3 Ways to Keep Your Salon Sales Up with “Pandemic Proofing” Against Covid-19

3 Ways to Keep Your Salon Sales Up with “Pandemic Proofing” Against Covid-19

Do you feel the lockdown is a disaster, or…an opportunity

Greg Milner, Founder, Worldwide Salon MarketingGet a FREE 30-minute “Massive Action” strategy session with WSM’s founder & CEO Greg Milner and find out how YOU can take advantage of the downtime to keep the cash register ticking over. 

AND be ready to hit the ground running when the crisis is over. 

Hit the button below now and choose your day and time for a free strategy session with Greg. 

Thousands of salons all over the world have been forced to shut their doors due to coronavirus.

Many owners are frozen in fear.

But the crisis WILL end.

And there ARE actions you can take to prepare yourself for when the lockdown is over – when you can open your doors again.

The salon owners who are using the down-time to fine-tune their marketing and online assets are going to be in the best position to hit the ground running.

As soon as long-time Worldwide Salon Marketing member Effie Tsopolous was told to shut down her big Hobart skin care centre, she was on the phone to us.

“Help!” she said. “I need to make changes FAST to our website and Facebook pages so we can at least sell retail products, gift vouchers, and promote skin consultations by Zoom video.”

So our team of developers went to work. First, a major update to Effie’s home page: 

(Click on image to go to Escape’s home page)

Then, designing a new page and uploading a raft of images of the products she wanted to sell online:

(Click on image to go to Escape’s online shop)

Next, an overhaul of Effie’s Facebook page, with a new cover photo, and tweaking the page to allow for online booking of free skin consultations:

(Click on image to go to Escape’s Facebook page)

seo-salons-and-spas-australia“Being quick to make these changes and updates is already having an effect,” says Effie. “We’re getting sales online, and we haven’t even started making phone calls to clients or emailing them with links to the site.” 

 

Here’s another example of a salon taking “Massive Action” to keep the cash register ticking over during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Karen Skewes is an award-winning owner of Le Beau Day Spa in Perth. This morning, she sent out this carefully-worded email: 

Do you feel the lockdown is a disaster, or…an opportunity

Greg Milner, Founder, Worldwide Salon MarketingGet a FREE 30-minute “Massive Action” strategy session with WSM’s founder & CEO Greg Milner and find out how YOU can take advantage of the downtime to keep the cash register ticking over. 

AND be ready to hit the ground running when the crisis is over. 

Hit the button below now and choose your day and time for a free strategy session with Greg. 

5 (FREE) Ways to Instantly Boost Salon Sales

5 (FREE) Ways to Instantly Boost Salon Sales

Marnie here,

Sometimes it seems that no matter how hard you work, your sales figures have flatlined, right?

Yep, I know the feeling!

But I discovered that by just ‘tweaking’ a handful of processes, my sales literally jumped overnight…and kept going up.

So here are my FIVE tested, proven strategies I used, and still use today, to wring every last potential dollar from my business. I call them my Sales Power Strategies.

(And they don’t cost a cent either!)

Power Strategy #1.) Your Phone Message

Not many salons have a dedicated, full-time receptionist. (Although the value of somebody like that can’t be denied…take a look at this video:-)

And when you’re busy, you often just can’t get to the phone, so calls will often go through to voicemail. In my salon, I realised that was costing me a LOT of business. My voicemail message was something bland and boring, like “…sorry we can’t get to the phone, but please leave a message and we’ll call you right back…”

And of course, I’d get a lot of hangups. So I simply changed the message:

“Hi there, it’s Marnie here at (Name) salon, we can’t get to the phone right now, but don’t hang up because I’ve got something for you – a free $10 gift voucher as my way of saying we’re sorry we missed your call (smile!) Please leave your name and number and I’ll call you back as soon as we get a break!”

…and you know what happened? My rate of hangups dropped like a stone…and my intake of new clients went through the roof, just with that one simple trick!

2) Re-booking script.

If your rate of re-bookings is low, try this. I’ve found that using this script, religiously every time, increased my rate of re-booking enormously.

So, your client is about to pay for their service at the reception desk. Do you usually say something like “Would you like to re-book?”

The trouble with that is, you’re making the client think…most people have a lot going on in their heads, so the default answer to this question is “Um, no, I’ll call you…”

So I changed my approach. Instead of giving the client a “Yes” or “No” question (and they almost always say no) I changed the question to make it easier for them.

