Black Friday in Your Salon (Without the Ick)

How about this year for Black Friday? We don't give anybody the ick, and we don't wait until two days before to suddenly decide we're going to do something, and we don't give away the entirety of our profit for November. How would that be? Hello, hello, hello my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming all over the internet again with another dose of my Wise Owl Wisdom. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope, as we march towards the end of September, getting towards my favourite month of the year, and getting towards boots and coats season, and there's nothing wrong with that, darling. Some people were born to get their legs out. Sadly, your Uncle Phil was not one of them. Anyway, what are we talking about this week? Well, we're talking about Black Friday, and I know it's only September, and that's deliberate. Because usually, when I'm doing an episode about Black Friday, it's because it's on people's minds, and that usually means it's too late. So, I want you to get organised, my darling. I want you to figure out what you want to achieve on Black Friday, and I want us to lock those decisions into your marketing plan now. And honestly, every other business is going to be shouting that week. Your clients are going to be primed to expect something. And the obvious move is to take money off everything. And of course, that's one of the worst things that you can do to your salon business. So I want to help you make some real money that week. And I have salons who are taking tens of thousands in a week, just on Black Friday extras. But I want you to do it without cheapening your brand. I want you to do it without annoying anybody, without annoying your regulars. And of course, I want you to remain profitable. Let's not give away your profit margin. Today's episode is supported by our friends over at Mead Loyalty. If you've had salon loyalty cards printed and then watched them vanish into the bottom of your client's handbag, Mead is the version that stays put. Your loyalty card is carrying your branding and sat next to their cards on Apple or Google Wallet. Nothing for them to download and nothing for them to lose. They scan their card when it's time to pay. But you stay in control. You decide whether they've earned a stamp or not, and you decide what that reward is. Free to use Mead Loyalty for up to 50 members. After that, I've negotiated an exclusive 25% of your fees for life. If you use code BUILD25, head over to MeadLoyalty.com, all one word, Mead Loyalty, M-E-E-D, and sign up so you can start taking loyalty seriously today. And thanks again to Mead for supporting the Build Your Salon podcast. It's been wonderful having you this month. So why does Black Friday fail in so many salons? Well, apart from being a disorganised hot mess where everyone decides at the last minute that they're doing something, what a lot of salons end up doing is discounting what they would have sold anyway. So they end up selling a discounted service to their regulars who were going to come in regardless. And what we've ended up doing is just chopping money off for what they were already going to come in for. The other danger with it is that actually November can be a really good month. And December in particular can be a very good month in salons historically, particularly in hair and nails. It's an extremely strong month. So the danger with Black Friday is we end up discounting and cheapening our bookings right at the busiest time when we could be maximising profits and getting as much potential out of the business as possible. The other thing that I think a lot of people do is they train people in some very odd spending patterns. And I think if we don't think through your Black Friday deals in relation to everything that's going on marketing wise in the salon, in relation to your usual pricing, then I think that we can actually end up with some very disruptive behaviour going on with client spend. More on that in just a second. The one thing that I will say, though, and it used to be that people were kind of, oh, it's only going to encourage people that want to deal. It's only going to encourage the bargain hunters. I don't think that's true. I don't think people spend money in a salon unless they are actually kind of in love with that salon already. I don't think it's the case that people are going to spend a whole load of money on Black Friday and then you don't see them for 12 months. What it can do, though, and I've alluded to this already, is it can annoy your very best clients, because if you've got a loyal client who is quite happy spending full price on your services and then some bloke comes along and gets a better deal than I got. Well, you can colour me unimpressed, my darlings. Your uncle Phil would not be happy. So the other things that I think people get wrong and I'm talking about that really weird kind of disruption to spend is around decisions, because every time you put a decision in front of a client, they and when they have to make a decision, it takes effort. It takes energy. As human beings, we don't like making decisions. Decisions take calories, they take