At this time of year, we often hear reports of salons being extremely busy in the lead up to the xmas rush.
Then in a couple of weeks time our website, Facebook and emails go crazy with a tidal wave of salon owners who need help because all of a sudden, their “clients” have vanished and the salon is quiet.
You shouldn’t be much busier at Christmas time.
The very fact you are WAY more busy at Christmas than you are at other times of the year tells me something is VERY wrong with your salon. It tells me you’re not doing your job properly.
You might think you’re doing your job, but you’re not actually giving the customer 100%. How do I know? Doing a great job on the hair is one thing, but it’s not the whole job. Far from it.
Your whole job is ensuring that when a client comes to YOUR salon – that their hair looks great ALL the time.
You should be showing them what they need to do to maintain properly at home. You should be selling them those products.
Anything less than that is NOT doing your job properly. That is letting the client down.
This is why rebooking and retailing is essential.
This means booking them in when their hair needs to be re-done – not pushing out appointments 2,3,4 weeks so it lands the week before xmas.
It means presenting retail products properly – and selling them properly to the right client. Not just getting to the front counter and randomly asking them if they want the product.
That’s not giving them 100%. That just makes the client feel awkward and uncomfortable.
Now sure, retail and rebooking are good for your business. But it’s also WAY better for the client. They get to go to a place that ensures their hair ALWAYS looks good.
But that’s not the whole story. It gets worse than that.
This is also why your client talk s**t about your salon behind your back. It’s why you get crappy reviews from clients you did a “good” job for 2 weeks earlier.
It’s no wonder though — when the colour starts washing out after 2 weeks. When it stops looking like it did when they walked out of your salon.
It’s easy to think “oh but they used that crap supermarket shampoo in their hair – of course that’s not going to work long term”.
But your clients don’t know that. You never told them. You never educated them. You never really fought for them or their ongoing business.
You just whipped them in and out, same as normal. You didn’t really care about them or show them the love.
No wonder your salon is going to be quiet after xmas and into the new year. The reality is you should have clients booked all through that time.
If you’re making this mistake, I guarantee you’re making a heap more.
But look, nobody is born nailing business – there’s a LOT to wrap your head around, there’s a LOT to figure out and that’s hard when you’re doing it all yourself.
So to help you, I created my Salon Owners Checklist — it shows you exactly the areas you need to be focussed on and what to do to fix them.
Simply click the banner below, enter your details, and we’ll send you out the report.
