It won't happen by accident: how to set goals for a stunning end to the year

How do we make sure we finish the year with a bang? Well, it's not going to happen by accident. Listen on for my tips on making December 2023 your best Christmas ever. Hello, hello, hello my salon lovelies. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope. Phil Jackson here from Build Your Salon, here coming in your eyes and ears with another dose of wise old owl wisdom. How are we doing? Heading, steaming towards the end of the year, aren't we? And I think that we've got the tendency sometimes to get a bit complacent this time of year and kind of say, oh, well, December's always busy, it's always profitable. So we take our foot off the gas a little bit, not so much on the work that we're doing, and lots of us work extremely hard through the festive season, but I think sometimes we forget to set goals. We forget to try and be ambitious and get the most out of a busy season, and I think that's a mistake. So my tips today are all about making sure December goes with a bang. How do we make sure it's the most profitable month it possibly can be? So we're all about maximising opportunities, getting the very most out of the customers that come through the door, because there is a hungry gap coming. Most of us have a very busy November, December, sometimes just December, sometimes only a bit of December. But either way, January or February for lots and lots of salons can be a tricky month. So we need to make sure that we're stockpiling, that we're reaping as much of our harvest as we possibly can through December to keep us going through that hungry gap. And the first tip that I've got for you is to keep doing an amazing job. And I know that you do an amazing job anyway, but we need to make sure that we're not getting so busy that we stop doing a fantastic job. We don't want to get so busy that the customer experience isn't where it should be. We don't want to get so busy and so hassled that people don't feel that their visit to the salon is an enjoyable, pleasant experience. Everyone's flapping around and stamping their feet and running late and getting very harassed. It's not a very relaxing environment for people to enter. It's not a very welcoming environment, particularly for new clients. And there are lots of new clients drifting around this time of year. So just be very mindful about what that experience is like. And of course, another part of your job is to make sure that we're maximising opportunities. So that means not taking your foot off the gas as far as upselling is concerned and retailing is concerned. Make sure we're still doing all those jobs, still ticking all of those boxes, even though we might be very, very busy. My advice would be to get all of your festive season appointments 100% paid up front.

We don't have the time. We don't have the space. We don't have the luxury of last minute cancellations and no shows at this time of year. It's going to be very frustrating if you've been turning people away from your column and then some of the people that are booked in let you down at the last minute. So we started doing this initially for the seven days ahead of Christmas. I didn't have time to even think about people not turning up. And gradually that increased until it included the whole of December. And if you're thinking of doing this, if you're thinking of turning this into a longer term strategy, what a fantastic excuse to start getting at least some of your customers used to paying 100% up front. And I've been saying for the last few episodes, this is the direction our businesses need to go. We need to get people paying for their stuff up front. You wouldn't expect to jump on an airplane and pay when you get there. Everybody needs to start paying for their appointments 100% up front. Taking that appointment a lot more seriously. Positioning is important in their minds means they're much less likely to let you down. Speaking of being let down, you need to think about contingency. What would happen if one of your team became ill and couldn't work for a day or two days or three days? What would happen if the dreaded COVID reared its ugly head inside your team again? So you might not want to look at opening every single hour that you possibly could. And we used to increase our capacity during the festive season quite consistently. But you might not want to max out every single hour just in case you end up rescheduling some appointments. Just in case you end up having to move somebody's appointment because a stylist or a beauty therapist has called in late. And similarly, you want a really clear idea of how other team members might be able to help you. So go through each team member. Now, let's get ahead of this, shall we? Let's go through each team member and say, these are the hours that you're working. What hours could you work if I needed you to during December? Because we're also going to be keeping a very close eye on the utilization and the capacity. So we're going to be using those summon reports as well. And if your capacity, if your utilization starts to increase towards about 90, 95 percent, I think there's an opportunity there. And if you've got extra team members that you can rotor on to open up another column.

Do it half a day at a time, though. So we're not increasing your fixed costs without increasing the takings at the same time. But let's rotor people in. Let's see whether they can do an extra half day for you to really maximize the potential during December. Lots of us find it a very expensive month because, my goodness, the food shopping alone is going to cost you an absolute fortune this month. But we're also buying gifts for friends and family, too. Your team might be very glad of a little bit of extra money coming through the till. They might be glad of a bit of extra overtime so that they can either take the sting out of December or perhaps look forward to a bigger pay packet at the beginning of January. But also remember, if you're increasing team member size to keep that quieter environment, to keep that feeling of being in control, you might also need to rotor on some extra support staff, too. So if you're increasing the number of stylists or beauty therapists or estheticians that are working a shift, you might need an extra apprentice or an extra junior or an extra receptionist just to keep things moving through smoothly. I would make sure that you've got an absolute no-brainer upsell and you need two. You need a no-brainer upsell on service. So something that's a really good deal for your customers, doesn't take you too much extra product or time, but that you can tag on to lots and lots of appointments because people are in the spending mood. And to be really cutthroat about it, I've always said that the easiest time to get people to spend is when their wallet is already open. If they're already spending some money with you, let's see whether we can get a little bit of an upsell going on as well. And you also need a retail upsell. So have a look at what your manufacturers are doing. Have a look at what special Christmas offerings you've got as far as retail are concerned and have one of them that is such a beautiful deal or such an easy sell so that when you are under pressure, we're not forgetting those upsell opportunities. We can just reel them out really, really quickly. Also, keep a really close eye on your stock levels because I've been frustrated a couple of times where I've done a really good job at selling, let's say, a Christmas pack and then got to reception and found that we're out of stock. So your team needs to have continual communication with you and they need to know, they need to understand what stock is available on these special items. Speaking of, sorry, I'm talking really quickly, very heavily caffeinated today and also I get very passionate about this.

We've got a lot to cover for really quite a short episode. But while we're talking about continual communication, December is the only time of year when we did a daily team target and a daily huddle. So I'll be communicating with my team every single day on their targets to make sure that we were maxing out and the targets were really challenging, really ambitious. Lots of praise when people hit their daily target, lots of recognition. We used to do this in person when I was in or in our Facebook group or WhatsApp group if it was a day when I wasn't in. But I'll be monitoring their progress daily, reporting back daily, setting a target daily. You'd be amazed at what you can achieve with that extra level of focus. And then finally, we need somewhere where we can advertise last minute cancellations and extra capacity. I'm not a huge fan of doing this on Facebook and Instagram. I don't think it looks particularly nice. But if it works for you and we're just going to do it through December, then by all means, get a meaningful waiting list going. And hands up if you are a salon software system that actually does this properly. I really struggle to find a salon software system that has a waiting list facility that works really, really well. I'm struggling. If you've got one, actually, ping a message over to me. I'd love to start recommending your software to my guys. But you could also look at a WhatsApp list or an SMS list. We did this a lot after COVID. We had a group of people on WhatsApp that we knew could make it to the salon at very short notice and might be interested in a slightly reduced price for their appointment. And we could ping them our late availability and make sure that everyone was busy all the way through. There's nothing worse than having a really busy day with a gap in the middle of it. It makes it much more stressful, much more tiring. It's actually better for your energy levels if we have a steady layer of busyness throughout the day. So what am I missing? How do you make sure December goes with a bang? We've got some more episodes on making sure that December is a super profitable time in your salon. And we've also got our regular Q&A. I think the November and December Q&As I've got enough questions for. But please ping your questions over as long as it's not urgent. And I promise I will get to it in January if need be. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. You know I love hearing from my salon owner friends. Just seven short days until I'm coming in your eyes and ears again. And until then, take care.

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