Salon Christmas Marketing Idea

Just wanted to let all those keen salon marketing owners out there know what we are doing in our salon for Christmas Salon Marketing Promotion this year. It is super simple, very cheap and highly eff3ective. We do it every year, the clients never get sick of it and it is very effective when placed into your daily customer service routine.

It is a rebooking promotion. Simply choose four or five small add on services such as eyebrow shaping, eyelash tinting, hair treatments etc. They should be services that don’t take up too much time for your team and services that are cheap for you to perform but high in perceived value.

Once you have chosen these services print out a bunch of little squares on card is best that have each service written on them (one service per card). Also add a merry Christmas wish or something similar. Once these cards are printed chop them up and put them into a christmasy looking lucky dip box.  Make the box themed with the colours of your salon or your Christmas decorations, make it look professional and chick.

The key is to now ensure that as each client checks out inform them that if they rebook for January or February they can pick a free service out of the lucky dip box. When they rebook also book in the add-on service.

The other alternative is to just offer the cards to every client and hope that they come back and book in for the service. Depends on how loyal your clients are. I prefer to get em in. January and February are notoriously quiet months for hair and beauty salons so this is a great way to fill that appointment book during the slow season.

tip: make sure the cards are small enough to fit in someones wallet and ensure you put an expiry or valid for date on every card.

happy Christmas promoting peps! Get that Salon Marketing underway and have a prosperous silly season. For more great marketing ideas visit us at www.salonbusinessshop.com

cheers!

Get your Salon Pumping for Christmas

Merry Christmas!!! I know, I know, it’s only November! But in our industry you’ve got to be prepared! We are rewarding all of you who are getting organised and want to improve your business.

For all of our valued clients, the month of November will get you $10 off whatever you order.

So now is the time to:

• Get that Customer Service System in to maximise Christmas profits
• Check out our Business Health Check done to ensure your salon is at it’s best for the silly season
• Put in some Position Descriptions and the Team Management Pack to eradicate grey areas and increase team efficiency and training.

That also means you can get our NEW DVD, packed full of the most valuable information on buying and selling salons, for just $39.95…that’s ridiculous! Hurry, November only!

So get online today and make the most of this pre-Christmas special. We have updated our website with new testimonials and informative videos so get organised and get educated with the One Stop Salon Business Shop Today!!!

Just shop online and all of our valued return clients will automatically receive $10 off the total of their purchase,

Thank you for shopping with The One Stop Salon Business Shop,

www.salonbusiness.com.au

Salon Policy and Procedures manuals – Part3

Maintaining your policy and procedures is just as important as putting them in the first place! Why spend all that money just to let the manuals sit on a shelf. Today I will discuss a few tips to ensuring that your policy and procedures remain in the forefront of your team’s mind.

1. Regular Team Meetings

These should be held weekly as a group and many successful salons will also hold one-to-one team meetings with every staff member each week as well. This allows a forum for discussing the systems and how they are working, allows your team the ability to let you know what is not working and gives your managemetn the opportunity where they can let the staff know where they could improve. It’s vital, so start organising them! Now! Go on!

2. Regular training sessions

Most salons will hold regular technical styling or therapeutic training sessions and these are of course vital to the success of your business. Just as important however is the ongoing training of your systems. Don’t assume that once you have done your implementation training that your team will run with it perfectly from that point on. You will need refreshers and updates, particularly on subjects like retail recommendation and customer service. We recommend at least once a month you do a training session on some aspect of your policy and procedures.

3. Mystery Shopping

Keep your team on their toes with regular mystery shoppers. Do them as often as you like but we suggest doing them at least once a quarter. Never tell your team when or who is coming as this defeats the purpose. You can download great mystery shopper vouchers from our website for just $34.95 for both hair and beauty salons. These are a great way to check up on how the systems are being run, particularly in the beauty room where it is hard to judge what is going on. Download one today at our website www.salonbusinessshop.com

Good luck with maintaining your salon policy and procedures and we wish you all the success for your salon business.

Salon franchises

Salons do lend them selves particularly well to franchising and there are many salon chains and franchises globally. If you are looking into franchising please be sure to have a look at this report at franchisebusinessworld.net.

In the current market staffing, which was an issue previously for salons, has turned around somewhat. With the feedback we are getting it seems that many salons that in the past had only one or two often unsuitable applicants for a position are now getting over 100!

This is a massive swing and a welcome relief for stressed salon owners. If you would like more information on how to successfully hire and induct salon employees see our employee handbook training guide at www.salonbusinessshop.com

We love to hear your successes and questions so please feel free to comment!

Write a business plan

How to Write a Business Plan

It is easier to write a business plan from a Business plan template. We have a great Business Planning Guide called the Revolution Guide to Business Planning. It is a book, with interviews and from top slaon owners who have experienced success and tips from them and the industry experts on how to avoid the downfalls of salon expanion or franchising.It also looks at salon systems and salon policy and procedures and the importance of these in growing your business.

On top of that the Guide also includes a free business plan template, including spreadsheet financial tables for budgeting and projections. Making sure you cover all of the required sections in a business plan is important so as to avoid having to constantly go back and add things in for various groups who may need your plan such as banks or investors.

But really you should look at a business plan as more than a painful document you have to do up for someone else! A good business plan is a workable document, that is used regularly to keep your salon on track, keep those involved accountable and to ensure that what you are doing is working.

