It’s not good enough to just go from day to day making a basic living from your salon or spa. Each day should be taking you a little closer to the business you dreamed of having, but that doesn’t happen by accident.
As the saying goes… ‘If you’re not prepared to change what your doing, don’t expect anything else to change’.
Having said that, you don’t need to make the process any more difficult than it needs to be. Good, productive and profitable changes can often be achieved in the simplest of ways. You don’t need to be an expert in ‘everything business’ to steadily increase your business growth and profits.
In this article, we’ll take a look at 6 easy ways to make worthwhile changes to your beauty business that will result in positive growth.
Get Your Team Excited About Retail Sales.
Let me tell you, this has to be one of the fastest way to add great profits to your bottom line. Extra profits means you can invest in more equipment, better training, staff incentives, updated décor, more retail stock and a host of other great things that are most likely on your wish list.
For the same amount of time invested, retail sales will return 3 – 4 times more profit than delivering most services. That’s pretty amazing don’t you agree?
To increase retail sales and get your team motivated, you need to ensure:
a. Team members are all using the product your stock.
b. Team members all have a sales target to work towards.
c. Team members have the training and knowledge they need to talk to clients about the product benefits.
d. The salon has the right product in sufficient quantities to generate sales.
Have a Marketing Plan
If you want new clients to find you and existing clients to stay loyal to you, then you absolutely must have some kind of marketing plan. It’s doesn’t need to be flash or fancy, but it does need to be written down and applied consistently.
You may well have the best treatments, delivered by the best staff members, at the best prices, but if no-one knows about any of it, then you won’t sell anything. It’s not good enough just to be great at what you do – no matter how many times you may see this said on social media!
You not only need to be great at what you do, but you must make sure people know about it. After all, you can’t sell a secret.
Reward Client Loyalty
There is almost nothing as important to your business as retaining the loyalty of your clients. After working with a truck-load of salons, I’ve realised that in nearly every instance, organic growth was pretty great, however the reason the businesses weren’t growing was poor client retention.
These days, your clients have a ton of salons and spas to choose from. Organic loyalty is pretty much dead in the water. So, to keep your clients returning, you need to dangle the proverbial carrot in the form of a loyalty reward. It will provide that extra incentive for your clients to return to your business to collect their reward points rather than trying out the salon or spa down the road.
Create a Benefits-Based Service Menu
When you think about it, the first thing many prospective clients come across is your Service Menu. They usually head straight to your menu to find out what you offer and how much you charge.
If your menu is constructed poorly, the client will only focus on the price of your services and that’s not how you want to be judged. Instead of the price, you want your clients to focus on the benefits they’ll receive if they have your treatments.
There are other factors with your printed menu that need to be considered also. Colours, print size, font, categories and layout are all important to ensure easy readability for your readers.
A well-constructed Service Menu will help you sell services to your prospects and clients without you even being present!
Work Towards Attracting Only Premium Clients
Do you ever feel like the clients who come to your salon or spa are exactly the opposite of the clients you really want to work with? Believe me, you are not alone. Most salon or spa owners will say that they want to attract a certain type of clients (big spender, loyal, refers others) but instead seem to always attract clients who are looking for a bargain, won’t purchase retail and never re-book.
The truth is that in most instances, the salon’s own marketing is to blame for this. The wrong clients walk through your salon doors because inadvertently you are asking them to. But the good news is that you can turn that around and become much better at attracting the premium clients instead.
This can make a massive impact on your business. Imagine finding clients who value your work, pay your prices happily and buy the retail products you recommend. Now that would make going to work each day pure bliss!
Increase Your Service Prices
Be honest! How long has it been since you’ve put up your prices? If it’s been over 12 months then you are due to have a price increase right now.
If you continue to hold off, eventually your profit will dwindle due to increasing expenses, and this means less for you.
A small regular price increase, while not being heartily welcomed with open arms by your clients, is expected and accepted. The problem occurs when all those small price increases are held off resulting in a massive price increase all at once.
And there you have it. 6 simple and straightforward ways to grow your salon or spa business. Why not get started on implementing them straight away?