Recently I had the pleasure of being blown away in my job. I was hired to work with a salon team with the common challenge of having low retail sales. Amongst this team of 7 were 3 veterans who had more than 7 years experience, 3 that were just reaching the 3 to 5 year mark and one apprentice.

 

At first I was baffled as to why this salon owner had contacted me for help seeing that the percentage of retail sales to service sales in the salon was 31%. Pretty good figure I thought. But it soon became apparent to me what my job was when I saw the technicians breakdowns.

 

Over 20% of those retail sales were the result of one person, the apprentice. With just one year experience this gal was reaching numbers that veterans strive for. I asked her to share her secret to success, what specifically she was doing and how she was doing it.

 

Unbeknownst to her, she didn’t see this accomplishment as anything other than guarding her reputation. She was simply caring for her clients as best she could between visits to ensure they stayed happy with her work and returned.

 

Bless her soul. That is what selling retail is all about, focused client care. Anything less is a disservice to you and your clients.

 

Many times there can be obstacles in the technicians mind that holds them back from making product recommendations. They can fear rejection or that the client won’t take it anyway, they may think they can’t afford it or they may believe that clients don’t think professional hair care makes a difference. Although all of the above may be true with some clients we know as professionals that to protect our work and honor service guarantees, professional products are required. 

 

A good analogy I use is the purchase of a silk blouse. After spending $100+ would that client go home wash it in tide with bleach and throw it in the dryer? Of course not, the sales clerk took the time to explain how to care for it and when the stores return policy is voided should proper care not be taken. We as professionals must do the same. Let your clients make well educated buying decisions… you do your part and allow them to do theirs.

 

That is what this young apprentice recognized and when we can shift the focus from selling to client care, we come from a place of respect for our client and pride in our craft.

 

Let’s look behind the motive for getting your team up and moving.It may be that financially you need it to happen but today I ask that rather than you get curious as to what motivates your employees to work for you. 

 

People need a reason to get excited, work hard and make money because making the salon money isn’t their priority. Creating a life that they desire is. And when you can help them do this you not only motivate but you inspire them to become their full potential and create their ideal life. This is the mindset I ask you to adopt when leading your team to success. Being part of this journey will be the most rewarding experience you will have as a salon owner not to mention the most prosperous.  

 

So how do you motivate your team and keep them motivated?

 

Learn how to inspire your team to be the best they can be:

Talk with them and find out what is holding them back technically,emotionally or financially from being the best technician they can be.Sometimes people create blocks that they aren’t even aware of and need a fresh perspective and ideas to help remove them. I’m not suggesting you be therapist just curious as to how your business can help them to reach the top of their skill level.

 

Serve with the highest quality:

A professional is not just about skill but operating from a place of confidence and that inner sense of pride and dedication. This is how they see themselves making a difference in the industry.

 

Build productive, meaningful careers:

Whether their goal is to be a peak performer in a salon, a platform artist or manage a team of employees, help them to first understand the steps they need to take to make their dream a reality. Then, be the person who helps them achieves it by giving them the tools and create goals that make them a reality.

 

Here are some practical things you will need to have in place to motivate your team:

 

• Systems, policies and procedures that help them to serve as professionals and achieve goals.

• A bonus system that rewards people on all levels, mentally,technically, emotionally, spiritually and physically (retreats, classes, fun events)

• Systems to monitor and measure goal attainment to ensure they are moving in the direction of creating their ideal life.

 

Just by shifting the focus, your team will be selling more service and product; have increased productivity and reach the goals they dreamed of.The best part is that your salon is the vehicle that fosters the growth that helps people reach their full potential in the industry and lead rewarding lives.

 

Whether you’re running a race or singing an aria, the ability to breathe in enough air quickly can make all the difference in your performance. Breathe in, breathe out.
 
That essential element, oxygen, flows in and feeds the processes fueling your performance. In the same way, knowledge feeds the processes that bring success. Being able to absorb large blocks of knowledge quickly is called “transference” and it’s going to propel you toward prosperity like nothing else.
 
