Be Proactive With Clients And Get More Appointments
Last week, I gave you an idea about how to increase the number of weekly visits without having to increase the total number of clients in your salon. This was done by creatively discounting “pre-booked” appointments in a shorter visit cycle. (Visit cycle is the time a client takes “between” visits).
Well, what about all the clients that don’t pre-book their appointments? Is there a way you can target those clients easily? The answer is “yes”, but before I tell you how you can do this very easily with the HairMax salon software, let me tell you why this is so important.
It is widely known that people say “no” to sales pitches all the time for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s because – they don’t want to commit to anything. Sometimes it’s because – they don’t like to be sold anything. Sometimes it’s because – they have no control over their schedule.
Who knows why they don’t, but the bottom line is that most great salespeople know that “no” rarely means “no” unless the person is approached SEVEN times. The problem is most people stop asking for the sale after the very first rejection. That is usually the difference between a moderately successful campaign and a wildly successful campaign.
So what does that mean to you?
Well, when you are “pre-booking” a client’s appointment, you are essentially “selling” them on the idea that they should come back within a certain period of time. And sometimes, clients will take you up on the offer when you ask them the first time. But, depending on how well you “sold” the idea (or more importantly, how well your staff “sold” the idea), you may only have moderate success.
But what if you could target all those people, who didn’t take you up on your initial offer, and you could contact them right before they were thinking of making their next appointment? Do you think that some of these people might decide to book an appointment sooner than if you left them on their own to call? Do you think this little extra effort would improve your overall effectiveness?
Well if you said “yes”, then you would be correct. And the HairMax Salon Software makes it very easy for you to make this happen. Here’s how you do it…
Simply go into your mailing system, and select all clients who visited your salon four weeks ago that have not already booked another appointment. Pretty simple. These clients are likely the clients who would be thinking about another appointment. You can call them (which is the best way), email them, or simply send them a postcard.
Now, if your HairMax version does not have the “Has no appointments after” feature then you would have to upgrade to HairMax version 11.5. But if it does have the feature, you can start using this right away.
One important thing to remember is this – you only want to target the clients who came in four weeks ago. Not clients who only came in three weeks ago or two weeks ago or even last week. So, in HairMax, you would select clients “who have been in salon since” 4 weeks ago, “who have not been in since” three weeks ago. This would select only those clients who came in between 3 and 4 weeks ago.
Always remember it’s better to be proactive with clients rather than reactive to the whims of “when a client gets around to it”. Ask for the appointment more than once and you will come out way ahead of your competition. Use your HairMax salon software to improve your visits per week even after the client has said “no” the first time.
Best Regards,
Steve Sampson
How to Make More Money With the Same Clients?
Marketing Legend Jay Abraham once said that there were only three ways to build a business.
1) Get more new clients
2) Get existing clients to spend more money (increase the average ticket)
3) Get clients to come in more often
This is true in good economies and in bad economies. There is really no other way to build your salon business.
Now some of you may say “Well, if I increase my staff I can grow my salon business”. Yes, that’s true, but that is nothing more than another play on number one (getting more new clients).
The quickest and easiest way of increasing your salon business may just lie in number three of Jay Abraham’s list (getting clients to come in more often). This is often referred to as the client’s visit cycle. And in today’s challenging environment, it is a statistic that salon owners will have to pay attention to – like never before.
But what if there was a simple way that you could improve a client’s visit cycle (almost overnight) and realize an instantaneous 20-25% increase in sales? Well, the good news is…there is a simple way to do this. And there’s not a better time to implement this than 2009!
It really comes down to simple math and a carrot. Let me explain the simple math first. Let’s assume that the average client spends $50 per visit in your salon. (BTW your HairMax salon software can get you the real number in a variety of different reports) And let’s also assume that your average client visits your salon every 7 weeks. This is becoming the new “norm” as clients are trying to prolong their visits in today’s economy.
If a client visits your salon every 7 weeks, then they will visit the salon 7.5 times in a year (52 weeks divided by 7 weeks is 7.43). If we take the $50 average ticket and multiply it by 7.5 times, we get an annual spend amount of $375.00. This is the base amount that we will start with.
Here is the carrot. Let’s say that you introduce a new program whereby a client will get a 10% discount on any “pre-booked” appointment as long as their new appointment is booked within 5 weeks of their service. You can market the program as the “We care about you always looking your best” program.