“Now, looking ahead a few weeks, I can fit you in on Tuesday the (date) at 10am, or Thursday the (date) at 3pm, which of those two times would suit you best?”

See the difference? It saves the client from having to think ahead, you’re already giving them a choice of only two answers, instead of a Yes or a No.

Just implementing this simple but powerful change dramatically increases my re-booking figures.

Power Strategy #3: The Product Offer

When my retail product sales dropped off, here’s what I would do…

Most salons stock a range of associated or complementary products – a shampoo, a conditioner and a treatment, for example. Or a range of skin care products.

I would look at my product range, do my sums, and set up a “buy two, get one free” offer. Individually, the three products might sell for say $30 each, with a 100% gross margin.
So, selling three of them for only $60, you’re giving away $15 of gross profit on the third bottle.

But I’ve never looked at it in terms of ‘losing’ $15. I look at it like this: I’m giving away $15 in profit I don’t currently have, to get a profit (on the other two bottles) I never would otherwise have got!

That one strategy alone would instantly increase my weekly product sales.

Power Strategy #4: Packaging Services.

There’s an entire day-long seminar in how to do this, but essentially it’s the practice of packaging up a suite of services, by adding value with services or treatments (or products) that cost you little or nothing to provide.

I learned how to do this in quite a sophisticated way by studying the detail in my marketing ‘bible’, the Simple Salon Marketing toolkit.

It works like this: let’s say you want to sell more of your ‘core’ services, like facials, or color ‘n cut services, or laser hair removal.

So instead of just selling “45 minute Facial – $100”, you add-on ‘extras’ that might cost you little or nothing to provide. Then, instead of merely calling it a facial, you “re-invent” the service with a new name, eg “The Scarlet Johansson Glamor Makeover” or similar.

Facial = boring.

Scarlet Johansson? Now that’s sexy!

There’s an entire detailed chapter on how to do this in Simple Salon Marketing, I thoroughly recommend you get this toolkit…by far the best selling salon marketing how-to available anywhere.

CHECK IT OUT HERE.

Power Strategy #5: The Queen of Referrals.
Yep, word of mouth is the best form of marketing you can do. But most salons take referrals passively – they don’t put much or any effort into generating referrals actively. (No system.)
In my salon, I took this straight out of Simple Salon Marketing. It’s called the Queen of Referrals program (fine detail in the Toolkit) but it works like this…
You pick say 20 of your very best (most valuable) clients. Each of them gets a book of 10 Gift Vouchers to give away to friends and family. The gift vouchers can be any value you like, but my advice is to make them as generous as possible.
Each time one of these vouchers is redeemed by one of their friends, they – your client – gets a credit to the same value.
I promote this by saying to my client, “Mary, I want to give you $500 worth of beauty treatments for free!” I find that certainly gets their attention:-)
Now, I know it takes confidence to implement some of these.

And sometimes, to gain that confidence, you need a little help.

So, here’s what you can do (If you’re quick!)

For a limited time, we’re offering a full thirty-minute one-on-one Fast Start Salon Marketing Stratety Session with either me, Worldwide founder Greg Milner or our Social Media specialist Samantha Buckley.

It’s only ONE DOLLAR, and you get to book your time and day live on our calendar.

Click the button below to book your session in….and be prepared to take a) Notes, and b) ACTION!

As soon as you book, you’ll get to choose a day and time with either me or one of my specialist advisers, Rich Salon Owner author Greg Milner or Social Media strategist Samantha Buckley

Talk soon:-) 

[VIDEO] How to Make Selling in the Salon EASY

Interview with Marnie Kallmeyer, host of Salon Mavens with Marnie Kallmeyer on Facebook.

Selling retail in the salon frightens many hair & beauty professionals. But in this interview, Marnie dispels the myths and nonsense around selling salon retail – – or services, for that matter – and says it all comes down to two crucial phrases.

“Selling doesn’t have to be a dirty word, like a sleazy car salesman,” says Marnie. “It’s about telling – the more is told, the more is sold.”

