Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? 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 you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’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 hair stylists, 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 this week’s episode is very inspired because this was not even what I was set to record for this week. Then I sat down and looked at my upcoming podcast and I was like, “I am just so interested in talking about referrals right now.” It’s something that I think is going to become increasingly important in 2024 and beyond.
Something I’ve talked about very openly is we’re having this shift like a renaissance. I love being in a renaissance, A, because it sounds so romantic, and B, because it means that evolution and change is coming in. All the things.
I think we’re in this renaissance in the industry where we’re shifting back to more traditional marketing and those of us who built a clientele in what I call the dinosaur days, which is like anytime before 2015, reminisce or romance that time because we think of it as such a simpler time. In some ways, it was much more challenging, but it was also much more simple. And I think that as consumer behavior changes and the internet changes and social media changes, some of the things, not all of the things, but some of the things that we did during that simpler time are seeing a resurgence. Physical mail, referral programs, word-of-mouth marketing. There’s just some things that are coming back around and referral programs is one of ’em.
I have been talking about referral programs forever since I started coaching over a decade ago. In recent years, I’ve gotten a lot more pushback about referral programs don’t work. I tend to think it’s actually because most referral programs are not structured correctly and most people don’t fully understand how to make one fly, so I want to talk about referral programs at large. This is the Nurture level of my Hair Stylist Success Hourglass.
I often talk about the marketing funnel mostly ’cause that’s the fun sexy stuff everybody likes to talk about. Like tell me about social media. What about the website? How do I get more clients? Referral program is a tricky one because often we think like, “Oh, referral program is marketing.” The referral program is not marketing. Referral program actually lives on the lower level of the Success Hourglass in what I call the Retention Funnel. I know for some of us that doesn’t make any sense. But in a few minutes as we dig into how referrals work, it’s going to become very clear.
We’re going to hopefully answer all of your burning referral questions today. I want to get real specific about what works and what doesn’t so that you can set yourself up for massive success.
Let’s break this down and I want to talk about referrals in three stages: program, process, and promotion. Then I want to talk about results as well. But this is going to be the three Ps of referral programs if you will.
Let’s talk about the program itself. Having a referral program, what I always say is if you’re not talking about your referral program, you don’t actually have a program. All you have is a great idea, an initiative, an incentive. A program about referrals only works if you’re working it.
Let me tell you what often we do. We say, “Well, I told my clients about the referral program when they first started so they know it’s there,” or “It’s on the website. They know it’s a thing,” or “Every couple times a year, I make sure I talk about it,” or “There’s a station talker for it.”
All of those things are very out of sight, out of mind. I don’t know about you, I don’t remember what me and any service provider I see talked about at our first appointment at this point. So much life has happened.
And by the way, you’re not the only service provider in your client’s life and also you’re not their top priority. They have a family, they have a life, they have a career, or whatever. You are simply a piece of that puzzle.
If you are not actively talking about the program, it does not exist. Even if you have an offer, even if you’ve thought it through, truly if you’re not talking about it, it’s like a ghost in your business. We don’t want any ghosts or spirits in our business that are looking like that.
I want you to think of your referral program as a conversation starter. It’s simply a tool, it’s a conversation piece. If you are not conversing about it, it does not exist. With that being said, the incentive matters, but it’s not what matters the most.
Let’s talk about incentives for certain, but it’s not the key piece.
Now if you’re like, “What do you mean conversation starter? How do you do this?” When we get to promotion of it, I will talk more about it. But as far as when you’re designing the program and what it needs to look like, couple things I want you to keep in mind.
Percentage off and accrual programs are the weakest. When we have something where it’s like refer somebody and get 15% off or something like that, very weak referral program. If we have a referral program and we’re like, refer three friends and get a free haircut or something like that. What if I don’t have three friends? What if I only have two friends? I’m not going to send you either of them because I’ll never get to the third or it’s going to take me years when I finally meet a third friend. Then I got to remember to send three people.
You’re making people work way too hard. If I send you one person, I get the referral gift, whatever. Skip the recruits, skip the percentages.
I often see over-generous referral programs and those can have a negative effect as well. If you are saying send me referral, you get a free haircut, well, now, you’re becoming a discount stylist and we don’t want that either. That’s too generous.
I don’t know about you, it would scare me to go to a stylist or an esthetician or a nail provider or a waxer or whatever—like I don’t want my eyebrows waxed for free. That sounds very scary to me. I don’t know why, but in my mind—and this is no shade to the waxers out there, but in my mind, if I’m not paying for it, the value of me getting the service of course is a little bit less to the provider and now I’m scared and, and that’s totally irrational. But also when we’re having things done to like our physical being, those irrational fears come up. If you’re doing my haircut for free, part of me is excited, but part of me devalues it as in my mind. I’m like, “Oh yeah, it’s that free haircut thing.” Rather than feeling like a gift, it almost feels like a vulnerability.
