How to Get Salon Referrals That Actually Work (Not Just 'Tell Your Friends')

Referrals are the very best source of new customers. When I speak to salon owners, they say that referrals are a major source of their business growth, yet so many salon owners are getting this wrong. They chuck up a poster saying, recommend a friend, get 10% off, and then wonder why it doesn't work. Here's a better way to get referrals in your salon business. Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming all over the internet with a great big dose of my Wise Owl wisdom. How is business? How's January been treating you? Been getting a bit of kicking, have we? Some people have. Even those salons that normally say that January is okay, have been saying it's a little bit quieter than it ought to be, and that perhaps they could do with a few new bums on seats. But what's prompted this episode is a post that I saw in one of the waxing industry groups. I don't spend a lot of time in industry groups. I'll be honest with you, I kind of hate them. Because normally what happens in industry groups is somebody says, oh, it's really quiet. I could do with some more clients. And then 15 people say, yeah, I'm quiet too. And that normalises failure. It normalises a poor standard. And then everyone goes away feeling better that they're not the only person in the drain this week. And I don't think that's what industry groups should be about. It should be about helping you strive for more, helping you achieve greater things in your business. And I don't really see that happening, which is why I like my paid for group coaching instead. More on that later. Anyway, saw a post, basically someone saying that I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'm not getting enough people through the door. And they listed the things that they're doing. And basically it was Facebook and Instagram and not much else, to be honest with you. They thought having a digital marketing process was basically posting in all those awful free groups that you see on Facebook as well, that actually don't yield terribly good results for people. And nobody recommending friends, nobody talking about referrals at all. And I think this is the very best source of new clients. Now, that's a big statement, Uncle Phil. Are you going to back that up or are you just going to sit there posturing? Well, my darling, I'm going to back it up because normally in marketing, there is a certain amount of wasted effort.

So if you talk to 150 people about coming to your salon and some of them decide to come in, let's say we're talking to 150 people on Facebook and then some of them decide to come in. Let's say 10 of them come in. It's because we've got a huge amount of wasted marketing effort. And that's because 150 people on Facebook is made up of all sorts of people and some of them aren't going to be suitable for you at all. Recommend a friend has a lot less in terms of wasted marketing effort. Now, why would that be? It's because the person doing the recommending, your referrer, is shortlisting for you. They're only going to talk to people about your salon business that they think will be a good source of referrals for you. They're only going to talk to people who are a good fit. So there's much, much less in the way of wasted effort because they're not going to recommend people that they don't think are suitable at all. Here's what most people do. They chuck up a poster. They say, this is the year we're going to be focusing on referrals. Tell your friends, get 10% off and bugger or happens. 10% is not a good discount for referrals. And the reason why is because 10% is not enough to change someone's behaviour. Going to a new salon business is a big leap of faith. People will put up even with a shitty salon for a very long time because the pain of moving, the pain of going somewhere that they don't understand, the pain of building a relationship with someone new is actually so much more than the pain that they're suffering by going to a ropey salon. So here's what normally happens. We decide we're going to do 10% off by March. Maybe you're mentioning it to the odd customer. Occasionally the post is still up, but it's starting to look a little bit tatty. By the middle of the year, you've completely forgotten about it. The post has faded. Nobody notices it anymore. And December, you wonder why you're not getting any referrals. And the problem isn't the idea. The problem is you've run out of steam. You can't maintain referral focused energy all year round when you've got other promotions going on. Perhaps you're running retail promotions, promotions about new services that you're bringing in, new team members coming in, doing your marketing, actually doing hair and beauty services. So referral programs don't die. Anyway, they just kind of run out of energy and flop around the salon, just a bit like a stinky old cousin that you don't really want to speak to anymore. So here's what I've done. I've split our referral strategy into two parts. Part one is always on. So this is in the background stuff that generates referrals in the background all year round. Part two is a focused referral campaign, a one month campaign, concentrated effort. And then we stop.

So part one, what are we going to do that's always on? This is the stuff that we set up and then it keeps generating referrals. Maybe not many, just the odd one or two, but it keeps doing that without constant effort. And the first thing is about making sure that we're sharing our transformations. Now, this isn't always possible, but ideally we would want a before photo and an after photo when you're done. Now, you want to be sharing those things on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, wherever it is that you get your best traction on social media. We also want some before and afters on the information pages on our websites, too. But we also want your customers sharing those before and afters as well. Not just sharing your posts, but maybe posting on your behalf. So what I would be doing is setting up a system where you can either airdrop those photos or email them or WhatsApp, whatever it is that your customers want, so that they've got those photos to share as well. They've got them on their phone. So you're going to be showing off their transformation. You want them to be showing it off as well. And we need to make that as easy as possible. So when one of their friends asks, where did you get that done? They can show the photos and talk about you immediately. So you want somewhere in your salon, a phone mount or a tripod. We want some kind of process where you can get permission to take photos really easily. So have it set up on an iPad where they can scribble with their finger that they've given you permission to use those photos. Train your team or if it's just yourself, make sure you're doing it automatically and run it forever. But use those photos too. So step two is when you're posting to Instagram or Facebook or whatever, you want some kind of branded frame for that photo. Don't just put a photo of a set of lashes up there. It means nothing. We want your branding on there somewhere. So some kind of frame or some kind of watermark that screams about who did this work. Set it up in Canva, make it super simple to do and let your clients know that if they share this photo to tag your salon name. Because every tagged post is a referral opportunity. Now, there is a way that we can set up an incentive for people tagging you on Instagram. If that's something that you think would be interesting, reach out and let me know. I'm happy to do a quick recording.