If you are serious about business success, business growth or expansion in the hair or beauty industry then you will have a good business plan. For more information on expansion,  franchising visit www.franchisebusinessworld.net and for more information on Salon policy and procedures, salon business and salon management see www.salonbusinessshop.com

Salon Policy and Procedures Part 2

Implementation of Salon Policy and Procedures

Salon Policy and Procedures Implementation is a vital key to the success of you salon. It is also important as if it is done poorly you will have wasted a large sum of money on a folder filled with paper that sits out in your back room.

When informing your team of the new policy and procedures manuals that you are about to implement, make sure they are enrolled fully and understand the real business reasons for making such changes to your business. It is best no to underestimate your team by hiding from them the impact the salon systems will have such as increases in productivity and financial gain.

Before finalizing the salon operations systems, ask your team if they have any ideas or things they would like to see happen that would improve their experience working for you or improve the way they deal with the clients. Hairdressers and beauty therapists are creative, caring people and usually want to do what is best for the client, so it is a great idea to enroll them in the process. This will also give you a better response when it comes time for implementation.

The day of implementation in the Salon.

There are two ways to implement a Salon Policy and Procedures manual. The first is to do it in stages, introducing one module at a time, for example start with just a customer service system or a retail recommendation script, then introduce the operations later, the team bonuses and training schedule after that…you get the picture.

The second way is to close down the salon for a day, have all of the team present and do one or two days of high intensity training, including role playing, practice on family clients and testing and reading through the entire manual. Both ways have their benefits. I think it is worth closing the salon for as it lends an extra sense of importance and excitement to the process and most systems work best all together rather than in bits and bobs.

Make sure that all of the team are good to go before opening the salon again and reward great performance from the outset of the new systems.

If you are looking for salon policy and procedures documents we recommend having a look at the One Stop Salon Business Shop’s stuff, as you can download fully adjustable templates to do it yourself or you can get all the salon business tools in one package with their Salon Policy and Procedures Manual, which has been used, tested, proven and improved over 15 years in the industry.

Good luck and feel free to pen us any questions you have as you implement your Salon Policy and Procedures

All the Best!

Salon Policy and Procedures

Salon Policy and Procedure Manuals – Waste of Time or Worth the Money?

I wanted to do a quick blog discussing the benefits of Salon Policy and Procedures manuals as lately we have had an increase in enquiries on this topic in our business, which quite frankly is what we would expect from savvy business owners.

In this economic climate savvy operators are doing everything they can to make sure their salon business is a step ahead of the crowd. Now is not the time to be cutting back on marketing, scrimping on the product usage or cutting back the hours of your best (and most expensive hair stylist. No! This is the time to be putting yourself out there, to be giving your clients 110%, to be the most competitive you can be!

Salon Marketing is great, and you should keep marketing at your existing levels rather than increasing your spend. The real difference to be made now is in the client experience. It doesn’t usually cost you much money when you compare it to the return you get and it sets you up for a stable, long term salon business future.

The most effective way to ensure consistent high levels of customer experience is to systematize your business and train your staff to do it and do it well.

Salon Policy and procedures manuals can range in price from $500 to $5000 and the major difference will be in the amount of work you have to do yourself to get it implemented and the simplicity of it’s day to day implementation. A good Salon Policy and Procedures Manual will be easy to implement, have all the tools you need to effectively use it on a day to day basis and will integrate seamlessly with your computer system. The Salon Software integration is a vital point and please ensure you check this when shopping around.

There are lots of great salon manuals out there so do shop around, we have one you can get to via the link to the one stop salon shop to the right, but we recommend talking to us and establishing exactly what you need as if you are willing to do a bit of training yourself, you can systematize your business for well under $2K which will see immediate results in your bottom line. We find most Salon’s turnover will increase by at least 20% and the sale value of your business can increase by up to $50k just by having an effective salon policy and procedures manual operating in your business.

Hope this helps, please feel free to post a comment if you have any questions!

happy systematizing!

A note on Franchising

Business Franchising? Franchising your Business? Franchising a Business? Looking to buy a Franchise? Look no further!

Salon Marketing Online

Salon Business Marketing

Learning how to access a new customer base via the internet can be daunting for some salon businesses and owners, as it is a world away from cutting and styling and waxing.

Last blog we discussed the importance of url’s and domain names and how they effect the Search Engines when looking for your site. Today we are going to look at Keywords when doing salon marketing.

Keywords are the words that the search engines use to help the browsers find the sites that are most relevant to them. With Hairdressing Salons and Beauty Salons there are two things that are important when it comes to Keywords. The first is establishing to the search engines that you are a Hair or Beauty salon with words like hairdressing, beauty salon etc, words that relate to what you do. The second thing with 99% of salons will be locality.

When people are searching on the net for a hair or beauty salon, most times they will want something local so they will type in something like ‘hairdresser bondi’ if they were looking for a salon in Bondi beach perhaps. This is a great specific keyword and one that salons, who are looking for local business can use to their advantage.

So as you begin salon marketing and to write the text for your website keep in mind that you want to clearly state for the search engines what you do and where you are. While it is important to have text on your website that is readable and useful for your clients, you also need to consider the search engines otherwise a client will never get to read it!

Next blog I will go into more depth on how to write savvy online text!

Cheers!

Salon Business and Online Solutions

The next few blogs will be about how to get the most out of your Salon Business online, this week we will look at URLs and what to consider when choosing one.