I think the biggest complaint I hear from stylists throughout the industry is they are just not making enough money. You went to school, logged your hours and dreamed of having this amazing dream job where you got to do what you loved while making great money. Most of us find pretty quickly that while it’s basically the best job on the planet, many of us are left saying “where’s the money at”.
Well, the little secret hidden inside every business is there’s always money left on the table. If we can uncover these little money gems, we can increase your income exponentially this year. I want to share with you four tips, that can quickly and easily in your business today.
Strategy #1– Quit giving away free or packaged services- Why is it when the client gets a highlight and a color service, your haircut becomes free? Or maybe the cut isn’t free, but you knock $15 off the cost of the cut. I don’t understand that. It’s not any less work. The client is choosing to come see you, so they can afford it.
How about this little trick? A client gets a highlight, and she’s not down for a hair cut, but you just put bleach on her hair, so her ends are crispy, and your love her, so you’re just going to trim the ends. Let me ask you this. What is the difference between a trim and a haircut? Nothing. And if you’re thinking, ”Well, it’s just nicking the ends. It’s not a full haircut,” well, then you’re cheating your client, because if all you’re doing is cutting the hair off on the edges of the cut to make it look decent for now, you’re missing the entire interior of the haircut. You’re cheating your client out of an experience. She is losing out on having healthy hair and you’re losing out on money. So a haircut is a haircut. It’s never included for free. Combo services are not a good deal for you or your client and you’re not going to get ahead with package pricing or free services. Stop it.
Strategy #2- Not selling conditioning treatments or giving them away for free-
Let me throw some numbers at you:
Do you know that if you work four days a week and you sell one additional $10 conditioning treatment every single day, you’ll make an extra $2,000 this year?
How about this one? If you work those same four days a week but you sell $30 in conditioning treatments every single day, that’s an extra $6,000 this year.
I don’t know about you, but I could use that money. Conditioning treatments are a high value, high profit service. They’re actually the most profitable service in the salon. You can mark up a conditioning treatment 7 to 15 times over what you pay for it. That’s huge money.
I think at some point down the line we started feeling guilty about selling conditioning treatments. We start to think they are just too expensive or kind of a rip off. We know that we pay pennies on the dollar for them so we discount their true value in our minds. Conditioning treatments do work and they’re of high value to your client. If you’re not giving the opportunity to purchase an in-salon conditioning treatment, you’re actually cheating them out of a high quality hair service experience. If your client didn’t want a luxury experience, the could go to the $6 haircut place on the corner and do their roots at home for free.
As soon as we start giving conditioning treatments away for free, we actually devalue them. We tell our clients, “They’re worthless. You don’t need to pay for it. Not a big deal.” You’re cheating yourself and your client out of money and an experience. Make sure that you do conditioning treatments and you charge for them.
Strategy #3- Not selling retail.
This is probably no surprise to you at all. Retail equals retention. Retail equals referrals. Retail is something that your clients are looking for and it’s part of the salon experience. Somebody in my Thrivers Society Facebook group actually just confessed that she pre-judged her client and didn’t try to sell her retail because she assumed she couldn’t afford it. The client messaged her the next day requesting to buy, not one, but FOUR products! Clients want to purchase products!
Now there’s no doubt about it. Selling retail in the salon has changed in recent years. Big retailers like Ulta, Sephora, just to name a few, can now sell some of our in-salon brands, which makes it hard. We can’t beat them, so we have to join them. Most of us like those stores because of the convenience and incentives so putting things like retail and referral programs in place really does help.
Quit making the excuse that “I can’t sell retail anymore.” I know tons of successful stylists today that are selling over $2,000 a month in the salon in retail alone. This is in small salons. These aren’t top stylists. This is just great sales. Sell by educating and incentivizing and I guarantee your referrals and your retention will go through the roof.
Strategy #4- Not pre-booking your clients.
I know it sounds basic but it is a huge missed opportunity. I want to throw some more real numbers your way:
If a client comes in to see you every eight weeks and pays $100 every single time, that’s $650 a year, pretty good. If that client doesn’t pre-book, life gets busy, and instead of seeing you every eight weeks she starts to come in every ten weeks instead. She forgets to book, you don’t have time, life happens. Well, now her service annual total is $520. If you multiply those additional two weeks between appointments between ten clients, that’s $1,300 dollars a year lost. That adds up to real money and the difference there is pre-booking.
Make the extra effort, learn to pre-book effectively, and I guarantee your income will increase.
And those are four little shifts you can apply to your business today to see real results. Try it, just for a week and let me know how it changes your business!