When a client books the appointment within the 5 week time period, they will simply get 10% off their service the next time they come in. In HairMax, the receptionist would simply put a note in the “Sales Notes” area (when they book the appointment) and the salon software will then prompt them to apply the discount at the appropriate time. It is very simple to implement.
The client will feel like they are saving money because they are getting the 10% discount. They will also feel that you are truly concerned about them always looking their best because you will be selling the program based on the premise that clients will look better if they visit the salon more frequently. Seven weeks is typically pushing the envelope when it comes to waiting for another service.
Now, let’s do the math based on this new program. If a client comes in every 5 weeks then they will be visiting the salon 10.5 times per year (52 weeks divided by 5 weeks is 10.4). If we take the same $50 average ticket and apply the new 10% discount, we end up with an average annual spend amount of $468.00 (10.5 x $45). This represents a 24.8% increase in sales with the same client base!
Many times a program can be an abject failure if it is not “sold” correctly to staff or to clients. Your staff needs to realize that clients will be trying to extend their time between appointments over the next few years. And if they do nothing about it, and give clients no reason to change their behavior, they will become victims of a sluggish economy.
However, if they are proactive about showing their clients the benefits of coming in every 5 weeks as opposed to every 7 weeks, they can actually make more money while giving the client a 10% carrot. Use your HairMax salon software to help make the new program work and your salon sales will soar without adding any new clients.
Best Regards,
Steve Sampson
Stealth Way a Salon can Improve Google Ranking and Attract More New Clients…
Are you currently using your website to drive new clients into your salon every week? How many clients are you getting? Five? Ten? Twenty? Well, if this seems impossible to you, then you should take a look at how a simple change to your Internet strategy can generate more first time clients in 2009.
There is not a cheaper way to advertise your business than the Internet. Unfortunately, most salon owners have given up when it comes to making this method work. Don’t fall into the trap! Potential clients are using the Internet every day to find new salons. In fact, every year, the Internet is experiencing double-digit growth when it comes to search. If they’re not finding your salon, I can tell you "The problem is not the Internet".
There are two very important things that you need to make a web site work. One is the site itself. The other is Traffic. The best looking site in the world is useless if nobody sees it. Therefore, you could say that traffic is the more important of the two.
Many salon owners created sites over the last five years for their customer’s benefit. I want you to rethink that strategy and redesign the site based on a "new" customer’s benefit. This has to do with the content on the site, however, I will cover this on another blog post in the future.
Today, we are going to focus on "Traffic".
In many cases, getting traffic to your website can be done by someone who is affectionately called an SEO guy. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It can be a complicated thing that takes into account the "relevancy" of your site to certain keywords. A keyword is what your potential client puts into the Google search line. For instance, if a client types in "Hair Salon Reading Ma", that is the keyword. Well, the bad news is "SEO guys cost money".
So, how can you do the same thing as a good SEO guy can without spending the money?
Answer: Get your clients to help you.
Google places a great deal of importance of websites on simple CLIENT REVIEWS. Google thinks that any salon with more reviews must be more popular. Therefore, the more popular the salon – the more relevant the salon. Seems pretty logical doesn’t it?
A client can write a simple review of their experiences in your salon and rate it based on a "star" system. (By the way, Yahoo has a review system as well). Now here are a couple of things that you need to keep in mind.
One, don’t be worried about bad reviews. You are going to get some. But what you are trying to enhance is "believability" in the eyes of your new clients. If you get 25 reviews and 24 are positive, do you really think that the potential new client will only give weight to the bad review? Of course not.
Second, people who search for local businesses read the reviews. That’s right – they read the reviews. In fact, reviews carry much more weight with potential new clients because people can relate to each other. Great reviews beat great website content by a mile!
Third, your clients will need to have a Google account (or Yahoo account) set up prior to writing the review. This is usually not a big deal as it is free and it takes only a minute to set up. But, you need to tell your clients that before they attempt to help you out. In fact, since many of you already have people’s email addresses, you can send out your requests to clients having Gmail accounts or Yahoo accounts already.
Finally, it would be a good idea for you to type up the directions (to write a review) for the clients so that you make it as easy as possible for them to follow through. Maybe you can create a little contest based on who writes a review to spur some interest. Get your clients to rave about you and Google and Yahoo will reward you with higher placements without the expense of hiring an SEO guy.
