9 Big Reasons Why You Should Avoid Staff Training in Your Salon

Training your staff could have a serious impact on your bank balance

When I speak to my clients about the need for ongoing staff training, I often hear "I hate spending the money to hold staff training, because eventually they will leave and I have wasted my money"

While this may sound like valid reasoning to some, I wonder if much thought has been given to the repercussions of continuing to think along these lines.


So, here are my (tongue in cheek) 9 TOP reasons why you should never train your staff:

9. Well trained staff generate substantially more income through effective, relationship building retail sales.  I can certainly understand why you wouldn't want that! All those extra retail sales mean you will never be off the phone, ordering more stock...now that's a pain!

8. Well trained staff generate substantially more income through up-selling of services and elimination of gaps in the appointment book.  That's a real problem.  When will there be time for coffee and chatting in the lunch room?       

7. Well trained staff deliver substantially better customer service.  That's just scary.  Now all those customers you have spent so much money on attracting will actually want to come back and spend more money!

6. Well trained staff stay longer in their jobs. This is a real problem for those of you who love spending time and money on recruitment and new employee training and indoctrination.  Not to mention having to keep all those customers who leave when their personal technician leaves your salon.

5. Well trained staff are happier and more motivated in their jobs.  This can be downright depressing if you enjoy working in a tense and moody environment every day! Happy people can be so depressing to be around.

4. Well trained staff retain more clients.  So what are you supposed to do with all those cash generating, extra clients coming in? Sounds like a problem to me.

3. Well trained staff get more personal referrals.  That's a problem too - even more clients wanting to spend their money in your business.  Where will it all end?

2. Well trained staff get better rebooking percentages.  If those clients keep coming back regularly, you are going to be forced to hire more staff and you know what that means!

And last but not least

1. Well trained staff work more efficiently.  You know what this means.  More work, more money and then. in the blink of an eye, you have a tax problem to deal with!

I hope you enjoyed my tongue in cheek list of why you should never train your staff and would like to finish this post by sharing one of my favourite quotes with you.

"There is only one thing worse than training staff and having them leave and this is it..... NOT TRAINING THEM AND HAVING THEM STAY!"

Wishing you prosperity and success
Pam
Photo by Idea Go

Are You ReferringTo Me?

Are you great at what you do?

If you know you are, do you ever wonder why you are not getting more clients who refer their friends and family to you?

Well...are you?

The answer is quite simple really.

People are L.A.Z.Y.  Yes, it's true.  Why should your clients bother to refer you to anyone?  They pay you well for doing what you do so what gives you the right to expect any more?

The truth of the matter is, most people walk around day after day, asking themselves the same question.  That question is "What's in it for me?".

It goes like this,"What's in it for me if I go to work today?...oh, I'll get paid and won't lose my job", or "what's in it for me if I do something nice for the boss?...oh, she might do something nice for me down the track", and of course "what's in it for me if I tell all my friends about my fabulous new salon? oh....nothing"

Are you starting to get my drift?  How is your client going to benefit from giving you a referral?  What is in it for them?

This is a good question to ask yourself .  What can you give to your clients to make it worth their while to refer you to friends and family.

You tell me!


Wishing you prosperity and success
Pam

Photo by Michele Meiklejohn

I'm the "ONE"

I was going through my files today and I came across this very apt short article and I thought I would share it with you. 

You know me. I'm the one who never complains no matter what kind of service I get.

I guess I just don't think it's worth wasting my energy confronting bad service.

I'm the one who goes into a restaurant and sits for 30 minutes until I get waited on.

The waiter is rude and impatient while I'm deciding on what to order. Then when I get my order it's 25 minutes later and it's wrong.

But I don't complain as I pay my bill.

 I'm the one who goes to a store to buy something, but I never throw my weight around.

If I get a snooty salesperson who rolls his/her eyes because I want to look at several things before I make up my mind, I'm still polite as can be.

I'm the one who bought a toaster which burned out in two weeks.

