by Greg Milner | Oct 5, 2010 | New Zealand, The Smell of Success
I’m a firm believer in attitude playing a big part in the success or downfall of your business, whatever industry you are in. Winston Churchill once said “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference” and when it comes to Inner Circle member Heidi Morton of Bodyscape in Wellington, NZ, her positive, massive action taking attitude has made a world of difference to her business.
Heidi joined the Inner Circle program in the midst of a global recession (July 2009), but this didn’t stop her from growing her salon by over 40% and being so busy that she had to move to a new premises that was double the size of her previous spa!
Here’s an email I got from Heidi just yesterday….
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“After a full year of being involved in Worldwide Salon Marketing the results for our business speak for themselves. Whilst I had a good grasp of business and marketing options prior to becoming involved, Chris, Rachael and the team certainly made sure that I didn’t forget how important it is to ensure MASSIVE ACTION means MASSIVE RESULTS. I am now a firm believer in all wheels of the spoke.
Just over a year ago I had a profitable business that was making ends meet but certainly not a retirement plan. Being a busy Mum and a non beautician partner in the business I often neglected the marketing aspect of our business, focusing too much on the numbers at the other end. We had no trouble attracting and keeping clients but I knew we could do better, a lot better.
12 months later we have a brand new spa on Lambton Quay in Wellington, double the size of our previous spa, all paid for out of the increased turnover in our business. I would not have the courage to do this if I didn’t know of all the tools we could use that could generate us money.
We try everything and anything that WSM throws our way or we think can think of. Our Queen of Referrals competition run during 2010 (a version of the Queen of Referral program, but our Queens are competing for $1,000 of prizes by referring the most new clients and the most spend) has so far bought in over 200 new clients in 8 months whose first visits have spent over $10,000 let alone what they have spent after that. This doesn’t count referrals outside the Queens competition we run.
We have a monthly package deal that normally sells over 30 packages a month with add ons not discounts! We regularly do the Wellington Women’s package (our version of Hollywood women’s ? yes I like to put my own touch on everything!) and bring in 20 or so new clients when we do it. We sold over 100 of the packages on a voucher site when we ran it. 100 new clients in a day, $10,000 in a day – fantastic.
We put our karma cards on car window wipers outside the shop a free 30 minute service. The recipients of this love it and rave about how we have made their day. They refer their friends and we get more new clients. We use the yellow pages to advertise a package, not how pretty we look. Over the last 12 months we have had over 500 phone calls from our yellow pages ad (last year about 100). We display our packages everywhere , have a montly newsletter, weekly e-specials (always with add ons now not discounts). The only time I discount now is with our txt-a-deal days, whereby we may have a quiet day once in a while and then it is a discount to get them in the door today. Of course we don’t forget the basics, new client letters, raise the dead postcards, birthday vouchers, referral thank yous. These basics keep your current clients happy. Funny enough we recently moved from a $10 to a $20 birthday voucher and doubled the number we are getting back in the month, and a larger percentage of these back were clients we have not seen for a long time. At Christmas we wanted to up our retail sales so packaged together the retail products with free gift vouchers for treatments, this went down a treat. From December to February we always offer a deal for rebooking a free ad on service or product. We find if we can get the client 3 times monthly in a row then they won’t shop around elsewhere for a while.
Numbers wise, our turnover is up over 40% year on year, month on month. I have employed more staff and we are still growing. We have not gone backwards in over 15 months. I want to double over two years and we are on track for this to happen. Our staff love that they are more busy and have more $’s in their pay packets.
WSM is not an easy fix, it takes time and effort. I love the way it prompts me to think outside the square, I have some great ideas to implement in 2011 (2010’s move took up too much of my time!) and can’t wait to see what happens with my business.
By the way, this year I have had two overseas holidays, won another trip overseas (karma coming back to get me!), spent more quality time with my kids and have felt a lot happier about where I and the business is heading. However I never lose sight of the customer, our most important asset and whilst I know I can get new clients easily I still look after our current clients with quality, friendly service with value added services for them as well. They love it and complain to us if they are not getting enough deals or promotions like last month, which was our best ever and contained no promotions other than our monthly special as we were too busy all our rooms busy all the time. Now if only I could find some quality staff to expand!!”
Cheers, Heidi
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 17, 2009 | Blog
Okay, it’s a meaningless picture…but how else am I going to illustrate an article like this and not end up on a porn site?
