Intro:
Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick career as a hairstylist, like you got into this industry to make big things happen? Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you weren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer. Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists. I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hairstylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist podcast.
Britt Seva:
What is up? And welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host, Britt Seva, and today we’re talking about amenities that do not mean much to clients anymore. This is a very inspired episode because I was recently on the gram, the Instagram, and there was some post that came up that was about, what are the things you do that set you apart as a stylist in your community? Or something like that. I’m super paraphrasing. I didn’t save this post or anything. But of course, I was like, ooh, dive into the comments section on this one. And the things that were listed… I’m trying not to laugh. I should take this super seriously, but the things that were listed as what we do to stand out in our community, I was like, oh my gosh. Sometimes I think that for all of us, we can get a little bit jaded.
And especially if you are in Thriver Society or you’ve been listening to this podcast for a long time, it’s easy for us to live in this section of the industry where it’s like everything’s been elevated, everybody’s a high performer, and most of the industry still is not. And it was actually very humbling for me to remember. I always say Thrivers are the elite 5%. So often I look at the industry through that filter of like everybody’s doing this. And no, 5% of the industry is high performance, and the other 95% just kind of doesn’t understand how the industry has changed. And so this episode is dedicated to those who don’t realize how the industry has evolved in a few years. And I think sometimes when I share these things… I’m here in California. I’m in the San Francisco Bay area. There’s no doubt about it. When you look at the way that any industry evolves, it often starts on either coast, and then works its way in. I’m very well aware of that. Our industry is no exception.
When you look at… California’s usually advanced, New York, Florida. Texas is a really big market. The bigger markets generally tend to hop on trends faster, and then smaller communities, the Midwest, there’s certain areas that just tend to have a little bit more time, and they don’t have to evolve as fast, which is such a gift and a blessing. I think the window of evolution on things like what I’m about to share has kind of closed. I think that there has been time for basically everybody to adapt. And what I’m sharing today, even if you’re like, “Oh, we’re in a small community, this doesn’t matter,” or “We’re not in a big city like Seattle, this doesn’t count for us,” I really think what I’m about to share counts for pretty much everybody. And the reason I think I can say that is everything I’m about to share as amenities that don’t mean much to clients anymore, I’ve been coaching to not looking at these things as amenities since 2016, for a really long time.
And I’ve watched Thrivers literally in every state in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, South America, I’ve looked at stylists, the UK phase these things out as amenities and find massive success. So it’s hard for me to be like, “Oh, but this only matters in big markets” because I’ve watched stylists in small markets reshift the way they look at amenities and just strike gold with it. So even if as I share this, you think to yourself, “My clients still love this,” try not to live in the delusion of the past, which is really, really hard. And one of the quotes that was said to me by a business mentor many years ago is, “Don’t settle for good when greatness is just beyond reach.” And what this person was trying to share to me… This was like… There used to be this very egotistical version of myself that existed many years ago when I did feel like success had come to me fairly easily. And I was living in this idea that I had already had everything dialed in, I had already had everything all figured out, I didn’t need to hear anything from anybody.
And it was like this reminder of, okay, well, you got to level two, but if you want to get to level three, four, and five, you need to always be growing. And the easy response would be like, “Well, I’m happy at level two.” Okay, but level two is not going to work in two or three years because everybody around you will have already gone to level three or level four or level five. And by the way, I’m not talking about level systems in the salon. I’m talking about if you think about business evolution and the way that consumer behavior changes and what clients are looking for in salons change, complacency really isn’t an option. And so to just say, “Well, I’m happy with how everything is. I’m not going to evolve,” that means your business will likely shut down sometime in the next five to seven years, and you just have to be okay with that.
And when you look at the average lifespan of a small business, most don’t make it to the 10-year mark. And when you look at a booth renter, that’s an individual small business owner, when you look at a salon owner, the average salon owner only owns their salon for eight years, and a lot of it is resistance to change and resistance to evolution. I want you to be able to have longevity in this industry, and I want you to stay ahead of the economic growth. So even if what I say to you is one of those things where it feels frustrating, I want you to stay really open-minded. So before we get into the amenities that don’t count anymore today, let’s get into the things that haven’t counted in 10 years. So some of the amenities I still see people trying to brag about or leverage when they’re trying to build a clientele that literally don’t even make sense and haven’t for a long time would be things like consultations, like, “We offer consultations.”