And that is not a Britt Seva thing. That is a normal consumer behavior thing. There’s a lot of studies that show if you start giving things away for free or at deep discount, you actually lose customer trust. So we don’t want to be doing anything so generous, we’re giving stuff away.
A flat dollar amount is the best incentive. I think something reasonable where it feels like the client is definitely getting value but they’re not getting anything for free is a really good starting point.
Something like 50% off your haircut. If your haircut was 50 bucks, your referral program could be $25. Something like that is great.
Something that’s common is the double referral rewards. I’m really indifferent on that at this point. I do coach to that and I think it’s great. I think that you could be as successful not having a double referral reward if your promotion is good enough.
Take that for what it’s worth. It’s up to you.
The more confident you get with the verbiage, the more confident you get with your marketing funnel, the more confident you get promoting yourself, the less incentive you need to layer on.
But if having that additional incentive makes you feel more confident, there’s a ton of perceived value in that for you. I perceive the value of you having that as being high because if it boosts your confidence, you’re winning versus if you’re uncertain about your program, you’re going to talk about it less. So build the program you feel good about, you feel good serving on, feel like your clients would be excited. That’s going to be the win.
Let’s talk about the process of getting referrals. There’s two kinds of referrals. The way I see referrals in our industry, there’s one called self-generated and there’s one called client-generated. If somebody is Google searching you and finds your Google or your Yelp reviews, reads them, likes them, goes to your online booking and books an appointment, I consider that a self-generated referral. Meaning you put in the time, energy, and effort to get those reviews. You built the website, somebody fell in love with all of it and they chose to come in to see you. They didn’t meet a client of yours, they don’t have a friend who comes in to see you. Essentially that is the result of your good marketing efforts. That’s called a self-generated referral.
It’s not a walk-in, it’s not. How did they find me? Oh, through Google. Give yourself a little pat on the back. If somebody finds you through any kind of online channel without verbally being suggested to see you from somebody else, that’s a self-generated referral. You can congratulate yourself for that.
Then there’s a client-generated referral. So if I refer somebody to go to see my incredible nail technician, then she got that referral based on my good word. That’s a client-generated referral. In which case when that new guest went in to see her, her name is Quinn, she’s amazing. Then Quinn would owe me a referral credit for that because I told my friend about her, she chose to go in to see her and that was how that played out, right?
In a self-generated referral, you don’t owe anybody anything. You put in the time, you put in the energy, you put in the effort, right? Building clientele takes one of two things or a combination of both time or money. If you’re putting in the time to build a marketing funnel, you should get a lot of self-generated referrals in appreciation of the time you spent. If you’re not going to spend the time, you’re going to have to spend the money. And if you’re spending the money, then you’re paying more referral rewards and you might have to pay for ads and things like that, right?
But let’s not get too deep down the rabbit hole at this point.
Let’s talk about client-generated referrals for a minute and then I’ll come back to that marketing funnel thing. If we want our clients to be talking about us, which by the by, why would you not? Why would you not want your clients walking through their life being like, “You should go see Britt, she’s amazing.” There’s no reason we wouldn’t want our clients doing that, right?
Then I often ask people how many referrals are you getting a month? And people are like, “Not enough. I’m getting one, I’m getting two.” People are feeling down in the dumps about it and they’re like, “I don’t know why. My clients love me. My clients are so loyal to me. This doesn’t make any sense.”
Nah, I think there’s a problem. I want you to think about when’s the last time you referred anybody to do anything, shop at a clothing store, you buy a soda that you enjoy, go to a restaurant that you think is great, whatever. When’s the last time you referred somebody to do something? My guess is it came along with some kind of glowing review, right?
Here’s a silly example. My husband worked for San Francisco Fire Department for many years. He became a transplant San Franciscan. He thought he was a city guy. Meanwhile, we were both born and raised in a very small farming town on the coast, but it’s okay. He was like San Francisco born and raised, like you really, really bought into the San Francisco culture, which if you’ve never been, I mean it is a big city mindset. It is one of those where it’s a huge city but it’s located within seven square miles, so it’s very compact. It’s definitely diverse, food is a huge part of the culture, entertainment, just has a real buzz about it. He really got into the foodie culture there, so he found all these great places to eat and drink and all this kind of stuff.
One of the things he discovered years ago, this probably would’ve been like 2017, he found Philz Coffee. And if you know, you know Philz Coffee is a coffee chain. It was based out of San Francisco. The very first location was there. When you’re in the city of San Francisco, it’s like being in the mecca of it.