Beauty Salon Template Niche Marketing for Salons & Spas – and a Warning: This Article May Offend Some People
I’ve hesitated about writing this article for more than a week now. I don’t shock easily, but a conversation I had with a new Inner Circle member last week left me gob-smacked, delighted and laughing out loud all at the same time.
That conversation is directly related to one of the key marketing strategies I teach our salon and spa owner Members: the importance of marketing to niches. The biggest mistake salon owners make is trying to be all things to all people – and by doing so, being nothing to anybody. The more narrowly you define your target market, the more precisely you can craft a compelling message that market, and that market alone.
And you can obviously have more than one target market. But whatever you do, don’t jump up and down in the ocean. Nobody will notice. Jump up and down in a puddle. Or a series of puddles.
There are riches in niches.
Hold that thought for a moment. For most salon owners, identifying a target market is little more sophisticated that this: get a road map, turn to the page where your salon is, put a paper cup over it, and draw a circle around the cup. It’s called geographic marketing and it’s valid, but dangerously simplistic.
Kylie Campbell, Inner Circle member and owner of Chocolate Vanilla, a particularly appropopriate name for a salon with a delicate specialty service….
It was this question to Kylie Campbell, one of our newest Inner Circle members last week that produced an answer that almost floored me. Most of the time, I get the usual bland response – “well, we specialize in facials/waxing/hair extensions/blah blah blah” – hardly unique.
I was expecting much the same this time, but she caught me completely off-guard when she said “oh, we do all the usual beauty treatments, like waxing, hair removal, microdermabrasion, eyelash extensions and…er…
Anal Bleaching.
Right about now you’re silently screaming TOO MUCH INFORMATION! (And no, I am not going to describe the process…)
But there’s a valid lesson in this, even if it does get a kind of “eewwww” reaction.
Yep, this Kylie had done a brilliant job of identifying a target (I use the word advisedly) market; in this case a very narrowly-defined, easily accessible niche of predominantly gays, trans-sexuals, transvestites, strippers and other such inhabitants of the ‘dark side’ who (apparently) hold in high regard a lighter pigmentation of that hitherto unmentionable small area of the human anatomy.
Now, I’ve been teaching direct response marketing to salons & spas for a long time. Talked endlessly about the need to ‘slice-‘n-dice’ markets into small, manageable bite-sized chunks, to concentrate marketing resources so you don’t waste bullets on targets that don’t matter. It’s MUCH easier to market to a niche that’s an inch wide but a mile deep.
Some ‘get it’. And reap the rewards in multiples. But most don’t.
However Kylie understood the concept perfectly. Cheekily, cleverly, she took it one step further and named her new salon
Chocolate Vanilla
Now, I am NOT suggesting you all rush out looking for bums to bleach. There are hundreds of niche markets, groups of people with common interests, jobs, affiliations and buying habits. You can buy lists of ’em. Or create your own.
Here’s what’s instructive: smart marketers identify a target market before creating a marketing message. Indeed, you simply cannot create an effective ad, letter or any other marketing piece until you’ve narrowed your target market. (Hint: it’s as much about deciding who you don’t want as it is about working out who you do want.)
Be grateful that I avoided the temptation (mostly) of turning this article into a pun-fest.
by Greg Milner | Aug 12, 2009 | Salon Advertising Tips
Salon owner Jemima Richards used a series of linked sales letters straight from the Toolkit to triple her marketing response
Salon Website Template: The ONE Marketing Strategy That Will Triple ANY Salon’s Direct Mail Response
Call me old-fashioned – somebody did once, and I said ‘fiddlesticks’ – but it’s a mystery to me why so many salon owners (even some Inner Circle members, who should know better) just do NOT get one of the simplest, easy-to-implement salon & spa marketing strategies I have ever taught.
Well, from Jemima Richards of Sync Detoxify Nourish Regenerate yet more proof – if any more were needed – that this strategy DOES work, works brilliantly, and all you have to do is implement it.
Says Jemima:
“Had to just let you know that we have been laughing a lot around here because I am an idiot! The reason for the laughter is the amount of return we are getting (using your strategy) and how many more bookings we are getting from the 2nd and 3rd letter.
“You always said it, and not that I didn’t believe you…if only I had been doing this all along…!”
