Engaging staff makes every day a good hair day

The Backstory

The Backstory
This 3 year-old salon is a new venture for an experienced owner/operator. The facility is beautiful, well-laid out, spotlessly clean and nearly fully staffed with experienced professionals. The owner is current on trends and techniques in hairdressing and is committed to continuing education in hair and salon management. 

The Challenges
Despite a seemingly great setup, the salon was not generating enough revenue to pay the bills and the owner’s salary. Upon the first in-depth consultation we discovered a number of issues. The owner perceived herself as a hairdresser, not a salon owner. As a result, she didn’t pay attention to the salon’s key indicators, did not take ownership of her sales numbers and took on too many low level duties that left her little time for management,  marketing and big picture thinking.  As the salon’s top producer, she was resentful that her stylists were not contributing to the salon’s new customer acquisition.

The Plan

• Transition owner from operator to CEO/management mentality

• Learn to pull, understand and analyze reports from salon POS software

• Delegate management duties to several staff members to give owner more
  time to manage and market

• Properly input client information into POS system to establish a more specific client    
  profile,  identify  new customers and establish an email database

• Create employee sales culture/ new client acquisition plan

• Engage and train stylists to participate in client acquisition/retention, maximizing  
  bookings and increase earnings

• Implement a formal referral program, giving stylists tools to increase their own  
   bookings

• Develop a regular training and teambuilding schedule

Create a sustainable marketing/outreach program, including:

• A more compelling marketing message

• An in-store promotional schedule designed to attract new clients

• A monthly newsletter program for client communication/loyalty                

•A  new customer welcome package

The Results
Owner fully engaged in the process and fostered a team approach to the salon’s success, creating competition and enthusiasm with her staff. Within one month of the launch of the marketing/referral program:

•Product sales increased by nearly 100%

•Staff average ticket increased by anywhere from 9-30 percent;
 staff average product ticket  increased from 15 to 65 percent

•Staff rebookings rose from 28.9 to 34 percent

Total cost of the program to the client included several hundred dollars in printing and
cost to revise website.