brain power, and we don't want to do it. So that's why, actually, if you give people too many options, we get this kind of analysis paralysis and decision doesn't get made at all. What we do is put it off until someone else decides for us. And a lot of times I think people are hesitant about spending on Black Friday because particularly here in the UK, we're used to a Christmas sale or a January sale. I think a lot of people are kind of do I spend now on Black Friday stuff or is there going to be a better deal in a few weeks time? So if you're going to do Black Friday at all, make it really crystal clear. This is our biggest and best laser deal. It won't be this good of a deal for at least another 12 months and maybe not even then. So I know if I spend money with you on that laser deal this Black Friday, I'm not going to see a better deal and kick myself in two or three weeks time. And you've got to honour that as well. So make a really clear decision that the stuff you include in Black Friday is not going to be the stuff that you include in your, I don't know, Advent deals or whether you do a Christmas sale or a January sale or a Twixtmas sale. I love a between Christmas and New Year promotion, by the way. I think there's a bit of a bit of dead space there that we could be marketing really heavily. Anyway, make sure that the deals we put together for Black Friday are the very best deals, but they're not going to be seen again. And then we'll choose something else for later in the year. The other thing I would say when we're talking about analysis paralysis, we're talking about decision fatigue. Don't put tons and tons of deals in front of people. In my mind, it's a good, better, best. So I would choose maybe three different price points for your Black Friday deal, something around the 50 quid mark, something that's 100 and something and something that's a big fat spend, you know, three, four, 500 quid. But I wouldn't be putting, you know, a dozen deals together. I think that tends to be very overwhelming and kind of off putting in the end. And it turns into a bit of a bargain basement. Or maybe it's just one really, really simple deal. I know that people are looking for amazing discounts and bargain of the year when it comes to Black Friday. And that's fine. If you want to go down that discount path, then by all means go for it. But understand that we're discounting in exchange for something. So what do I get back for offering you that discount? Sometimes it's cash flow. I get the cash now instead of later. Therefore, I'm willing to give you a discount on it. But ultimately, I don't think that's a great argument for offering a discount at all. And if you're going to offer a discount, understand the maths. OK, I know you guys love figures. So bear with me. Wish me luck. And I'll see you at the end. Take a 60 quid service. I've run these figures. So they're really, really simple, by the way. By the time you've paid for the time in the product, let's say it costs you 40 pounds to deliver. You've got 20 pounds of profit. Take 20% off that 60 pound service and the client pays 48 pounds. Your costs haven't moved. Your wages are going to be the same. Your rent is going to be the same. The cost of the product is going to be the same. So it still costs 40 pounds to deliver the service. But your profit has gone from 20 pounds to eight pounds. So that 20% discount didn't cost you 20% of your profits. It cost you 60% of the profit that you were going to make on that appointment. To make the same amount of profit, you'd need to do two and a half times as many of those services. In a month where you may not have the capacity at all. Throw your own figures into there. Do it out loud, slowly, with your profit margin. It's the moment that people sit up and pay attention. So do bear in mind, if we're offering a discount, the only place that that discount can come from is your profit margin. One thing that I have very often put into Black Friday is a voucher sale. The only thing I'm going to say is don't do a voucher sale in a crisis. I did this once with a salon. Do I regret the decision? Maybe a little bit. But basically, the salon had a huge VAT crisis. They had a VAT bill coming up. They had no money put aside for it. They had run out of overdraft. We were kind of really up against it. And we were doing all the usual things, you know, trying to get people to take unpaid leave. We were cutting costs where we could. We were doing add-ons and everything we could think of to get more money through the till. And we decided it was Black Friday. We were going to do a voucher sale. And it was great. We did. I think it was about 11,000 worth of vouchers. The problem is those vouchers need to be redeemed at some stage. So sometimes if you do a voucher sale in a crisis, all you're doing is putting that problem off for a few months. Because when those vouchers are being redeemed, there's no money coming into the salon. Oh, and by the way, we've got another VAT bill coming up. And that's been boosted by the takings from your voucher sale. So do bear in mind if you're doing a voucher sale in a crisis, actually all you're doing is kicking the problem into the long