[VIDEO] The simple salon promo that doubled sales


Sassy-Salon-Secrets-with-Nicole-Panayiotou-logoVeteran Worldwide Salon Marketing member Nicole Panayiotou reveals how a simple one-page ‘product trade-in’ promo template she downloaded from the Million Dollar Salon Marketing Resources Library brought in nearly $9,000 in product sales…plus $15,000 in services…in just 6 days last week, almost doubling her average weekly sales…

[cf]Nicole[/cf]

What are you waiting for?

For a ridiculously small fee – and NO CONTRACTS – join WSM’s Salon Accelerator program NOW and get this and hundreds more winning promotions.

Click here to get started. 

Why is ‘Selling’ Such a Dirty Word? Selling Retail in a Salon

sales cartoonThere’s an old joke my brother tells quite often, because a) it’s at his wife’s expense, and b) it’s not completely untrue.

You see, his wife’s credit card was stolen a few years ago. He didn’t report it for a month because the thief’s rate of spending was less than hers. Ha ha, get it?

But the point of the story is we love buying things. We love to buy. And yet, for some strange reason, we hate to sell. To be seen as a ‘salesperson’. This has always bemused me, since without salespeople, copywriters, marketers, not a single transaction would ever occur. Nobody would buy anything. So, no income would be generated, no taxes paid, therefore no roads built, hospitals staffed, teachers hired. In effect, the world would stop turning.

We love to buy things. Love it. So why do we hate to sell?

We love to buy things. Love it. So why do we hate to sell?

This line of thought was prompted by a heartfelt post from a beauty therapist in an online forum. Obviously articulate, intelligent and passionate about her work, she was nonetheless feeling a bit down-in-the-mouth about the ‘pressure to sell’ from her employer. She was worried she would ‘freak her clients out’ if she tried to sell to them every time they came in.

She’s hardly alone. The common cry among so many in the hair & beauty industry is “I’m not a salesperson…I’m a stylist/therapist!”

Given that, it might be helpful to look at ‘selling’ in a different light. The business of a salon or spa IS selling. A salon is, before anything else, a marketing & sales business. And, in every small business (not just salons), the process of selling is inextricably linked to having a job.

But selling needn’t necessarily be seen as a distasteful chore. At many of our seminars over the years, veteran hair & beauty industry guru John Lees would teach that

“Our knowledge is ours to give, not ours to keep.”

John is right. Selling is the process of informing and educating clients so that you become the ‘trusted, knowledgeable expert’ they instinctively turn to for the solution to their fears, anxieties and insecurities. Once you get over your own anxiety about pitching to your clients, and start to see yourself as being the trusted expert, the selling becomes second nature, like unconsciously changing gears in a car. You don’t even notice you’re doing it.

There’s another common mistake made by those who look down on selling, and that’s pre-judging – by applying your own ‘cringe filter’, deciding on your client’s behalf whether she can afford to buy, or wants to buy what you’re selling. And in many cases, deciding in the negative.

A couple of years ago I conducted a little experiment. I dressed in dirty overalls, scuffed shoes and a battered hat pulled down over my eyes, and walked into a local prestige car dealership. For fully 15 minutes I wandered around looking at the shiny new cars, completely untroubled by even one of the half dozen sharply dressed salesmen standing around drinking coffee and looking down their noses at me.

I left, and returned half an hour later in pressed trousers, blue blazer, white shirt and polished brown shoes. I barely got in the door before two of these guys were fawning over me.

They couldn’t do enough for me, took me for a test drive, made me coffee, buried me in glossy brochures.

I thanked them, drove to a rival dealership, and bought exactly the same car that morning.

Unjustly, selling has a bad name, made worse by salespeople who either regard it as beneath them, or decide for themselves who can and cannot afford to buy. People love to buy.  Let’s not make it hard for them, or play god and decide how people should spend their money. If you fail to educate, fail to inform, fail to offer, it’s a dereliction of duty to both the business, and the client.

“Never enough is sold because never enough is told. Selling is telling – the better you tell a story, the better you sell anything.”

Want to make selling EASY?

“Selling Like Crazy” is the ‘how-to’ in-salon sales manual for the hair & beauty industry. Straight out of the famous Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit, Selling Like Crazy turns ordinary, fearful “I don’t like selling” staff into retail queens – without them even noticing the change!

Selling Like Crazy

Click here to see what’s in Selling Like Crazy for Hair Salons

Buy it here for just $US97 with credit card or Paypal!

Click here to see what’s in Selling Like Crazy for Beauty Salons

Buy it here for just $US97 with credit card or Paypal!