to stop myself from going into that business and ‘saving’ them…”
Well folks, suck it up. Knowledge IS a burden. I can never go anywhere and simply switch off. I can’t stop myself looking at an ad, a billboard, a letter, without instantly and consciously analyzing it, wondering what’s it supposed be achieving, critiquing it, mentally re-writing it. But you can’t save people who won’t lift a finger to save themselves.
Whoever ‘wrote’ this ad is clearly desperate, like a cornered animal. But obviously not desperate enough to bother taking the time or putting in the little energy required to find out even a little information on what works in advertising.
And it’s not difficult. Fifteen years ago, you’d have had to get in your car, drive to the library, take out a couple of books, drive home again, and spend hours studying. Now, there’s Google. There’s NO excuse.
Try this yourself: Google ‘direct response advertising’. There’s page after page of people trying to sell you stuff, written by some of the best marketing copywriters on the planet. It’s a veritable university on your desk. If ALL you ever did was study what these guys have written, the structure of the piece, the way it leads the reader down a slippery slope to the Most Wanted Response… and applied even some of it to your own marketing, you’d be that far in front of most of your competition you’d be outta sight.
This particular ad is barely worth spending any time on. Certainly, I doubt any prospective customer did. But a couple of points worth mentioning.
One, it’s clear ‘distress selling’. May as well hire a megaphone, stand on your salon’s roof and shout “Hey, we’re starving, there’s really nothing going for us at all, but we’re really cheap!”
Second, the most important thing about any print ad is it’s headline. If the best you can come up with is the name of your salon, go flush your marketing money down the toilet.
Lastly, this ad begs for cheap clients, who’ll only ever want to spend five bucks. It has absolutely zero redeeming features. If I owned a salon nearby, I’d have a big sign out front that says
“We Fix $5 Haircuts”
Good grief. People like this don’t deserve the luxury of having customers.
FOOTNOTE: Even among our own Inner Circle members, there are always a few who are not long for this world. One, who joined the program recently, moaned and whined during a coaching call today that “no, I haven’t even opened the Toolkit, I haven’t been on the Members Only site, and anyway my business is different, this kind of stuff won’t work for me, and in any case I don’t want to do any of this marketing stuff, I want it all done for me…”
Sometimes, losers manage to weasel their way through a crack in our usually well-tuned Loser Filter.
by Greg Milner | Jul 20, 2009 | Advertising Tips
Salon Marketing Ideas: Salon Owners Fall for the Myth of Repetitive Advertising
Here’s a common nonsense spread by the likes of Yellow Pages and newspaper ad sales reps:
“You have to run your ad at least 6 times to know if it’s going to work.”
Ah, if only I had a buck for every salon owner who’s been fooled by that old chestnut. It’s a good ploy for the sales rep, for sure. As long as you believe that line, you’ll keep spending money on ad space in the vain hope he’s right. That eventually, the ad will work.
In the interests of Accurate Thinking, I’ll use an analogy to demonstrate the foolishness of this money-wasting myth.
If your ad doesn’t work the very first time, it’s never going to work.
Imagine for a moment that instead of selling beauty treatments or haircuts, you sell car tyres.
And in your city or area on any given day, there’ll be a number of people who, on that very day, have noticed their car’s tyres are getting a little ratty, a touch on the er…smooth side…and they need to replace ‘em quick before the cops pull them over and slap a work order on the car.
 |
| Typical salon ad you’ll see in the Yellow Pages or the newspaper. You could run this ad a bazillion times and you’d be lucky to get a phone call. |
And let’s assume that of all those people, half of them read the local newspaper.
So you place an ad for your tyre shop in that newspaper.
Nobody calls. Zero, nada. Zip.
You call the newspaper rep and he tells you brightly “oh, you need to run your ad at least 6 times before it gets noticed.”
So you keep shelling out cash for this ad, week after week. Still no calls. By now, you’re beginning to blame the media for your lack of advertising success.
The truth is a little harder to bear. It’s not the media at all. It’s your lousy ad.
Let’s assume half of all the people who woke up that morning and decided they needed new tyres then opened the newspaper and saw your ad the first time it ran.
If the ad was any good, some of them would have called.
Here’s the real truth: the reason your ad didn’t work the sixth time you ran it is the same reason it didn’t work the first time you ran it – it was a lousy ad.
If it had been any good in the first place, a percentage of all those people looking for new tyres for their car on that very day would have called you.
It comes back to the Big Rules of an effective marketing strategy for a salon:
1) Make the right offer,
2) to the right market,
3) in the right media,
4) at the right time.
Clearly, in this make-believe scenario, it was the right market, in the right media, at the right time. Equally clearly, if those last three pins were lined up and you didn’t get calls, logically it was the first pin that was out of line.
So the next time an ad sales rep tries to sell you the Myth of Repetition, don’t fall for it. Either cancel the ad space, or change your ad so it answers the question at the top of mind of every prospect:
“What’s in it for me, right here and now?”
SALON OWNER ADVERTISING LIFELINE: If you want to know how to use advertising more effectively, the very best way you can do this is join the Inner Circle Marketing & Mentoring program, and get the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit with your Membership. Here’s where you go to find out more….
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.
