Steady income, steady growth: The Membership Revolution

Right now, there's a salon owner somewhere looking at next week's appointment book and feeling sick. They've had a bunch of cancellations, a couple of people have moved, now they've got a weird random Tuesday, which is completely empty. Stick with me and let's turn your salon into a predictable profit machine, shall we? Hello, hello, hello, my salon friend, 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. How's business? How's tricks? Are we rich yet? How's it panning out in February for you? I'm hearing some pretty good things, to be honest, and I think this might be the start of something good for 2025. And I think it's because there's change in the air. Now, I don't want to get too political. It's not my job to talk politics with you and it's not my job to change the game, my darlings. All I've ever wanted out of my career is to help you win with the cards you've been dealt. But whether you like it or not, there is change afoot. Whether you think that Mr. Donald Trump being in the White House is a wonderful thing, or like me, you find the man personally repugnant and abhorrent, what you have to admit is that change is coming. And the interesting thing, I think, with economics as a whole is that actually it's a psychology game. It doesn't actually matter what I think about Donald Trump and his cronies and all of the megalomaniacs running our social media platforms, for example. As long as there's enough people out there that think it's a good thing, guess what? It means that economically it's going to be a good thing. And I think part of the problem is that as an industry, we haven't dealt with change terribly well. We don't welcome change. We're not great at innovation. We kind of wait to be dragged into innovation by our product companies and our manufacturers. In fact, if you take hairdressing as an example, when we strip away the bit of technology that's come along in terms of a better hairdryer, strip away the fact that we've now got online bookings, the way that we do business hasn't changed very much in the last five years, 10 years, 20 years, maybe 50 years or more, as far as actually what goes on in the salon. And I think that's made us resistant to change. But let me tell you that change can be a wonderful thing.

Innovation can be exciting if you're in the steering of it. It can be a hugely positive experience. And I think that we need some change at the moment. I think that in our industry, as an economy, as the world, as a whole, I think we've been in a period of stagnation probably for the last five years. I think that we were enforced. We had enforced stagnation in terms of lockdown through Covid and not much has changed since then. I think we needed something to come along and shake things up. Now, as I've said, I don't particularly like the direction that some of those changes are coming from, but I do embrace the fact that we have change coming. And I think that we've been in a period of stagnation economically and in our industry for quite some time. I think that we've had very low growth. I think there's been too many small businesses coming along. There's been inefficiency and a lack of innovation for a long time. And I'm quietly hopeful that we're shaking some of those things off now. I'm quietly hopeful that things are going to be changing for the better for us. I think we might be emerging into a new phase of our economy. I think we might be ready for spring after all of these years of winter. That said, change brings with it a certain amount of anxiety. It brings with it a certain amount of uncertainty. And my job here today is to help you navigate that change without stressing out. If it feels like you're having a long, slow heart attack in your business, your Uncle Phil is here for you, my darlings. I'm here to help you through. And what we need in our businesses is some predictability. If it feels like everything's being thrown up in the air, if it feels like the earth is shifting underneath your feet, if it feels like you're enduring the aftershocks of COVID all these years later, then maybe it's time that we bring a bit of stability into our businesses. And how do we do that? Well, of course, we turn to my favourite topic on earth. We talk about salon memberships because salon memberships are not only an incredible way to bring innovation into your business. They're not only a fantastic way to stand out in a very crowded marketplace. And make no mistake, my darlings, this is a crowded marketplace. There are too many salon businesses out there, too many small salon businesses fighting for a finite number of customers. Not only can it help you stand out in a really positive way, not only can it bring back a bit of buzz into your salon and give you something positive to talk to your customers about,

