How to turn new customers into brilliant regulars

It costs time and money to get a new client into your salon business, and that cost only increases over time. Far better if we can turn them into brilliant, profitable, regular customers as quickly as possible. Hello, hello, hello my salon lovelies. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope, as we march through to the middle of June. Flippin' Henry, where is this year going? Apparently it's a sign of ageing when the years get faster and faster, and my goodness, this one's just gone in a blink. I can't quite believe that we're heading towards the middle of the year. Opportunity, of course, at the end of each quarter to reset your salon business goals and your personal goals too. Why not take it all in? At the end of the day, there is no division between us and our businesses when we're small business owners, so lump it all into one stew, one melting pot, and let's make sense of everything. So I'll be spending about half a day at the very beginning of July resetting my goals, seeing what I'm up to, and I think that's something that I would recommend that you guys do as well, because it's very tempting to set your goals when you're full of New Year energy back in January, or I know some people set theirs with the financial year in April. And then we don't revisit those goals until we're marching towards the end of the year, and there's not much time left. So it's far better if we can keep revisiting our goals, and I revisit mine on a weekly basis. But bear in mind, when I revisit my goals on a weekly basis, I don't look at the whole year. I only do that once a year. The rest of the time, I'm looking at a quarter or a month or just the week ahead, making sure everything's in alignment. And then the idea is that if we take care of those little goals week by week, the big goals take care of themselves over time. So how's your year going? Reach out, let me know, phil at buildyoursalon.com. You know I love hearing from my salon owner friends anyway. I'd love to hear what you've achieved so far this year, and what you've got coming up for Q3 and Q4. Also reach out with your questions for the Q&A episode that I do each month. Every month I have to nag people into sending me questions through. I have got one ready for next month, but it'd be great to have two or three to dive into and share my wise old owl wisdom. So what are we talking about today? Well, I want to talk about how we take a new client and turn them into a regular client. And part of that I've already covered in a previous episode, though I make no apologies for repeating myself, because after 450 million episodes, which is how many it feels like sometimes, you're bound to come round and reach the same topics again.

And we did talk about how I put together a new client package. And part of the new client package was there to encourage people to turn into brilliant regular clients very, very quickly. So if you haven't listened to that episode, perhaps my editor could scratch the surface on the website. So if you can find it and put the link in the description for me as well, that would be super helpful. But part of it is also not to do with the new client package, because the new client package relies on the person coming in through the door. And what I want today to be about is actually some of the stuff that we can be doing before that visit and after that visit as part of a new client journey. And this is something that I've coached a few people through on a one-to-one basis this year. And I think it's something that we're going to have to be much smarter about, because the cost of getting a new client into your business, either in monetary terms, as far as your marketing is concerned, or in time terms, the amount of time it takes you to bring a new client through that know, like and trust journey and actually into the business, is considerable. And the cost of bringing new clients into your business is only ever going to increase. We've seen that with Google ads. We've seen it with Facebook ads. As the marketplace intensifies on a marketing platform, the cost of getting a new client into your business increases. And as we get a more crowded marketplace, just in the salon business in general, there are, I've been saying for a while, too many salons out there. I'm sorry, there's about 25% of the salons that we have here in the UK should close so that everybody else can survive and thrive and get busy. But in that marketplace, it means we're fighting much harder to get new clients through the door. And I don't think there's enough work being put in in a lot of salons with that golden opportunity of a new client to turn them into somebody profitable and long term. And this actually comes from a question that we had in the Q&A episode a couple of weeks ago from Ros down in Clifton, talking about how we turn a seasonal business into something that's busy all year round. And what we want is to turn those walk-ins into regulars. So what can we be doing? Well, the first thing I want you to do is just mentally shift away from being a salon business owner into being a customer. And I want you to appreciate how horrible it is to go and try and find a new salon to carry out your services for you.

And I'm not talking about those customers who drift from place to place, only go there once or twice when there's an offer on and go somewhere else. They're a different breed. We don't want to be encouraging those people into our business. Honestly, there are plenty of bottom feeders who would happily undercut you on price and mop up those disloyal customers and an absolute bargain. And let them get on with it. They are not the people that you should be building your business on. What we want is those people who would normally be going to a salon regularly. And there's only a few instances. If you think about why somebody will be looking for a new salon, normally it's either because they've moved, so they're in a different location, or the business they've been going to has gone out of business, which happens fairly regularly these days, or they've got an unmet expectation, which has annoyed them so much that they're now ready to look for somewhere else. And they want somewhere to become regulars. But going into a salon for the first time is bloody intimidating because you don't know where to put your coat, and you don't know who's going to be greeting you, and you don't know where to go if you need a wee, and you don't know if you can ask for a coffee. And all of those things that we take for granted as people that understand you are ranting. Listen to me starting to rant. Calm down, Phil. Goodness sake, the sun's out. But all those things that we take for granted as salon business owners, I want you to just park those and just realise how intimidating it is for a new customer. So what I want you to start focusing on is building a relationship with those customers before they've come in for their first service. So somebody's booked an appointment online, let's say in two or three weeks' time. What happens on the run-up to that visit at the moment in your business? So normally, let's say they've booked online, normally they would get a confirmation text message, or they would get a confirmation email saying the appointment has been made. And then two or three days before the appointment, they would get a reminder email and a reminder SMS reminding them to turn up for the appointment. And for most salons, that's it. And I think we're missing a trick there with our new customers.

