Hair Salon Marketing Ideas: A Salon Owner’s Story – and How You Can Copy It…
In 1937, Napoleon Hill wrote one of the earliest ‘success formula’ best-sellers, Think and Grow Rich. I would have titled it ‘Think, ACT and Grow Rich’.
Thinking doesn’t achieve anything by itself. The world is full of educated derelicts. Only action makes a difference. Ghandi, Mandela, Martin Luther King didn’t achieve anything by thinking, they took action and got things done.
Which is why you should read on, because here is a story of action from one of our own Members.
Lisa has been featured here before. She attended one of our Road to Riches marketing and business education seminars, and her life and business was revolutionized overnight.
Here is Lisa’s story, as emailed to me this week.
“Thank you for the wonderful support that you and the team so generously give to me.
When I look back at the way I used to let my business set my mood and how, if the staff were bickering, I would lie awake worrying that some one might leave”.
“I can’t believe the personal growth I have had in just six months alone. I would never have believed you if you told me that the way I am feeling now would happen back in July when I signed that credit card slip, joined the Inner Circle program and drove home with the Toolkit.
“Truth is I felt trapped by my own career, knowing full well that I certainly did not want to go back to working for a boss who was drowning like I was.
Thinking what I could do instead, when I love this industry (give or take a few peacocks), hair dressers are my kind of people. This industry needs help in so many ways.
“For my part I wanted to grow my business so that I stopped feeling physically sick when things went wrong at work. In just six months I have become a great boss. I have the Christmas cards from my team to prove it.
“I am learning about what my staff want and need in order to thrive in a working environment and thus return me good money on my investment. (Those I employ)
Since I attended that conference and joined your program 3 staff members in a team of 5 no longer work here, they have been replaced by passionate people and everything has improved for the better.
“Together my sales have improved consistently, over $60,000 in the same 6 month time frame and I now know where it is I want to be and what is I need to be working on. I have the best team of hairstylists (4 of them a mere 18 years of age) and now I have the knowledge and direction that will see me continue on this successful journey.
“I have things on the go now that keep me awake with excitement. That is how I felt 8 years ago when I opened my own business, however I lost my way somewhere along the way.
“I am on the floor cutting only for two 4 hour sessions a week, to keep the loyal clients happy and I love it. And that sick feeling that comes along when something hits that’s GONE!”
There’s no doubt about it, the few weeks leading up to Christmas is THE big trading opportunity for the year for almost all salons & spas.
But…if you’re going to wring every last dollar out of it, you have to plan your promotions and marketing with military precision.
Here’s a short excerpt from a webinar recorded today (October 5, 2015) with two of the most experienced and successful salon marketers in the southern hemisphere.
When Toni Cunningham bought her salon in Palmerston (North Island) it was turning over a measly $700 a week. Within 12 months, she’d turned that into $8,500 a week, and climbing. And when Nicole Panayiotou started her salon in the country town of Sale (Victoria) she had just two rooms…now, she has 11, and is by far the biggest and most profitable in her town.
One of the greatest frustrations for many salon & spa owners is NO-SHOWS! They’re expensive, time-wasting and profit-sapping. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In this webinar, recorded with successful Brisbane salon entrepreneur Anita Clements of Twisted Desire, watch and listen carefully as Anita explains how she eliminated no-shows forever – and discovered many other ways to take money from clients UP-FRONT.
Quotes
“I feel I’ve moved from Hairdresser to Business Women”
“You have my back”
What changes have happened?
” The biggest change is now my VIP events are profitable now – they were not before”
“My Staff are now interested in marketing where as before they were not – we’re making money now”
Taking deposits “I was very nerves to begin with but now with any VIP night we take money up front”
How did you implement taking deposits? ” We started doing this in January, we took a big hit because of not taking deposits. I felt very nerves about taking money off existing cleints. So we started small and any new cleint that is having any chemical treatment has to pay a deposit. We have a script and we have no problems with people paying them. ”
What did that do to your no shows.
“We have almost no no-shows now. We have got rid off all the time wasters who would book and not turn up”
“Our salon is now full of good customers”
What happens when people say they do not want to pay a deposit”
“Well it just means that we don’t get bad clients”
“If they don’t want to pay a deposit they can always just pop in and if we are not busy we will see them without a deposit”
“They tend to spend more money when they pay a deposit because the bill on the day is less”
“its made us a little more exclusive than the salon down the road”
“Its almost been a year and we’ve not had one person not show up or not call us”
“We take deposits for VIP events – if you pre pay you get a great package on the night (no discounts just added value) and mostly we are getting money from our existing cleints”
“The last VIP night we made $3,000 just from 2 packages and they could not wait to book in”
“We are doing the local Christmas market and take a stall and we are selling vouchers there at the festival”
“We’re also do the Christmas tree thing off the membership site – we don’t change a thing just run it straight off the system”
“We also did an Events and pre-sold Mini Membershps and made $9,000 – then I got scarred and pulled the pin but I should have done more”
“We don’t need bank loans anymore we just pre sell a mini membership – it just becomes a game, its no longer any struggle!”
