Salon Memberships 101: Stability, Loyalty, and Profit

What if your clients wanted to give you money every single month and even loved you for it? Today we're unpacking the power of salon memberships and I'll show you why memberships aren't just smart, they might just be the most underrated power move in your salon business. 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 always. As we steam towards the end of April, my goodness, we're flying through this year, aren't we? How are you doing? How's April been for you? I'm hearing some very, very, very positive stories in my group coaching. I'm just so impressed and continually bewildered and bedazzled by the success of my salon friends and I love hearing your success stories. If you're having a good month, or even if you're having a bad one, why don't you reach out to your Uncle Phil and let me know? Phil at buildyoursalon.com. You know I love hearing from you anyway. But yeah, some good strong business results coming in. I don't know if it's because everyone's fed up with feeling gloomy, or whether it's because we are definitely into spring now with longer days and all those wonderful things, or whether it's because everyone's feeling a bit more social now that the sun's been out for a little while, or perhaps it's just coincidence. I don't know, but it seems that there's something in the air which is making people want to spend money with my salon owner friends and it brings joy to your Uncle Phil's heart. So what are we talking about today? Well, we're talking about predictability. I'm going to start with a simple truth which may resonate with you. I'm going to propose that a boring business is a wonderful thing. A business where you can rely on a certain amount of predictable income surely is the holy grail of the salon world. Surely that little bit of dull, as far as takings are concerned, is a superb place to be. Rather than these peaks and troughs. And so many salon owners ride this monthly rollercoaster of ups and downs, feast and famine, fully booked one week, tumbleweed the next. And I think we're missing out on a trick, because I think you can change that very, very easily. And that's where salon memberships come in. And I know it's one of my favourite topics. It's been a drum that I've been banging now for 10 years, believe it or not. And it's still the exception rather than the rule. Part of it, I admit, has been the lack of support coming from our salon software friends.

But gradually, slowly, there are memberships being built into salon software. And I know that there's a couple of very exciting launches coming later this year, too. And I've been very lucky to be consulting with one particular software company. And I'm thrilled that they finally, after all this time, started listening and they're doing a wonderful job. I started memberships because I was fed up with that rollercoaster. It didn't seem to matter how hard I was marketing. We had these wonderful months where everything was being taken care of and we were paying off debt. And then the next month we were running up overdrafts and it was exhausting. It's gruelling. It's a tiring and ultimately very unsatisfactory way of running a business. And the annoying thing was when we had a good month, we were busy. We were doing really well. And yet there was never the money to invest in the business. There never seemed to be enough for us to get ahead financially. I never knew when it was safe to expand the team or to invest in new opportunities. And it was really stifling our growth. And it was only when I had breakfast. I was at a breakfast networking meeting. Who the fuck thought breakfast networking was going to be fun for anybody? Certainly nobody in my world. You know, I'm a morning person. Don't get me wrong. But I don't want to speak to anybody before half past eight. Trust me. I need that three hours of caffeination and adjustment before I'm ready to face even my favourite people. But I was having a breakfast networking meeting and I was sat next to a guy who ran a gym. And unusually, it was an independent gym. It wasn't a chain. So this guy knew his business inside and out. And what occurred to me was that he could tell me with a relatively high level of certainty how much money he was going to be making next week, next month. Heck, even six months down the line, give or take some new members and some cancellations along the way. He had that stability in his business. He had boring takings. And I wanted that. So what did I do? I stole it and turned it into the first salon membership. And it's been my absolute joy to be midwife at the birth of thousands of salon memberships since. So what is a salon membership? Well, it's not a loyalty club, I can tell you that. And it's definitely not a discount club. In fact, if your Uncle Phil catches you building a discount membership club,

I promise I will tie you to the door and hit you with a wet mop until you see my way of doing things. A membership is essentially a recurring package where your client pays monthly in exchange for access to certain services or perks. And really to help you get to grips with what a membership is, I have a distinction that I make in my salon training, salon memberships training, which is the difference between a membership and a subscription. So a membership is like a gym membership, but for beauty services or hair or skin. And essentially it gives you open access. So we have hair memberships in my salon where you can have as many haircuts as you want for a year. So it's just like a gym. So you pay, you can turn up as much or as little as you want to. The alternative is that we have a subscription. And a subscription is a bit more like a magazine subscription where you pay a certain amount per month and then you get a defined benefit. You get a certain package of services the same month after month. And either way, we can call them memberships or you can call them subscriptions with your clients. But I think it helps you come up with some plans for your own membership if you understand the difference between the two. So some memberships lend themselves really nicely to some services and not others. So, for example, an unlimited haircut membership works really, really well. But you wouldn't want unlimited massage membership, for example, because you're going to be knackered and pretty unprofitable very quickly. So what's in it for the clients? Why do they love memberships? Well, it's super convenient for them. They don't need to budget for their visits because they're paying the same month in and month out. And there's also the opportunity for us to price in some bonuses or some priority access. Even those little extras can feel like a big win for a client and help them feel like they're getting that VIP experience. But the best thing, I think, is that they get better results because they're consistently visiting. And any time that you're in front of a client and you think, gosh, if I just saw you a bit more frequently, we could get an amazing result for your hair or an amazing result for your skin, that's the perfect opportunity for a membership. It puts them into brilliant routines and it positions you as part of their ongoing lifestyle. It's not just a luxury that they're going to cancel. What's in it for you? Well, of course, we've got that predictable, boring income. You know that a chunk of income is reliable every month before the month even starts. But also, we get to stand out in a crowded marketplace because even though I've been banging this drum for 10 years,