What Jemima is talking about is the proven direct mail strategy of a linked series of letters to a list of customers or qualified prospects. Most businesses send one letter, and no matter what response they get, presume the rest are simply not interested, and give up.
It is a fatal marketing mistake. You leave untold amounts of money uncollected, sitting on the table.
Hear this: if you are tempted to do a one-shot mailing and stop there, save your money. They don’t even feel the breeze.
As Jemima says – and we have proven over and over and over again – you’ll often get a BIGGER response off letters #2 and #3 than you will off the first letter.
It is precisely why the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit™ is FULL of these linked, sequential letters, for a multitude of purposes and events, e.g.,
- The ‘Raise the Dead’ letters for getting ‘lost’ clients back. Written specifically for this purpose, with fun, from Rupert the Dog.
- The New Client re-booking letters, a series of three.
- The change of season letters to existing clients
..and a ton of other letters for every imaginable purpose.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that, my clients would think I’m pestering them.”
No, they won’t. Here’s the truth: clients leave you because of neglect, not because you’re sending them nice letters.
(And if ONE client complains, are you going to use that as a pathetic excuse to ignore the rest of your client base?)
by Greg Milner | Aug 11, 2009 | New Zealand
Salon Templates Make Salon Superstars – Inner Circle Member of the Week: Linda Gordon
The salon ad campaign that brought in 56 new clients in 5 days: “We placed the ad in the New Zealand Herald and Aucklander on Thursday and again in the Herald on Sunday. The total cost for the 3 ads was $1760, and by Monday afternoon we had 56 bookings…and the phone is still ringing!”
One of the most commonly asked questions I get from new Inner Circle members is ‘What happens if a salon down the road joins the program and is doing similar marketing?” …to which my answer is normally something along the lines of, “Well firstly, you are better to be in the program than not as you will have such a huge upper hand over the salons that are not members.”
Secondly, what makes your salon different from the salon down the road? By this I mean ‘what is your unique selling point or USP, that would make me choose you over the other salon regardless of whether they are an Inner Circle member or not.
And thirdly, do you really care what the salon down the road is doing?
Linda Gordon, owner of Arya Day Spa in Auckland
I had an interesting conversation with Linda Gordon of Arya Day Spa about a month or so ago which was very similar to this.
Linda joined the Inner Circle program at the Auckland Road to Riches Seminar and during our first coaching call she asked why we would sign up her salon, which is only about 2km down the road from our salon.
My answer, well it went like what I have written above. And if I believed for one minute that joining salons to our Inner Circle program in the local area was going to be to the detriment of our salon, then I wouldn’t do it.
But I like to walk to talk, so there are at least 2 salons within the vicinity of our salon that are in the program. All these salons are experiencing massive results. Paul Davis of ‘The Pureskin Clinic’ down the road in Ponsonby has seen his Salon grow 20% per month since joining the program 5 months ago, and now Linda Gordon is getting these exceptional results from her marketing. Both these salons give the customers completely different messages from each other, and from our salon. That’s what makes them stand out.
So you can imagine, when Linda emailed me this week to tell me about the ads she had run in the New Zealand Herald had brought in a total of 56 new clients in just a couple of days, I was over the moon for her.
“We placed the ad in the New Zealand Herald and Aucklander on Thursday and again in the Herald on Sunday. The total cost for the 3 adverts was $1760, and by Monday afternoon we had 56 bookings…and the phone is still ringing!”
So this campaign has brought in to date $5544 and if only 50% of these clients become regular customers worth around $1500 per year to Linda, then this campaign has just increased her annual turnover by $42,000.
You see our real competition is not the salon down the road but in fact it is the Supermarkets and Chemists that sell all the cheap cosmetic and hair products to ‘our’ clients.
I had one of those stomach turning conversations with Julieanne Narbey of ‘Hair @ Yours Mobile Salon’. Julieanne used to work for one of those competitors (something a bit like ‘Shampoo n things’).
In her own words she said, “I was amazed at how many people would come into our shop having just had their hair done literally 10 minutes earlier and would buy the product they needed for their hair. I asked why they hadn’t just bought it from the salon and their response was almost always that the hairdresser hadn’t told them about the products or attempted to sell them anything.” Is this going on in your salon on a daily basis and costing you serious amounts of money?
But back to Linda, congratulations on being our Salon of the week and long may I keep hearing these success stories from you!!!
