by Greg Milner | Apr 23, 2020 | Online Marketing
Use your time during the lockdown!
Find out how to use simple, short videos – just like Carolyn does – to drive clients into your busines, and dominate your local market.
Book a FREE 30 minute coaching session with me, and I’ll show you, live on screen, how Carolyn does it, and you can too!
Greg Milner
CEO & Founder, Worldwide Salon Marketing
Author, “Rich Salon Owner” and “Simple Salon Marketing”
– G’day, it’s Greg at Worldwide Salon Marketing.
If your business has been closed by the pandemic, then here’s a way you can use that down time to get ready for when lockdowns are lifted. Today I wanna introduce you to a salon owner who owned an ordinary salon in a suburb of one of our major cities, and using a very, very easy tool that everybody carries in their pocket 24 hours a day, she turned her business into the biggest and most successful in her field within a year.
She did it using this thing, very simple, just an ordinary mobile phone. And within a very short time, Carolyn Evans had brought in clients from all over the world to her suburban business.
Here’s how she did it.
by Greg Milner | Oct 7, 2015 | Featured, US
Nina Murray joins us from the little lakeside town of Moses Lake in Washington State, about a three hour drive east of Seattle.
“I graduated from Massage school, top of my class, in 2009 and started my business, Knot Release Therapies (www.knotreleasetherapies.com), as soon as I had my license in my hot little hand. I worked by myself for a couple of years, until my oldest son was 14 then I had him working as my receptionist. Two years ago I hired my first employee.
“I had worked with a business coach for a couple of years. I’m always on the lookout for the best way to market my business. That is when I found your book (The Big Salon Marketing Blunders and How to Avoid Them) and really enjoyed what I was learning from it because it was so different from what I had been told or even from what I was used to when I worked in marketing,” says Nina.
So why did you join Worldwide Salon Marketing?
“I try to be cautious when it comes to doing marketing online, so I did a lot of research to make sure that your company was real. I liked what I heard and read, so I thought I would give it a try.”
“I’ve learned that emotional marketing really works! I didn’t realize how powerful it is. Thursday I decided to try the massage template. When I called my receptionist, and told her the deal we were going to do, she got all excited and said that is such a good deal…even though all I had done was raise my price by $20 and put a value on all the included things that we already do!
“We sold $300 the first day. I have one client who is going to let me know tomorrow how many of the packages she wants for stocking stuffers!”
by Greg Milner | Oct 9, 2013 | The Smell of Success
A lesson in how to turn a marketing disaster into a triumph, from Elon Musk, founder of Tesla
Most salon owners have nightmares about this: a disgruntled client goes to the media, and suddenly you have TV cameras aimed at you, and A Current Affair is bad-mouthing your business to thousands of viewers. Or your client creates a storm online – anonymously, of course – with humiliating reviews on Yelp, Google or other review sites.
How would YOU handle that? Would you fall in a heap, bury your head in the sand and hope it’ll all just go away, or will you take action to turn a marketing horror story into a massive advantage?
Here’s a fabulous lesson in brilliant public relations – it’s a Case Study on “How to Turn a Disaster Into a Triumph.”
On Tuesday last week a car caught fire on a highway in America. But this was no ordinary car. It was a super-luxurious, expensive, electric Tesla Model S built by Tesla Motors, the company founded by Paypal co-founder Elon Musk. Within minutes, images and videos of the fire were all over the internet.
By Thursday, Tesla had lost more than $2.5 billion in stock market value. Elon Musk, a 23% shareholder, had personally tanked nearly $600million. Investors feared the fire, and accident, might have shown a flaw in the company’s battery pack despite being called “the safest car in America.” But some truly brilliant public relations soon saw the disaster reversed.
Have a careful read of Musk’s response to the accident. There are lots of things to pick up on here. As Joe Polish points out in his blog,
1. DETAILS. The first half of the letter is incredibly detailed. Complete and thorough. This not only instills credibility, but gives you a clear picture of what accurately happened. They don’t avoid the issue. They face the facts head on in a way that makes sense of the incident.
