Salon Talk

How Different is your Hair Salon or Beauty Clinic/Spa? What makes you different from everyone else?

Malcolm | November 22nd, 2009

What makes a potential client decide to come to your salon or clinic as opposed to your competition down the road? What makes you stand out from the crowd? What’s your USP? (Unique Selling Proposition), What makes you different to them?

Have you ever thought to ask: “Why should a customer come to us? What makes us different? What are we doing that’s specifically different to my competition?”

If you don’t know, then it’s time to find out…

Try this for your next staff meeting:
Ask your team: “What 3 things do we do at our salon that is different and unique to all the other Salons in our area?”

And if you can’t think of any, try this it works for Hair, Beauty or Spa:

“What 3 things could we do that is different and unique to all the other Salons in our area?”

Brainstorm this for about 10 – 15 minutes, remember the brainstorming rules: no idea is a silly idea.
Write everything down. Then take 2 or 3 of the best ideas and expand on them. Let them evolve, what more could we add to improve upon them.

Example:
USP for a Hair Salon:
We give every client a chair massage at the basin with our massage chairs…

Expanded upon this:
We guarantee a minimum 3 minute scalp massage or your service is free… (Use a salon timer to time this and give it to your client to hold)

This would be a very simple yet powerful USP, how many times have you heard your client say the scalp massage is the best part of their visit and it was not long enough? And how many times do you rush through this part of the service because you are running late? Remember a relaxed happy client is a spending client. Allowing extra time to do this should increase your retail sales, providing you are recommending products for home use.

Whatever you come up with, take the best idea and use it in all of your marketing to let every potential client know why they should come to you and your salon and not your competition down the road.

Click Here to sign up for my Monthly Newsletter Salon Biz Tips and get FREE copy of my book  ‘7 Mistakes Salon Owners Make that Chop Away at Profits  (and sleek techniques to solving them)

Business Systems

Malcolm | November 15th, 2009

Its amazing to me how many business owners spend hundreds and sometimes many thousands of dollars on creating and establishing lots of systems around the running of their business in the hope that it will make “life easier” and then find once the money has left the bank account that the system doesn’t work… the news for them is that “Systems don’t run businesses… People run the systems” and that allows the business to run more smoothly. When business leaders realise that the investment they make in creating a system is worth investing again in staff training and education on how the system should run, why it was created in the first place and what benefit it is to the individual staff member, the customer and finally the business as a whole, only then will it be a smoother road to efficiency and longer days in the boat fishing for business owners.

I am working with a business owner at present who is just realising that the investment in staff training is just that… an investment, which is something that he should expect a return from… and to this end, his investment is being repaid many-fold with more motivated (trained) staff who he can rely on to do the job whilst he concentrates on driving other aspects of his business. His words: “It is an obvious part to business, but sometimes it takes someone to point out the obvious and thanks to Malcolm doing just that, I am now on track with my targets”.

So Do create and devolp Business Systems and DO schedule and budget for staff involvement and training if you want the system to be worked as you envision it.

Click Here to sign up for my Monthly Newsletter Salon Biz Tips and get FREE copy of my book  ‘7 Mistakes Salon Owners Make that Chop Away at Profits (and sleek techniques to solving them)