I can only imagine, like I’ve been to the first Starbucks in Seattle. There’s a whole buzz about it. It’s like our local version of that.
Sometimes Phil is at the location making coffees. Phil is a real man. He’s still around. He’s still does it. The way that Philz Coffee creates coffees is really innovative. You can’t go in and order a grande or a tall latte and everything is different. They have their own menu, their own language. It’s like being a part of something, like being a part of a coffee community when you shop at Philz.
My husband got really into it. He met Phil a couple times. They’re huge proponents of EMS workers, and so he had this emotional buy-in to them. He told everyone and their mother that they needed to go to Philz Coffee. He sold them on it. Here’s why when you go to order, here’s some things to consider. He just raved about this place, wore a Philz hat, loved it, really bought into it. Why?
It wasn’t ‘cause they have the best coffee. They have good coffee. I like Philz. Phil, if you’re listening to this, which he’s not, love you, man. It’s not a shade against you. But what I’m saying is the coffee’s fine, it’s fine, it’s good. But you can get a good cup of coffee anywhere.
Why did my husband get so into it? Couple things.
One, the experience. You can’t, like I said, you can’t just go in and order coffee there like you do it in another place. It’s part of a movement when you’re a part of it. There’s also a real community element to Philz.
My point number one is saying if you want referrals, let’s give them something to talk about. What are the talking points they can share about your business? What do you do that’s exceptional?
Let me tell you what generally doesn’t work: She’s really good at highlighting. She does great color applications. Haircuts, amazing. Really good consultations. She does neck and shoulder massage. He’s so warm, he remembers things about me.
Y’all, those are things that every stylist does today. The talking points about why somebody would talk openly about you in a way that would make people want to abandon their current stylist and come to see you friends, you got to make it happen.
When I say let’s give ’em something to talk about, I know that’s like a late eighties, early nineties Bonnie Raitt song reference. That is my generation, these are my people. But she was onto something when she said that. If the talking point of you should go see Britt, she’s really fun. No thanks. I’ve already got a stylist who’s fun. What else you got? Well, she does great hair. Uh -huh. So does my stylist. What else? Well, I think that honestly she does blonding better than your stylist does. Yeah, but I like my stylist.
That’s the thing too. Often we think well my technique is so much better than a lot of other people in my community. Friends, that can be a blind spot. How many people do you see walking around on these streets with terrible hair?
Let’s be honest, like tragic hair, the color’s bad, the cut is bad, the style is bad. It’s damaged. All get out. And clients will see that stylist who’s literally destroying their hair for years just ’cause they like ’em.
So trying to sell the idea of “Go see my friend, she’s great. She does great hair,” it’s simply not enough. The emotional attachment people get to their stylist is deeper than that. There has to be a selling point.
What can clients see from your business that wows them and where can they go to be wowed? You got to give your clients something to talk about.
Here’s what you can’t do. This is what I don’t mean you send your friends my way and you tell them that the reason they should see me is, like you shouldn’t have to give them that verbiage. That’s too much. We got to dig into that.
Then there’s the marketing funnel. This is the example I always like to give. If I ran into you and we’re good friends and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, Micah, I haven’t seen you in so long. Hey, I meant to tell you, I saw on Instagram the other day you posted that you were looking for a new pet sitter. I have such a good pet sitter, her name’s Lexi. She’s amazing. I think she’d be great for you.”
Is Micah just going to immediately pick up the phone, call Lexi and ask Lexi to come over and watch her dog tomorrow? No. What’s Micah going to do? Micah’s going to look Lexi up online and she’s going to look for online reviews. She’s going to look at social media, she’s going to want to see Lexi’s website or lack thereof. Based on Lexi’s online presence, Micah’s either going to take my good word and my glowing review about Lexi—and let’s say that there was something to talk about. I was like, “You know what’s great about Lexi is she does X, Y, and Z, and she goes above and beyond.” Let’s say I actually had talking points.
The talking points are step one. If everything to support the talking points is soft, it doesn’t matter, okay?
Having that strong online presence, having your website set up and prepared to get those referrals, having that strong online presence, having those social media reviews, having the social media presence that needed to or needed to buffer that referral program is critical.
Now here’s what we don’t do. You don’t need to promote your referral program on social media. No point, literally no point. Remember that the referral program is simply a talking point. The discount is not enough to drive clients to come in to see you.
You know that because some of you already have referral programs in place in your business and you have good financial incentives and people still aren’t doing it.
I know because it’s not about the money. It’s not about the money, money, right? We talked about that at the beginning. The incentive counts, but it’s not what matters the most. It’s the system. It’s the framework. It’s these three Ps, right?