That’s just a standard. Don’t brag about that. You don’t need to put on your website, “We have consultations here.” It’s an expectation, not an amenity, so just phase that out completely. Being on time. Being on time hasn’t been something we should brag about for a really long time, but used to be fairly normal that stylists ran on stylist time, and they ran late and they ran long and you’re going to be at the salon for half a day. And that used to be fairly normal and standardized. The pace of life has increased so quickly, the average person can’t just sit around waiting for you.
And we say things like, “Well, I ran long, so I threw in a free treatment.” For me, if you run long, my time is so much more valuable than that treatment. I don’t care what you give me. You can give me my entire service for free. If you’ve made me run 30 minutes behind, you’ve screwed me over. I’m really upset. And that’s not just a me thing. For a lot of people, time is their most valuable resource right now, so running late and running long, it’s something we have to be really mindful of. The other thing is great hair. I still see a lot of people trying to hang their hat on. “I’m great at formulation. I do really good haircuts. My blowouts are amazing. I’m a very talented stylist.” Often, actually not every time, but often when I’m doing a keynote presentation, I’ll do this exercise with the room, and I’ll be like, “Raise your hand if you do great hair.” What happens is 90% of the room raises their hand, and then for the 10% who doesn’t, I’m like, “Come on, find your confidence. Everybody raise your hand.”
Because everybody in that room, if you’re coming to an industry event, you do good hair. I know that you do. So when we try and leverage on social media, “Come in to see me because I’m the best at doing hair,” you’re trying to play the same game that literally everybody else is. And in client’s eyes, for all of us who are industry professionals, we do have a more refined eye. We’re like, “Well, those foils have bleeds. That toner wasn’t done correctly. I don’t like the placement there. That Bob wasn’t cut precisely enough. I see breakage.” We see these refined things. Clients have no idea. And so often we’re trying to play this, I’m the best game when clients can look at your photos, look at your videos, and look at your work, and they say, “Good enough.”
And so if you’re still trying to leverage, I do consultations, I run on time, and I do great hair, whoa, we really need to go back to the drawing board. So those are the things have been passe for a really long time. Let’s look at the three categories that I think in recent times, as of right now, when I looked at that social media posts, these were the things that people bragged about where I was like, “Oh, no. Oh, no.” The things I’m about to list in these three categories are very much client expectations, not amenities. So I’m going to list a bunch of stuff.
If you don’t offer these things, please start doing it ASAP. And by ASAP, I mean start doing them in 2017. Okay? If you do do these things, amazing, but they’re not amenities. They’re just a ticket to ride. They’re just awesome. You’ve set up business. You’re working to grow as a stylist. Welcome to the industry. It’s not an elevation. It’s not anything fancy. It’s simply like doing the basics. Okay? So everything I’m about to list here is an expectation, not an amenity, and I’ve broken them down into three categories. I have experience, what I’m calling goodies, and what I’m calling connection. So when it comes to experience, we have things like head massages, great shampoos, a relaxing environment, and a clean space. Check, check, check, and check. Every client today simply expects those things. It’s been a long time since I’ve met a stylist who doesn’t give a good shampoo, who doesn’t offer a head massage with the conditioner.
It’s been a really long time. Those are just like service standards. It doesn’t make you a cut above. It doesn’t put you in a different class in the eyes of your clients. It doesn’t mean you’re better than anybody else a client could go see. It’s simply like, “Hi, I’m a hairstylist and I do good shampoos.” It’s an expectation, right? A relaxing environment. And not everybody has to have a relaxing environment. You could have an edgy environment. You can have a fun environment. All of those things are wonderful and they should be in line with your brand, but it doesn’t necessarily set you apart. It’s not an amenity. It’s just like, okay, and? It’s just kind of part of the experience. And then a clean space. It’s amazing when you talk to clients about what they see in your space, their eye catches things like, “Well, there was lots of hot tools everywhere. The station looked very cluttered.”
The more you can keep a clean and tidy space, certainly the higher the perception will be, but it really isn’t expectation. Okay? Because here’s the thing. If I go into your salon and it externally looks dirty, I don’t even want to know what’s going on in your drawers. I don’t even want to know what’s going on in the dispensary. Imagine you go into a restaurant and there’s cutlery kind of everywhere and you could see crumbs on the floor, and the music’s kind of all over the place. Some of your salons look like that. I’m going to be honest. And you’re still charging a high price point, but there’s hair on the floor and we have a half done basket of laundry over and there’s station products everywhere. Would you want to eat at a restaurant where there’s crumbs on the floor and the cutlery is still being sorted in front of you?