The Knowledge You Need is Already Out There
 
Like an abundant supply of fresh air, knowledge is readily available for those who seek it. The secret is to get in front of people who have already done what you want to do. By being in their presence, listening to them and what they know, transference of knowledge can take place
quickly. In other words, a huge handing off of knowledge
takes place in a short period of time.
 
Some of us think we have to sweat and struggle, twist and turn through our journey to prosperity, when the truth is there are already people who know what we need to know to move forward. Becoming tuned into those people, recognizing when you’re being given the gift of knowledge, is a trait truly successful people cultivate.
 
The goal, then, is to identify those special people. Listen to what they have to say with your mind wide open to all the possibilities. Don’t allow your automatic roadblocks to pop up and shut down the transfer of knowledge. When you can do that, that’s when you begin to move forward by leaps and bounds toward your goals.
Here are some ideas for finding the people with the knowledge you need:
 
1. Who is most successful in your field? Offer to buy them lunch in exchange for an hour answering your questions. Respect their time and come prepared with a list if you’re hoping for follow-up time later.
 
2. Invest in a consultant. But don’t pick someone from the phone book! Have they done what you hope to do? Paying someone to help you avoid the big pitfalls is a great investment, if you choose carefully.
 
3.Join or form a mastermind group. Like you, there are others who have found success in specific areas but need help in others. Pool that combined knowledge in a mastermind group and help each other find solutions. Weekly calls with your group can keep you from wasting time on things that don’t work.

Become Intensely Aware of Life’s Learning Opportunities

The single key factor in the amazing success many people achieve is the ability to recognize learning opportunities. What looks like failure to someone else could, instead, look like a way to learn quickly what not to do next time.

Once you’ve found someone with the information you need at this point in your life, take a deep breath and get ready to learn. The worst thing you can do, when life hands you the opportunity to learn quickly, is start throwing out objections. Some common ones are, “That can’t possibly work” or “My situation is different.”

I’m not advocating indiscriminate learning. But you can suspend your disbelief long enough to hear what someone else has to say. That simple act of truly being able to listen without critiquing allows the knowledge to flow in and begin to change the way you think.

Remain tuned into the ways life brings exactly the knowledge you need. Cultivate an awareness of what can be learned in every situation. Each chance encounter, whether on a plane, in a meeting or at a party brings with it the possibility that transference of information can occur, if you’re ready.


Bernadette Doyle publishes her weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, then get your free tips now at www.clientmagnets.com

There is no price that can be put on a goal of personal development. Too many times we are seeking out the solution to our challenges when they are lying within us. As perfectly quoted in the song by the Eagles, “Already Gone” they sing…so often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even knew we had the key.

 

Have you ever heard the saying that you are the problem and the answer? Well in business this is so evident and you can look at it two ways. The first is to know logically that the challenge or problem is there because a change needs to be made and something is not working that you, the owner has overlooked. So the solution also lies, in you to find it.

 

But on a deeper level, many times our challenges that we have on a personal level can be reflected in our businesses. These challenges, when looked at in terms of our beliefs and fears are a gift to uncovering destructive patterns we have that can keep us stuck from moving forward. What makes it tricky is that we aren’t always aware of them on a conscious level so it seems as though problems and challenges have to do with other people. Although they may indeed involve the people around you, the key to eliminating them lies in making a shift in you.

 

The point is that the challenges, issue and problems we have in our businesses are simply a mirror to lessons we need to learn about ourselves.

 

Doing the work to get to the root of the problem is the only way for it to be solved and not reoccur. However if we miss doing this crucial step, we can recreate the problem time and again with it taking very different forms but producing the same results.

 

The solution lies in using your challenges as opportunities for personal growth and implementing new skills to get different results. This is the work of leaders and this year I urge you to really work on developing your own personal growth and see the results show up in your salon!

 

Create an extraordinary start to 2010 and I will catch up with you in a few weeks, off to Aruba to enjoy some peace and serenity!

