Retail Isn’t Dead – You’re Just Doing It Wrong

Handled properly, retail can be an enhancement to your service and a big boost to your salon profits. Handled badly, well, you're going to be doing a lot more dusting than selling. Here are my top tips on salon retail. Hello, hello, hello my salon friends, Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming in your eyes and ears again with another dose of Wise Owl Wisdom. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope, as we storm into Q2 of what is sure to be your most successful year yet. And if it doesn't look like that, well, darlings, we are a long way from the finish line. You can do this. How's April looking for you? I'm loving these longer days and I think our customers are too. I think our customers are shaking off the last of winter. I think they're noticing their hairy bits and bobs and jumping back into their beauty routines again. I think everyone's a bit more social. Lots of us are leaping around the countryside enjoying the warmer weather with gay abandon. And frankly, if you're not, darlings, then I recommend it. You really should be. What are we talking about today? Well, it's, of course, the topic that I get lots and lots of questions about from lots of my salon coaching customers. And that's salon retail. It's a bit of an albatross, isn't it? It's a bit of a thing, a bit of a burden, a bit of a chain around our necks sometimes. And particularly if salon owners have teams, I get an awful lot of questions about how we ought to be selling more salon retail. And I'm going to preempt this entire conversation by repeating an assertion which won't go down terribly well with our manufacturers. But if you don't want to retail and if it's turned into something that is taking up so much of your time and so much of your energy and we're still not getting good results with it, darlings, you don't have to retail at all if you don't want to. It's a perfectly valid business model to say, actually, we're not going to retail. We're going to recommend the products that are right for the customers, regardless of where they come from. And we're not because we happen to have that product sat on our shelves gathering dust. I think there's an argument to be made for that. And if you've got to the stage where it's so soul destroying and so draining for you, then I would genuinely think about that as an option. But I'm going to assume for the rest of this episode that you've decided for whatever reason that retail is going to be part of your business. And if it's going to be part of your business, my love, then it needs to be a profitable part of your business. Otherwise, your Uncle Phil doesn't want to see it at all. It needs to earn its space in your salon. Otherwise, we might as well rip those shelves out, build another beauty room or put another couple of sections in with mirrors.

And let's be making money on service instead. But assuming you want to retail, well, what are my top tips? And I've refined this down over a number of years. And I'm going to give you the three biggest tools that I have for selling more retail, particularly if numbers are slow to start with. And the first one is around our consultations. Now, I don't want you to be hiding from the fact that we want to sell more products. I go into a lot of salons where they've been coached by other people. I know. Can you believe that anybody would want to be coached by somebody else? Mystery to me. Baffling. But let's say they've been through a coaching program or they've been through a group coaching program that's talked about retail before. And they say things like, well, we're not retailing. We're not selling. What we're doing is recommending. What we're doing is just showing customers the products that we're using. And frankly, my loves, I call bullshit on that. And particularly if you've got a team and you say things like, we're not selling to people. We're just recommending products to people. Your team is not stupid. They know what it is that you want them to do. And what you want them to do is sell more retail products. So you're much better to call a spade a spade. Call it out for what it is. We are selling. We are retailing. But if we can see selling and retailing as connecting the customer to the correct solution, then we get to call it selling. Then we get to actually get on with doing a bloody good job of selling. And by the way, it's a lot easier to find things like programs and find books about selling that it is about recommending. So let's just call it what it is. Now, assuming we're going to be selling, how do we go about doing that properly? And I think it needs to be part of your consultation process. So what I'm going to ask you to do, and this has been a game changer for lots of salons that I've recommended this to over the years, I want you to bring that retail conversation all the way to the beginning of the visit. Because here's what happens in most salons. We enjoy our service, whether that be a facial or a massage or an aesthetic service, or whether we're getting our hair done and we've enjoyed that lovely blissful massage and we're looking fantastic as we look into the mirror. And then there's this change in mood as the stylist or therapist or esthetician feels they need to recommend some products. So we end up with this very rushed conversation at the end of the client's visit where we tick a few boxes on a leaflet and stuff it into the client's hand or say,