2. TRANSFORM ACCIDENT INTO ADVANTAGE. In the second half of the letter, Elon transforms the accident into a positive advantage, and actually differentiates the Tesla from normal conventional gasoline cars. He turns disaster into an advantage for Tesla by pointing out the weakness in the competition, and proving the Tesla is superior to the competition.
3. BEHIND THE SCENES. In the last part of the letter, the communications between the Tesla owner who was in the accident and the VP of sales and service for Tesla are reproduced. This gives you a behind the scenes look at how the issue was handled with the customer experiencing the issue. Total transparency. This breeds trust.
Here’s the letter – they even published correspondence between the company and the customer:
October 4, 2013
About the Model S fire
By Elon Musk, Chairman, Product Architect & CEO
Earlier this week, a Model S traveling at highway speed struck a large metal object, causing significant damage to the vehicle. A curved section that fell off a semi-trailer was recovered from the roadway near where the accident occurred and, according to the road crew that was on the scene, appears to be the culprit.
The geometry of the object caused a powerful lever action as it went under the car, punching upward and impaling the Model S with a peak force on the order of 25 tons. Only a force of this magnitude would be strong enough to punch a 3 inch diameter hole through the quarter inch armor plate protecting the base of the vehicle.The Model S owner was nonetheless able to exit the highway as instructed by the on-board alert system, bring the car to a stop and depart the vehicle without injury.
A fire caused by the impact began in the front battery module – the battery pack has a total of 16 modules – but was contained to the front section of the car by internal firewalls within the pack. Vents built into the battery pack directed the flames down towards the road and away from the vehicle.When the fire department arrived, they observed standard procedure, which was to gain access to the source of the fire by puncturing holes in the top of the battery’s protective metal plate and applying water. For the Model S lithium-ion battery, it was correct to apply water (vs. dry chemical extinguisher), but not to puncture the metal firewall, as the newly created holes allowed the flames to then vent upwards into the front trunk section of the Model S. Nonetheless, a combination of water followed by dry chemical extinguisher quickly brought the fire to an end.It is important to note that the fire in the battery was contained to a small section near the front by the internal firewalls built into the pack structure.
At no point did fire enter the passenger compartment.Had a conventional gasoline car encountered the same object on the highway, the result could have been far worse. A typical gasoline car only has a thin metal sheet protecting the underbody, leaving it vulnerable to destruction of the fuel supply lines or fuel tank, which causes a pool of gasoline to form and often burn the entire car to the ground. In contrast, the combustion energy of our battery pack is only about 10% of the energy contained in a gasoline tank and is divided into 16 modules with firewalls in between. As a consequence, the effective combustion potential is only about 1% that of the fuel in a comparable gasoline sedan.
The nationwide driving statistics make this very clear: there are 150,000 car fires per year according to the National Fire Protection Association, and Americans drive about 3 trillion miles per year according to the Department of Transportation. That equates to 1 vehicle fire for every 20 million miles driven, compared to 1 fire in over 100 million miles for Tesla. This means you are 5 times more likely to experience a fire in a conventional gasoline car than a Tesla!For consumers concerned about fire risk, there should be absolutely zero doubt that it is safer to power a car with a battery than a large tank of highly flammable liquid.— Elon
Below is our email correspondence with the Model S owner that experienced the fire, reprinted with his permission:
From: Robert Carlson
Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 12:53 PM
To: Jerome Guillen
Subject: Mr. Guillen, Thanks for the support. I completely agree with the assessment to date. I guess you can test for everything, but some other celestial bullet comes along and challenges your design. I agree that the car performed very well under such an extreme test. The batteries went through a controlled burn which the internet images really exaggerates. Anyway, I am still a big fan of your car and look forward to getting back into one. Justin offered a white loaner–thanks. I am also an investor and have to say that the response I am observing is really supportive of the future for electric vehicles. I was thinking this was bound to happen, just not to me. But now it is out there and probably gets a sigh of relief as a test and risk issue-this “doomsday” event has now been tested, and the design and engineering works.rob carlson
On Oct 3, 2013, at 12:29 PM, Jerome Guillen wrote:
Dear Mr. Carlson: I am the VP of sales and service for Tesla, reporting directly to Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO.I am sorry to hear that you experienced a collision in your Model S 2 days ago. We are happy that the Model S performed in such a way that you were not injured in the accident and that nobody else was hurt.I believe you have been in contact with Justin Samson, our service manager, since the accident. We are following this case extremely closely and we have sent a team of experts to review your vehicle. All indications are that your Model S drove over large, oddly-shaped metal object which impacted the leading edge of the vehicle’s undercarriage and rotated into the underside of the vehicle (“pole vault” effect).