We could be enhancing and building that relationship before they've even set foot through the door. Have a word with your salon software company. Lots of the booking software now will allow you to differentiate between different types of clients and send an extra email to new clients. And I think that would be a really good thing to do. If it were me, I would be introducing them to the salon, sharing a little bit of your ethos and what the salon is all about, sharing your excitement around making a new friend and a new business acquaintance and a new customer, and how much you're looking forward to seeing them in the salon business. I would also be linking to a page on your website where you spell out what the salon's like in very, very clear terms. And what I'm talking about there is, for example, having a video walk around. Could you have you literally talking to a camera, walking around your salon, showing people what it's like to walk through the door? Because if they booked online, they may never have set foot into the salon before. Now, the one thing I would say is we used to include team members in our walk around video. Don't do that because the buggers resign and then you've got to remake the video every time somebody leaves. So if it were me, I would just do it with you as the business owner, walking around. And don't be afraid to make it personable. It doesn't have to be a kind of corporate video. As you can imagine, darlings, my walk around video was a little bit camp. And we enjoyed ourselves on those videos. And I used to literally show people where the toilets were. In case they needed a wee while they were going. And I'd show them where they were going to hang their coats up and where they would get their hair washed and all the rest of it. And a little walk around in the salon. It's only going to be a 30, 45 second video. But it could make all the difference to a new client feeling a little bit less intimidated and a bit more comfortable. Think about what else you could be doing. I know lots of you are sending out consultation forms ahead of time. Sometimes why not a quick phone call? A phone call from the member of your team who's going to be looking after them on the day. Just making sure they got that consultation form. Or instead of doing just an SMS, why not leave a little voice note saying how excited you are to be welcoming them to the salon. So now they've heard your voice. Now they've started to build a relationship. So we've got the opportunity there for three, four, maybe five touch points with that client before they actually come through the door. Then we carry out the service. I'm not going to jump into the new client package right now. Have a listen. It's a really good episode and something that I think you should be bringing into the salon an awful lot.

Now, where do we go from there? What happens afterwards? Well, why not make a promise to all of your new clients that they're going to get a courtesy call from you two or three days later just to make sure everything was as good as it possibly could be with their visit? How much would that mean to a new client? Well, it might be something that they're a little bit uncomfortable with if they feel that you're only doing it occasionally or for certain customers. But if you're doing it for every customer who comes to you new into the salon and that's your policy and you can explain that to your client, I think there's an awful lot of marketing bang for your buck there. And all it is is one sentence. Just so you know, it's our policy to call all new clients two or three days after their visit just to make sure everything was great this time. Now, the reason we tell them this is if they see your number flash up and they're not expecting a phone call from you, most people won't answer. But if they see your number flash up and they were expecting that call, they know that it's OK to answer and respond. Now, some people may not answer anyway. That's fine. The point is you've delivered on the promise that you've made in the salon. Now, if you do get some feedback, you need to be prepared for the fact that maybe that feedback isn't always going to be completely fantastic. It might be that they were a bit disappointed or they weren't quite 100% happy. But what a golden opportunity. Can you think how many people as a new client would go into a salon? Maybe they're not satisfied. How many of them are actually going to bother complaining and going back? Most will just go somewhere else again. Whereas if you have that courtesy call and they spell out their dissatisfaction, you have an opportunity to put things right and build a solid relationship with someone who's going to become a regular client. Now, I've spelt out when I've been talking about my new client package that we don't discount new client visits. In fact, my new clients pay more than everybody else for certain things. So we include a retail product, for example. But the other thing we include is a discount voucher on their second visit because I want them to come back soon. And that's a short dated return visit voucher. So they don't get to spend that voucher with the discount if they're going to come in in three or four months time. They need to be back in the salon in six weeks or less because all of it's about getting people back in the salon, back in the chair, building that relationship, nurturing excellent habits in our new clients.

And the other part of it is turning them into profitable regulars as quickly as we can. And that, my dears, comes down to your consultation. It's about making sure they're taking those add-on services when you recommend. It's about making sure they're acting on your retail recommendations. I get really fed up going into... I'm ranting again. What is it with me today? I need to change my coffee. But I get really fed up going into salons and talking to salon owners and a lot of team members as well where they say, I don't like selling. That's not what I'm here for. Yes, you bloody well are because selling is about connecting your client with the best possible solution for them. And the best possible solution for them is very often either additional services or take-home products. How dare you not sell to your client? You need to shift your mindset around selling and appreciate that the better you sell, the better job you are doing for your customers. So get to grips with the consultation. Get to grips with selling. Get the right products and services in front of your customers on a regular basis and get them used to the fact that this is how you do business in a professional way. So what have I missed? What else could we be doing to deepen and nurture those regular client relationships? Reach out. Let me know. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. You know I love hearing from you anyway. But I love hearing tips and tricks and little shortcuts that you've come up with that I can then share with the rest of my audience. And I'd love to be naming you in a future episode. Also reach out with your questions for my Q&A episodes. And also if you or you know somebody who would like to be a guest on the Build Your Salon podcast, I love having guests on. It really breaks things up and keeps things spicy and interesting for me. Keeps me on my toes, my darlings. Just seven short days until I'm coming in your eyes and ears again with another dose of wise old owl wisdom. 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.