Jazz Up Your Service Menu and Increase Your Sales

Jazz Up Your Service Menu and Increase Your Sales

by | Nov 7, 2018 | Increasing Profit, Salon and Spa Business Performance, Salon and Spa Marketing

Have you ever heard the saying, ‘You can’t sell a secret’? It’s worth remembering. After all, what point is there in having a beautifully appointed spa, with an amazing range of pampering and remedial treatments on offer, if no one knows anything about them? This is where a well-planned spa menu not only educates but also entices potential and existing clients to experience more of the treatments your spa has to offer. Your menu needs to be much more than simply a price list that contains every treatment you offer. Instead, it should be crafted with increasing sales in mind. There’s no question that a well-designed menu will help to generate additional revenue, but the amount of revenue it generates will be determined by the treatments you include, the description of each treatment, and the way the content is presented to the reader.

What goes out and what stays in…

Stays In

Naturally, your menu should include your most popular and profitable services. These are the services you know your target market is interested in having and the ones you know will return a healthy profit also. If you’re a start-up business without any information on past sales, then it’s important to do your market research on this topic before creating your first menu. Don’t blindly assume that your clients are going to want the treatments you want to provide, as this isn’t always the case. Your spa will also benefit from including some essential spa policies on your menu. This will help to overcome many exasperating issues spa owners deal with such as late arrivals, no-shows, last minute cancellations, inappropriate cell phone usage and bringing along their children to their spa appointment. And of course, you need to include all your contact information (including website), opening hours and location so that readers can easily make their booking.

Goes Out

To create a profit-generating menu, you need to begin by eliminating space-wasting treatments from your menu that are both unpopular and unprofitable. Don’t be tempted to include every single service your spa provides, as unless you have unlimited space, this isn’t practical and won’t help you to sell your top profit-makers. The same principle applies to your add-on treatment options. Include only those that will help to increase sales and profits. It’s pointless to use a valuable line of space on a $10 upgrade service when that space could have been used to promote a $100 facial or body treatment instead.

Menu Size – Is bigger really better?

The ultimate goal of your spa menu should be to help increase not only sales but more importantly, profits. This is not necessarily achieved by listing every service on offer as mentioned earlier. By eliminating the less popular or unprofitable services from your menu, you will often be able to stay with a standard DL tri-fold brochure, which means you will eliminate the additional cost involved in producing more expensive booklet-style menus. However, if your spa offers a wide range of higher-priced and exclusive services that require more descriptive text and images required to convince readers to buy, then a more lavish booklet-style brochure may be in order. Choose the style of menu that best fits in with your spa branding. An expensive day spa needs a higher quality menu, but a small regular spa may be well served by a tri-fold brochure. The important thing to remember is that you want to be able to freely hand out your menus to prospects and clients without worrying too much about the cost involved. If you are hesitant to hand out your menus because of the cost, then your menu is not able to do its job, which is to generate sales.

Service Descriptions – Should you focus on benefits or features?

Too often, I read service descriptions that are loaded with industry jargon or are a step-by-step outline of service inclusions. You may think this sounds professional and informative, but what your readers really want to know more about are the benefits they will receive from each treatment. This means, that instead of using words only other industry professionals understand, you need to use words that your readers will understand. If you’re not sure if you are focusing too much on service features and not enough on benefits in your service descriptions, consider whether your text delivers solutions to reader’s problems. As an example, does it tell the reader that her skin will be deeply hydrated (benefit) or does it say you include Hyaluronic Acid (feature)? Does it talk about diamond tips (feature) or tell the reader that her skin will be softer, smoother and more evenly toned (benefit)? When space is short, it’s always preferable to focus on the benefits clients will get from their treatment, rather than the delivery method and ingredients used.

Menu Layout – What goes where?

The layout of the services on your menu is also important to improve readability. You want to ensure that your readers see the most profit-generating and popular services first. With this in mind, consider your service category placement carefully. Your goal should be to make finding popular and profitable services an easy task for your readers. Don’t make them hunt for the services they want to know more about (and you want to sell). Keep these VIP services towards the beginning of your menu, and use the less obvious areas of the menu for the basics such as waxing and tinting (unless, of course, these are your specialist services). Also, consider how you can use service categories to help your readers find services more easily. As an example, you may want to consider breaking down your facials into various categories (depending on the style of spa you have). Some spas might break facials into Relaxation-style and Remedial. Others might use categories such as Facials, Skin Treatments and Peels. You might also want to break up your body treatments into Massage Therapy and Body Treatments to make it easier for your readers. Look for ways to segment your services so that readers can easily find what they may be interested in having, and avoid the temptation to lump as much as possible under a single category heading. Do your best to simplify your reader’s job of finding the service they want.