grass. Anyway, don't discount your vouchers. There's no need. What we do is a voucher boost. So let's say you buy a 100 voucher. You get a 20 voucher free. But because we're only offering a discount in exchange for something, the booster voucher can only be used in January and February. So those quiet months that follow Christmas, I haven't got a service that's 20 quid. You're going to end up spending more than that. It gets you back through the door a bit earlier in the year than you were perhaps planning on. So in exchange for that discount, I'm disrupting your pattern of spend, getting you back in the chair as quickly as we can in the new year. So don't discount your vouchers, but a booster is fine as long as there's some T's and C's around it. Be really careful. For example, I've had people try and use those boosted vouchers on the run up to Christmas. So we have to be really clear about that. The one time we were open between Christmas and New Year for the whole time, I had put that they weren't valid before Christmas. And we had loads of people using discounts between Christmas and New Year. So be careful around your T's and C's. If January is quiet for you, they have to be used in January. If February is quiet, then allow them to use it January and February. And February, people tend to use vouchers just before they expire. So we don't want to do it with ick. OK, we don't want to make people feel icky about Black Friday. Don't discount your core service. I had this conversation with one of my very favorite one to one clients who is a trainer in the waxing space. I said, I will never recommend that you do a discount on waxing is what you're known for. It's got your thumbprint all over it. You don't want to start anchoring that service at a discounted price. Be really mindful of your capacity. There is nothing worse than selling someone a deal that you can't deliver on. So make sure you understand when that deal is going to be redeemed, when the client is going to be coming in. That's the whole trick is to try and move people to those quieter times. Don't try and sell something that you can't actually fulfill. Look after your regulars first and best. So I love a little bit of scarcity around offers, genuine scarcity. So if you're doing, I don't know, a voucher boost and you're going to do a 500 pound voucher, they get 150 quid extra free to use in January. I'm only going to have five of those available and that's genuine scarcity. So I want to make sure my regulars hear about it first. If you've got membership clients, a lot of people roll their Black Friday deals out to membership clients first. If you've got a VIP group, a lot of my salons now putting VIP groups together like we used to just after COVID. So they've got a little WhatsApp group that hears about deals first. Make sure your regulars get early access or a better version or an extra thank you rather than an offer. It makes that loyalty really visible and actually worth something to your clients. Put those hard boundaries in, though. I run my Black Friday deals from one minute past midnight on Black Friday through to the end of the day on Cyber Monday. And that is it. Once it's over, it's over. That discipline stops it cheapening the brand. So what do you think? What are you doing for Black Friday? Maybe it's nothing at all. And that's absolutely fine. If you've made a proper strategic decision that Black Friday is not for you. My God, flaunt it, push it. What you don't do is go quiet for Black Friday weekend. I want you to put your thumbprint on that message and say, We don't do Black Friday. We don't discount because we give you amazing value all day, every day. Here's what we're doing instead. So it's a really strong position honestly held. What isn't going to work, though, I won't be very pleased with is if you just go quiet and disappear. So make a real marketing point about not doing Black Friday if you're not going to. And what's not going to work is deciding on the Wednesday before Black Friday in a panic. Give it some thought. Get it into your marketing calendar for Q4. It's got the potential to be a really good money spinner. So what are you up to? What are you thinking? Why not reach out and let me know? Phil at buildyoursalon.com is my email address scrolling at the bottom of the screen right now. I love hearing from my salon owner friends anyway. I'd love to hear what your marketing plans are for Q4. How do you make it work if you're doing Christmas deals as well? It's really tough going from one promotion straight into another. So maybe one of them has to give. Maybe one of them we're just not going to do at all. Reach out and let me know. I love hearing from you. I love a little salon owner chat. Also reach out if you would like to be a guest on a future episode of the Build Your Salon podcast interview. I'd love to be talking to you about your success journey, about why you chose to open your business. I'm sure there's going to be something in there that my Build Your Salon podcast audience will absolutely love to learn. Just a few short days until I'm coming all over the internet again with another dose of my wise hour wisdom. And until then, take care.