35. How to get MORE from your salon suppliers

Hi everyone, this is the weekly Build Your Salon podcast with me, Phil Jackson. I'm here with the tools you need to generate the profits you deserve so that you can lead a fuller life. Hello and welcome. Do you ever get frustrated with the relationship that you have with your suppliers and manufacturers? Do you get frustrated with the relationship that you have with their representatives when they come into your salon? They arrive every month or every quarter and unless that relationship is managed properly, the meetings that you're having with your reps can often feel like a complete waste of time. However, when you get this relationship right, when you invest a little bit of time and you train your rep to perform in a way that actually adds value to your business, they can become an integral part of your team and a very popular member of the team as well. In fact, I've got to the stage now where I have one or two reps who come and see me and I would not take a major decision in my business without at least having a coffee and a chat with them first. But I think it's an underutilised relationship and I think they could be adding value to a lot of businesses in a lot of different ways. So today I've got five pointers, five things you could be asking your rep for that you may not be already. I got this wrong for years. I treated reps horribly as though they were trying to fleece me at every opportunity and only interested in selling lots of products. And there are reps like that out there. But when you get a good one, and usually they're the ones that have been around for a while, they understand the win-win that can happen when they sell products that you actually want to sell through. When you get a good one, that relationship is pure gold. So let's get stuck in. Five ways your rep could be helping you more. And first up, it's free training. We all like a bit of free training in the salon industry, don't we? Now I'm not talking about big expensive days of education up at your manufacturer's academy. Unless you're spending a lot of money with one particular manufacturer, unfortunately you're not even going to get a budget for academy education. What I'm talking about is much lower key in salon education. I'll give you a really good example of how this works on a regular basis for me. If a rep comes in and they have a new product that they would like you to stock, I always ask the rep to come in as part of the opening deal and sell that product to my team. These guys are trained in sales. They can do a much better job of getting your team fired up and motivated than you ever could as the salon owner or manager.

So let them come into your team meeting, explain the product features, explain the benefits and explain the best way to sell that product through to your customers. Next up, how about some promotions? We all know that the sales reps like to come in with a promotion under their belt. What I've noticed more recently though, particularly if you have a very generous promotion, is that we were finding out about these promotions a little bit too late. My golden rule for handling relationships with reps, and they won't want to hear this, but I never make a decision on a deal or a new product in that meeting. Get as much information as you can, ask all the questions you need to, and then step back and call off for a day or two. So a big promotion will come into the salon, and then I'd like a day or two to think about it, but unfortunately if you were coming in to that meeting and you were towards the end of that sales cycle, sometimes those promotions are sold out completely. So train your rep. They have a meeting with their national sales manager before they come and see all of their customers. What you want is a phone call or FaceTime or a Skype conversation with that rep the day or the day after they hear about that cycle of promotions. Next up, stock control. Now stock control is a weakness in a lot of salons, and it doesn't seem to matter how good our software manufacturers get at trying to help us. Sometimes we're just not very good at it. So why not get your rep to help? Yes, they have an incentive to make you sell more product and buy more product from them. They are paid on commission, so they're interested in you shifting a lot of product and probably stocking a lot of product as well. A long-term relationship with a rep will be built on a win-win. And I actually managed to get to the stage with one of my reps where she would come in 20 minutes before my meeting. She would take the stock for me, so she would count the stock, and then when we came into the meeting, she would have my order written out and also highlight any promotions that I might want to take advantage of as well. So get your reps help with stock control. Apart from anything, at the beginning of a supplier relationship, they will know the products that are easiest to sell. They will know the ones where you might need to stock an extra few items. Next up, espionage. Now, you will not get, or at least I hope you won't get, a rep to come in and tell you about what's going on in the salon down the street.

But what they will be able to tell you in a very anonymous way is things that are working in other salons. So, for example, if you're struggling with one particular product on your shelf and it just doesn't quite seem to be selling through, then why not ask your rep what other salons are doing to use that product in a more effective way, or sell that product to more of their customers. If you're struggling with salon recruitment, why not ask your rep what they've noticed other salons doing to get stylists or therapists to apply for jobs. Reps have a lot of industry knowledge, and it's industry knowledge from the pavement. It's not industry knowledge that they've learnt from somewhere higher up. It's what they're seeing day in and day out in the salons. And honestly, it is an absolute gold mine when you get that relationship right. And finally, staff incentives. If you have a team which is switched on at all by free product, then speak to your rep about it. In fact, I would talk to your rep any time you are placing a sizeable order. I would speak to them about what you might be able to get thrown in for your team as well. Any time you have a new product which is being added to your range, I would definitely ask them for some sort of staff incentive. Get them to launch it. So get your rep into the meeting. They can talk through the new product, talk about the features, talk about the benefits, and by the way, we've got this fantastic staff incentive as well. The budget will be small. They're not going to be able to come in and start giving away iPads and iPhones, but they might be able to come in with, say, a $20 voucher for a store down the road. I hope that's been useful to you. If you've got anything to add to the conversation, head over to the Build Your Salon Facebook page. Don't forget to hit subscribe. I do a broadcast like this every single Monday and I would hate you to miss out on the content that I'm sharing. Until next week, take care. Hey everyone, it's Phil again. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please subscribe and be sure to tell your friends. For more help and information on running your salon and your life, head over to buildyoursalon.com. I'll see you there. See you there. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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