Who is the boss in YOUR salon?

Hello, Phil Jackson here from Build Your Salon, bringing you the tools you need to master to build the salon business you deserve, and my message for you today is that you need to remember who's boss and start doing business on your own terms. Hello and welcome. Do you ever feel that you are playing your fiddle to somebody else's tune all the time in your business? I'm hoping today's video is going to be very empowering for you and start to give you a little bit of managerial muscle to run the business the way that you want it run. I have just got back from San Diego. I landed about 24 hours ago. I was over there at a digital marketing conference trying to learn about the cutting edge marketing techniques that I can then bring to teach you in the salon industry. And by the way, guys, you are not spending enough on your business development. If all you're doing, as far as training is concerned, is investing in your ability to carry out services, you are missing a trick. You've got to be spending more. Anyway, that's not what this video is all about. I've had two people today contact me because they've seen on social media that I was in San Diego offering to cancel the appointments that I had with them because I would be too tired and too jet lagged from my journey. And I've said absolutely not because I am not suffering with any kind of jet lag. I was over in San Diego. It was a three day conference. I was in San Diego for five days and I'm feeling absolutely fine. Why is that? Well, the reason is that I don't make allowances for San Diego in my routine. So basically the whole of the time I'm in America, if I'm there, I'm very lucky I get to go two or three times a year. If I'm there on business purely, I do not adjust my clock. So that means that I'm going to bed at half past five San Diego time every single night. It means that I'm getting out of bed at half past midnight, maybe one o'clock in the morning, doing a couple of hours work, head to the gym at 3am. I'm eating at the times that I would regularly eat here in the UK. So it means when I get home, apart from being a little bit tired from the plane journey, I'm feeling absolutely fine and raring to go. I cannot afford two to three days of jet lag and feeling groggy and tired and not being productive. OK, that's not factored in to that five days that I have away so I can hit the ground running and get back to work as soon as possible. So why am I telling you all this? Am I telling you this just because I'm bragging that I've been to San Diego or to bully you? Into investing more in your business education? Absolutely not. I'm telling you because what I want you to start doing is being non-negotiable about some areas of your business.

You need to be a lot tougher about how it is that you carry out your salon work. I spend a lot of time on Facebook. It's how I get lots and lots of new customers. It's how I communicate best with my audience. It's how I find out about the things that you guys are worried about so I know what to produce information products on. It's how I know what to do the next video on, for goodness sake. It'll be something that I've read in a forum or a reply that somebody's given that I didn't agree to. This is my chance to help our industry. By the way, if you want to get in touch, head over to the Build Your Salon Facebook page. I would love to see you there. But I've been seeing quite a lot of people online who are steering their businesses in a very precarious way, literally by the opinion of one or two people. So here's what I think happens. I think that we open a salon with a really clear idea about the kind of business we want to build. I think we know what we want the salon to look like. We know what we want our pricing to be. We know the kind of customers we want to attract. We know the vibe. We know how we want the place to feel, how the experience should feel to our customers. But what I'm seeing online is people getting feedback from maybe one customer and making quite serious changes in the way they're carrying out their business. I had a whole discussion with a girl online. She said that she had a regular blow-dry client who came in, let's say, at 11 o'clock on a Tuesday every single week. And this lady had said actually it would suit her a lot better if the salon opened earlier and she could come in at 7 in the morning instead before the school run. And this girl was seriously considering changing the opening times of her salon for one customer. Now, bearing in mind this was a regular customer, absolutely spending a lot of money over the course of a year. But she was also very happily coming in on Tuesday at 11 o'clock every single week. It wasn't like she couldn't get an appointment that suited her at all. And I think seriously moving your entire salon strategy for one customer request is a big mistake. Let's say that blow-dry took her 30 minutes in the morning. It means she's also then sat around from 7.30 till 9 o'clock or she's got to try and mark it to fill that part of her utilisation as well. Big mistake. If you're going to make changes in your business and you absolutely do need to adapt with the needs of your customers, but don't do it for one person, do a survey across your entire clientele. Find out what the whole clientele would like and appreciate and what would suit them better.

It's the same with our members of the team. If you've built a salon with a particular way of doing business, if you've created this entire salon business on an ethos, you cannot steer away from that ethos because of the requests of your team. At the end of the day, they took the job knowing what your salon was about. You interviewed them knowing what your salon was about. You can't deviate from that strategy just because one person isn't particularly happy with it. So, absolutely listen to your customers, absolutely adapt to their needs, absolutely move your business on in a meaningful way every single year. But do it strategically, do it in line with the kind of business you want to run and for goodness sake, don't do it on a whim. I hope that's been useful to you. I hope you're feeling a little bit more empowered and a little bit more muscular in your management approach. I've given you a management workout today. If you've enjoyed the broadcast, please don't forget to subscribe. I do a broadcast like this every single week and I would hate you to miss out on the content that I'm sharing. If you've already subscribed, I will see you next week. If you'd like your help a little bit more up close and personal, check out the link in the description box. That will take you over to the booking page for my first ever live event. It's going to be a cracking day in September. I think it's September the 17th, but check the description. I may be lying to you. September in London, we're going to take on email marketing. We're going to take on Facebook marketing and we're going to take on Instagram for salons all in one day. There's early bird tickets available and some VIP packages available as well. I would love to see you there. Until then, take care.