Stop Upselling Clients In The Chair (Do This)

If you want to make more money, I reckon there's a 20 quid uplift on every booking that's sitting in your diary right now, but you're not getting it because you're trying to sell at the wrong moment. Change the moment, get the money. But if you push too hard, you're going to lose clients. Here's how we're going to walk that life All on. Build your Salon. Hello. Hello, hello. My salon friends, Phil Jackson here, your Queen of Salons coming all over the internet with another dose of my Wise Owl wisdom. Here we are on fixed number three of the 10 minute Money Fix series today. Last Monday we talked about profit vampires. Those services on your menu that are quietly costing you money. Today we're going to go the other way and we're going to talk about the money that you're leaving on the table on every single booking, not new clients, not price rises, those clients you've already got, we just want them to be paying a little bit more on every visit. If you're enjoying this series, head over to 10 minute money fix.com. You can get all five of the money fixes not only as a PDF, not only as an audio, not only as a video, but as all three. And you get access to all five fixes for just nine pounds. So today we're talking really ultimately about average bill and the opportunity there is to increase average bill through upsell. And there's a moment in every single booking where you've got the best chance at increasing it. But a lot of people are getting that moment wrong. They're getting the timing wrong on it. So we'll call it Uncle Phil's Magic Window. I don't think we're going to call it Uncle Phil's magic window. It sounds like you'll look it up my bum with the binoculars. We're talking about that window of opportunity. We'll just call it the magic window, shall we? There's a right time to upsell and there's a wrong time to upsell. And the wrong time to upsell is when the client is in your chair or in your beauty therapy room. By the time they've sat down, the clock's ticking, everyone's under pressure and any add-on has the, it runs into the danger of feeling like a kind of awkward sales pitch and the client starts to tense up and the whole thing kind of goes sideways and wishes you weren't selling at all and there is a much better moment. And it's the gap between when a client books and when they show up. Now, some salon software now is offering people upsell at the moment of booking, which I think is a really good thing. I think it's a really smart thing to do. Not many salon softwares are doing it. And that doesn't mean that this doesn't apply. It doesn't mean that there's not more potential for each appointment. And for me the sweet spot is 24 to 48 hours before the appointment. The thing is, if you wait until someone's in the salon to upsell, quite often, well not quite often, but some of the time, they might well want to take the upsell, but they've only put an hour on the car and they haven't got time to have that add-on service in that 2040 to 48 hour window. The client's already committed, they've paid their deposit the lot, the slot is reserved, you've blocked out the time for them. They're looking forward to it. They're not in a hurry yet because they're not in the salon looking at the clock and they're not under any pressure to say yes or no. So there's a magic window of opportunity and it works much better than doing it when you're in the salon because then she's not only excited about the appointment already, but we can also make sure she puts two hours on the car to make sure she's got time for that extra bit of the appointment. And we used to run pre-appointment upsells for years pretty much on everything. And some of these things were kind of no-brainers as far as we were concerned. Headline winner for years was a clear gloss treatment. So on top of the colour bill, I mean I get these are hair examples, but you beauty guys are so clever. I know that you can translate this to your own industry, but we could put a clear gloss treatment on top of a colour. It took almost no extra time. Product cost a couple of quid if that, to be honest with you. Shine on the way out the door was unmistakable. Everybody loved it. Easy, yes for the client next time and a nice little uplift for the salon. And that was worth between 20 and 30 pounds per colour appointment already profitable or a luxury conditioning treatment. Now we used to offer conditioning treatments to every single salon client because so many people only use conditioning treatments when they're running behind. Product cost on a conditioning treatment, tiny, I mean you'd be hard pushed to spend 20 p on a conditioning treatment, but we build the experience around it. We did the scalp massage, we put them under some heat for a while, they got some peace and quiet. They get 15 minutes of bliss that they weren't going to get on a standard haircut and we charged accordingly and they paid happily. So the offers would change across the year to keep it fresh. In summer it might be a UV protection treatment or it might be something to undo the damage that's being done by the sun and the chlorine when they're jumping in out the pool winter, it might be a deep moisture mask or something that's got a cozier warmer sort of feel to it. Special occasions we can