This is a highly uncommon occurrence.Based on our review thus far, we believe that the Model S performed as designed by limiting the resulting fire to the affected zones only. Given the significant intensity of the impact, which managed to pierce the 1/4 inch bottom plate (something that is extremely hard to do), the Model S energy containment functions operated correctly. In particular, the top cover of the battery provided a strong barrier and there was no apparent propagation of the fire into the cabin. This ensured cabin integrity and occupant safety, which remains our most important goal.We very much appreciate your support, patience and understanding while we proceed with the investigation. Justin keeps me closely informed. Please feel free to contact me directly, if you have any question or concern. Best regards,
Jerome Guillen I VP, WW sales and service
Now, that’s how to handle a PR disaster.
By Friday, Tesla’s stock market price was back up almost to pre-accident levels.
by Greg Milner | Aug 18, 2010 | New Zealand
NZ Salon Business Plan Template Superstars Nikki Smith & Phil Newman of NV Hair in Wanaka PROVE how even in a small town, there is big money to be made!
If I ever needed to provide evidence that the Inner Circle system works, regardless of the size of your town or the area your salon is in then Nikki Smith and Phil Newman of NV Hair in Wanaka, New Zealand are living and breathing proof!
Nikki Smith and Phil Newman of NV Hair, Wanaka, NZ
Nikki and Phil joined the program in July this year and have seen their takings sky rocket since then. For those of you unfamiliar with Wanaka, it’s in a fairly remote location in the South Island and has a population of around 7,000 (which grows a bit depending on the season).
Nikki and Phil actually took over an existing premises in Wanaka and it’s fair to say that prior to them taking over, the business was on a downward slide, with few customers and the clients that did come in, simply paid whatever they wanted to pay. It’s VERY hard to run a business like that!
But Nikki and Phil are a ‘no-nonsense’ team and knew what they had to do to turn things around…FAST. As soon as they joined the Inner Circle program and got their very own copy of the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit® they took massive action.
“Hi Chris
We did the Hollywood promotion last month and here are our results…
We printed 2000 mailbox flyers at a cost of $110, and purchased 2000 envelopes at a cost of $230 (and we’ve now found them even cheaper).
We also ran 2 adverts in the local newspaper for $188 (we now do trade on service with advertiser so costs less, sometimes nothing depending on advert and time scale)
Our total number of bookings was 34 and out of the 34 only 3 paid the minimum $99. The average client spend was $130 (this was from up-grades and product sales).
The script for selling product and the method in the ‘Selling Like Crazy’ manual works a dream. I now have only 4 bottles of treatment on my shelf and my supplier loves me…..lol.
Thanks Chris this is definitely proof that the system works anywhere. The salon was on its knees when I took over and now, well I’m that busy I now need staff….lol.”
So let’s break these results down a bit more…
All up for the printing, envelopes and newspaper ads the cost was $528 (*You can get plain envelopes from the Warehouse Stationary for around $20 for 500…so this would have saved Nikki even more money).
3 packages were sold at $99 = $297
31 packages were sold with an average spend of $130 = $4030
So that’s a total income generated of $4327 for a cost of $528. A return of investment of $8 for every $1 spent…WOW!
If each of these clients were to spend on average $130 with Nikki and Phil every month for the next year, they would be worth over $1500 to the salon each. So potentially they have just increased the salons turnover over the next 12 months by $51,000….and that’s just from one promotion!
It’s pretty amazing considering that the salon was turning over a mere $2K a month before they took over.
Well done Nikki and Phil, keep up the good work!
Check out where Nikki and Phil’s salon is located…!
View Larger Map
by Greg Milner | Aug 10, 2010 | Australia, Canada, Salon Seminars, The Smell of Success
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.
