by Greg Milner | Feb 1, 2010 | Marketing Superstars
IC member Tracey Maryska’s small salon turned into a multi-salon chain
Beauty Salon Price List Template:Tracey Maryska’s Remarkable Story – from Struggling Start Up to Owner of Multiple Salons
Inner Circle Member of the Week Tracey Maryska was skeptical when she joined the Inner Circle Premium program and got her Essential Salon owner’s Marketing Toolkit® in August 2008.
“…but we have never looked back,” she writes this week as she tells the story of how she bought her first small salon business after having her first baby – and turned it into a multi-salon chain.
“I purchased my first small salon in 2003 just after having my first child. This was a very run down little salon at Umina that I managed to grow into a busy little salon.
In 2004 I purchased another little salon at Chittaway Bay which I also grew, after having another baby in 2005.
In June 2006 I took the biggest gamble by opening a salon in a large regional shopping centre at Woy Woy with a really upmarket look that included beauty and spray tanning rooms along with 16 work stations and 5 basins. In April 2006 I sold my Chittaway salon to finance my Woy Woy salon and in 2007 I then had an opportunity to open a salon in another regional shopping centre at Kincumber – this opened in Dec 2007 and in March 2008 I sold my strip shop salon at Umina to focus on the 2 bigger hair and beauty salons.
In April 2009 I went on to open a large 150 sqm hair and beauty salon in a brand new shopping centre at Belmont Central – just out of Newcastle and in October 2009 another opportunity to open in another shopping centre at West Gosford became available…
I joined the Inner Circle program and got my Toolkit in August 2008 and to be honest was not sure about your marketing techniques – but we have taken them on board and never looked back, what makes it even greater is I have shared the knowledge with my Teams and they understand the concept behind all the marketing and are thinking about ideas all the time. I believe my salons have thrived and survived through the harder times with your marketing and my constant Passion to be the Best.
In October 2009 I was nominated for sole trader business women of the year – by Business Women Connect on the NSW Central Coast/Hunter Region. I am very proud of Winning my award and it has given me an even bigger boost to continue to grow my businesses with lots of marketing and promotions to ensure we have constant Cash flow and New clients.
Thank you
Tracey Maryska
Passion hair & beauty
Congratulations Tracey – another shining example for Inner Circle members – and salons around the world.
by Greg Milner | Jan 25, 2010 | New Zealand
Hair Salon Website Template Free For NZ Salon Superstar of the Week – Lynda Moodley of Lynnel’s Hair Studio, Manukau
This week I got a very excited phone call from one of our Inner Circle members, Lynda Moodley of Lynnel’s Hair Studio in Manukau. Lynda placed an advertorial in her local Manukau Courier and the phone has been ringing red hot ever since!
Prior to being an Inner Circle member Lynda was your typical salon owner, chasing a dream to have a salon bustling with customers and money flooding out of the till, whereas in reality her dream was dragging her down and the only thing flooding in, were bills, bills and more bills.
And as I say to new inner circle members, joining the program doesn’t instantly qualify you for a salon full of customers and bags and bags of cash. No, you still actually have to put the work in to make that happen, which is exactly what Lynda has been doing day after day, week after week, month after month. And it is this MASSIVE ACTION that has seen her salon grow consistently each month, employ her first staff members and become the leading retailer in South Auckland for her product range.
Lynda Moodley Owner of Lynnel’s Hair Studio, Manukau
Since joining the Inner Circle program in 2009 she has seen her rate of new clients increase each month. In October she had 35 new clients, in November she had 46 new clients and in December she had 47 new clients. And I think it is fair to say that with her advertorial in January she will be breaking some more records this month….
Editorials and adverts (advertorials) are a fantastic way to promote your salon and more often than not will result in a much higher response rate than just an advert alone. It is a way to tell people a bit more about your salon and make them feel like they already know and trust you before they walk through your doors or call you.
If you are thinking about advertising in your local paper it pays to ask them (especially if you are a new advertiser) if you can have some editorial with your advert. Sometimes they will give you this for free in the hope of you advertising more with them in the future. Alternatively some papers will want you to lock in to a contract for x amount of adverts before they give you editorial space.
