Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass 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 you know 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.
What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host, Britt Seva, and today we’re talking about the power of DMs to increase your bookings. This, quite candidly, was a bit of a blind spot for me. I did not realize how many stylists and salons were like shutting off DMs, ignoring DMs. They are the most important feature on Instagram. And as I was talking to some stylists and salon owners about how DMs are so problematic in their business and asking me how to reduce DMs and how to filter DMs, I really became aware of how a lot of industry professionals see DMs as more of a burden than a gift. And I wanna shift that mindset. That being said, I understand that the reason we have an aversion to DMs is they feel super time consuming. So I’ve got to give you a strategy where this can work for you.
It doesn’t have to be this big, huge, heavy burden. My hope is that we can kind of undo some bad habits that I think have been really … I wasn’t say commonized. I don’t think that’s a real word. I’ve become popular in the last few years and start to reopen this channel that can be really, really powerful for you. And if you’re already using DMs and you’re like, uh, yeah, Britt, I talked to clients in my DMs, let’s look at how we can streamline those conversations into better bookings too. So first I wanna talk about Instagram as a whole and how the platform has changed. So when Instagram first really started impacting the industry, which would’ve been like 2015, 2016, the game was post good pictures of your work, hashtag it up, use geo tags. Um, and then there was like the age of the influencer.
And through those early years, we were chasing likes. Then we were chasing followers. There was this whole movement around get as many followers as you possibly can. And then we saw sort of like comment scams. And if you were there, if you know, you know. It was like comment below with the emoji that best describes your day. It was weird. It was chasing things that at the time, which was a decade ago, would push your content out into the feed more. So I understood why people were playing those games, the like, comment, grow my followers game, because in the early years of Instagram, people who had more followers, more likes, and more comments would get more reach on their posts. That’s what the game looked like. I think there’s a lot of Instagram users who are still playing that game. That is not how the algorithm works anymore.
Instagram has openly said it. When you talk to users, that’s not how we’re seeing impact. Some of you have maybe even seen this before. You’ll find somebody who has 200,000 followers and 80 likes on a photo because their content is not being forced out and it’s not because it’s not a good photo. Certainly not because they don’t have lots of followers because they do. It’s because the way the algorithm works now is so different. So let’s talk about what the Instagram algorithm is looking for because I think you’re gonna become really into DMs once you understand this. So this information was shared by Instagram. So it’s not something I cooked up. This is what Instagram says impacts how successful your Instagram account is going to be. Velocity of engagement. Instagram immediately measures how fast any post receives, likes, comments, shares, and saves. Posts that gain traction quickly are boosted to a larger audience.
So it’s not saying it’s looking for volume over time. It’s how quickly does this post trigger things likes, comments, shares, and saves? How quickly? Speed. So not volume, speed. If you don’t get a ton of engagement within the first 15 minutes, then 30 minutes, then hour, you’re not gonna get the reach that you’re seeking. So quality of content does count because if the quality of your post is better, you’re probably gonna get that recency. It’s why when somebody like announces an engagement, announces that they’re expecting, announces a big career move, there’s a lot of reach and a lot of engagement because immediately people start to react. It’s the speed. The second thing is type of engagement, and they call this signal importance. So this is the quote. “Different actions carry different weights. Generally, DMs. DMs is the number one indicator. DMs, shares, saves, comments. Indicate deeper, more valuable engagement than likes.
That is from Instagram d- d- directly. I want you to listen to that ranking. DMs was first, then shares, then saves, then comments, and then likes is like at the end and they’re basically saying that is not a single, signal importance for us. “So getting likes is cool. It tells people who, who see the posts like, ” Oh, other people liked this, “but it doesn’t boost your standing or your engagement overall. And I think that’s important to understand. I think it’s more of an ego boost, um, than anything. But what you’re chasing is DMs, shares, saves, and comments. Then there’s relationship and interest. So the algorithm prioritizes content from accounts a user generally chooses to interact with. Interactions include direct messages, comments, and visiting profiles directly. Notice that does not say anything about likes. So if people who are following you or those who aren’t following you yet or are just starting to engage in your content are not sending you DMs, are not commenting and are not choosing to go to your profile, it’s going to massively impact how successful Instagram is for you.
