by Greg Milner | Jan 25, 2012 | Ads that Have Worked, Australia, New Zealand
STOP PRESS: We’ve just opened the NEW Salon Advertising Templates Webstore here!
If you are a Worldwide Salon Marketing Inner Circle member you will know what an amazing marketing tool and integral part of the program the members only website is. Many members tell me how they often spend hours browsing around all the different templates and marketing ideas and solutions.
And each and every year the website grows as more material is added and the archive gets bigger. In fact there is over 6 years worth of archived material on the website now. It’s easy for some of the older archives to be lost in depths of the website.
And it’s safe to say that if you were to employ a design firm or an ad agency to create the material on the members website and give you multiple options for designs, template sizes and concepts, you would be looking at spending into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. On the other side of the coin, if you were to try and design all this material yourself, well firstly you’d probably need a degree in copy writing, graphic design and a heck of a lot of time on your hands!!!
So, in this new feature I intend to delve deep into the archives, blow the dust and cob webs away and unearth some of the hidden gems that perhaps you have never come across before.
In this first feature I am going to look at a clever little flyer that was actually created by a Pizza Shop.
This was actually one of the very first promotions we use for our salon D’Aguiar: hair.skin.nails after joining the Inner Circle Program back in 2007 and it was a huge succuss. Our version was slightly different and at the top said ‘FREE $20 Voucher – No Strings Attached’ We then looped a piece of string through the flyer and hung it on peoples door knobs around our neighbourhood. We consistently got 10 bookings from every 100 door flyers delivered and we had so many people saying they LOVED the out of the box marketing!
We still have dozens of clients that come to our salon today who originally came from this flyer. So when you think for the cost of a $20 service, we have made upwards of $4 – 5K from EACH of those clients since then, it’s a pretty good return on investment!
Here’s a link to find this template in the members only sealed section.
http://www.worldwidesalonmarketing.com/members/salon-marketing-ideas/ideas-to-steal/a-different-kind-of-mailbox-flyer-try-this/
If you are a WSM Member and want to share a success story from another members only website ‘hidden gem’ then drop me an email chris@worldwidesalonmarketing.com and I’ll be sure to feature it in an up and coming article!
If you are NOT a WSM Member and are sick and tired of sitting in front of a computer screen trying to come up with designs and copy for flyers and ads, if technology bamboozles you, click here to watch the video and Request a FREE live demo of the My Social Salon program.
by Greg Milner | Feb 22, 2011 | Done for you Newsletters, Shop
If you put a gun to my head and told me I could only use ONE method of marketing to my clients, I’d always give the same answer – NEWSLETTERS!
Not once every six months, not once every quarter, but every single month. Nothing puts an ‘iron fence’ around your clients like a regular hard-copy newsletter, in an envelope, with a stamp on it. (Email? Sure – it’s efficient, but it’s nowhere near as effective.)
Now, there are THREE ways to do a monthly newsletter.
1) The HARD way. Sit down at your computer and write the whole thing yourself, lay it out so it looks attractive, and get it printed.
2) The EASY way. Download the many templates for newsletters in the Members area, sit down at your computer, and write all the content for it.
3) The REALLY EASY way!
Long-time IC member Susan Vincent has set up a brilliant ‘done-for-you’ newsletter service for salon owners who know the value of a monthly newsletter, but just don’t have time to do it themselves.
For just $97 a month, Susan will do everything for you, and email you the complete newsletter, in Word format, every month. All you need to do is insert your own details, and send it off to the printer.
Here’s a sample newsletter you can download (Right click and ‘save as…’)
Frankly, it just doesn’t get any easier than that. For $97 a month, there’s no way I’d be sitting down at a computer for hours on end!
Here’s what Inner Circle member EvaTzschaschel says about her experience with Susan’s newsletter service:
‘Hi Susan,
I just wanted to let you know how excited my clients are about the newsletter. I know I would have never gotten my act together if you didn’t offer your fabulous service. Here are some comments of my clients: “I enjoyed reading your newsletter”, “It’s a really good read”, “Very professional”; and a few people asked me for the next issue. I think it’s a good way to stay in front of clients without being pushy. Thank you so much for your help.
Kind regards,
Eva Tzschaschel
Face Body Wellness
4/3 Julius Ave
North Ryde
NSW 2113′
And here’s what Claire Mason of Integrity Paramedical Skin Practitioners in Seven Hills, Queenslandsays:
“During November for marketing I released 4 newspaper ads, Glossy DL clinic package promotions inserted into envelopes and home delivered, Email’s sent out to the data base (I had purchased a beauty salon prior) and hand delivered DL cards. Nothing sold more clinic packages than the newsletter.B ecause of the style of your text, even clients of 11 years can’t tell it’s not me talking. Thank you Susan for your passion. Integrity is growing with you on board.”
by Greg Milner | Jan 14, 2011 | Salon Goalsetting