Lynda ran a 10 week advertising campaign with the paper. The first 9 adverts did not include editorial and the response rate was 2 – 3 bookings per ad. The advertorial in week 10 generated 27 phone enquiries, 15 bookings (12 of which were new clients) and an immediate income of $896.
Each new client would be worth on average $1000 per annum to Lynda, so the advertorial has potentially increased her annual turnover by $12,000.
Needless to say Lynda has found out what works best for her salon and will continue to run an advertorial column each month.
Members, click here to see Lynda’s editorial
And here’s what Lynda has to say about being an Inner Circle member…
“On many occasions I would sit in my quiet salon and think what on earth am I doing chasing a dream but there’s so much stress. I needed to be able to talk to others that are in my industry and understand exactly where I’m coming from and yes the inner circle program provides just that and definitely much much more.
Being a member of the inner circle program has decreased the stress level in my life in terms of marketing, gone are those days of sitting hours and hours in front of the computer screen and trying to figure out where to start with an advert. By being a member of the program we as a salon on average are doing 20-25 new clients in a month. October this year we did a record of 35 new clients and we have just broken that record again with 46 new clients in November.
My coaching calls are definitely my favourite. I am always excited to talk to Chris because I know even if I have had a low month he’s always there to encourage me and get me motivated. The other aspect of the program that I enjoy is the fact that everything is done for me all I have to do is just change my details and off goes the marketing.
Our most successful campaign that seems to work for us is the Hollywood Woman’s Hair Package. Every month we put out at least 2000 flyers and on average we get a return of 15-20 new clients taking up this offer and definitely topping that with retail sales.
According to my supplier Lynnels retails more products that any other salon that they supply in South Auckland
I spend at least 5-7 hours if not more on marketing each week. Just about every chance I get I’m in front of my computer going through the kit and getting an advert sorted.”
And all of Lynda’s hard work hasn’t gone un-noticed by her husband too….
“Well, my precious husband sees all hard work I have been putting into my business as well as still being a mummy and a wife so he decided to honour me and buy me my dream car. I drive it very proudly with my salon magnets on both sides of my car which includes a $99 offer and frequently I notice people at the lights or round abouts reading my magnet.
Check out Lynda’s new BMW!!!
My goal is to be DEBT FREE, to be full time off the floor and definitely expansion in terms of employing staff. We have just employed another hairdresser because I cannot carry the work load on my own.
And my advice to people who are thinking about joining the Inner Circle program is ‘DON’T HESITATE. You have nothing to lose. If you are looking at closing the doors to your business don’t do it the inner circle program has the answers you are looking for and the mentors are amazing. If you shut the doors to your business you probably will lose the very thing that can catapult you right into your financial freedom. Give the program a try, you have everything to gain.”
Well done Lynda, you really deserve these fantastic results from all the hard work you are putting in….keep it up!!
by Greg Milner | Sep 3, 2009 | Email marketing, Website Marketing
Tegan Messineo and partner Brad with their freshly-minted twin boys.
Hair Salon Website Template: Email or Hard Copy? Salon owners have questions, we’ve got answers….
It’s no surprise to me when Inner Circle members like Tegan Messineo of Body Firming & Beauty in Bunbury, Western Australia (who only got her Toolkit in December 2008) tell me they’ve literally doubled their businesses.
Tegan is a prime example of entrepreneurial thought AND action, one who doesn’t merely join the Inner Circle program, get the Toolkit and expect it to, of its own accord, leap off the shelf and gang tackle prospects as they wander past her front door, dragging them in by the hair.
Instead, she treated Inner Circle membership as the beginning of her education in direct response marketing, not merely as the ‘magic pill’ end to all her business worries. As Tegan writes this week,
“I have been doing LOTS of reading on Emotional Direct Response Marketing and listening to heaps of cds…”
That’s pretty obvious by the intelligence and thoughtfulness of Tegan’s question re direct mail vs email:
“I have got my website up and running (http://www.bodyfirmingandbeauty.com) and we are offering a FREE $25 voucher. Now I have 2 choices:
Option 1-
Post voucher with letter, special offer and current price list out to client.