Menu Readability – If they can’t read it, they won’t buy it.

I’m an avid collector of spa menus. One thing that frequently stands out to me is the fact that these menus are often next to impossible to read. This is generally due to the use of a quirky font, tight line spacing and extra small text size due to trying to cram too much information into too small a space. If you want clients and prospects to actually read your menu, you must make it as easy as possible for them to do so. You can do this by choosing easy-to-read fonts for your text, increased line spacing so your text doesn’t look crammed in and, of course, making sure your font size is large enough to actually read with ease. By allowing some breathing room around your text, your service information will stand out more vividly.

Summary

The goal when creating your menu is to inform and tantalise your readers. It should show them clearly what benefits to expect and create an emotional response to that information. And finally, it should convert your readers into buyers by getting them to take the desired action of booking an appointment with your spa.
Blogging for Your Beauty Biz

Blogging for Your Beauty Biz

by | Apr 30, 2018 | Client Attraction and Retention, Salon and Spa Business Performance, Salon and Spa Marketing

 

As a salon or spa owner, you probably think that blogging doesn’t belong in your world.

I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong.

Blogging is about sharing your expertise and establishing yourself as the go-to industry expert in your field.

It’s also about helping your website’s search engine optimisation, and considering your website is the premium way to attract new clients, that makes it pretty important to your beauty business.

 

Where should your blog live?

If you have a website, your blog should be part of that website.  It’s generally a specialised page on your website where you can continually add interesting articles and images that will be read by your visitors and subscribers.

You can get subscribers to your blog by adding a sign-up form to capture their names and email address.  Some blogs also offer a RSS feed to your subscribers also. Both of these methods deliver the article directly to your readers via email without them having to visit your website to get the new information.

In this article, I’m going to share with you some key things you need to know about successful blogging, so you get a great return on your time investment.

 

  1. Write for your readers but keep Google in mind.

First and foremost, when you write a blog post, you should keep your reader’s needs and interest front-of-mind.

Look for topics to write about that you know your readers will be interested in, and if you don’t know as much as you should about that topic, do some research and become better informed before you write your article.

One you’ve written your blog article, go back and look for ways to introduce key words and phrases into your copy, but be sure they sound fluid and natural as part of your content – there’s nothing worse than reading copy that is obviously stuffed with too many key phrases with no thought given to readability.

Try to include key words and phrases into your blog titles and subtitles also where possible, as this is very good for your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

 

  1. What images are best?

A great image, that easily relates to the content of your blog, is a must.

If you have your own images, that’s fantastic, but if not, you can either access free stock images from places such as Pixabay.com or Pexels.com. or purchase them from the hundreds of stock photo sites on the internet.

Having said this, try to avoid the images you see constantly on the internet.  Be authentic with your images whenever possible.

Quick tip: Don’t be tempted to pirate images off the internet.  This is not good business practice.

 

  1. How often should you post?

Once upon a time, the answer to this question was about once per month.

Today, I think that you could easily up that number to once per fortnight or even week.

While Google may love longer articles, most readers don’t, so I suggest you make your blog articles short and sweet – around 300-400 words should be enough.

If you find that you’ve gone way past this number of words, be ruthless with your editing and cull out the waffle until your article is informative, interesting and concise.

By doing this, your readers are more likely to make it to the end of your article and get the full benefit of reading it.

 

  1. What should you write about in your blog articles?

This one is easy.

You have a massive amount of information about your chosen profession locked away in your brain, so simply write about what you know, combined with what your readers want to know more about.

Be topical and include information that is relevant to what is going on currently.

Blog articles give you the opportunity to share your specialised information, all while establishing your expertise. A total win-win for both you and your readers.

  1. What shouldn’t you write about in your blog articles?

Boring stuff.  Technical stuff. Jargon- filled stuff. Buy-me stuff.