It does make you wonder, what is going on here? And it’s the same thing in our salon environment as well. If it doesn’t feel like polished and tidy and clean and well-maintained, it’s fine. Maybe you’re a lower price point salon and your clients don’t care. If you are trying to stay up ahead of the changes in the economy, things like that really do count and really do matter. Okay, so let’s go into the goodies category. So I’m going to go through this one pretty quick. We’ve got prepackaged snacks, waters, coffee, tea, soda, wine, beer and canned alcoholic beverages. All of those things at this point are like ticket to ride items. Most clients expect that you’ll have something for them to munch on if they get hungry in your salon. Coffee, water, tea, juice, soda, stuff like that, basic. Most of the salons I know that are doing marginally well have those things. For a while, beer, wine, and canned alcohol was like, woo, super fun. I have to give the disclaimer, in most salons, that’s going to be illegal.
I only coach to [inaudible 00:13:03] and above board. What you do with that is up to you. If you’re going to roll the dice and do it, that’s fine. I don’t think any client would say, “Well, I go to Sophia because she serves me wine with my haircut.” And that’s the reason I bring this up, is we are stepping into the most challenging market this industry has faced in the last decade. It is nothing like the recession of 2008, nothing at all like that. And the way we navigated that is not the way we’re going to navigate this, but the game has massively changed. And if we’re going to look at retaining our clientele and sustaining our demand and growing as fast as we want to, an IPA is not going to do it.
There’s other amenities we want to lean into make that happen. One of the things I always talk about when I say, if you want to retain and if you want to grow, let’s give them something to talk about. There has to be things that your clients can lean into to refer their friends to you for that doesn’t have anything to do with granola bars. Do you know what I mean? So have these goodies, absolutely. They’re expectations in the eyes of a client, not amenities, with the exception of alcohol. If you want to have it, fine. If it’s legal in where you work, fine. Is it a necessity? In my mind, no. Is it a fine addition? Totally fine. It’s just not an amenity. It is an expectation or this one cool thing that you do, but it’s not going to do much to grow your business. Okay?
And some clients are going to be like, “I love that I get to sit here and have a Truly.” That’s great, but at the end of the day, it’s not going to make a difference of if they stay with you long-term or not. Do you know what I mean? Okay. Then we get to connection, and this was the big one. As I was reading this post, the amount of times people were just like, “I just listen really well to my clients. I just remember things about them. I really care about my guests. I’m consistent with what I do.” Just for everybody listening to this podcast, I mean it, for everybody listening, do you listen to your clients? Do you remember things about them? Do you care about them? Are you consistent? Again, those are the things that clients are like, “My gosh, I hope so.”
It’s truly an expectation. Those things do not make you special. There was a time when it did, absolutely. In 2004, that was so great. It’s just not anymore. You should do those things. They do not make you special. They mean that you’re a stylist who’s playing the game. Here’s some other frequent mistakes. So as I go through these things, people are like, “Okay, maybe I’m going to shake it up a little bit. I’m going to do some more things.” Frequent mistakes I see when people are trying to create amenity packages, free treatments or free retail. Never do we give anything ever away for free, ever anytime in any capacity ever. Did you catch that? Never ever. And it’s not like, “Well, I bundle it in and all of my blondes get a free X, Y, Z treatment.” Why would you ever do that? Literally why?
I like to use the analogy of chips and salsa. So if you’ve heard this before, it’s a throwback. You’ll probably have a little smile about it. If you’ve ever been to a great Mexican restaurant, one of the things that’s pretty standard is free chips and salsa, right? But guac is extra, and you are too. Yeah? And that’s the running joke, right? But if I go to my favorite burrito joint, which ironically we went to last night, when we go to our favorite burrito joint, there’s a free chips and salsa bar, and they have a bunch of different salsas. They’ve got verde, they’ve got pico, they’ve got all kinds of stuff that you can choose from. It’s free. You order your burrito, you can do the chips and salsa bar. Then we’ve got our favorite sit down place that we go to when family is in town. Again, we sit down. As they come to take the drink order, the hot basket of chips and the two types of salsa, the hot and the mild come out and they’re placed on the table.