Making sure that for client-generated referrals, you’ve given them something to talk about. There’s a place for clients to go to be wowed, to fall in love with you, to realize that verbal referral was correct, that you are the person they’ve been looking for, and then a booking and a new guest experience that really supports that effort we want them to make.
Then we get to the third P, which is promotion. We think about—let’s say we do all this. We build the stuff that Britt talked about. Now we want to promote this sucker.
One of the things that makes my skin a little prickly is I’ve seen other business coaches and other systems say you could start talking about referrals from day one. You know when new clients come in, one of the things you talk about them at the first visit is referral program.
Don’t bother.
Do not bother talking about your referral program at the first visit. You’re wasting your breath, you’re being kind of creepy, it’s a little too aggressive. Truly, don’t bother.
We do this, right? We’re like, “Hi, you’re here. My name is Britt, here’s my backstory. Here’s how long I’ve been doing hair for. Here’s my cancellation policy. Don’t forget, here’s how you book with me. Here’s what I want to see you next. I want to see you in 12 weeks. Also, I do take referrals.”
It’s like, whoa, whoa Britt, I just met you. We’re barely getting to know each other and that was too much information. But we do that, we information overload people at their first visit and then we never talk about anything ever again.
Who else? Who here is guilty? You spill your life story, all your policies, all your processes, all your promotions, all your incentives, all your structure, everything you offer at visit one. And then by visit two you’re like, “Okay, what are we doing today? Okay, how are the kids? Okay, great, see you in six weeks.”
It’s so funny. We front load everything we ever have and then it’s just forgotten and we never talk about it again. And we don’t talk about retail. It’s like everything falls out the door after that first visit. So fascinating to me. But we do that.
Do not talk about referrals at the first visit. It does not belong in that conversation. In fact, it doesn’t belong in the conversation in the first visit, the second visit or the third. We don’t want to talk about referrals until clients are loyal already and they have some benchmarks that we cover in Thrivers Society.
But until clients are loyal, they will not send you referrals. That should be a huge indicator for a lot of you of like, whoa, if I have all the things that Brit has talked about and I’m still not getting referrals, it might not be your program, it might not be your experience, it might not be that you’re not wow enough. It might not be your marketing funnel. It might be that your clients are not loyal. Whoa.
We need to get clients to loyalty before they’re even going to open their mouth and want to share the good word about us, right?
Getting reviews can be a huge help for that. Now, it’s not the end all be all and getting reviews does not increase loyalty. It’s simply a factor in it, but it doesn’t actually increase loyalty.
Having more reviews is only going to bolster the amount of referrals you get if you’re checking all the other boxes. It’s almost like the icing on the cake of perfect, we’ve got everything going on. Let’s get more referrals to move forward with it.
Now as we get all of these things set up, let’s look at results. Those were the three Ps. Let’s get into results.
As you focus on building a referral program, I want you to give yourself a 90-day goal and I want you to talk about the referral program. Hang with me every single day for 90 days, every single day. You can do this. I want you to challenge yourself, to have conversations about it, to tell clients you offer it, to explain why it matters, to explain why you offer it to, to let clients know, “Hey, listen, I love you being a part of my business. This is why I want to share this with you. I want to continue building forward with you. I want to continue helping our community.”
Finding the words and finding the verbiage to incentivize people to want to tell their friends is going to be critical. I want you to refine that over 90 days.
The verbiage is going to be a little bit different for everybody. I want you to really test things to figure out how can you comfortably talk about this referral program with your clients and where does it fit. Start identifying which clients are loyal enough that I can have these conversations. Do I have enough reviews to jump into it? Do I have a marketing funnel that supports it, right? Is my system good?
70% of consumers today trust an online review as much as a referral from a personal friend. Like I said, building up those online reviews, building up that online reputation is a really great place to start. Once you have that, the referral program is fuel to the fire, right? Get the bonfire started and then I want you to really rethink the referral program you have in place.
If you want word-of-mouth referrals to be a part of your business and if you are truly set up for people to verbally brag about you, I want you just to think to yourself for a minute when is the last time you verbally bragged about a business? What did it take for you to want to do that? How can you create that oomph for around referrals for your clients as well?
I hope this is some food for thought. I know this is one of those podcast episodes that just sends a spark. If you want to learn more about referrals, I would love it if you left me a rating or review on iTunes or Spotify, hit me up in the DMs, hit me up in the Stories. And if you’re like, “Britt, that was simply a teaser, a taste, I want to learn more,” let me know. I have some ideas for how I can bring more referral goodness to you but I want to know if you want it.
We have barely scratched the surface. Let me know what questions have come up for you.
As I always like to say, so much love, happy business building. I’ll see you on the next one.