New Zealand salon owner Tania McGonacle, one of twelve new salons to join the WSM Inner Circle marketing & mentoring program and receive her own copy of the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit, plus coaching, at this week’s Salon Profit Secrets seminar in Auckland
I’m going to keep my travel arrangements secret in the future. Back in April, Michelle and I arrived in the UK the day the Icelandic volcano erupted and shut down Europe’s airspace for weeks. On Saturday, we landed in New Zealand on the day the Shaky Isles experienced their worst earthquake in decades.
No doubt emergency services all over the world are now nervous about us visiting fire and pestilence on them too.
There was no nervousness among New Zealand’s salon owners however. Despite – or perhaps because of – the less than robust economy in the land of the Kiwi, we welcomed a dozen new members to the Inner Circle Premium marketing & mentoring program during yesterday’s Salon Profit Secrets seminar at the harbourside Hilton Hotel in Auckland.
New Zealanders are an almost universally optimistic people. Of more than 100 salon owners and staff in the room, there was none of the ‘woe-is-me’ attitude common among small business owners of say, the USA.
When I urged the Kiwis to ‘go out and sell something, your country needs the business’, it was met with nodding agreement and enthusiasm.
Our New Zealand distributors, Chris & Rachael D’Aguiar-Sanders did a great job of attracting salon owners to fly in to Auckland from all over the country for this event, including at least 15 of our existing members whom I’d never previously met.
Among them, IC member Paul Davis of Pureskin Clinic in Ponsonby could barely wipe the smile from his face as he told the audience his salon had just enjoyed its best July in five years. Phil Newman and partner Nikki Smith only joined the program and got their Toolkit in July, just as they started their hair salon in distant Wanaka, in the southern alps near Queenstown.
“It’s amazing,” says Phil. “We just followed the program exactly, and our sales immediately tripled. I’m a numbers kind of guy, and I’ve worked out that for every $1 we spend on ‘Toolkit-style’ marketing, we get no less than $12 back.”
Ahmet and Selma Sadi of Answers4 Hair & Beauty in Narre Warren, Victoria…one of the first of 15 new salons to join the Inner Circle marketing & mentoring program and get their new Toolkit at the Salon Profit Secrets seminar at the Sofitel on Collins this week…
Hair Salon Marketing Strategy: Have these salon owners gone MAD…or do they know something about salon marketing that you don’t???
There’s always one in every crowd. In fact I’d be surprised, if not disappointed, if there wasn’t at least one stand-out, Olympic-standard, world-champion naysayer in every marketing seminar I run for salon & spa owners.
This week in Melbourne, as I demonstrated the differences between typical ‘pretty’, branding-style marketing that most salons & spas are told to use, and ‘my’ kind of Emotional Direct Response marketing, I put two ads on the screen side by side.
One was a typical, wasteful salon ad that failed every test in the Direct Response Marketing 101 handbook, and deservedly didn’t draw a single booking. The other was a typical ‘copy-intensive’ ad our Inner Circle members are familiar with – this one brought in 35 new clients in a single week.
But there was one in the crowd who wanted to argue.
“But your kind of marketing doesn’t look professional enough for my salon. I just couldn’t show that to my clients…”
Deanna Ristevski and Debbie Wardle of Maestro Hair in Point Cook
At least she spoke up. There were bound to be other doubters not game enough to show their hand. So I did my best under time pressures to explain why this salon owner’s opinion about her marketing just doesn’t matter. The only opinions that matter are those of the customers…and they vote with their credit cards.
The ONLY valid test of any ad or flyer is the return on investment it generates – not what it looks like, how well it strokes your ego, or how many glowing comments you get from friends or family.
That is NOT to say that all Direct Response marketing must, by its very nature, be ‘ugly’, copy-intensive, bereft of pictures, with no appealing visual features. Quite the opposite. Well-used photos or graphics can often increase an ad’s pulling power. But they must earn their right to occupy valuable and expensive advertising real estate. They must sell. Using pretty pictures or graphics for their own sake is an almost criminal waste of money.
Trish Rochetich and son Kristian of Take Off Waxing in Melbourne
I was wasting my breath – the naysayer in the room didn’t get it. Needless to say, she did not join the Inner Circle coaching program and leave with her Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit tucked under her arm.
