I can predict the future of your business
I can predict your future! I can tell you exactly what is going to happen in your Salon – guaranteed. No I am not a Psychic, I am just a businessman who spends a lot of time thinking about Beauty Businesses like yours.
Here’s my prediction – “Customer are going to walk into your Salon wanting to do business with you!”
I hope you are not disappointed with my prophetic skills. But it is a fact that if you own a Beauty Salon, the chances are very high that on a daily basis prospective customers will walk into your Salon. Prospective Customers will also phone your Salon wanting prices and more information about who you are and what you.
If you and I know this to be 100% true then why is it that 99% of Salon Owner don’t have a well thought out plan of action to capture walk in client’s details and present them with a compelling, irresistible pre-made special offer for first time clients? This kind of plan can and should be created before a Salon even opens its doors!
Stop and think about this for a minute. If a prospect took the time and trouble to walk in, ask questions and get a treatment menu, it means that they are seriously interested in the services you have to offer. Why is it then that Salons let 90% of these highly interested prospects walk out the door without a booking?
The answer is simple. It is purely a lack of sales thinking and unpreparedness on the part of Salon Owners and Managers. With a little thought and preparation, any Salon can boost its bookings and sales figures by using this simple step by step plan of action with the accompanying ready-made tools.
I call it “The customer tour of the Salon.” The customer tour of the Salon is a simple but powerful educational – sales presentation that you control. It is a presentation that you have to create even before your first customer walks in through the door. The customer tour of the Salon is a 3-4 minute process that highlights who you are, what you do and how you do it. Here are a couple of principles to follow when putting your tour together.
- The tour must be written out in a detailed point form manner. Unless your unique tour is written out it hasn’t been thought through or perfected. If it isn’t written out you can’t pass it on to your staff and you can’t improve it!
- The tour must explain what you do for the customer and how you do it using language that focuses on the unique benefits the customer will receive by doing business at your Salon.
- Identify 3-4 stations or points that you will take your customer to inside of your Salon. (I.e. a wall with your staff qualifications and certificates, the steri cabinets in the treatment room etc…)
- At each point share 2-3 benefits the customer will receive as a result of doing business with you. Along the way, ask the customer pre-planned questions so that you can present her with the right offer at the end of the tour.
- Have a special offer for first time clients that will compel them to come in for a treatment. In other words book them in. You may need to have one special offer for nails, another for a basic facial, another for waxing etc…
- Collect the client’s details and hand her a treatment menu. Here is an important tip. Try not hand out treatment menu’s unless a client is willing to give you her name, surname, cellphone number and email address. If a client is not willing to give you her contact details it means one of two things. Your sales presentation sucked or she probably never intended to do business with you in the first place.
- Finish back at the reception desk and close the deal. Here’s how you do it. You have a pre-planned offer for first time clients and you say, “For first time clients like yourself we have an amazing deal… (Now you present the value added offer like you were taught at Salon Management Studio’s marketing training.) What suits you best, a booking during the week or on the weekend?”
Not every walk in client will book in right there and then. That’s not a problem for you because you have her contact details and you can knock her socks off by doing the following.
Immediately after the customer leaves, using Salon Studio CRM, send her a personalised sms thanking her for her visit and an email with the value added special offer you presented her. Remember that Salon Studio CRM allows you to create and store professional ready- made email templates and sms’s that you can use over and over again with very little fuss. This instant delivery of value added offers is not only appreciated by the customer, but it also makes you look extremely professional.
We would love to hear from you. Let us know if you found this post helpful. Salon Management Studio customers can go to the Marketing Toolbox inside Salon Studio CRM and download ready-made “walk in customer” promotions and templates now! The sooner you start using them the quicker you will see results.
Thank you, I have so many walk in clients and was wondering why I couldn’t get them to book a treatment. When I worked on the cruise liners that is how we were tought to market our spa and we were fully booked for the cruise by the end of the “open hour”. I’m going to give it my all and let you know.
Great stuff Claire. Let me know how it goes. I will be uploading another ready made template for walk in clients on Tuesday.