We haven't got time for it here. It uses a bit of software. It's a little bit of a geek out. But once it's set up, it will run in the background forever. So create that template. Add it to your photo and then add it to the photo that you'll send to your customers as well. When we've got new clients coming into the salon, if they've been sent by somebody, step three is to acknowledge it. Make a big noise about that. Say something like, oh, Betty sent you. She's an absolute legend. She always looks amazing. And she sent us so many new clients. We're normalising that referral process. So when the new clients sat in the chair, they understand this is something that your regulars do for you. And then it's not a big surprise when you ask her to do the same. Train yourself to do this. How did you find us? Make a note in your booking system. So mention it during the appointment. But then step four is you've got to thank that customer, too. Now, some of these booking systems will do this for you. If you put somebody in as a source, as a referrer, it will send them a quick text message saying, thank you so much for sending so-and-so to us. They came in today. If not, do it manually. I know manual processes are a pain in the neck. But we're talking about how many referrals in a day. Maybe one, two if you're lucky. This is not going to take a huge amount of time. But it shows the customer that you're grateful for the referral. It reinforces that behaviour as something you want them to do in the future. So make a note on who's doing the referral in your systems and make sure you're thanking them. Get those four steps in place. And then we've got very little energy being paid into a very strong marketing pillar. But that's not enough on its own. Part two is when we're doing a focused referral campaign. Now, I don't believe that we should have referral campaigns running all the time. We want the background stuff, but we don't want that crappy poster on your wall all year round. We want a one month high energy campaign. Then we can stop. Now, the wonderful thing now is we're concentrating our referral campaigns to a time when it suits you. So pick one month a year or maybe two if you're being ambitious when actually you want an influx of new customers. We used to do this in August because August was a terrible month in my salon. It was really hard work getting people in because most of my customers were mums. As soon as they break up from school, they struggle with childcare. And then they're struggling to find time to come into the salon. So August was a really good time for us to get a little bump in the number of referrals. I don't want that happening, let's say, in December when I'm packed out with people trying to get their pre-Christmas appointments. If you try and run it for longer than a month, you're going to run out of steam. You're going to run out of enthusiasm. It will die. It's better to do one month brilliantly than a half-assed job over three to six months.

So we're going to announce the promotion. Tell your clients that you're running a referral month. We used to do it by email that way. Everybody sees the promotion even if they're not booked in in August. And we make it rewarding. Now, what I found is that not many customers will send you referrals, but those that do might send you multiple referrals. So we had a few customers that were really active in that month, but they could send us five, six, seven customers in a month. Our record was one customer sending us 13 customers in one month. So whatever reward you choose, make sure it's stacking and you can afford to be generous. Be generous to the person who's switching salons because it's a big leap of faith. Be generous to the person doing the referring because this is gold. There's very little wasted marketing opportunity here, like I said at the top of the episode. So we can afford to give them a hugely discounted service or a free add-on service. Make sure we've got something exclusive that feels like a really special perk. Then mention it to every single customer. Like I said, we did this by email so everybody gets to hear about it. Don't rely on a few crappy referral cards that you're going to hand out or maybe forget to. Particularly if you've got a team, they're already going to give them to their favourite customers anyway. We want everyone referring with you. And yes, we're going to be doing lots of sharing those client transformations during referral month as well. Screaming that referral month is on. So we send out the email at the beginning of the month. A couple of reminders during the month. A final push the week before the end. Making sure that people get those referrals in to our chosen time slot. It means we've got focused energy. It's sustainable. You can maintain this for four weeks. You're not going to be able to maintain it for 12 months. And it creates a bit of urgency as well. Because if it's always available, nobody takes action. We want people to have a reason to take action right now. Don't be tempted to extend it. If it's working, you'll run out of steam. I promise you. Don't run it every quarter. Once, maybe twice a year is the most you can do. So get those foundations set up from phase one. Create those always on opportunities for referrals.

Pick a time for your referral month. Maybe February is the time to do it. February was a really tough month for us. And a really good time for us to get some new bums on seats. Bringing that new client energy. What have I missed? Reach out and let me know. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. My email address is scrolling at the bottom of the screen right now. If you need help actually implementing this. You don't need my help teaching you what to do. But you might need a little bit of accountability. Head over to salon-spark.com for an exclusive offer. Where you can get your first month of accountability for just one pound. I've put the link in the description below. If you need my one-to-one help. I've put my email address in the description as well. Just a few short days until I'm coming all over the airwaves again. With another dose of my Wise Owl wisdom. And until then, take care. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.