At no point do we pay for either of those things. Okay? The reason why this matters is because as soon as you start saying, “Well, all of my blondes get free treatments, and they love it.” Yeah, of course they love it. I love my free chips and salsa when I get a burrito. Don’t get it twisted. I expect it. I love it. Never have I ever said to a friend, “You’ve got to go to this burrito joint, they have chips and salsa.” Duh, doesn’t everyone have chips and salsa? It’s fairly rare that they don’t. And what happens is as soon as you start giving away treatments for free, it becomes white noise. It doesn’t feel special. It’s not something that’s beloved. It doesn’t grow your business. And by the way, if you asked a client, if you were like, “Do you like that I do the free treatments,” they’re going to be like, “Oh my gosh, I love it. Of course,” which is also what I say when my favorite Mexican restaurant asks me if I like the chips and salsa. Of course I do. I love it, but it’s an expectation.
It’s not an amenity. It’s not like a perk. It’s just part of what I’ve grown to expect coming here. And so often when we do those things, we think we’re elevating, and all we’ve done is increased our cost of doing the service without actually adding a perk. Now, I have seen some people who are blonding specialists who will include the conditioning treatment in their service when they do session-based pricing. So it’s like for me to do your whatever blonding service, we’re starting at $450. At that point, I can see adding in the blonding treatment, because now we’re talking about something comprehensive. It’s totally different. But it’s like when I see people who are like, “My partial highlight is X amount of dollars and it includes this X, Y, Z treatment,” I don’t know why we’re doing that. It becomes chip and salsa and it’s not something you can leverage. Okay? Free retail, as soon as you start giving retail away for free and as part of your referral program, your rewards program, whatever, it completely devalues the retail.
And it’s a huge part of why I think retail sales started to slump in the industry, is we started giving it away. And I’m not sure why, because it’s one of the thinnest profit margins we have. So why we decided that’s what we’re going to start giving away for free to people, I’m really not sure, but never do we ever, anytime, under any circumstance, let a bottle or can of anything walk out the door as a gift for free. Okay? Then emotional discounting. That’s, of course, a mistake. And often we do that. We run late, so your haircut’s free today. I know you’re going through a hard time, your highlights on me. None of that is going to feel like an amenity to your client. It’s cool. They love it. Generally speaking, it’s not going to increase their loyalty. It’s not going to make them send you more referrals. And I’ve tested that for a long time over a decade.
I’ve played that game with people. I’ve said, “Do me a favor. Go back and look at the people you emotionally discount. Do they send you referrals?” And over and over, it’s no. “Do they tip you more?” Over and over, it’s no. “Do they cancel less often?” Over and over, it’s no. There’s just not an upside to it. Okay? So those are the things we want to stay away from. So when it comes to what are clients looking for when it comes to amenities today, we lean into the perceived value levers. There’s six different levers that I coach to. And if you haven’t listened yet, go back and listen to podcast episode 99 where I dig into perceived value a little bit more. If you haven’t heard it, it’s worth a listen for sure, but I want to talk for a moment about the environment lever because amenities fall under that category.
So a few of the things that I list in the environment lever as areas where you can elevate and it is tangible to clients, branded environment and decor. And I don’t just mean it’s cute in here. I mean more like an immersive way. The environment is really next level. It’s elevated, and it feels deeply branded and deeply immersive. Verbiage standards, this is something that I’ve seen really take hold of the industry in the last couple of years, probably since 2021. And by verbiage standards, I mean kind of specific phrases or taglines.
If you’re in Thrivers, you know that there’s some… Even chips and salsa, there’s little catchphrases that we say. The skeleton key. If you see a skeleton key in anybody’s Instagram bio, it’s like a Thrivers inside joke. There’s these little nuances to the way some salons operate where it’s almost like you are a part of something bigger than yourself when you’re here, and verbiage standards can be a part of that. This might sound weird, but the music actually makes sense. So the soundtrack or the station on Spotify or whatever is not determined by the receptionist who opened the salon today. It actually makes sense. So there’s a woman I’ve been seeing who does my skincare for me for almost five years. She’s a peach and a half. And one of her running jokes is the music around here is terrible. And she has nothing to do with it. It’s different every time. It never makes sense.