But 15 other Victorian salons did get it, especially when Inner Circle members like Mark Gibbs of Shellmark Hair Shack (18 months) and Kirsty Cuthbertson & Jasmine Dwyer of Adore Skin & Body Therapy (6 months) got up to do a ‘show and tell’ on their experiences.
Mark Gibbs reported his and wife Shelley’s salon had doubled their turnover in the past 18 months. Kirsty Cuthbertson reported her little two-person beauty salon’s takings for June 2010 were up by $15,000 over June the previous year.
Lina Rossi and Rebecca Naple of Vive La Belle Beauty in East Kew
Among the salons to join the program at the seminar…
Kristy Timms of Ren Skin Health in Geelong
Anita Kaine of Michindis in Mansfield
Kelly Inglis of Pure Skin Clinic in Belmont
Christine Palumbo of Take Off Waxing in North Melbourne
Debbie Wardle of Maestro Hair in Point Cook
Elva Vodanovich of Bio-Ger in St Kilda
Lina Rossi of Vive La Belle Beauty in East Kew
Selma Sadi of Answer 4 Hair & Beauty in Narre Warren
Andrea Martin of Lust for Hair in Forest Hill
Michelle Quarrell of Vanilah in Ballarat
Jacqui Chew of JC Unique in Mitcham
Deanna Hewitt of Academy Studio in Camberwell
Leanne Christie of Gossip Lane Hair Design in Park Orchards
Hair Salon Marketing Strategy: Have these salon owners gone MAD…or do they know something about salon marketing that you don’t???
There’s been flood of new members from all over the world in the past few weeks. In addition to this week’s Melbourne enrollments, we’ve welcomed from Canada:
Kirsty Cuthbertson and Jasmine Dwyer from Adore Skin & Body Therapy in Colac, Victoria. Members since February 2010, they’ve increase their takings 40% over 2009 since joining the Inner Circle marketing & mentoring program
Glennys Shouldice from Pure Hair Studio, Rita Singh of Ossia Salon & Spa, Nadine Bastien of Aphrodite’s Sanctuary, Vanessa Pagano of Mellennia Aesthetics Institute in Ontario, Dawn Fraser of Studio 324 Hair Salon, Janice Carr of Kismet Hair and Body and Andy Palitti of Avanti Hair Studio in British Columbia, as well as Deb McMillan from City Looks and Angela Ruiz of Lash Love / Love Nail Bar in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
From New Zealand we’d like to welcome Nicola Smith of NV Hair in Wanaka, Tania Dench of Wish Hair & Beauty in Papanui, Lauren Meacheam of Chillout Face and Body in Auckland, Kelley Leonard of Inspired By You in Whakatane, Monique Bright of Beauty Matters in Hamilton, Robyn Franich of Hair @ Matakana, and Charlotte Wenslick of Reaveal Beauty Therapy in Warkworth.
Costa Rica? Sure, Marc Langwieser of Arco Azul Salon & Spa in San Jose decided if ‘it’ works for the English speaking world, Spanish speakers might well respond to the same marketing stimuli too! His spa becomes our first member in Latin America.
All up since the beginning of the new financial year we’ve accepted 45 new salons in to the Inner Circle program.
FREE audio recording – Listen in as USA Members describe how their businesses have thrived in the recession
If your salon business is suffering, on the brink of closing the doors, barely able to find the rent – you’re not alone. More than a hundred US salons are closing every day.
While the Australian economy has weathered the economic storm better than any other country in the western world, the US has been among the hardest hit.
And yet…and yet, all over the USA, there ARE salons and spas that are thriving, despite the economy. How can that be? Simple – they have the right tools to bring customers in the door.
These salon owners don’t reveal their success secrets to everybody
Listen in on this tele-seminar, recorded LIVE on Wednesday, October 21, 2009, as salon owners Mario Raia from Ethos in Vancouver, Washington, Susan Vincent from Body & Soul Day Spa in Staunton, Virginia, and Dr Tim & Kanna Reilly from Body Solutions in Scottsdale, Arizona detail the strategies they’ve used to grow their businesses by as much as ONE THOUSAND PERCENT – right in the middle of the worst economic downturn in 70 years….
If YOU want the kind of tools that Mario, Susan and Tim are using to generate serious CASH despite ‘the economy’, you should immediately apply to become a Member of the Worldwide Salon marketing Inner Circle program, including the world-famous Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit®
There’s no doubt about it, the few weeks leading up to Christmas is THE big trading opportunity for the year for almost all salons & spas.
