Hate selling retail? Let AI do this instead

Every appointment you carried out this week had more potential. You left money on the table. It was worth more than you charged. Let me show you where the money went, and how to capture it next time. There is an uncomfortable truth about our industry that nobody wants to say out loud. There are too many salons. There are too many salon professionals. Not everywhere, not in every market, but across the industry, across hair and beauty and aesthetics, there are more businesses chasing the same number of clients than the market can keep fully booked. That's just reality. Which means if you're waiting for a full column to save you, you might be waiting for a very long time. You see, the lever isn't how many clients you actually see, it's how much you can actually make from each client that you do see. And I want to tell you something about how I use AI, because it's probably not what you expect. It's not about doing things for me. I've tried that, and you get lots of generic output that sounds like it was written by a committee. Where AI is fantastic is it gets you to think differently, to challenge your assumptions, to say, what am I missing here, and actually get a useful answer. And once you start applying that to revenue, specifically to the question of where money is being left on the table, the answers start to get really, really useful. I'm Phil Jackson, your queen of salons, coming all over the internet with another dose of my Wise Hour wisdom, and I'm here today to stop you leaving money on the table, my darling, because you're doing it on every single booking. And it's not because you're doing anything wrong, it's because nobody's showed you where to look. So today, I want to show you four places that AI can help you find the extra money hidden in every single one of your appointments. First up, you know this feeling. It's a Tuesday afternoon, your column's pretty busy, and then a text arrives. It's a last-minute cancellation, and suddenly there's a two-hour hole in your day and £100 missing from your week. And the instinct, and what most salon business owners do, is chuck something on Instagram saying, Last-minute availability, DM me to book. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it works, but a huge discount. Sometimes it makes your premium salon feel like you're in some kind of clearance sale, and it pulls focus away from the client who's actually in front of you.

So what can we do instead? Well, a smarter version of this would be something like an AI-powered waitlist, so that when a cancellation lands, the system can send a message to the first few people on your list, not a desperate broadcast to the whole of the fucking internet, a little personal note saying that I've just had an opening for Tuesday at 2pm. Would you like to take it? It feels like a VIP heads-up, not a fire sale. And then the AI can work through that list until the slot fills. Without you making a single phone call, that gap gets filled, you stay present with your existing clients, and we're not discounting to the great big wide world. A really simple, low-tech version of this would be something like a WhatsApp group, but then you've got to be careful about how many people you're messaging at once. Maybe we could make the most of WhatsApp's labelling feature. If you've got WhatsApp business, you can label people on your WhatsApp contacts so that you're only messaging people who are under a certain label. So you're only messaging a certain number of people at a time. But if you can set up a little AI system to do this, well, so much the better. I don't think, or I haven't heard, of a salon software system that does this. It's something that you can ask AI for help with, though. It might involve you putting your client details into a little spreadsheet so people sign up to hear about these last-minute opportunities. You give AI the spreadsheet and the contact details, and it just works its way through until it gets a yes. Most salon owners have a retail shelf that barely earns its space. And it's not because you've chosen crappy products, you didn't, but it's because recommending those products in the moment feels awkward. You've just spent a couple of hours on someone's hair or a couple of hours getting someone's skin feeling fantastic. The last thing you want to do is round it off with something that feels like a huge sales pitch. So what do you do? Nothing. And the client walks out without any products, which would actually maintain what you've just done. And then when their skin isn't so great in a few days' time or their colour fades faster than it should,

they don't think, oh, I should have brought that conditioner. What they're thinking is, maybe they didn't do quite as good a job as I thought. The fix is we could be using AI to take you out of the selling entirely. An AI follow-up sent straight after the appointment or the day after the appointment, not from a generic marketing system, but a personalised note based on what the customers actually had done, can do the recommending for you. Something like, I loved having you in yesterday to keep that colour looking sharp. Here's exactly what we used. And here's the link where you can get it. Well, it lands when they're thinking about their hair. It lands when they're thinking with that first wash. And it feels like proper aftercare rather than a sales pitch. And I'll bet that it converts at a rate that would surprise you too. Or what about using AI to get people to add services on? So this happens either in the consultation or even before it. So when a client books in for a particular service that an extra treatment would genuinely transform, well, instead of suggesting it in the moment when the client's in the chair or in the room, we could be doing that ahead of time. AI-powered booking systems can present these upsell options before the client arrives, either during the online booking process based on their service history. So it's not a generic pop-up. It's tailored to that particular client. Or perhaps they could be going out with their appointment reminder. Now, the reason I want this done ahead of time, and if your salon software doesn't do this, nag them and ask AI how you can do this yourself, is because people lead busy lives. And I've seen so many opportunities wasted in salons when actually a client would have been perfectly willing to take an upsell to take that add-on treatment that would genuinely enhance their experience. But they say something like, I wish I'd known I've got to pick the kids up. Or I wish I'd known I've only put an hour on the car. So it's either they're not saying no because they didn't want it. They're saying no because they just can't make it work in their day. With a day or two's notice or at the point of booking, well, then it's a relevant suggestion that I can take action on and I can make it work with my schedule as well. Last up, what about using AI to start stepping in when we notice clients are drifting away? Those regulars who used to come in every six weeks and then they pushed it to seven and then eight and then ten. You notice it, but you're busy.

You keep meaning to follow up. Six months have gone by and the client has drifted away. Every week, someone is delaying their appointment. Every week, that's income that you will never recover. And trust me, if you want to get busier, if you want more money going through your business, you don't need any extra clients at all. We just need to make sure that frequency of visit doesn't start to drift. So what about asking ChatGPT or Claude to help you build an AI retention system that tracks those booking patterns and when someone goes past their usual window, it just gives them a nudge. Not a bulk email that's going out to everybody. Not some generic piece of crap that your salon software system's put together. Something that sounds personal. We're just thinking of you. It's been a little while. I've got a couple of slots next week and I know you are ready for a visit. It keeps it quiet and warm without feeling pushy. And a lot of clients will come back simply because you've noticed that they've started to drift away. AI does the noticing. You do the stepping in and the personal touch. So four ways you can be using AI with every single appointment. That wait list, I think, is particularly powerful. Those retail recommendations are fab. Add-ons, but make sure we're stepping in before a client has pulled up and parked her car. Or that system that stops people drifting away. So we never have to worry about lost client marketing. I want you to learn how to use AI practically in your business. And I would love to be helping you on that journey. Head over to philjackson.coach for details of my AI By Your Side program. Every month I release a couple of walkthroughs that help you with money or marketing or getting more done in your day without overwhelm using AI as an amazing tool, which you know it could be too. I'm going to put that link in the description as well. Are you using AI in your business? Why not reach out and let me know my email address scrolling at the bottom of the screen right now. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. I'd love to be sharing your story with my Build Your Salon gorgeous podcast listeners. So why not reach out and we could maybe schedule an interview where I can share your story with my gorgeous tribe. Just a few short days until I'm coming all over the airwaves with our last episode of May. And until then, take care.