How quickly can you train the perfect salon client?

Every hair and beauty and aesthetic business needs new clients from time to time. Here's my strategy for turning them into ultra-profitable, ultra-loyal clients just as quickly as possible. Sit down and see what's going on with the queen of salons. Hair, beauty and more successful tips for business owners. All on Build Your Salon All of a sudden this kind of cost-of-living crisis recession thing seems to be just grumbling in the background and people actually getting some pretty good business results. Has that been the case for you? Phil at buildyoursalon.com Let me know. I want to hear from you. I love chatting to my salon owner friends. Anyway, today's topic is actually a bit of a leftover. As you know, every month I do a Q&A episode on my podcast or vodcast, blogcast, whatever it is over on YouTube. And I get questions which I obviously respond to. And one of them came in too late. And as you know, time and tide waits for no man. And so I decided to turn it into an episode because actually it's something that I've alluded to a number of times. It's something that I feel very strongly about as a very positive pillar for success in my business. And that's my new client package. So this is my strategy for taking a new client into my business and turning them into a brilliant client as quickly as possible. Because our retention rate on new clients is never the same as your retention rate on regular clients. And it takes a while to coach them, train them, if you like, into being brilliant customers. And I think that my new client package is a really good strategy for training them a lot quicker. I'm making it sound like dog training classes, aren't I? But they do take some training. It takes a while for them to appreciate you properly and start spending in the sort of way that we need them to. So I'm not talking about ripping people off. I'm not talking about doubling the prices for new clients. Or you could do if you wanted to, though, darling. It's a strategy. All I'm talking about is ticking lots of boxes as quickly as possible.

This will become clearer as we go through. So this is my new client package strategy. It's something that's been implemented in my salon for a lot of years now. And it's something that will be there until the end because it just works really, really well. And the new client package essentially has five elements to it. But the key to it is that it's not optional. If you come in as a new client, this is what happens in the salon. Now, if you are beauty or aesthetics, you're going to need to do some translating because this is a hair salon example. My own salon for all these years has been a hair salon, even though most of the coaching that I do weirdly is on the beauty therapy side. So you're going to have to find what's the equivalent for you. You're going to have to do some translating. But I know you're bright enough to do that, darlings. I know you are. So what does my new client package look like? Well, like I said, first of all, it's not optional. If you're coming to my salon, you come in on the new client package and it's a cut and blow dry package. OK, because most of our new clients come in for a cut and blow dry. Sometimes they have color as well, whatever. But most of the time it's a cut and blow dry. And the first element of the new client package is that it's an extended appointment. So where a cut and blow dry, I don't know why a cut and blow dry is historically 45 minutes. I think it's just accepted wisdom. And I always hate accepted wisdom in the salon industry. But it's a 45 minute appointment for our new client package. We give them an hour and that's so that we can do a much more thorough consultation. I'm not suggesting that we cut corners on consultation the rest of the time. But we've got a few more questions to ask. We want to know a bit of history. The other thing that that extended appointment allows us to do is to give them a conditioning treatment. And that's element number two. Now, conditioning treatments in hair salons, to be honest with you, are a bit of a license to print money. Because most clients, when they come away from the basins and they've had a wonderful head massage, go, oh, that was wonderful. I could have had that for hours and hours and hours. Well, a conditioning treatment is the lovely bit. It's the fluffy bit. It's the bit that makes people feel really good most of the time. Some people don't like scalp massage, which I find very strange. But it means that we get to give them a slightly longer massage charge for it. But also it means that we can tackle one of the needs for the hair or scalp. So it's an add on service. Doesn't take much extra time. Doesn't cost very much extra in terms of product.

But it's one of the things that we've identified as a characteristic of our brilliant client. If we've got a brilliant client, they're probably having conditioning treatments. And the best way for us to get someone to start having conditioning treatments is for us to give them a conditioning treatment on that first visit. And then when they've come away from the base and said, oh, this is wonderful. I really enjoyed that. I really enjoy how my hair is feeling. I really enjoyed that whole experience. We can say, actually, lots of our clients have a conditioning treatment every time. And then next time they're booking their appointment, we ask them whether they'd like to book a treatment with it. So it turns them into something. We get them a bit closer to being a brilliant client a lot quicker by coaching them and training them to start taking conditioning treatments. Very similarly, my new client package also includes a free retail product, a free retail product. Inverted commas if you're listening on the podcast. Because it's priced in, of course, it's priced in at cost, but it's priced into the new client package. And that's because we did a bit of research quite some years ago. And we found around it was just shy of 65% of our new clients had never had a professional product. OK, they'd always taken supermarket or chemist products. So the quickest way for us to get them the experience of having a professional product was just to give them one. And actually it turns into it helps our retail in two really strong ways because we've identified retail as a characteristic of a brilliant client. A brilliant client takes retail products with them and it helps us in two ways. The first thing is usually that first product, because it's our choice of product, usually that first product is a care product. Usually there's a problem with the hair or a need that the hair has. So usually it's a shampoo or a conditioner or a conditioning treatment, occasionally a styling product. But very often the client will take the product that goes with it. So if we give them a shampoo as part of the new client package, very often they'll take the conditioner that goes with it. So straight away, some of the profit on that second product is helping us with our profitability along the way. But the second thing that it does beautifully is when they come in for their second visit, we've got an opener. That retail conversation on the second visit is very natural because we can say, how did you get on with that shampoo that I gave you, by the way?