Just before Christmas, I took a call from a young salon owner who was clearly in some distress. It soon became clear why.
“I’m due to have my first baby in 6 weeks,” she said. I congratulated her and said she must be excited, wow, wonderful and other such supportive small talk.
“More terrifying than exciting,” she said. “I’m still working 5 days a week behind the chair, I’m the main money-earner in my salon, and I don’t know how I’m going to survive when the baby comes. I just don’t know what to do….”
Crikey. Six weeks to go, and no back-up plan? Without wishing to state the bleeding obvious, childbirth isn’t something that kind of sneaks up on you without warning. Like, about 9 months warning.
But this young lady’s story of woe is hardly unique. Thousands of salon owners – who are, by nature, mostly women – face this (very) common problem. Yet so few seem prepared for it.
So this week I interviewed three prominent Members of ourInner Circle Marketing & Mentoring program who are, or have recently, faced and solved that precise problem.

Rachael D’Aguiar is not only a very successful salon owner, she and husband Chris Sanders own the WSM business in New Zealand. As of the time of writing, Rachael is 10 weeks away from the birth of their first child (a girl) and is passionate about ‘being organized…’
Amy Mitchell already has two-year-old Macy. As she picked up the phone to join in on this interview, she was literally a few days – even hours – away from the birth of her second child. As she reveals here, a year ago Amy’s business was on the brink of failure. But suddenly, there was a light at the end of the tunnel – and it wasn’t an oncoming train.
Tegan Messineo gave birth to twin boys two years ago. She still under the age of 25, yet now owns two successful salons, and like Amy, decided to open the second business after the birth of her boys. Here she describes how the arrival of babies can actually be a spur to working smarter, and more productively…
Below is the first 7 minutes of an exclusive CD of the Month all members of the Inner Circle Premium program receive in the mail – just one of the many benefits of Inner Circle membership….
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by Greg Milner | Jan 28, 2010 | The Right Mindset, The Smell of Success

Salon Price List Template Free – Turning A Disadvantage Into A Raging Advantage
I’ll often hear salon & spa business owners saying “my salon has no passing traffic so it’s harder for me”, or “we’re in a poor area, I can’t raise my prices”, or “…there are roadworks outside my salon, and my business is dying…”.
If you spend enough time thinking about it, you can write a long list of reasons why others are successful and you’re not, why others seem to have an ‘easier’ time in business than you do, why the competition appears to be doing better than you are.
In fact, it’s deceptively easy to find reasons for failure, but they are, in the main, mere excuses. Barring cataclysmic events – like an earthquake in Haiti – there are almost no circumstances where not even a sliver of silver lining can be found in the cloud.
(Even in Haiti, I’ll bet there are some enterprising souls capitalizing on the devastation, and I don’t mean pure looting. In the West Australian goldrush of the 1890s around Kalgoorlie, the people who made the big money weren’t the prospectors, they were the people selling water and beer TO the prospectors.)
All of which is a round-a-bout way of introducing Cheryl Bown, one of our Inner Circle Premium members from a salon called Imagine in Tea Tree Gully, South Australia.