While you hope that writing an informative and interesting blog article will lead to either gaining a new client or perhaps selling something to someone, it should not written like a sales page.  This is definitely not the platform for trying to make a direct sale.

Be generous with great information and your readers will be impressed.

 

  1. What kind of personality should your blog have?

Your blog articles should reflect your salon or spa personality.  If you’re super-trendy, that should be reflected in your blog.  If you’re all about relaxation, that should be reflected in your blog.  Let your business personality shine through your words.

Remember, you cannot be all things to all people, so don’t try.  Understand who you are trying to attract with your writing and write for them.

 

  1. Use hyperlinks (what the heck is a hyperlink I can hear you asking)

If you use hyperlinks in your blog articles, you can easily send your readers to other information anywhere on your website, or even to another website altogether (though this shouldn’t be your goal). Check out where the hyperlink in this paragraph takes you.

By using hyperlinks, you can send your readers to other articles in your own blog or pages on your website such as the booking page, contact page, or a page with some detailed information about a service you may want to promote.

The idea behind this is to keep readers on your website, and exposed to your information, for as long as possible.

Where possible, try to keep your hyperlinks in the top half of your blog article (in case your readers don’t read to the very end.)

 

  1. Poor grammar and spelling mistakes give a bad impression.

Check, double check and triple check your blog article before you hit that post button.

Poor grammar and spelling sends the wrong message to your readers.  It gives the impression that you’re a bit sloppy and slapdash and that’s definitely not the impression you want to make.

Make sure to get fresh eyes to read your article before posting as it’s easy to miss mistakes in articles that you’ve written yourself.

You can even get software such as Grammarly.com , which has a free starter version, to check things over for you.

Quick tip: ease up on the use of exclamation marks!!!  One here and there is fine for emphasis, but too many detracts from your writing.

Another tip: if you’re writing in English, pick one style and stick with it. Nothing is more annoying than UK English sprinkled with a healthy dose of US English.  Find out the difference and choose your style.

Finally, no-one starts off as a great writer.  Most of us are truly stinky writers in the beginning, but if you persevere and keep practicing, you will get better!



Are You Putting on Your Own Oxygen Mask First?

Are You Putting on Your Own Oxygen Mask First?

by | Feb 24, 2018 | Leadership and Personal Well-being, Salon and Spa Business Performance

In this article, I want to delve into why many salon and spa owners struggle to become successful.

After all, the majority have the required technical skills, offer amazing customer service, and love what they do, so why aren’t they financially successful?

It also begs these questions,

Why aren’t they taking home a decent wage for themselves each week?

Why are they constantly living on the edge of burn-out, and

Why aren’t they getting all they deserve from their efforts?

All great questions, right?

You might have even asked yourself the very same questions once or twice.

Well, I’ve given it a great deal of thought, and I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the major issues holding them back from getting the outcome they really want is their unwillingness to put their own needs before others.

Many salon and spa owners feel guilty and selfish if they put their own business needs first, so instead, they spend their lives putting everyone else’s needs first.

Don’t get me wrong – that’s a very selfless and generous way to live, however, in business, all it will give you is burn-out.

Here’s an interesting analogy. If you’ve ever taken a plane flight, there’s a part of the safety demonstration where the stewardess drops down the oxygen mask and says, ‘Put your own oxygen mask on first, so you can then help others’.

Wow. Such simplicity, and yet, so important.

You need to look after your own needs first, and only then, are you in a position to help those around you. If you don’t, and pass out from lack of oxygen, then you can’t help anyone else.

So, by putting your own needs first, you are not being selfish or greedy. In fact, you are ensuring that you are able to look after the needs of others because you put yourself in a position to do so.

The same holds true when you’re in business. If you don’t look after your own business needs first, then you’ll never be able to look after those who depend on you.

Too often, I’ve coached salon and spa owners on how to improve their business, and too often I’ve have hit a brick wall because the sensible and practical things I asked them to do (put their business first), hit some pretty solid resistance.

At first, I struggled to understand why they couldn’t see that their resistance to do what was necessary for their business was hurting both themselves and other people who were dependant on the business.

I knew that if they would just do as I asked, they would see a great improvements, which would lessen their stress, decrease the likelihood of burnout, and keep them in their business for the long-term.

But, for some salon owners, they simply couldn’t come to grips with putting on their own oxygen mask first!