Okay. Then we have time spent/watch time. For reels and videos, the time spent watching is crucial. Longer watch time signal higher interest. If you are posting reels or videos on your feed that are 30 seconds long, 45 seconds long, 60 seconds long, but the content in which you’re posting is not interesting enough that somebody stays on for the full video, it’s gonna negatively impact your reach. So that comes back down to quality of content as well. And then last is recency. How recently the content was posted plays a role with newer content being prioritized. So those are the five things that Instagram is looking for when they’re trying to decide which accounts should be prioritized. Which accounts do we want followers to be engaging with? What posts do we want to be pushing out? These are the things they’re looking for. The reason I’m talking about this is you’ll notice in several of these, DMs comes up as something that they are looking for.
I want you to think about this for a minute. What makes you DM an account on Instagram? And how often are you doing it? My guess is when I said that, you thought to yourself,” Well, not very often. “Instagram knows that. So when somebody actually makes the effort to send a DM, it says a lot. It says this is very intentional. The person who is sending this private message has something important to say. They’re looking for some kind of result. It’s almost like the highest compliment a user can give to another Instagram account. That’s why I want you to think of DMs. Like there is nothing more important. The only thing that might be more important is a share. Because if somebody is, is willing to share something that a user posted with somebody else, wow, that means a lot. That means it was super valuable.
So between shares and DMs, it’s like the highest form of compliment you can get on the platform and Instagram knows that. So if you and I both know, we don’t send DMs a ton. And when we do send DMs, they really mean something and we really are hoping for a response and we really are hoping to take action and we really are hoping to connect. Why is it that stylists on the flip side say things like, ” I just don’t have time to deal with DMs. “The questions that people ask me and the DMs are already on my website, so they should just go to my website. I tell them to go to my link and my profile. Or they say things like, ” I wanna run a self-service business. I don’t, I wa- I wanna automate. Oh my gosh, automate. If one more person tells me, how do I automate my business as a stylist?
I’m gonna cry. “We are the service-based industry. We know AI is coming. And I’m trying not to get too freaked out by it, but if you start to really listen to what business forecasters and kind of like experts of industry are saying about AI, it’s some pretty scary stuff about how it’s going to disrupt the workforce in the next like decade. It’s not great. And so in our rush to automate, our rush to get as much off our hands as possible, man, in the service-based industry, we need to cling on. And so it’s very interesting to me that people are saying,” I’m not getting as many bookings as I used to and I wish that I could increase my demand and yet they’re looking to automate, automate, offset, offset, stop talking to people. You are rushing in the wrong direction. “Human connection is the number one thing you should be prioritizing in your business as a stylist or salon owner.
There is nothing more important. I cannot emphasize that enough. And the gap is closing on that. We have a few critical years to really dig in on that before the ship sales and we end up in trouble. So we wanna connect as deeply as we can. The other thing is when people say like, ” Okay, Britt, I love that. I hear what you’re saying. I’m just too busy. I don’t have time for my DMs. “I currently at the time of this recording have 85,000 followers. There are some days where blessed days where we get hundreds of DMs in a day. I still manage my own DMs. So if I run the business I run and I do the things I do and I still manage my own DMs and I have two kids and I have a husband and a kid who plays travel sports and all the things, if I can do it, it is a bit hard for me when somebody says I can’t manage, you know, two, three, five, seven DMs a day, you’d be blessed to get seven DDMs in a week.
That would be really huge. And so I think that what it actually comes down to is we don’t understand how powerful those DMs can be and we don’t understand how to streamline them and simplify them into bookings. Like, let’s just get those people to the finish line. That’s what I want for you too. So one of the things that’s really working against you in your DMs is an auto responder. If you have an auto responder set up, shut it off today. Let today be the day. I’ve never set up an auto responder on my DMs and my DMs have always been open and they’ve always been a real primary source of connection for me. They’re a critical piece of my business. I could not imagine setting up an auto responder or turning them off. They’re too important. So often when I get, and you know, I get to interact with your auto responders all the time because people will DM me and ask me questions on Instagram like business related questions as a stylist or salon owner.