would you like to take any of these products today? And there's a real tone around that conversation. It's awkward. Normally, by that stage, we're thinking about our next customer. Normally, by that stage, the customer is thinking about their parking expiring and they need to get out the salon door. And it's not a great avenue for that customer to be asking questions and us talking through the story. And if you like the idea of a story behind retail, go back to the episode that I did several episodes back talking about the stories behind retail and how we can get excellence in retail. But if we like those conversations, we need to give them space and we need to give them time to breathe. So I want you to do is start talking about retail much earlier in the visit. And my husband, by the way, is amazing at this. Now, don't go throwing yourselves out of windows because your uncle feels married. I don't want you getting depressed that I'm not on the shelf waiting to be plucked. But my husband's really, really good at this. He's very strong on retail. In fact, I'm trying to get him to create a retail program because I think he could do really well. But what he will do. So bear in mind, our background is hair. You need to translate this if you're in beauty or if you're in aesthetics. But what he'll do is talk through what the customer wants to achieve today with their hair. And then he'll say, yes, we can go ahead and create that look for you. But if we're going to, these are the products you're going to need to support that look. Or these are the products you're going to need to maintain that color. And if that's not OK with you, if we don't have those products in your bathroom at the moment and you're not willing to take them today, then we need to think again about what we're going to create. You need something lower maintenance or you need something that looks good with just mousse in it or whatever. OK, so he's getting their buy in and their commitment to that retail journey before they've even been through and had their hair shampooed. And then if they've got questions about the products, then they can ask them during the visit. He can be showing them how to use the products, apply those styling and finishing products. And you could be doing the same as well because so many of our services rely on excellent aftercare. So let's get it as part of the consultation process so that we've got time for the conversation to evolve during the visit. Tip number two is to include retail in more of your services. There are certain services that we carry out in our salons and our clinics every day that rely 100% on excellent aftercare.

In hair, I'm thinking of things like color correction. To do a color correction and not use decent shampoos and conditioners and treatments at the end of it is very naive at best and an absolute waste of time at worst. There are certain services that we carry out in our beauty salons that if they don't carry out the aftercare to the letter, things are going to go really wrong. You know, if you're doing something like a chemical peel or micro needling and then they're using absolute junk on their face and not taking SPF home with them, things could go really wrong. So we need to get past the embarrassment of giving people the products that they need. So in my salon, bear in mind, it's a hair example again. But in my salon, if you had something like a color correction or if you had hair extension services, there was no discussion around the retail. It was priced in. It was included in the bundle, included in the package, because that gets the right products in people's bathrooms. There's much higher likelihood that they're actually going to use those products when they get home, maintaining their color, maintaining their skin, giving them better results in the longer term. So I want you to go through your price card and figure out a certain bunch of services or maybe even all of them where actually taking the right products home is non-negotiable. It's going to happen. OK, and price those products in. The other thing that enables you to do, of course, is get past the comparison, because I've heard lots of services, lots of stories rather, where people are carrying out services in their salons. Talking about products and my customers would never be this bloody rude, by the way, but customers are literally looking on Amazon to see whether they can get those products cheaper than they can in the salon. If it's priced into the service, there's a little bit of obscurity around that. They don't quite understand what they're paying for the product, what they're paying for the service. And there's no discussion around it anyway. You're taking those products home. So it gets past that that comparison problem. Also, if we're building a package together of service plus products, it's much harder for that person to compare your prices with the salon down the road because we're not comparing like with like anymore. So start bundling those products in at every available opportunity. Let me guess. Your appointment book is full, but your bank account isn't. How long are you going to let that go on for? Isn't it time that you got paid properly? My get paid properly program isn't just another course. It's your roadmap to boosting your profits, increasing your takings, finally getting rewarded for the hard work that you do. With nine straightforward modules, my foolproof pricing spreadsheet. And I'm even throwing in a one to one coaching call to answer any questions that you have about the training or anything else that's getting in the way of your incredible success.