One important example of this revolves around service pricing. When I’ve told clients that it’s time to have a fair price increase (which was many years overdue), they felt that they simply couldn’t do it.

The reasons given ranged from, ‘But I can’t ask my long-term clients to pay more for their services than they did 7 years ago, when they first came to my salon’, to, ‘But if I increase my prices, all my clients will leave’, or ‘I feel greedy asking for more money’.

Clearly the clients were getting their oxygen masks first, but what was going to be the consequences of that for the business?

The fact is, it’s not greedy to ask your clients to pay a fair price for what they receive. Yes, there will always be clients who huff and puff and try to blow the house down, but in reality, they are in the tiny minority.

If these clients choose to move on, rather than pay you a fair price for your services, it’s probably a blessing for your business.

These are not the kind of clients who are going to help you grow a happy, healthy, sustainable business that will provide for your family, keep your staff employed and fulfil your dreams of owning your own business.

Other examples that come to mind are when clients are disrespectful of salon policies and there are no consequences.

This eventually leads to loads of no-shows, late cancellations and late arrivals.

When there are no consequences to poor behaviour by a client, that behaviour tends to worsen, rather than improve.

And of course, employee behaviour falls into the same category.

Changing client appointments without permission to suit their own schedules, not making any effort to reach realistic sales targets, taking time off during busy salon periods, enticing clients to come to their home salons and so much more.

All these behaviours escalate when the business owner does nothing to put the needs of her business first and enforce employment conditions.

When salon owners don’t put the needs of their business first, it will inevitably impact on many other people surrounding them also.

So, here’s what I tell my coaching clients now, when they choose not to put their business needs first…

~ When you refuse to increase your prices to a fair level, eventually your expenses will grow too big to be covered by your revenue. Overheads continue to increase and so does the cost of running your business.

~ When your employees and clients are making your life a misery, you will hit burn-out at a rapid rate.

~ When the day comes that you can no longer keep your doors open, or when you no longer want to keep your doors open, the following will happen:

  •  Your employees will be without a job. They will struggle to pay their own expenses until they can find other employment. They will go without because they no longer have a secure job working for you.
  • Your clients will feel disappointed for a minute or two, then get on the internet and find another salon to go to, where they will gladly pay the price for their services that you were too frightened to ask for.
  • Your suppliers will suffer because they have lost an important cog that keeps their business running profitably.
  • Your dreams will shatter. You will no longer have your own business to run the way you want to.

So, if looking after others is something you want to be able to continue to do in the future, be sure to put your own oxygen mask on first!

Making Time for Salon Management

Making Time for Salon Management

by | Feb 9, 2018 | Salon and Spa Business Performance

Over the years, I’ve had many salon owners come to me who want to improve their business. That’s great!

What’s not so great, is the fact they want this miraculous improvement to happen all by itself, with little or no additional management time invested into their business.

Let me share something important with you…

Achieving growth and change is not a realistic goal if there’s no extra time set aside to work on your business. It’s simply a  delicious dream. Purely wishful thinking on the part of salon owners who’re not facing the reality of owning and operating a business.

But, the good news is this – there is plenty of time available to you during the normal working week to work on your business management, and in this article, I’m going to talk about how to easily find the time you need, to run your business effectively – all without forgoing sleep or leisure time.

Let’s start by breaking the whole process down into Bite-Sized Chunks (my favourite way of tackling big tasks).

 

BSC #1 – Learn how delegate effectively. There’s definitely a skill involved in delegating well. It’s not simply a matter of giving all the work to others to do, sitting back, and enjoying the down-time.

Effective delegation means matching the right people to the right job so that, with a little bit of training and direction, you can be sure of achieving a great outcome.

It takes a little bit of set-up time to get it right, but once you’ve ensured your delegatees have everything they need to be successful, you will see great benefits and more time for yourself.

Your employees can do much more than a facial, manicure or bikini wax.

They came to you loaded with invaluable life experience and skills that you should tap into. Get to know your employee’s other skills, and you may well find that they can take some time-consuming tasks off your hands.

Be sure to arm them with all the information they need and the desired outcomes of their new tasks, and then monitor their work closely for a short while.

Once they have the hang of what you want from them, all you’ll need to do is a regular check-in with them to see how they’re performing.