I’ll give a thoughtful response and I’ll get your DM back. And your auto responder will say,” Hi, you’ve reached us at a time where we’re with clients. Please head to our website for all of your needs. “It is immediately a shutdown. Hi, we’re too busy to talk to you. Click the link in our bio to learn more. I know there’s a link in your bio. I have eyeballs. We all know that links and bios exist. If I’m coming to your DMs, I’m trying to talk to you. And when I go to your website, I know I can’t talk to you. When I go to your website, you’re asking me to go ahead and book an appointment or email and then you’ll get back to me in a few days. If I’m DMing you, I would like to take further action. Trust me, I would. Remember, we talked about that a few minutes ago.
I’m not gonna send the DM and waste my time if I don’t have true intention. So if I’m gonna go through the effort of sending the DM, I’m trying to have a two-way conversation with you. Don’t shut me down. The autoresponder, you think that it’s filtering clients for you. It’s not. It’s just shutting down leads and you’re losing business on it. So while I understand, with most questions that get sent to you in the DMs, the answer is somewhere on your website, the answer is somewhere on your Instagram. I could feel the same way. I totally get it. Someone’s trying to have a human interaction with you, let them have it. So let me share with you a system to kind of streamline this process so that you can not waste time in the DMs and get to booking as quickly as possible. There’s gonna be four steps here.
Connect, discover, value and solution, and then next steps. So connect is one, discover is two. Value and solution is gonna be three, and four is gonna be next steps. So first things first, connect. So somebody sends you a DM and maybe it says,” Hi, what days do you take clients? “Or maybe it says,” Hi, what’s your price for a highlight? “Whatever the question is. Hey, Sheila, great question. I would love to quote you a price on highlights. Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself? Are you currently working with a stylist? Is your hair highlighted right now? Would this be your first time getting highlights or is this a service that you normally get? Hi, so excited. I say their name. So excited that they’re here, I make that connection, and then immediately go into the discovery. I’m asking open-ended questions. I wanna get to know the person.
So you and I both know I can’t just blindly quote a price in the DMs. And so what the stylist who’s not interested in Growing Business Fast says is, ” Ugh, so annoying. Obviously I can’t quote a price. Go to my website, you’ll see the range. “What the business-minded stylist who really wants to grow fast says is, ” Okay, let me find out a little bit more about this client, build some trust so that hopefully we can move forward. “So connect, hi, give the client’s name back to them. So excited that you’re here. Tell me a little bit more about yourself. Can I be honest? It almost doesn’t even matter what they say in response. We want to be showing that we are interested in connecting. That’s the whole point of this. So when we give somebody the opportunity to tell us about themselves, it feels good to the person.
So that client’s gonna respond back to me and say like, ” Oh no, I’ve been getting highlights for years. I’m just looking to get my roots touched up. “I’m gonna respond again, I’m gonna say,” Oh my gosh, amazing. It sounds like you’re moving on from a stylist. Would you mind giving me a little bit more clarity around what wasn’t working well with the stylist you were seeing before, just so I can make sure I match your needs? “Again, building trust and I’m also screening the guest a little bit to figure out if this is even gonna be a good fit. If they say something like, ” Well, they were never able to get it right. You know, that’s gonna be a little bit of a red flag. I’m gonna want to consult a little bit more. Maybe I would ask them to come in for a consultation, but I can filter from there.
Or maybe they’ll say, You know what? I saw this person for six years. I’m just looking for somebody with a different opinion. I really like your work. I like your style. I think you’re a good fit for me. They’re qualifying themselves. They’re reselling themselves into my business. I’m probably gonna get this one. Then I go into value and solution, which is our third step. And I say, “Awesome. If you’ve been getting highlights before, you know you’re a good candidate for it, you’d probably be a great fit for me. Most of my clients start with my, ” and then list out whatever service most of your highlight clients start with. And I know, I understand everybody’s different. Some people get a mini, some people get a partial, some people get a. I understand. I get the nuances, fully get it. I’m asking you to go with what do most of your clients get and what could we push this client towards that would probably meet their needs?