build an event day glow up around it. But the point was the offer was relevant to the moment, relevant to the client. What we didn't have was the same add-on that we tried to push to everybody forever. So what we want is 24 hours before the appointment, a message goes out and you can do this by email, you can do it by text, you can do it by WhatsApp, whatever fits your salon. If you're going to automate this, the takeup will be lower. If you're going to do it personally, I wouldn't necessarily say a phone call. I don't think people tend to answer the phone if they don't recognise the number, but certainly a voice note on WhatsApp or on a text message can work really, really well. Reference the client by name, reference their upcoming appointment and recommend a specific add-on with a clear reason to do it and just make it really easy so they don't need to jump back into the booking and add it on or anything like that. All they've got to do is just reply yes and you'll take care of the whole thing. So it works because firstly is personal. It references them, it references their appointment. Secondly, it sells the outcome, not the service. So we're going to talk about shine and colour that looks fresher and stays fresher for longer. It's the outcome, the treatment's, just how you deliver it. So we sell people the sizzle, not the steak darling. It's an old adage, but it works really, really well. And number three, we make it frictionless. So we make it really easy. All they've got to do is reply yes, and we will take care of it. They haven't got to call, they haven't got a log in, there's no form they have to fill in. So we make it super easy for people to spend more with us. And then when they arrive, we close the loop. So we say, great to see you, we got your message and we've added that onto your appointment today. So there's no awkwardness, there's no pressure. Just a recommendation made at the right moment that makes it really easy to accept or easy to decline. And an awful lot of clients will say Yes. Now here's where this can go wrong and it does go wrong. And I have seen this and I've seen it recently. I've seen a salon that seems to be taking it too far. And we only know by diving into the numbers. So it feels like every client, every visit they're getting add-ons offered. And it's happening when they're in the salon as well. And it's happening at checkout and on paper it seemed to be working as a revenue generating exercise because the average bill was starting to climb and we were kind of patting the owner on the back a little bit and making sure that she felt really good about that. But clients were quietly leaving because it stopped feeling like a treat where I knew I was going to be spending and started feeling like I was opening myself up to a bit of hard sell. So clients started recognising that we were going to be getting these upsell calls and upsell messages, every single appointment, every single time. And they feel like they're constantly being sold to. Nobody wants that in your feedback form that you are constantly being sold to when that's how you start getting described. You've already lost them to be honest with you, even if their next appointment's in the diary. So here's the line, follow the numbers. If average bills creeping up and retention is stable, brilliant. What you've got there is basically extra profit for very little extra effort. If average bill's creeping up but your retention is starting to drop or your utilisation is starting to drop, you've probably gone a little bit too far. The upsell is starting to kill the relationship just a little bit. So don't just watch the average bill on its own. Look at it alongside retention and utilisation. If you don't know what those things are, I'm sure we have episodes on those. Another little acid test on when something is recommendation versus when it's pressure. If it's something you're saying to every single client, that's probably pressure if you're saying it because it's specific to that client, specific to their treatment and you know they're going to get the benefit. That is a recommendation. So that clear gloss recommended to absolutely everybody, that's pressure. If it's recommended because last time they mentioned their colour was fading, then that's professional advice and the difference is the client can feel it every single time. So pick an add-on just one something that's got some broad appeal. And that's going to add 15 to maybe 30 pounds to your average bill. Start sending those pre-appointment messages and then reach out and let me know how you're getting on. I want to hear whether you are turning this into a success. That is the end of 10 minute money fix three. And if you've enjoyed these money fixes, then please head over to 10 minute money fix.com. Nine quid about an hour of your time. You get all five of the money fixes with templates and worksheets and all sorts of wonderful things too. And the reviews have been fantastic. I'm getting feedback saying that it's worth way more than nine pounds, which of course is the whole idea behind it. It's because I want you to all fall desperately in love with me. So 10 minute money fix.com. The link is in the show notes. I will be back on Friday with something with a slightly different flavour. And until then, take care. I.