 

 

Recently I have had the privilege of interviewing salons and spas around the world who are the industry giants (more than 10 employees, relocated or expanded significantly to accommodate growth and have been in business for 10 or more years). What I was specifically looking for was their secrets as well as the challenges that come with this level of success. Today I am going to share with you the top 2 challenges and the top 2 secrets to success.

 

Keep in mind as you read that these salons and spas are from Canada, the United States, Dubai and Australia. Also know that they are thriving regardless of what the economic times dictate. In fact one salon owner I spoke with from Michigan is relocating to a larger space for the third time in 5 years taking his initial 7 employees to over 35. They obviously have found the key to growing a business but it does not come without challenges they are just different when you reach these levels of growth.

 

 

One challenge they all shared was their inability to know how to compensate or reward senior technicians who had reached full capacity to take new clients and who were working at full productivity at the top of the salon’s service price and the top of their earning potential.  The struggle was to keep these employees motivated to grow and learn when they have reached the peak of their careers.

 

The biggest challenge was their struggle to find balance between their home life and career. It seems that those who are also technicians in their salons found it very difficult to find the time to be at home more when the administrative duties at the salons kept them there later than they wanted to be. Also included in this equation was the emotional pull of choosing one over the other.

 

One of the secrets to success they had in common was the shift in thinking required to see their salons through the eyes of a business owner rather than the artist. For those salon owners who were technicians as well as owners, they attribute their success to this single factor. They started operating from a sense of what the business needed to succeed rather than from what they thought it needed. Some took marketing, business and management courses while others stepped away from their technical roles to those of managers and ceo or cmo. In fact, amongst the salons that I interviewed who experienced rapid growth were those who were never a technician in their businesses at all.

 

Another key to their success was that all of these salon and spa owners had an ongoing marketing plan that was consistently and effectively being promoted in and out of the salon. There was marketing to attract new clients and there was marketing to the existing clients. They were using every resource available to them and every position in the salon was responsible for implementing their own set of strategies. There was no hit and miss, they know who they are marketing to, they know what they are marketing and they were doing it.

 

So next time you are thinking that they know something you don’t realize that you know what they do, they have just taken the steps to make the changes needed to get them where they are today and you can too.

 

Any time you make a connection with a person you should have a deliberate plan to lead them through the process of becoming your client and your brochure is just one of the options you have available. With that in mind I challenge you to look at your brochure with a new pair of eyes and ask yourself…On this piece of expensive marketing material is there a process to take this person from showing interest in my salon to sitting in the chair? If you are relying solely on esthetics and descriptive wording you may not be getting the results you desire.

 

So let’s take a look at this process:

 

Appeal to your ideal client Depending whose hands your brochure lands in and how long they are willing to invest in learning about your salon you may have as little as 30 seconds to make a good first impression. Assuming that you have spent the time creating your vision,mission and service commitment and you have identified your ideal client, your brochure images, text and tag line will be effective in capturing their attention visually.

 

Grab their attention Now that you have their attention; lead them into the next step of this process by keeping their attention. You can do this by providing them with the solution to their most pressing concerns.  Because you have tailored your vision,mission and service commitment to attract this person it can be as easy as listing the top reasons why your salon is the perfect choice. For example; if your ideal client is the working professional between the age of 35 and 50 and your service commitment offers express appointments, priority appointment scheduling between 4 and 6 pm or email confirmations, list these on the first page of your brochure so this potential client knows that your not only do you serve people like them but that you have gone out of your way to make it easy to be a client.

 

Make a call to action  Have you ever heard to strike while the iron is hot. You don’t want your brochure to end up in their kitchen drawer or under a stack of papers in their office before you have had a chance to make a connection with them. The call to action I recommend is a visit to your website or blog where they can opt in and get a free gift. Make this gift something that they value, want and feel compelled to get in exchange for them leaving this information with you. If at this point they still are not walking through your door, you have at least given yourself the opportunity to continue to build the relationship with them.

 

If you want to fast track your marketing to get your salon business soaring in 2010, check out my Mastermind Group where we will be targeting 20 more ways to attract clients!

