It’s a universal truth that the holiday season is prime time for our industry, right?
With higher demand and higher retention, every single stylist and salon owner knows that the time between Halloween and January is the one of the busiest seasons they’ll have in their chair.
There’s two ways to look at how to create massive holiday success with this level of volume: quantity or quality.
If you go old-school quantity (more heads in your chair), you work yourself to the ground to make sure all your clients feel good and nobody’s mad at you, even if it means you break your back and don’t see your family for eight weeks.
Or you can take the bull by the horns this season, focus on quality, and close out the year strong by thinking of the season’s potential a little bit differently.
Rather have option two? We agree.
Let’s dig into the four areas you need to focus on to achieve quality and true massive success this holiday season.
Marketing and messaging
We want you to take the holiday plan from last year—you know, the one with the 12 Days of Christmas social media posts, retail holiday promotions, and the “season of selling” mentality—and throw it in the garbage.
Go ahead. We’ll wait.
Listen, today’s consumer does not want to be sold to. They don’t want to see more ads about product, more contents asking them to tag and share and nominate.
Instead, focus on self-care. On (say it like Donna with us, friends) treating yourself. On educating your clients on why it’s important to heal that winter hair dryness. Essentially, how are you going to educate your clients on why this is an incredible opportunity to treat yourself for the holiday season.
Because when we start thinking that way about our marketing and messaging, the whole game changes.
Nurture
We’ll be 100 with you here…nobody’s looking for a new stylist in Q4. Your new guest requests are going to go down, and that’s okay.
Instead, focus on what you’re going to do to make your clients feel the love and keep them coming back in Q1 and Q2 of the next year.
Where do you start? Ask yourself these questions:
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How are you going to show the love to your clients during the holidays?
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How will you show appreciation for their loyalty to you and how they’ve shown up in your business?
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How will you make them feel seen and heard?
Focusing in on the answers to these questions will create the ultimate nurture strategies because they’re probably feeling like they’re part of the rat race, especially this time of year. If you can be the person who says, “I see you and I value you,” when everything else is vying for their attention, you’ll earn their loyalty.
Revenue
You should make more money during the holidays, right? But doesn’t that mean you have to see more clients?
Nope.
Instead of booking yourself back-to-back-to-back-to-back, be creative. Think about how you can make more money while working less.
Hint: Don’t be afraid to take advantage of the fact that we’re seeing so many clients in such a small period of time, so think about what you can do to increase your service ticket sales.
A great way to boost your sales? Consider adding in micro-services like in-salon conditioning treatments. These conditioning treatments are, generally speaking, the single most profitable service you’ll do in the salon. How can you position a micro-service like this in a way that your target market clients won’t be able to resist?
Awareness
Awareness is all about positioning yourself to grow exponentially in Q1, Q2 of the following year and beyond. It maximizes what you do during the holiday season to catapult into success the upcoming year. So how do you use this area to focus on quality during the holidays?
It’s simple. Ask for reviews.
By putting a big effort behind online reviews, you can position yourself as a cut above in the industry and market, so even if that target market client can’t come in to see you in September or even December, they can’t wait to see you in January.
But when it comes to asking for reviews this season, lean away from sell, sell, sell. Remember, today’s consumers are sick of promotions, social media contests, even when you’re asking for reviews.
If you want to make a huge splash this holiday season without breaking your back behind the chair, remember this: look in the gaps. Our magic is in that we remind people that they’re important and self-care is critical. Double down on that this season while everybody else is touting their latest retail sale. You’ll earn more money while spending more time with your loved ones.
If you want to dig deeper into how to set up a shortcut for success this holiday season, join Britt for the Holiday Season Success Workshop on August 28! Tickets are on sale for just $29 right now, but hurry, they’re going fast! Get yours here.