Now, if you’re like, “Britt, I don’t book like that. Everybody’s a special snowflake.” We’ve got other podcasts dedicated to that. If your booking system is so complex that every single new client who comes to work with you has to fill out a detailed form and submit photos and I promise you’re losing clients and you’re losing money. If the process to just get on your books is so complex that it takes back and forth and back and forth and more information, if you’re exchanging photos, you are losing money. I promise you are. And if you have questions about that, find me in the DMs, you’ll find me there, we can chat through it, but there’s a more streamlined way. Some of our thrivers use new client booking packages, that works really well. Some have just simplified their booking system, that works really well. Anyway, different subject for a different podcast.
But we could say, you know, more than likely, let’s get you started with a full highlight or let’s get you sort of a partial highlight or why don’t you go ahead and get booked with my, you know, blonding service, my new guest blonding service. The price range there is anywhere from 220 to 310, depending on your texture, density and length. I’m gonna go ahead and give you my booking link. It looks like I have availability starting about three weeks from now. Why don’t you go ahead and book to get started and we will talk more about this at your next visit. I can’t wait to meet you. So I’ve hit all four of the steps, connect, discover, value and solution and next steps. If I were to go back and forth with a client like that, it would take me maybe 15 minutes to send all of those DMs over the course of, call it a day or two, right?
IDM, the ADM, maybe there’s a couple of hours in between. This is not taking up hours and hours and hours of my time. And again, I would be so blessed and so lucky if I was getting so many DMs and so many sales inquiries as a stylist that I was spending hours and hours in my DMs responding to clients, man, you’d be so blessed if you had that much demand. But most of us don’t. Most of us are talking about a handful of people who might be DMing. Now, if you’re like, “Okay, Brit, I like this idea of having more of these conversations in the DMs. If you’re telling me if I were to do it, I would get more people to actually book appointments, which is what I’m telling you. And if you’re questioning this process, I want you to think about it. How many of you have more followers than actual clients?” You should.
And if you don’t, we’re probably not getting enough awareness around your social media account, but most people have more followers to their Instagram than actual clients. So it’s people who are curious, thinking about coming in to see you, but haven’t pulled the trigger yet. Doing more posts where you say, you know, you storytell. “This is my client, Alicia. You can see her hair before and your hair after. All we did was an XYZ service. We chose to go this direction because she blah, blah, blah. If you’re somebody who’s been thinking about going blonder, going shorter, getting extensions, adding more texture, whatever, send me a DM and we can chat through this further. “A lot of people are right on the fence thinking about booking with you, thinking about taking the next step and just opening the door to having the conversation and looking at how can we actually dig a little deeper, build a little more trust is gonna get you more bookings.
One of the things we talked about, so you may or may not know this, last year we released a completely new marketing funnel. I taught the same marketing funnel for 10 years and it worked great, and then consumer behavior changed. And one of the biggest changes was that clients were expecting trust before they booked an appointment. It used to be that clients would see a pretty picture, feel like, okay, good enough, book the appointment, have the consultation, and then kind of trust built over time with the stylist. We lost that grace period. A client now has to trust you way before they set foot through the salon doors. So when I talk to a salon and I say,” Why do your clients like you? “And they say,” Well, once they get in here, they see how great we are. That’s not gonna work anymore. “A client has to see how great you are and trust you and believe there’s a connection before they even book.
And there’s lots of different things that we can do to make that happen, verbiage on the website, the way in which you post online reviews, but DMs is another huge connection and trust building point. So if you are somebody who has an auto responder on, if you have decided DMs are a waste of time, if you’re feeling like you don’t know how to use this to increase your bookings, I encourage you to just try, get started. See, this is a great way to have those initial conversations. If you have questions about DMs or booking and you don’t know what the next steps look like, you can find me and my DMs at Britsieva on Instagram or leave me a rating and review on iTunes and hopefully I will feature your question. In an upcoming episode, as I always like to say so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