I hated taking it back, but I knew it was under warranty.

All the time they were telling me it was my fault.

At that point, I couldn't think of anything to do but leave.

It wasn't worth getting into a yelling match over a toaster.

I smiled and said, "Thank you. Goodbye."

I'm the one who wouldn't dream of making a scene in public as I've seen others do at times.

But I'll tell you what else I am

I'm the one who never comes back...

(Writer: Anonymous)

Wishing you prosperity and success
Pam

10 Tips to Make You More Money by Keeping the Clients You Already Have

Did you know that in most salons, client retention after the first visit sits at around a paltry 25%.  That means 3 out of 4 new clients never return to that salon. (that's pretty shocking!)

Do you find it appealing to know that you can make more money without spending another red cent on expensive (and often  ineffective) advertising?  Well if I were in your shoes, I sure would. 

Unfortunately lots of expensive adverts simply don't give you a good return on your investment.  Do you even know what it cost you to run your last advert and how much additional business it brought into your salon?  If you are like most salon owners you probably didn't bother to measure your return on investment and can't answer that question.

The good news is that while times are tough, there are ways to make more money from your existing database and they are just waiting to be tapped into by you.  The guaranteed way to make more money is to find ways to do more business with the people who have already done business with you in the past.  These are the people who will do business with you again.

So, if you are wanting to tap into this goldmine of profits, then you need to look at a few important things that need to be done in your salon.

Think about these things in your business and how you can either introduce or improve on them to help you become more profitable.
1.  Give your clients a reason to keep coming back to you.  Introduce a simple loyalty program that rewards the client for returning regularly
2.  Teach your team to LISTEN to what the clients are asking for and then deliver it in a way that will WOW them
3.  Introduce a consistent approach to all things that affect your clients especially in the treatments that they receive
4.  Ensure EVERY client is offered a rebooking for their next appointment before they leave your salon
5.  Stay in touch with your clients regularly with a worthwhile newsletter and have special offers that will make it worth their while to keep reading.
6.  Say thank you when your clients refer a friend by giving them a small gift and an acknowledgement  letter or email
7.  Make your salon client friendly and get rid of useless and offensive rules that make the client feel uncomfortable  (you know the ones I mean....Turn off your mobile phone or you will be shot and fed to the crocodiles!)
8.  Be unique.  Stand out from the rest of the salons in your area by offering something that they simply can't get somewhere else.
9.  Acknowledge your client's birthday with  small gift certificate.  We all love to have our birthdays remembered
10.  Be the best at everything you do.  If you are not the best at something either stop doing it or become the best.

Now while this is by no means an exhaustive list of how you can get more money from your existing data base, you can start implementing these ten simple tips straight away and they won't cost you a cent in expensive marketing campaigns.
 
Wishing you prosperity and success
Pam

Sold!

Ever since I got back from Canada, my household electrical items have all decided to go on the fritz.  I am sure it is a conspiracy.  Something concocted between them while I was away as payback for leaving them to the mercy of unknown housesitters.

Well whatever the reason may be, I have had to purchase 2 new kitchen appliances already and dread what the rest of the week may bring.  Being the internet prowler that I am, I have been busily researching which appliances I would buy and how I could get them for the best possible price .  So this afternoon, armed with all my new found info, I decided to hit the shops......again.  I did try it earlier in the week and came home empty handed and very disappointed.  You know how it is when you have decided to spend your money and don't.  I was frustrated.  I had found the perfect applicances but no one seemingly wanted to take my money.

Photo by Arvind Balaraman

I had hit 2 big name electrical appliance stores and in the first store, every microwave that I enquired about was "fantastic", "wonderful" and "incredible".  Naturally I was confused because surely they could not all be so amazing.  Where were the questions about what I needed, where was the guidance toward the best product for me, where was the customer service I wanted?  Obviously on holidays (which is where I was wishing I still was).

