As salon owners and/or stylists, we constantly looking for ways to increase our profitability, raise our average ticket price and have clients take home more products. As Artists, we are looking to increase our value to our customer. We can do both things. I hope you find this blog entry informative and I look forward to your feedback.
One way to increase profitability is increase your client base. One the biggest challenges we face is attracting new clients. Marketing and advertising is expensive and requires a lot of discipline. Also, marketing and advertising campaigns have a lag time. Efforts put forth today, do not yield results instantly. Don’t misunderstand this comment; I am a devotee to the power of great marketing. The point is that this not a quick or cheap proposition.
If you are trying to grow your business organically, you know that some artists are extroverts, good at sales and marketing, while many, if not most, are the opposite.
So how can you find profits hiding, unharvested in your salon with out an expensive ad campaign and a staff of extroverted, self-starting, sales-oriented, master stylists?
Lets have a look…
As salon owners, our biggest customers in terms of dollars spent per visit, are women. Routinely, we are selling female clients multi-process hair color, cuts, style, lots of products, and depending on your salon, manicure, massage, skin and scalp treatments etc. We are pre-booking our female clientele for the next appointment to retouch color and trim. The styles all require maintenance, which equates to reoccurring and dependable revenue streams. This is music to the ears of a business owner or stylist.
Unfortunately, there exists the prejudice that our male clients are not candidates for the same product and service offerings. Somehow, we have decided they will be unreceptive. Outside of the few artists and musicians you may have as clients, are you offering color, products and treatments to your male clients? For most salon owners and stylists the honest answer is NO!
Let’s have a look at some of the historical reasons why this is the case. There is a lingering cultural ideal that real men don’t color their hair. This is perhaps a vestige of the macho male ideal of the 60’s and 70’s, where John Wayne, would never go to a salon, let alone color his hair. We have all scoffed at the bad Grecian Formula commercials on television, horrified at the lowbrow appeal of the pitch and all that is implicated in that lame ad campaign. If that commercial is successful at anything, it may be a perpetuation of the stigma of men coloring their hair.
Going hand-in-hand with that preconception is that most men are clueless about the quality of products; uninterested, unsophisticated and therefore unable to grasp the value proposition of quality hair care products. Many of your male clients are unorganized and often wait until they are way overdue to get a cut, let alone pre-book the next appointment.
I am here to tell you the landscape has changed. We need to have the vision to see that and the courage to take advantage of that change.
Here are few ways the landscape has changed;
A bad economy has put a lot of people out of work, increasing competition for whatever jobs are out there. Men need to go on job interviews and make the very best impression possible, get any advantage they can. A man walking into a job interview with a sophisticated style can make all the difference in whether he gets the job or not. While women have always known this, men have not…they do now!
A little color can improve and create a youthful yet experienced appearance. Hiding a few grays, accent a few subtle highlights, and your client appears ready to take on the world. If you make this value proposition to your male clients, they will get it. After all, this is a small price to pay for this type of advantage.
A second change that has happened over the recent past is the emergence of the “metro-sexual” man. While I hate the term, I think it points to a real trend in society; men want to look good, they want to take care of their appearance, establish a personal style and maintain that down to the finest detail.
Brand cache and the value of boutique brands of hair care products appeal to a sense of personal style. If you successfully explain the value proposition, if you explain the value of the ingredients, the reasons why the product is superior and the results/benefits a client will get from a product, you will sell it… much of the time.
Once you have established a relationship that your client trusts you to color, cut, style and provide style counseling, you have transformed that client into one which can be pre-booked for maintenance (a dependable and reoccurring revenue stream). Perhaps more importantly, you have transformed that relationship in another important way. While clients will go to different salons for cuts, if your client has come to trust that you know their style, their color, you have created a loyal client, one that is not likely to impulsively let someone else “experiment”. Are you hearing the music?
Think about it, if you were able to get even 10% of your male clients to let you help them with their personal color style, cuts, products and other services, what would that mean to your average ticket price and to your bottom line. Considering that these people are already your clients, already coming into your salon, why wouldn’t you maximize this opportunity? 10% is a very conservative estimate on clients you can actually convert.
Beyond the profitability, you are providing a valuable service that helps your male clients and transforms your relationship with them to a relationship based on trust, service and style. In short, making them, “your client”, and you, “their stylist”. Win, win!
Go find those profits, have the courage to transform and cement the relationship with your male clients. There truly is a treasure chest filled with client loyalty and profit hiding right in your salon.