Post another letter 2 weeks after if they haven’t used up their voucher
Post a 3rd letter
Post a 4th letter out to the client (the voucher has a 8 week expiry on it)
Option 2 –
Set up auto-responder to email the voucher out once the form has been completed.
Set up the rest of the letters to be emailed out.
The email one is really cost effective and it saves a lot of time once it is set up and ready to go, however it is very easy for people to press X and get rid of it when it comes in. Where as in hard copy the client will have to open it and look at it before deciding what she wants to do with it. What way do you think will have the best response? (and I am almost certain that you will say………test them both hahaha)
Yup, you’re right. That’s exactly what to do – test.
And I would say this whether it be about beauty salon marketing or marketing for an accountancy firm. Email, sure – it might be efficient, but it’s nowhere near as effective as real mail.
I would run BOTH alongside each other, ie they get an email auto-responder plus follow-ups AS WELL as the hard copy equivalents, delivered at approx the same time. That way you can easily and quickly measure response right alongside each other, piece for piece.
And once you’ve set up the autoresponders they don’t cost you anything in time or money anyway, so you may as well put some effort into the direct mail while the email stuff runs by itself. You’ll soon know which is getting the response, but I’d bet my own mother it’ll be the hard copy stuff.
I would run BOTH alongside each other, ie they get an email auto-responder plus follow-ups AS WELL as the hard copy equivalents, delivered at approx the same time. That way you can easily and quickly measure response right alongside each other, piece for piece.
But here’s what’s really instructive in Tegan’s question: the fact that she’s asking it in the first place says much about her new approach to her salon since joining the Inner Circle program. That new approach is itself recognition that she’s not IN the salon or beauty business, she’s in the marketing business. Marketing IS the business.
If more salon owners could take the blinkers off and recognize this fundamental truth, they’d begin to become business people – even entrepreneurs (there’s a difference!) instead of merely technicians who find themselves owning a business, however reluctantly.
If YOU want the kind of success that Tegan’s enjoying, but better yet, the real and tangible THRILL of discovering effective direct response marketing for salons & spas, and how it really can make your phone melt down with appointments, you need to join the Inner Circle program and get your own copy of the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit® – the original and still (by far) the most comprehensive system of advertising and sales templates and strategies ever developed for the small salon or spa.
by Greg Milner | Sep 1, 2009 | The Smell of Success
Funny title, serious message for business owners
Salon Web Template: Do You Insist The World is Flat?
If you own your own business, this is for you.
Every so often, we get a complaint from a Member, like this one: “We have purchased all of your marketing material about one month and a half ago. We are NOT HAPPY….(I just wanted to) let you know of my disappointment with the marketing so far…”
These do become tiring, particularly in light of overwhelming evidence from literally hundreds of salons & spas all over the world who are using the very same marketing system, and achieving documented – and in many cases, truly spectacular – results.
To verify this, you need only browse around this website. Go look under Salon Superstars. These are real owners of real salons & spas, all over the world, all of them using the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit® containing exactly the same Direct Response marketing and advertising templates for flyers, letters and ads, and the ‘sales thinking’ that goes behind them.
Dan Kennedy – brutal, but accurate
So what is the difference? Idly, I was reading through a little booklet by Dan Kennedy. It’s called
“Why Do I Always Have to Sit Next to the Farting Cat”
but the whimsical title is just an eye-catching headline for a very serious, hard-nosed and instructive essay on why a few people achieve success when the vast majority don’t.
So I quote Kennedy here, as answer at least in part to the complainers:
“If you own your own business, there’s a pretty good chance you also own some of my marketing courses, and/or own a marketing system put out by someone I’ve influenced.
If you own a Marketing System specific to an inudstry, odds are it’s been put into your hands by somebody who I work with. I’m familiar withi the system you have. And I have something important to tell you about it.