So what is it that you really want, a trusted confidant to bounce ideas off or a fix to your problems? Do you desire to explore your options as to which is best for you or do you want to get the solution that gives you a desired result?

 

These are the questions you must ask yourself when looking to hire someone to help you. But to help you best, let’s take a look at the roles of both a salon consultant and a salon coach.

 

 

A Salon coach is a strategic planner. They are very good listeners and are their role is to guide you through a decision making process that is uniquely yours. They are the person with whom you set goals and attain them. A good coach asks the right questions, guides you through your plan of action and holds you accountable to fulfilling it. In a coaching session the client is the person who brings the agenda to the table and the coach who helps the client map out their moves.  What a salon or life coach doesn’t do is offer advice or suggest what the client should to do. A coach is most beneficial for those who want guidance and a support system.

 

A salon consultant is best described as a go to person. Consultants are the solution people for your challenges. Because they have experience and are the expert in their field you can be assured that if you have a very specific problem they will provide the solution. Unlike a coach, a consultant will offer their advice and give you ideas, resources and tools. That is their job. They will be the person who works with you to implement change or independent of you to implement change. Either way their focus is purposeful and intent on achieving results. If you can’t be bothered investing time and energy into deviating a plan of action, hire the expert.

 

In a nutshell, you now have the description of who can best help you with your challenges. The only advice I will offer is to get the help you need. Although private coaching and consulting can be costly, there is the option of being part of a group where you can get access to the professionals at a fraction of the cost.

So what do you think your staff is doing while you are at home enjoying the evening or on vacation? How do you leave your salon or better yet, do you leave your salon? Are you so worried that you don’t take time off and when you do it is minimal or do you leave thinking that you can trust them but your gut is till churning?  

 

It can be a very scary to think that your staff maybe stealing, not charging clients what they should, turning down a walkin to leave early or pocketing the cash when they take a client that isn’t scheduled on the books. Are they doing services on each other with no charge and are they taking home product without you knowing? This can have a big impact on your bottom line.

 

But what about the more devastating thing that can happen in your salon by not knowing how your employees perform when you aren’t there or what happens in the treatment rooms?  It is natural to want to have control over your policies and procedures, after all, it is your name on the door and you are the one paying the bills. You are the one marketing to build the client base while creating a brand for yourself.

 

We want to trust the people who work for us and most times we can but to turn a blind eye is to take the risk of being taken advantage of while not being accountable to your business. So the real question is, how will you know?

 

This is the every demanding question that my business coach,Miranda Webb (smartceomoms.com) asked me when I would address these issues with her.  Whenever I developed a new service idea or marketing strategy and implemented it into my salon, she would always ask; how will you know it’s being done? It lead me to create the system I give salon owners so they too can have the peace of mind knowing their businesses run the same whether they are there or not.

 

What would that peace of mind be worth to you to know that each and every client is receiving your brand in each and every visit? How would it feel to have that freedom to choose how and when you work in your salon rather than having to be there to babysit?

 

When I take you through the process of developing your brand and implementing it into your salon services, I then give you the tools to monitor it’s application in each and every client visit so you too can have that peace of mind to know without a doubt that your salon is running just like you were there. Without this step a brand is just a good idea and people serve with their best intentions, once you can accurately measure your employees performance and brand application you can then you can sleep at night and enjoy your time away. So I ask you again if you aren’t sure what happens in your salon when you aren’t there, how will you know?

Often times if a new employee is not performing as expected you can trace it back to improper training.  During the first few months of employment the employer and employee decide whether or not the union is a fit. Here in Alberta the probation period for a new hire is 3 months and in that time both the employee and employer can terminate employment without notice. Be sure to check your province or states labour regulations when setting your probation schedule.

 

The goal of any training process is to provide the easiest and most accurate avenue to integrate a new employee into your company. If you have clear expectations and guidelines it should be very evident if your new hire will become a long-term employee by the time the probation period is up. To better demonstrate this I will break down the elements of a training process and describe their purpose.