Did you enjoy it? Was it too light, too heavy, too rich, too creamy? Did you like the fragrance? Does your hair feel better for it? Are we starting to run out now? Would you like the conditioner that goes with it? So suddenly those retail conversations are much more natural. So retail is a really strong feature of our new client package. The third thing we give them is a voucher for a free visit and it's usually for a blow dry. OK, so we get them to come back in any time in the following 10 days and they can come in for a free blow dry. Now, why would I do that? Why would I get them back in? Well, there's a couple of reasons. One's going to become a bit clearer later on. But the one reason we have is that we had a problem with new client retention. We had a problem with people coming in, telling us that they liked their hair, telling us they were happy with their hair and then not coming back. So there was a problem there. There was a problem that we needed to really identify. So by getting them back in for a free service sometime in the next 10 days, it was our opportunity to ask them how they were getting on with their hair. Did they need a bit more weight taken out? Did they need that fringe a little bit shorter? Were they absolutely happy with the toner we'd used on the color? So it was kind of our quality check. We didn't sell it to the client as that as far as they were concerned. It was a free blow dry because we thought, well, actually, if they've had a change of style, then maybe they do need a bit of education as far as drying the hair is concerned. So it was a win win. And initially, that second appointment was with the same stylist. We found that our new client retention increased almost overnight because it gave the client an opportunity to identify something they weren't thrilled with in a very natural way, in a non embarrassing way, in a non confrontational way. They were back in the salon anyway. Why not make sure they're absolutely happy with their hair? After a while, though, we found that we didn't need that second appointment to be with the stylist. It could be with one of our apprentices or assistants. That meant that the apprentice's job becomes a bit more interesting. They're not just sweeping up and making teas and coffees all day. And then the stylist would go over at some point during their visit and just say, how are you getting on with the hair? Happy with it? And just confirm that the client was happy. So the next element of the new client package is that they get a discount on their second visit. So the new client package itself is not discounted. If you take the elements, break them down, then yes, they're getting a discount overall. But my new client package is actually more expensive than a cut and blow dry would be. And I don't believe we should be discounting for new clients.

I think if you discount for new clients, you are anchoring your service at a certain price point. It makes it very hard to charge full price next time. I think also there's a danger that you are attracting people who are seeking a discount. And we don't want that. But on the second visit, I'm happy to discount on one condition. And we've talked about discounting a lot in this podcast. I'm OK with discounting. A lot of salon coaches will tell you never to discount, never to discount. I'm OK with discounting on one very specific situation. And the situation is that we are swapping the discount for a shift in client behavior. So if they're trying a new service or if they're coming in sooner or we're reactivating a lost client, I'm OK with a discount. I don't have a problem with that at all. And that's where this discount voucher comes in, because we found that our average client return rate was about 7.2 weeks. The discount voucher only applies if they're back in in six weeks or less. So I'm swapping that discount in exchange for people coming back in a little bit sooner. And if you can get your clients spending more frequently, well, that's the same as going out there and finding five, 10 percent more clients across a year. The other thing that's happened, and this actually came from a salon software system. So we had a salon software system for a while that a new client was a different color on your appointment page. And then when they became a regular, then they turned to the same as everybody else. And that happened after three visits. Think about what I've done with my vouchers, with my new client package. If my average client return rate is 7.2 weeks, for you to come in three times and turn into a regular client is going to take between 14 and 15 weeks. But if you come in for your first visit and that second complimentary blow dryer and you're back in within six weeks for your next visit, you've got three visits in six weeks or less. So I've turned you into a regular client much more quickly than we ever would have done without the new client package. So there we go with the free conditioning treatment, with the free retail product, with the return visit within six weeks voucher, with the complimentary blow dry. We've got four elements to my new client package that work beautifully well. And don't forget that extended appointment as well.

So really, you've got five features to sell it on. Now, there's only one way the new client package will work in your salon. And that is if you make it mandatory. There is no choice. You cannot book in as a new client in my salon without coming in for the new client package first. It's the only way it's ever going to work. Otherwise, they'll just go for the regular service cheaper option. Let me know whether that's something that resonates with you. I'm really excited about this because most times when I take this strategy into a salon that I'm coaching one to one, they get brilliant success with it very, very quickly. Let me know if that's the case with you. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. Also, let me know if there's something that you would like me to cover in a future episode. It's just me talking to a camera, darling. I'm just guessing what might be useful to you from the conversations that I've had in the preceding week. So it'd be lovely if you gave me a bit of guidance on what you'd like me to talk about in October. Also, if you've got two seconds, don't forget to hit subscribe and maybe give me a little five star review as well. That would absolutely make my week. Just seven short days until I'm coming in your ears and eyes again. And until then, take care. Sit down and see what's going on with the queen of salons. Hair, beauty and more successful tips for business owners. All on build your salon.