The first thing you should know – “it” works. Each of these industry advisors have thousands of business owners who can testify to that. Questioning the efficacy of these Systems is like insisting the world is flat. The time for such an argument has long since passed. These leaders and their Systems are proven.
So the second thing to know is – it’s about you, not ‘it’.
I remember being at one of Joe Polish’s boot camps for carpet cleaners, and listening as a carpet cleaner went on and on about how nothing of Joe’s he tried worked because all his customers were cheapskates and everybody in his town bought only based on the cheapest price. Finally, I stopped him. I asked if there was a shopping mall in town. When he said yes, I wondered out loud how that could be.
If everybody there only bought by cheapest price, the only store there would be a Wal-Mart. You see, insisting that everybody buys by the cheapest price is stupid. (And, incidentally, fewer than 10% of customers buy that way, unless offered no other basis for making a decision.) Then I pointed out to him: he chose his customers. He did certain things to attract them. If they were all cheapskates, his fault.
I find a lot of people fail to get the results they should, that others get, for one or more of these reasons. One, they don’t actually use the Systems as instructed. They fool around with it, use pieces of it, change it.
Two, other aspects of their businesses are so screwed up, marketing that brings more customers in the door is futile.
Three, they are self-defeating whiners and complainers. There is an intangible to business, and that is attitude.
Fourth, they never do much of anything. If they start, they don’t follow through.
So I want to tell you again, questioning the efficacy of these Systems is like insisting the world is flat. The time for such argument has long since passed.”
There’s a saying. A poor carpenter blames his tools. I’m here to tell you, you own extraordinary tools.”
Amen. And by the way, I’ve just ordered a whole truckload of those little books from Dan’s printer in the States. Our Inner Circle members will each get a copy, free.
If you are NOT yet an Inner Circle member, you do NOT yet have the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit®, you are fighting a lonely battle devoid of the right knowledge, useful tools, with both arms tied behind your back, re-inventing the wheel every day, probably doing it the same way you’ve always done it, probably getting the same lackluster results you’ve always got.
You CAN change this, by applying for a 30-day Test Drive of the toolkit and the entire Inner Circle marketing & mentoring system.
by Greg Milner | Aug 27, 2009 | Increasing Retail Sales
Salon Business Plan Template: Salon Marketing Increases Sales by 25% in One Month
Here at WSM, we love celebrating YOUR success – which is why I always look forward to our monthly group coaching call. Not only do we get to talk to members who have gotten it spectacularly right, but these inspirational stories also help other members to grow their own businesses. As the old adage goes, success breeds success, and I hope Rachel Howe’s terrific achievements motivates you on your own journey.
All the way up north from gorgeous and sunny Brisbane, QLD (yes, we’re jealous!), Rachel is a young sole operator who has had some amazing results since joining us a mere 6 weeks ago. Implementing just a handful of powerful strategies contained in the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit®, her sales has jumped from around $8,000 –$ 9,000 per month to $12,400 – a massive 25% increase! Product sales have been even more impressive, almost doubling from $2,500 to $4,600.
But Rachel proves that not only is it possible to grow your business substantially using the Toolkit®, she also tells us how easy it was, and spills the secret on her phenomenal retail sales:
However, the most amazing part is that she managed to do all of this simply by mailing 200 existing clients on her database a seasonal offer, directly from the Toolkit®, booking in 19 clients. These sales added up to over $2,000, proving that you don’t always need to go trawling the streets for new business when you’ve got a gold mine filed away in your salon computer hard drive. And even better than that – there’s no need to re-invent the wheel. If a template directly from the Toolkit™ can help Rachel achieve these results, they can do the same for you and your salon.
Being a sole operator, the road to success can seem especially daunting – no moral support from a co-owner, no staff in the salon to help out when things get hectic. Being a member of the Worldwide Salon Marketing Inner Circle not only offers you support through coaching and meeting up with other salon owners, but also takes the stress of marketing your business off your shoulders. Everything is literally done for you – just add your salon details, and watch the money roll in…
