Boost December Revenue: Strategies for Salon Success

If you were relying on a storming December to prop up your Q4 takings, well, maybe you're feeling a little bit disappointed. Perhaps your appointment book is looking empty. It doesn't mean your bank account has to, though. Let's stop waiting for those clients to book. Let's talk about what we can do to get a bit more money in the till this month. Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming all over the airwaves again with another dose of Wise Owl Wisdom Monday, the 15th of December. How's it going for you? I'm actually really enjoying this new format of the podcast, and that means that we're doing more episodes more frequently, shorter episodes. But what I really like about it is it means that I can jump in when I see something going on, and I have seen that the beginning of December was not what everybody wanted it to be. I think those days of us having a super-packed, rammed December are maybe gone for a lot of our businesses. I think since COVID, December's been a bit shaky and a bit unpredictable, and I think that mad end-of-year rush has been pushed to one side. Or at least that's not what I'm seeing in my Salon Spark accountability group. I think that we're seeing the December rush coming later if it comes at all. We're seeing fairly steady, fairly regular December takings for most businesses. And I think that needs building into your plans now. I think it's been a few years where we've been waiting for this insanity that used to be around December, and it's just not materialising for lots of us. So what can we be doing? Well, first of all, I want to talk about a couple of lessons for next year. If you have, for example, a policy in place which stops your team taking annual leave in December, you might want to revisit that. If it's not going to be that busy, it might be okay to let your team take a bit more time off. Also, if you're closed for a huge chunk of time and you're noticing that we're not getting the money through the till ahead of Christmas and New Year's, then maybe we need to open for a couple of days in between the two just to make sure that our takings aren't dropping through the floor. But assuming that we want to take a bit of action this year, what can we be doing if we're looking at an appointment book which has got gaps?

If we're looking at some empty columns, what can we be doing to make sure that we're keeping the lights on and making it into 2026? Well, the first thing I want to do is make sure what I want to talk about rather is make sure that we're ticking all the boxes as far as the opportunities that we have in front of us are concerned. What do you mean, Uncle Phil? Well, what I mean is when you've got a client in, for goodness sake, let's make sure that we're making the most out of that client. And that means going back to your team, re-coaching them on how to upsell. And you might want to give them a bit of freedom around that. So my team had quite a lot of freedom as far as upsell was concerned. So if they could, and bear in mind, mine's a hair salon, so you need to do some translating, but you're clever, clever people. I know you can. If we had somebody who was sat in the chair for a half head of foils and we had a slot after that was empty, my team was empowered to upsell to a full head of foils and offer a slight discount for that. So they couldn't reduce the amount that the client was going to be paying that day. But if it meant we got an extra 20 quid through the till by saying, actually, you haven't had a full head for a while. Why don't we do that? I've got time to do it. I've had a cancellation and we can do that for X amount. Well, let's make sure we do it. Talk to your team about the opportunities for upsell, add on services, add on products, about retailing, making sure that we are making the most out of every single client that comes through the door. Now, don't go too far with this if you've only got a few clients in your column and they end up leaving the salon feeling absolutely brutally bruised and battered because we've tried to throw everything in the kitchen sink at them. Well, you're probably going too far and what you're going to notice then is they're not going to be keen to rebook. So some gentle upsells, a little bit of persuasion. The other thing that worked really well in my own business was upselling ahead of the day. So it was often too late for customers when they came through the door for them to take a longer service. But if I called them the day before or even that morning and offered them an upsell deal so that they could then put the right amount of time on their car when they were parking. Well, then we got a much higher uptake. So if sometimes clients want a little bit of notice of these things, dropping on them last minute isn't always going to work. Next up, let's talk about gift vouchers, gift cards. I'm not a huge fan of relying on gift vouchers or gift cards to prop up your turnover because essentially what we're doing is taking a turnover problem in December and turning it into a turnover problem in January or February.

Because what's going to happen is we're going to get the money in December, but then they're going to be taking the slots in the beginning of 2026. So sometimes all we're doing is kicking the problem into the long grass a little bit, which isn't really dealing with the problem. But that said, if it's the difference between you going to sleep and actually getting some rest in December or panicking because you're not going to be making payroll on the 1st of January, then for goodness sake, let's sell some gift cards. Now, where I think people go wrong is I think they try and pitch gift vouchers to the wrong people. So what they end up trying to do is sell gift vouchers to their existing clients. That's not really going to work unless you're going to give them an incentive to do so. So unless you're discounting those gift cards or offering a bonus with a gift card, your existing clients aren't going to buy them. We need to be using social media for this. We need to be reaching the boyfriends, the husbands, the partners, the girlfriends, the wives of our customers, because they're the ones that are going to be struggling for last minute gifts. They're the ones that don't want to get it wrong on Christmas Day. So we want to be targeting the people that will be buying gifts for our customers, not just targeting our customers. So you're going to have to get this away from your existing clientele. Get it out into social media. Use all those local groups, those local hashtags, and make sure that we are getting the message beyond the people that follow you already. You might even want to think about a little boosted post or two around your gift vouchers. And then finally, if you have a promotion in the can, ready to go early in 2026. So maybe you've got your new year, new you promotion all lined up or you've got your January sale all lined up. Bring it forward. There's nothing wrong with turning that January sale into a Boxing Day sale. There's nothing wrong if you've got everything good to go with pulling the trigger and getting that promotion out there into the world. If it's going to get a few quid through the till earlier in the month for you, then let's do it. I had a similar conversation with one of my Salon Spark members who didn't know whether to do a sale on Boxing Day or a sale in January. I said, well, let's do it on Boxing Day, because then if it doesn't work, if it doesn't give you the result that you want,

we've got another bite of the cherry when we get through to January as well. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a discount. It could just be a promotion. A promotion is just bringing an area of your price card, an area of your service into focus for your clients. So if you've got something ready to go, why not just rebrand it, rephrase it, pull the trigger, get it out there, get it in front of your customers and get the cash through your till a little bit earlier on. And what kinds of things should we be doing? Well, as always, we enter the conversation that's going on in your customers' minds. So as far as New Year's concerned, it's all those wonderful promotions around treating yourself better, self-care, being more consistent about putting yourself first, about getting into better habits. Let's tap into those messages and start the year with a bang. So there we have it. Three ideas, three promotional ideas or three little suggestions on how we can keep the money flowing in December, even if we're looking at an empty appointment book. I hope things are picking up for you. In my Salon Spark group, the first week of December was really ropey. I think part of it is this new pattern of spend we've got. Part of it was the flu season coming a little bit earlier. Lots of people feeling poorly, rescheduling, moving appointments around. And my final word on this is, for goodness sake, when people do come into the salon, let's make sure it's fun for them. Please can we get a little bit of that seasonal cheer back in our chairs, back in our treatment rooms. Let's get Mariah on the radio. Let's make sure that your window is looking fantastic. Let's make sure it's a pleasurable place to be. Because next year, well, we're going to be asking our customers to spend that money in December or over again. Just a few short days until I'm coming all over the airwaves. And then I think I might be taking a little break over Christmas. I'll be back between Christmas and New Year, though. If there's something you'd like to hear about, if there's something you'd like me to be talking about, please reach out phil at buildyoursalon.com. You know I love hearing from my salon owner friends anyway. And until next time, please take care. All on Build Your Salon.