 

BSC #2 – When you don’t have the skills to do a great job, consider outsourcing it. If you’re a terrible, boring and lack-lustre writer, but you know your newsletter needs to be done, or your website content needs updating, consider using the services of a professional copywriter.

Not only will she do a faster, more professional job that should get you superior results, but it also frees up your time to work on your business.

There’s sure to be many jobs that you struggle with that, with enough time invested, you do reasonably well, but could that time have been used more wisely working on other aspects of your business that only you can do?

Whether it’s writing your own copy, keeping your own books or managing your own website, consider whether it might be a great investment in freeing up your time to work on something more important to your business.

 

BSC #3 – Tighten up your client appointment schedule. If you’re still working with clients each day, learn how to tighten up your appointment schedule, and get rid of wasted chunks of time between clients.

15 mins here and 30 mins can add up to a huge amount of time each week, but on their own, they aren’t long enough periods of time to get stuck into something important, so they end up being simply a huge waste of your precious time.

Sure, you may need to leave a little tidy time between clients, but don’t leave any more than absolutely necessary.

Make sure your team members are working effectively to support one another in tidying up treatment rooms and prepping for incoming clients when they’re not busy themselves.  This will often eliminate the need for wasted time between clients.

Tip: If you’re working on 15-minute appointment blocks, try moving to 10 mins instead to reduce time wastage.

BSC #4 – Find at least 2 continuous hours per week for management activities. Once you’ve tightened up your appointment schedule, you’re going to find at least another 2 hours a week to devote to management. (4 x 15 minute breaks a day over 5 days ends up being 5 hrs in wasted time.)

The secret to getting loads done is to have a decent-sized block of uninterrupted, continuous time, so that you can focus on what needs to be done.

Trying to write a newsletter in 8 lots of 15-min time slots is most likely not doable, but doing a newsletter in a continuous 2-hour time-slot most definitely is.

Start by looking for the quietest day of your week – there is always one. Once you know when it is, identify the quietest time during that day.

Great, now mark out 2 hours (or more if it’s available to you) to work on business management issues.

This time to work on your business must be protected at all costs. It can’t be given up for a client appointment or some other activity. It’s when you’re working on growing your business such as creating fresh promotions and marketing ideas, delivering team training or a team meeting, reviewing reports, doing one-on-one meetings with your team members or something else, but whatever you use it for must be management based.

By freeing up larger chunks of more useful time, you’ll achieve more during your day, and find you have to take less work home with you; leaving you free to spend quality time with your family and friends.  Now that is something worth getting organised for!

 

BSC #5 – Write down what needs to be achieved. Set aside 15 mins every morning to write your list.

I recommend using a desk diary where you can list down all the jobs that require action.

Once you have your list, place an A, B or C beside each job – this is important. Your A jobs are those that must receive immediate attention and can’t be left – they are URGENT!

Your B jobs are those that are important, but can wait a few days to receive your attention.

And your C jobs are those that you have to attend to, but can wait a week or more to be actioned without any serious consequences.

Once you have done your prioritisation, don’t get tempted to veer away from your list and start doing jobs that are less important (but sometimes easier or quicker), or worse still, not on your list at all.

 

BSC #6 – Never lose another great idea. With most desk diaries, there is a section in the back where you can jot down notes. This is the perfect place to store your brilliant ideas before they get forgotten.

Loads of great ideas do get forgotten because they aren’t written down, and I’m sure this has happened to you in the past (it’s certainly happened to me).

Keep your diary with you wherever you are, and when a brilliant idea pops into your brain, grab a pen and write it down.

Once done, you’ll never forget a great idea again, and you can refer to your list whenever you’re looking for inspiration.

 

 

Remember, your business needs your attention if it’s to thrive and grow.

It’s a lot like establishing a thriving flower garden. Just planting the seeds won’t result in a beautiful garden. You must tend it, nurture it, fertilise it, water it, weed it, and give it your attention regularly.

This is how you achieve a beautiful flower garden, and exactly the same principles apply to your business.

 

Are You Running a Beauty Business or Simply Indulging in a Hobby?

Are You Running a Beauty Business or Simply Indulging in a Hobby?

by | Jan 25, 2018 | Leadership and Personal Well-being, Salon and Spa Business Performance

Warning: This article may make you feel a bit uncomfortable! If you’re okay with that, keep reading.