 

The Training Guide: When employment commences, provide the employee with a complete schedule as to the events that are to occur over the duration of probation. For example if day 1 is meeting the staff and orientation, day 2 may be the introduction to the handbook and signing of contracts, day 3 may be front desk orientation and so on. State when performance reviews are to take place and when the permanent contract will be signed. This guide should outline the exact probation schedule.

 

The Probation Contract: Simply put, this is the contract stating starting salaries, service, retail and referral goals and the expectations to be met to a permanent employment position. Also included should be the conditions that would terminate employment such as late arrivals, failure to pass certification, sick days and any other things that would warrant an immediate dismissal. Although it is not always required by law that you provide a dismissal reason during the probation period I think it fair to let people know your guidelines.

 

The Employee Handbook: If constructed well, your employee handbook should be the question and answer guide for new hires. It deserves a complete article on it’s own to list the contents but in a nut shell it should contain everything from where you keep the toilet tissue to the vision and mission to how they advance in the company to what warrants a dismissal. But it MUST include your company policies and training procedures.

 

Policy Certification: This is the process used to certify new hires on your salon policies. These are your scripts used in service procedures and explanation of salon rules, guidelines and a “how we do it here” documentation.  What happens in certification is the employee is tested on the employee handbook and is required to achieve a pre-determined mark to secure employment. The goal is for the employee to have a full understanding of the company when it comes time to conduct services,

 

Procedure Certification: Now it is time for the technical training procedures. The reason this is left for last is because it is the sum of all components in the training process. Because policy certification is complete, the employee is expected to serve all clients they recruit during this process with the salon brand, marketing strategies, scripts or policies and front desk procedures. Also in this certification, include a passing requirement to secure employment. It is up to each salon and the employees experience as to how many technical services are required to complete certification. Even senior technicians should be required to conduct one of each service in the salon to ensure all components of the visit are being implemented.

 

There you have it, the training process. If your salon does not have an employee handbook or training process and you want an easy convenient way to get started, you can purchase a ready made template at http://www,sossalonoperatingsystem.com/SOSOwners.html

 

Years ago I learned a very powerful lesson from Stephen Covey. In his book entitled “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People”he explains the concept of principle based leadership.

 

In the last message I shared with you how to respond to the important and not the urgent. Now that you have more time and leading your life based on your priorities I want to give you the next tool that will make you the author of your relationships. 

 

Today I am going to share with you an exercise that involves you being at your funeral right now, today. Imagine all your loved ones, spouses, kids, family members, friends, employees and business contacts standing up at the podium and reflecting on their relationship with you. I know this may be difficult and you may not like what you discover but there a reason so I encourage you to carefully examine what you think each person would say about your relationship with them as it is right now.

 

Would they say you were kind and loving, always therefor them or that they wish they had spent more time with you etc. Would your employees say that you were a great leader, fair and honest or would they say that you were always stressed out and unavailable?

 

Now, imagine you are standing at your funeral again and you get to choose what each person would say about you. Repeat the process by above but this time write out what you would like that person to say about you.For example; in the first part of this exercise you think your spouse would say that you were a very hard worker and gave a lot to your company but wished they had spent more time with you. You now get to rewrite the script. You could imagine them saying that you had always put your relationship with them first,they felt loved and knew because you always made time for them.

 

The script that you wrote is your agenda to create the relationships you desire. Because this is about your business and we are referring to leadership, take this opportunity to evaluate your relationships with your team. You can choose to be the leader you want to be with action and intent.

 

I wish I could make it as simple as putting this task in your day timer but to develop new attributes is an internal process, a shift in behaviors. What I can tell you is to make it a priority by scheduling the time in your agenda to research and commit to getting involved with leadership groups, taking classes and seek coaching.

 

I was very fortunate to have found this exercise when I was a salon owner and as a result of it I am able to say that I have remained in good standing with every person who had worked in my company. I’m not saying they all liked me but I do know they would all say I was honest, respectful,approachable and dedicated to helping them succeed. Even those I had to let go still felt comfortable coming into the salon for their services when they nolonger were employed there. That is the gift of writing your own scripts as to how you choose to impact the relationships in your life.