The second big retailer, believe it or not, was even worse.  I wandered through the aisles and aisles of microwaves looking suitably forlorn and in need of help but alas, not one of the many salespeople even bothered to come my way and offer some assistance.  Eventually I tracked down a salesperson who was cleverly hiding behind a big stainless steel refrigerator and asked her about a rangehood I had researched.  She pointed to a far corner of the store and said "They're over that way". Sigh!

Finally this afternoon, I hit gold.  I had not been in this particular store for more than 20 seconds before a fantastic fellow by the name of Mark (we'll call him that because that was his name), put aside a job he was in the middle of doing and came over to help.  Well, needless to say, this story had a happy ending and I left the shop almost $800 poorer but oh so much happier.

When I think back over it now, Mark really didn't do anything extra-ordinary, but what he did do was approach me quickly, ask me some good questions, give me genuine guidance and best of all carried my purchases out to the car for me.

It doesn't take much to stand out above the crowd and make the sale.  Friendly, genuine service was all Mark needed to provide to pursuade me to part with my money.

What do you think it will take to make your customers part with their money so readily in your salon?

Wishing you prosperity and success
Pam

WOW Customer Service

I have just returned from 5 FABULOUS weeks touring Canada.

Even the Bears are FRIENDLY in Canada!

My husband and I toured through both the West and East coasts and it was quite an experience.  What really stood out for me though as a business coach was the AMAZING customer service I received as a tourist.

Moi with my Favourite "Mountie"

Now as a resident of the Gold Coast here in Australia, I think the standard of customer service we provide to our tourists is pretty abysmal.  Squeeze them in, rush them through, overcharge them and then push them out.  Yup - that is what has happened to me each time I dined in a tourist zone here in Australia.  What I found so totally refreshing over in Canada was the way I was treated as a tourist.  I was never squeezed, rushed or pushed.  Nothing was too much trouble and everything was delivered with a GENUINE smile. I was even engaged in conversation about my holiday by service providers and they were genuinely interested in my experiences.  WOW!

Boy, have we aussies got something to learn from our Canadian cousins when it comes to WOWing our customers.  Obviously the Canadians know that as tourists we are not coming back in the near future and it just doesn't affect their warm and welcoming service.  Maybe we could take a lesson out of their book and start treating our customers the way they seem to treat their tourists.

Wishing you prosperity and peace of mind
Pam

Ouch - Just Too Pushy

Photo by Stephano Valle

I have a GREAT chiropractor. He is gentle, professional and best of all he gets results. The other thing that makes him great is that he explains what the "process" is going to deliver at the very beginning of the treatment. All in all, I think he is terrific but today, I seriously considered never going back again. Why? Because today his receptionist damaged the "relationship" I have with his practice. Now, don't get me wrong here, I am all for rebooking clients. As a matter of fact, I spend lots of my time teaching service providers to do just that, but today my chiro's receptionist went "over the line" and entered the very dangerous land of "just too pushy".


So, when does the rebooking process become too pushy and damage the relationship? Well let me relate my experience to you. When I went to pay for my service, the receptionist (I'll call her Mary to protect the guilty) suggested I book again for the following week. I politely explained to her that I was flying out of the country mid week and would most likely be time poor and that if I wanted an appointment, I would ring her to make one. Her reply to me was,"oh, I'll ring you on Monday then". I again repeated that I did not think I would have time to come back before my trip. To this, Mary replied "well we are very busy next week and the Chiro will be going to a seminar on Monday, so you had better book now". Once again, I said, thanks, but I didn't think I would have time. Having had just about enough, I turned to leave and her parting words to me were "We'll expect to see you on Tuesday then".

TOO MUCH!

Rebooking should always be done with honesty and integrity and with a genuine desire to do the best for the client. To me, this whole episode said "greedy" and "it's all about us - not about you".

I still haven't decided if I am going to go back or be like the majority of us Aussies and complain with my feet. What would you have done in my place?

Wishing you prosperity and peace of mind
Pam