We literally just turn on one of our phones and play music as loud as we can because it’s so terrible. The vibe is so bad. It makes a difference. It’s so bad that it’s a running joke for us. So I know we think of music, who cares? “Angela, you opened the salon today. You can pick it.” Those things matter, so really thinking about creating an energy in your space. Upscale coffee beverages. I was at a salon earlier this year and they had the dreamiest espresso machine, and I was like, “What’s the price tag on this?” It was several thousand dollars. And listen, I’m not saying that you have to invest several thousand dollars into an espresso machine, but that is a salon that’s doing multiple seven figures in revenue in a really small area that’s not like a super high income area.
They’ve done things to set themselves apart. And it’s not just coffee, water, tea, and a glass of wine. They’re doing something exquisite, and it’s allowing their business to grow faster. Team support, this is an interesting one. There’s a lot of clients who feel like they like it when other stylists come up to them and say, “Oh my gosh, Sadie, how are you? How’s your puppy doing?” Not their own stylist, but like everybody else in the place and space knows who they are. That kind of goes back to the whole idea of you’re a part of something bigger than yourself. Have you ever walked into a salon, or a waxing studio, or a grocery, literally anywhere and felt like an outsider? Maybe there was one person there who cared about you, one person who knew who you were, and then everybody else was like whatever, maybe gave you a side eye. You’re like, “Are they judging me? Do you like me? Do you hate me? Do you know me from somewhere?”Makes you question if you’re accepted there. If your entire salon is not making your clients feel comfortable, that could be a problem for you.
And it didn’t use to matter. So for those of you who were like, “Oh, we’ve never worried about that.” Okay, well, now’s the time because these are the things that clients are considering. Okay, I’m going to really age myself here. I’m a child of the 80s, and when I was a kid, there was a show called Cheers. And if you’re a child of the 80s such as myself or you grew up before that time, Cheers was a bar where everybody knew your name. And Google it if you haven’t. You can listen to the theme song, and it’s this local dive bar where you go in and every single person in their knows your name.
We are getting back to a place of that, not just in this industry, but in consumer behavior. As social media starts to wane, we are seeing this natural cycle back to old school marketing, and that vibe is kind of it. So you want to be the Cheers of hair salons. And if you don’t know what cheers is because you’re not as ancient as I am, seriously look it up because there’s something to that. And if you talk to literally any marketing guru right now, they will tell you we’re seeing this cycle back to old school, and that’s a part of it. Then there’s the pre-visit guest experience. We’re actually going to do another episode on this. I watched a video from a stylist who has a decent following and sounds like they have a decent clientele, and they’ve built a beautiful business for themselves, and I’m not going to argue against that at all, but it was kind of saying it felt very challenging to come in and see the stylist, and I think that’s totally fine.
And there’s some clients today definitely who like to have to jump through hoops to come in to see a stylist. There are some who want to do that. I think it’s a smaller and smaller minority all the time, particularly as we see unemployment on the rise and all of these things shift and change. I was just talking to a stylist I love and adore. She and I have a very, I’m just going to say authentic relationship where she has always told me the highs and lows of her business. She doesn’t sugarcoat it. And what she was saying is, “I love being a bleach and tone expert. I love it.” She was like, “But I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that the market is changing. And no matter how much I love it, and I love the money that comes with it, and I love serving that clientele, my demand for it is not going to stay the same for the next two three, four, five, six years, and I have to make an adjustment to that.”
I just want you to think to yourself, how are you setting yourself up for success with your clients? And pre-visit experience is a part of that. What are the vibes that you’re sending to people before they come in to see you? And listen, I want clients to respect you. I want clients to value your time. I totally get it and understand that, but one of the things I’ve shared for a long time is way back when, I can remember seeing educators come up with me, and when I was the small fish, and they were the big sharks. And the big sharks had posted all over their social media like, “No longer taking clients, fully booked, books closed, loving life,” blah, blah, blah, and a lot of those educators now are books wide open. Things have really shifted and changed. And we just have to remember that for all of us, business is very cyclical, and you have to be careful about making it so impossible to come in to see you because chances are you’re not going to sustain that for the next 15 years.
Things will change. And just really thinking about the tone and the vibes that you set and how you want to be perceived, really just keep that in mind. Okay, I hope this has been helpful. I hope it’s helped you think a little bit about amenities and perception, and the way you’re positioned in the industry and how to set yourself apart. I might have some more resources coming down the pike to help you set yourself apart. And as always, so much love, happy business building, and I will see you on the next one.