it's still relatively unusual to see a salon membership in a town. So you get to be the first in your town. Also, we see an increased level of client loyalty, much more loyalty than you would get from a stupid points card, which I don't think actually does anything apart from hide a discount. Your clients invested literally, they tend to stick around a lot longer. And also, they are getting better results, which is better for you as well. They stay longer, they're spending more, they're referring others. But ultimately, surely, we're here to get great results for our clients. And our membership clients tend to get the best results. But mostly, most importantly, in these times of huge uncertainty, you're no longer starting the month at zero. You've got that financial security. You've got that headspace to grow, to maybe invest in your space. You know, perhaps your salon needs a refit. Perhaps you've got the headspace now to finally just breathe. See, I told you boring was beautiful. Are you ready for some predictable in your salon business? Do you want to know the secret to steady salon income? I'm Phil Jackson, your queen of salons, your undisputed queen of salon memberships. And I've helped hundreds of salon owners just like you turn their businesses from a very spiky takings graph into something much more steady and predictable. My Memberships Made Easy program will help you stop chasing new clients and wasting your time on social media, turning your existing clients into more profitable raving fans who support your business even in the quiet times. My proven membership framework gives you everything you need. Ready-to-use membership templates, pricing strategies that actually work, even scripts for selling your Memberships by email and in person. The program's backed by my signature 90-day no-quibble guarantee. Take the program, take the bonus coaching call I'm including, and if you're not ready to launch your Memberships program at the end, I will coach you myself until you are. If you're ready to offer your clients something truly exceptional, ready to build that predictable stream of salon income, head to queenofmemberships.com forward slash podcast for a very exclusive rate on my best-selling program.

Head to queenofmemberships.com forward slash podcast. Let's get started, shall we? All on build your salon. So, OK, Uncle Phil, you've convinced us that a salon membership is a good idea. What do we include? Well, this is the fun bit, and it's super important to stay flexible with it as well, because we're going to test some stuff, and it may work and it may not, to be honest. And even though we do our research ahead, and I would always, always suggest that you go out to your customers and talk to them first, sometimes we launch something that just doesn't land. But in my hair salon, for example, we have unlimited blow-dry memberships or unlimited haircut memberships. In a skin clinic, you might decide that you're going to do a monthly facial membership. Or perhaps for a nail salon, you might do your fortnightly appointments included in membership too. Well, how about monthly bliss as part of your massage business? The structure is up to you. Just make it feel super valuable, super predictable, and ultimately very easy to explain. I think the acid test is that you should be able to explain your membership in just one sentence. If you're making it more complicated than that, it's going to be tough to sell, particularly if you want your team members selling for you. So how do we get started? Well, we just pick one service or one area of your price card for you to deliver consistently. Then we add in a little bonus, a little something that they're going to get extra for being a membership client rather than pay-as-you-go. And then we're going to put it behind a simple monthly fee. And there's not much more to it than that. I promise you, my Membership's Made Easy training is super easy to follow. And then we're going to offer it to the right customer. Now, here's where everyone goes wrong. Firstly, don't get too complicated. Don't build something that taps into multiple areas of your price card or is too hard to explain. And secondly, don't offer it to your very best customers. Your very best customers are already regular. They're already profitable. They're already loyal. I think there's a continuum in your business that runs from 1 to 10. If you imagine, at number 1, we've got those people that are just hunting for a bargain or they only come in when they've been bought a gift voucher and we don't see them in between.

They're probably using other salons for other services. Then at number 10, we've got your top customers, big spenders, achingly loyal. They were the first to come in after lockdown and they would crawl over hot coals before they would miss an appointment. Well, your Memberships are a great tool for your number 7s and your number 8s. When we've got a good customer and we want to turn them into a great customer, that's where your Memberships sit. And don't forget to limit the number of Memberships that are available. Create some scarcity. Because Memberships are always there, it's very hard to convince people to sign up now. But if you've only got a limited number of those Memberships available, we can make it feel exclusive. We can make it feel desirable. And we don't need to discount to make it attractive. So if you want to get off that feast and famine hamster wheel, if you're sick to death of riding the rollercoaster of client takings, if you want to build loyalty instead of always chasing those elusive new clients, if you want a boring business, if you want your salon or clinic to feel calm, grounded and solid, please think about getting Memberships in place. It could be the missing piece that brings that stability and growth to your business without the constant hustle. So what have I missed? Reach out and let me know. Please give this some thoughts. Reach out and let me know what you're going to build your first Membership on. Or what's the biggest challenge? What's standing in the way of your amazing Membership success? My email address, phil at buildyoursalon.com. I would love to have a conversation with you about this. And if you've had some success with Memberships, why not reach out anyway? I'd love to be interviewing you on a future episode of the Build Your Salon podcast. Just seven short days until I'm coming in your ears again with another dose of my Wise Owl wisdom. Next week, we're getting even more boring. We're going from chaos to calm. We're talking about systems for your business that actually work. And until then, take care. Sit down and see what's going on with the Queen of Salons. Hair, beauty, and more successful tips for business owners. All on Build Your Salon.