but it can help bring some predictability too. And that predictability is what we're going to need. We need a foundation to build from. We need some slow, steady income that we can rely on week after week, month after month, because that gives us the confidence to spend where we need to. It gives us the confidence to grow our businesses. And also, let's not forget that just as much as you're craving some stability, just as much as you could do with a bit of predictability, the same is true of your customers as well. They're in the same economy. They're in the same world as you are. And some predictability of spend from them will be very welcome to you. But some predictability in their outgoings is probably going to be very welcome for them as well. So what we're creating in salon memberships is what we call the win-win. It's a great idea for your customers, nice predictable spend for them. And you get to bank on a certain amount of income week after week, month after month as well. So what are you waiting for? Why have we not got memberships in already? Where's the resistance? Because I never hear from customers that salon memberships are a lousy idea. People are so used to spending this way. If you have a look at your outgoings, I'll bet most of your outgoings are on predictable monthly subscriptions. Once you've taken away your rent or your mortgage, which at the end of the day is a predictable monthly expense as well, I'll bet most of what you're spending is on recurring expenditure. I bet it's things like your Netflix subscription. Or perhaps you've got a veg box which comes every week and that's going to be on subscription as well. Perhaps you're getting razor blades through the post. My goodness, I get a coffee subscription these days. I get all kinds of things on a recurring basis and yet there's this resistance to change in the salon industry. There's this resistance from salon owners. They think it won't work for them or the things we do are too bespoke. They're too individual, that people won't want to sign up for something which is the same week after week, month after month. But ultimately, let's go back to our veg box analogy. I don't cook the same things week after week, month after month. They don't send me the same ingredients week after week, month after month. And yet somehow they've managed to hit on a pricing model which works predictably throughout the year. And we could be doing that as well. We start by figuring out who our membership is going to be for. And that's the first part of my Membership's Made Easy training. Here's a short message on that. 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 Membership's 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 we need to figure out who we're building a membership for. And here's where everybody goes wrong. What they do is try and move their most profitable, most loyal customers onto a membership, onto a subscription. The thing is, if they're profitable, if they're reliable, if they're loyal, we can already bank on that spend to a certain extent. And actually all you're doing is moving them from one model of pricing onto another. And I don't think that's where memberships ought to be. In fact, I think memberships are best pitched at your good customers trying to turn them into great customers. What do I mean? Let's imagine there's a continuum in your business from one to ten. And let's imagine at number one are those customers that you barely ever see, or they come in once or twice a year, or they only come when you're advertising your last-minute cancellations with discounts on Facebook,

or they only come in when they've been bought a gift voucher from a loved one. Very little loyalty, and they're probably visiting other salons in between. Then at number ten, we have your most loyal, die-hard customers who would crawl over hot coals. They were the first back into the salon after lockdown was lifted. They're the ones that will bleed to death before they will cancel their appointments. Don't pitch your memberships at either end of that scale. You'll never turn those number ones into a loyal, profitable customer, and your number tens are already profitable. What we need to pitch our memberships at, I think, is our number sevens and eights. The ones that could do with coming in a little bit more frequently. The ones where you've got them on the beauty bed and you think, do you know what, if I just saw you a bit more frequently, we could get a much better result for your skin. Perfect for a salon membership. Those who set themselves a New Year's resolution that they're going to put themselves first, but by March, life has got in the way, the kids have got in the way, other things, other obligations have got in the way, and those fantastic intentions have gone by the wayside. Let's get them on a membership. Let's lock in those amazing habits. Anytime you've got a good customer, we can turn them into a great customer. That's who our memberships need to be pitched at. They've got the resource. They've got enough money to spend in the salon. We just need to get them into some much better habits. So don't pitch your memberships at people that are never going to be loyal. Don't pitch them at people that are already making you great profits. Pitch them at people that could be fantastic customers and watch your salon fortune start to turn around. Then, of course, the next step, once we've identified who our perfect salon memberships customer is going to be, well, the next step is to build a membership that's really, really tempting for them. Now, because people are craving some certainty, because it's going to get them into great habits, we've got really good reasons why somebody should be signing up for a salon membership, and we haven't even talked about discounting. Now, I don't necessarily think that your memberships need a huge discount. If we can price in some amazing benefits, if we can get that predictability of spend over to our customers, that's persuasive in itself. They don't need a discount as well. Now, it does need to make financial sense, okay? Even your most profitable customers are not going to sign up for a membership that's ultimately going to cost them more than pay as you go. But if we can demonstrate that it makes financial sense for a customer, and they're going to get all these extra benefits, and we're going to keep their amazing habits, which is going to get them a much better hair or skin result, now we've got something that's really, really tempting.

The other thing that tying in very tightly with a particular target customer does, it shows us the kind of membership we need to build. Does it need to be something built around value? Does it need to include some VIP benefits, for example? Perhaps we could offer them exclusive services, exclusive products, or exclusive time slots as part of our membership offering. So I hope that's got your juices flowing. I hope that's got you thinking about predictable income in a slightly different way. There's no need to be scared of it, my dears. I promise that your membership customers are going to turn into your very best customers and some of your favourites in no time at all. But what are you doing at the moment to navigate these tricky, interesting times? How do you feel that this year is going to pan out? I would love it if you could reach out and let me know. My email address scrolling at the bottom of the screen now, phil at buildyoursalon.com. Also reach out with your questions for my upcoming Q&A session. I love hearing from my salon owner friends anyway. Also reach out if you would like to be a guest on a future episode of the Build Your Salon podcast. If you've got an area of expertise that you would like to share with my customers, then please reach out. Or perhaps you'd just like to share your salon story. Sharing success stories is so inspiring for my listeners, and I'm sure they would love to hear yours. 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.