Truthfully, how are you spending your 9 – 5s? Are you working on the management of your business; monitoring your figures, developing strategic plans for growth, training your teams, discovering ways to reduce unnecessary expenses, improving client acquisition and retention, creating your unique-point-of-difference,

or,

Are you doing lash tints, brow shapes and bikini waxes all day long with no time left over for businessy-type stuff?

Here’s the thing, you can do a little of both and still run a fairly successful business.

I did this in my last salon, and it delivered a fairly good return, but, if I’d spent more time on the management and less time on delivering client services, I’d have had a great business.

I only wish someone had told me then, what I’m telling you now. The more time you spend working on your business instead of in your business, the more successful you will be.

Out there, in the cyber-zone, you see a lot of feel-good graphics that tell you that to be successful, you only need to be good at what you do. Well, unless this means being good at business management, then you’re being lied to.

You may be the best facialist, waxer, brow designer or hairdresser in the city, but that is no guarantee of financial success.

If your idea of success is to have clients tell you how wonderful and how talented you are, then you’re probably achieving that already. Unfortunately, ‘wonderful’ and ‘talented’ doesn’t pay the mortgage; but money does.

For some reason, many of those who operate beauty businesses are not comfortable with the concept of making money. It feels dirty and slimy, and not at all attractive.

But, here’s the absolute truth of the matter – if your business can’t generate enough money to way wages, rent, general expenses AND still leave enough for you to make a decent living, then you are running a hobby business.

You are not a serious business owner because you are not doing all you can to be financial solvent.

Let me clear up this common misconception. Making money is not a dirty or slimy thing to do. It’s a beautiful thing, as long as it’s done with honesty and integrity.

And here’s why…

~ Money is what pays your employee’s wages each week, allowing them to do what they love and sustain their own families.

~ Money is what pays your suppliers for their goods allowing them to grow their businesses, supply your much-needed products and become more financially secure.

~ Money is what allows you to keep your business doors open, so you and your team can deliver your wonderful services to the clients who rely on you to do so.

~ And finally, money is what allows you provide a better life for yourself and your family.

So, as you can see, making money is a very positive and worthwhile thing to do – it’s what makes the world keep spinning, and as long as you do it with honesty and integrity, you need not stress ever again over the fact that it’s okay to make money.

Now that we’ve cleared up this success-blocking thought, it’s really time to get more serious about doing business the right way.

 

Here’s how I suggest you start:

#1. Stop telling yourself that you’re the only person who can do anything properly in your business. Instead, learn the art of good delegation, so you can free yourself from the mundane jobs in your life, and invest that time into running your business in a business-savvy way.

#2. Stop taking on every new client who walks in the door when you have perfectly good employees who can look after them instead. (They must be good, after all, you employed them.) If you’re worried that your employees are going to steal your clients when they leave, you may as well sack them all today, and just go back to being a solo-operator.

#3. Stop making excuses as to why you ‘can’t’ do what you know needs to be done, and start to find reasons why you ‘must’ do what is necessary to be more successful. Time to pull up those big-girl (or boy) panties and face the reality of being a business person.

#4. Treat being in business seriously. Devote at least part of your day to management only tasks that are results-oriented. (The bigger the part, the better). Stop weeding the gardens out the front, stop checking your social media every 5 minutes, stop dilly-dallying with time-wasting activities that will get you nowhere, and instead create a daily plan, and then work your list until everything that is important to your business growth gets done.

#5. Set some clear, measurable and achievable short-term goals for your business. Write them down and revisit them daily to keep you on-track. Once you’ve achieved them, create some more.

#6. Become a time-management terminator. Use your time wisely. You’ll never get back wasted time, so make every business minute count, so you don’t have to eat into your leisure/family time.

#7. Become a first-class communicator. Talk to your team on a regular basis, be transparent, ask for input. You’ll be surprised at how much knowledge they can offer you from digging into their past experiences. Get them involved in growing your business.

#8. Learn how to be business-minded. Invest in your business skills and not just your treatment skills. They will continue to improve your business permanently.

So, are you a real business or just really a hobby? Is it time to get serious about making real money and stop worrying about the future? It all comes down to you, your mind-set and, most importantly, the actions you take.