Inner Circle member Cheryl Bown of Imagine in South Australia – ‘outside the box’ thinking produced a brilliant result
During a recent heatwave, where the temperature topped 40C (about 105F in the old money) for days on end, Cheryl was faced with a real business challenge.
Her salon’s air conditioning died.
Many would simply use it as excuse to give up, close the doors, go home and wait for the repair man. Not Cheryl. Typically, she found a brilliant, innovative and simple way to turn disadvantage into advantage.
Here’s what Cheryl wrote to me this week.
“I now only work 3 days a week, amazingly the turnover has not dropped, we have had 317 new clients join us since beginning of July’09, and a consistent TO of $6,110 a week for the past 20 weeks.
“In the last 6 months of the business growing, I also sold my house and moved. I was presented at the North East Business Awards with an AWARD for ” BEST NEW ENTERPRISE” – I couldn’t believe it. I was so excited, on the way back it was a stop at the liquor store and back to the salon where the girls were still working, to celebrate with the team and clients.
“I have just introduced Birthday Letters, and the very next day we had 3 clients in delighted with their Birthday Gift. I have only touched the surface with a lot of the opportunities that are available to me, I started to delegate work, eg. I have now hired an ironing lady and house cleaner, I’m so proud of myself:-) I’m on the road to my 6 series convertible BMW. I used to aim small, not any more.”
So, what would YOU do if faced with a heatwave of epic proportions, no air-conditioning, an unbearably hot salon, terrified clients would take one step inside and bolt?
by Greg Milner | Apr 20, 2009 | Getting Salon Clients Quickly
Tanning Salon Marketing: A Salon Owner’s Story – One Decision CAN Make All the Difference

Lisa Gray of Beauty Naturally in Sandgate, Qld, shares the strategies that saved her business from extinction – and put money in her purse for the first time in years.
(Play the interview recording below and listen in as Lisa describes how her business has taken off.)
By the beginning of 2008, Lisa Gray was at the end of her tether. Years of running herself ragged had left her with little energy, even less money, and the ‘ideas cupboard’ was bare.
Lisa says you ‘could have fired a cannon’ through her little beauty salon on the northern fringes of Brisbane. But as is so often the case, the teacher appears when the student is ready, and Lisa was ready.
In the next 12 months, her sales rose from $170,000 to $230,000, including a 25% increase in product sales. Her return bookings rate rose from a meagre 40% to 68%. She took on between 9 and 15 new clients every month. But the biggest change is her new attitude to her business.
“I get excited about actually having a business,” says Lisa. “I’m not so stressed, and when you’re not so stressed you’re more creative, you’re more at ease with yourself, you enjoy what you do. I actually look forward to staff trainings and staff meetings!”
“It’s exciting, it’s not a drain, and I don’t feel negative, I feel very very positive.”
Here’s just a partial list of the ACTION Lisa took to turn her business around:
1)Distributes a flyer offering a Toolkit-inspired $99 special offer to 500 local homes every month. “This has been brilliant, we get a regular flow of new clients from this.”
2)Sends out the series of New Client Letters in the Toolkit to each new client every week. “They work very well…largely responsible for our higher re-booking rate.”
3)Has implemented the Queen of Referrals program in the kit. “Our clients are loving this…”
4)Sends out a monthly newsletter. Not every quarter or every couple of months, every month, using the Newsletter Templates in the kit. “I get a fantastic response from these newsletters…”
5)Started running a regular, small, lead-generating ad in the local newspaper. “A great response…”
6) Hired a full-time receptionist. “Amazing what a difference that’s made to sales…”
And that’s just the start. As Lisa says, “All this and I haven’t even scratched the surface of the whole Inner Circle program and the Toolkit!”