Attracting New Clients

Keeping  your team busy within the salon should be a high priority, especially during the slow months. If your busy with plenty of customers, you are to be congratulated, but be forewarned: it doesn’t take much for salons to fail. I have seen salons booming one year and empty the next during my 43 years as a salon owner. Complacency is your biggest challenge.

We as professionals should all work hard to create value in our skills through ongoing self-improvement, so we can create a demand for our services and eventually raise prices.

Of course, we all know that positive word of mouth and referrals are the most effective types of advertising, and should serve as your score card on how well you are performing. The cost of losing even one customer may dramatically affect your income over the course of the year, but the real damage is negative word of mouth publicity, will affect your bottom line and your employees.

The following tips will not only help you keep your current customers, but gain new ones as well.

Self-Renewal— before you blame others such as your environment, the economy, or whoever, you may want to look at yourself in the mirror with an open mind and measure your own performance and productivity.

Most people are always looking for excuses to fail. Don’t allow yourself to fall into this negative work habit. Be willing take full responsibility for your own success or failure. If you are really outstanding, people will find you. you can’t always blame your boss if you are not as busy as you would like to be.

You may want to start by measuring your customer return rate. Measuring your client retention rate will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.

Look and Act Like a Professional — are we not in the business of making our customers look and feel good about themselves? If you want to attract an upscale clientele and charge upscale prices, then you better look and act like an upscale professional.

Education — the road to excellence within yourself will always be under construction. Keep learning, take classes, work hard to seek self-improvement every day. There is no speed limit on gaining knowledge. The more you learn, the more you earn. Cultivate you entrepreneurial opportunities by cultivating your mind.

Develop Powerful People and Communication Skills — lack of communication is one of the major causes of customer loss. Make sure you listen and understand your client’s beauty needs, then work hard to exceed client expectations. Sound informative and in an articulate manner during the consultation.

Toot Your Horn — just because you’re a hairdresser doesn’t mean you can’t learn how to promote and market yourself and your services. Learn the benefits of social media like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, all of which are great means of marketing your skills and services. Work hard to become a marketing genius.

Referrals — simply ask your customer that you appreciate referrals. You may want to offer incentives or have a contest among customers who refer the most customers. Keep in mind most people have a circle of over 250 friends and relatives.

Customer Service — excel at customer service and you’ll see it’s power. Always work hard at giving more than what’s expected. A genuine and caring attitude towards people, as well as great listening  and communication skills, will set you apart from your competition.

I do hope these tips will help you to stay busy and help you create a demand for your services. This will be one of the many topics we’ll discuss during our 2019 Salon Summit Cruise, a great trip for both relaxation and education.