Head to get paid properly dot com forward slash podcast and you can save a hundred pounds on your sign up and get that bonus coaching call with me. The program is backed by my signature 90 day no quibble guarantee. Take the training, take the coaching call. And if you don't feel you know enough to confidently set your prices profitably for the future, I will coach you myself until you do. Head to get paid properly dot com forward slash podcast. Lock in that saving and finally take strides in the direction of getting rewarded for your hard work. All on build your salon. And my third tip and actually an example of this in action is my new client package. And the new client package is something that I put together to make the first visit the most memorable, but best of all to start coaching our customers towards being amazing customers as quickly as possible. So I actually charge more for the first visit in my salon than we do on the second and third visit because there is a number of benefits. There are rather a number of benefits and products that are bundled into that first visit. And one of them is a retail product to take home. That's because we did some research around the new clients that were coming into my salon. And we discovered that most of them had never taken professional retail products home. Most of them had never been offered retail products from previous salon visits. So we included it in their first one. Actually, it actually increased our retail overnight. Firstly, because, of course, we've got a load of retail going out the door with every new client. But also, if you recommend, for example, a cleanser to somebody, the chances of them taking the moisturizer that goes with it increase. If you recommend a conditioner to somebody, the chances of them taking the shampoo that goes with it increase. So we had some people buying retail on the day. But here's the magic of including in their first visit. Because on visit number two, we have a natural no embarrassment opener to start talking about retail again. We can start with a conversation with something like, how did you get on with that shampoo that I sent you home with?

Was it rich enough? Was it too heavy? Did you want something lighter? You must be running out by now. Did you want to take the conditioner this time? Try the treatment that goes with it. So it gives us a no pressure opener to start talking about retail on visit number two. So I promise that including in your first visit is a huge door opener to all of those retail conversations further down the line. But it also puts in mind the expectation with your new clients that they will go home with retail on the regular. It's no longer a surprise when we talk about retail further into their customer journey. So that's my three top tips. And actually, I'm going to give you a little bonus one. I'm going to actually couch this in an observation that I've seen a lot of salons that are really struggling with retail. But they're struggling with retail because they're carrying the wrong products. And I don't mean that they're carrying shit. I mean, they're carrying good quality products. But there isn't alignment between their brand, their salon brand or clinic brand that they're trying to create. It's not aligned with the brand that they're trying to sell for retail. We've got to make sure that there's a crossover between your values, your expectations and the ones of the products that you're supplying from your manufacturers. And if there isn't, you need to look again. You need to go back out into the marketplace, go to a couple of trade shows and start to find something that aligns a lot more. Because there's so much range out there, you will find something that ticks all the boxes for you. So a very glib example would be if you're carrying retail, which is very glossy, very high end. But your branding for your clinic or your salon is much more earthy, much more environmentally aware. There may be a tension between those two brands. You'd be better to find something on the product side that's kind of earthy and kind of ecologically aware as well. So there's a template, there's a crossover between your two sets of values. And if you can't find that and actually something that I recommend you should be doing anyway, I want you to start looking at white label products. I know that white label historically has had a stinky reputation for giving poor products, poor performance, which meant that we had to charge bargain basement prices for it. I promise you that's no longer the case. There are some beautiful white label alternatives out there. Firstly, that gets past the comparison problem because they're not going to be able to buy those products anywhere else online. But secondly, you're able to create a product brand that is perfectly aligned with your salon.

Heck, it's even got the same bloody name on it if you want it to. And I promise that the profit margins on white label products tend to be much, much higher. That gives you a lot of flexibility in your marketing, too. So there we have it. My top tips on salon retail. What have I missed? What are you doing to sell more products in your salon? Reach out and let me know my email address scrolling at the bottom of the screen right now. Also reach out if you'd love to share your salon journey with my Build Your Salon podcast listeners. I'd love to be interviewing you on a future episode. Just seven short days until I'm coming in your eyes and ears again with another dose of my Wise Owl wisdom. And until then, take care.