Why Salon Owners Focus on The WRONG Things!

Last week, I got a call from a frustrated salon owner that spent half her day trying to figure out why her inventory was off by a very small amount of money (under $100).  It turned out that someone forgot to tell her that a few products were taken from the shelf to be used at a styling station.

And this got me thinking of a time when I attended a convention of salon owners about 10 years ago.  At that convention, I was doing a presentation to about 80 salon owners that between them controlled about 400 salons.  During my presentation, an owner (of about 10 salons) stopped me midstream and started asking questions about a certain sales report and how the report looked different than another report in the system.  She couldn’t understand why one report said this and another said that.

After I explained the difference to her, and consequently wasted 79 other salon owner’s time, I realized that many salon owners still focus on exactly the wrong things.  And that hasn’t really changed over the last 10 years! 

When you are running a salon, there are only a few things that you should be spending 75% of your time on.  And here they are.

About twenty percent of your week should be focused on getting new clients for the salon.  Now, most salon owners spend less than an hour a week on this task.  Why?  Because they don’t really know how to start the process.  For example, the HairMax salon software has an excellent client referral program built into it that can help you get more new clients.  Are you using it?

Every 2 weeks, you should be implementing one new marketing technique to get new clients in the door.  Some will work and others will fail, but at the end of the year, you will have at least 10 new marketing systems in place that will drive new clients into your salon business every week.  How many do you have now?

Look, salon owners are no different than any other small business owner out there.  We like to do the things that we are good at.  And when we are uncomfortable doing something – we tend to stop doing it.  Unfortunately, most salon owners never delegate the task to anyone else and nothing ever gets done in some of these critical disciplines.

Another twenty percent of your week should be focused on getting existing clients into your salon quicker and getting them to buy more services.  This is really a combination of client appointment reminders, cross-selling services, and introducing clients to services that they never had before.  The HairMax salon software does this exceptionally well and you should be using those features to drive your sales.

Another ten percent of your week should be focused on making your salon a better place to be for the client.  Improve customer service, communicate with first-time clients, find some content for a client newsletter, improve the salon appearance, etc. 

Another ten percent of your week should be focused on the staff.  Ten more percent should be focused on resurrecting old clients and improving client retention.  HairMax can easily help you with those as well. 

Five percent of your week should be spent on developing systems to make the salon run better and more efficiently.  Our inventory example at the beginning of this article would fall into that category.  Going through financial reports and salon statistics would also fall into this group.

The moral of the story is this – don’t waste your time on things that will have very little impact on the success of your salon.  Salon growth is stagnated because salon owners fail to do the things that they are uncomfortable doing.  Spending the bulk of your time on trivial issues and servicing your “personal” clients is not going to make your salon more profitable. 

What You Should Be Getting From Your Website!

I remember, back five years ago, when nearly every salon owner I asked was in the process of building a web site.  This was the “new way” that advertising was going to be done.  No more newspapers, Val-Paks, Super Coups, or Yellow Pages.

Remember when we used to think that the Internet was going to provide “FREE” salon advertising?  Let me ask you a question.  Is it really?

Fast forward five years later, and if you ask those same salon owners – you will get a much different response.  Most are despondent with their inability to take advantage of all that the Internet can offer. 

Bad or incompetent web designers, high monthly fees, and old, tired sites are the norm today – rather than the exception.  But, is the Internet the problem?  Of course not, the prevalence of the Internet is way beyond even the most optimistic predictions of 2003.  People use it every day.

In fact, over 70% of all people looking for a new business – use the Internet.  The Internet is not the problem.  If you’re not getting at least 5 new clients a week from the Internet, you are leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table.  Let me tell you why.

Five new clients a week equates to about 250 new clients every year.  Those 250 new clients are potentially worth about $300 each (in sales) to a salon.  That equates to about $75,000 per year.  And that’s just the first year.  Most clients stay with a salon for 3-4 years.  Do I even need to do the math?

So, what’s the biggest mistake that almost all salon owners make when they design their web sites?

Answer: There is no offer to get the person into the salon!

Look, the Internet is nothing more than another advertising medium.  Why would you not at least try to entice a visitor in with a compelling offer?  Ninety-nine percent of all salon owners think that in order to get more new clients into the salon – they need more traffic.  When in reality they need better CONVERSION.

If you’re getting a thousand hits a month on your web site and you’re only getting one new client a week, should you be spending more money every month trying to get traffic?  Or, should you be trying to get more of those thousand visitors to actually pick up the phone and call your salon?  

The very best way that you can get more people to take action is to give them an incentive to try your salon out.  As soon as your web site comes up, that coupon should be very visible.   It should also be very enticing. 

I would use “50% off the first visit to the salon” as my initial enticement.  Why?  Because I know that the new client is potentially worth at least $300/year if I do my job right.  And, I’m gambling that I will do a good enough job to keep the clients coming back if I get an opportunity to service them.

You should be at least that confident.

Don’t make the mistake of listening to web designers and having the coupon buried in some “esthetically pleasing” place on your web site.  It’s all about conversion.  And if you are expecting a person to hunt for the coupon – you are expecting way too much.

Call your web designer today and get started on implementing this technique.  Five new clients a week might be just around the corner for you.