Copyright: TX 6-180-770
Volume 8 Issue 01
January 22, 2012
January 22, 2012
Andrew Finkelstein, Editor
Email: Andrew@TheBeautyResource.com
Published Bi-Weekly
In This Issue
Editor's Note
Systems and Solutions
Tips and Techniques
Personal Reflection
Dear Industry Friend,
Just like the irresponsible Captain Franceso Schettino, who crashed his ship on the rocks and abandoned the sinking cruise liner while his passengers and crew scrambled to save their lives – salon owners who don’t pay professional attention to their business, are behaving recklessly too.
Ok, I admit a salon’s going out of business (slowly or suddenly) doesn’t make headlines like a cruise liner’s sinking, and its captain facing charges of manslaughter, nevertheless people’s lives can be dramatically impacted – the lives of staff and their loved ones.
Now that we’re a few weeks into the New Year, the curtain has closed on the drama of the holiday season and things in nearly every salon are back to “normal”.
And what’s “normal”? According to the pundits the new “normal’ is flat (43.6% of salons report their business was up or flat in 2011 vs 2010 Source: American Salon Online Reader Survey)
But when your salon business is flat - your profits usually aren’t.
Why? Because flat sales usually means declining profits…and no self-respecting salon business owner wants that.
What owners want is the opposite - they want more sales and more profits from those sales.
And for a salon to get more sales and profits it has to attract and keep more high quality clients.
Easier said than done because the salon has to stand out to attract them to come in and be attractive enough for them to come back.
In other words it has to standout on the outside and be outstanding on the inside.
So how do you do that?
Be sure to read this month's feature article "Your Salon's Secret Success Tool" and I’ll let you in on a secret that will help you.
Quotation: He that is good at making excuses is seldom good for anything else – Ben Franklin
Your Salon's Secret Success Tool:
A One Page Plan
It’s no secret that owning and operating a successful salon isn’t a walk in the park.Anyone who’s telling you different has to get their head examined.
But just like any other successful businesses in this world every successful salon started with a person’s dream - the dream was communicated to others who “bought into” it.
And their collective energies made the dream come true.
More than likely you have a dream about your salon, too. But in the daily grind of running the business, you may have forgotten that dream.
And if you did, then now is the time to resurrect it. And if you didn’t, now is the time to review it - using your heart, your mind and your imagination.
Why? Because you’re the leader, and your people are counting on you - because they want to be part of a successful salon - a salon that has direction - that’s “going somewhere” and they don’t want to be part of something that’s drifting - because something that’s drifting is listless and has no energy.
So you’ve got to give your salon energy and channel its power, so that you can transform your dream into a reality.
Remember you’re the leader, and leaders need to show their followers the “promised land”, to give them the road map on how, together, you’re going to get there.
The question then becomes - exactly how do I do that?
You do that by starting with a road map or plan.
Ok so you’re thinking - oh no not a plan!
- Plans are for big companies and we’re just a local salon business
- Plans seems so stogy and I feel like a “suit” when I try to create one
- I’m afraid I’ll be trapped by my plan - and I work best when I feel free
- I’ve planned before and nothing happened
- I planned but when I shared the plan with my team they thought I was smoking something.
- I really don’t know how to plan
- I could never achieve but a small fraction of what I planned
- I planned but then things got so busy I couldn’t execute on the plan
But I can tell you one of the biggest lessons I learned when operating a group of salons, and a lesson I followed my own salon business with was this: making a plan and using it is the only way to create a successful salon business.
But the plan has to be practical.
And practical means short - not some big fancy document that only would end up collecting dust.
No, it’s One PAGE! YES, One Page long - no nonsense here - who has time for that! I didn’t - you don’t.
There can’t be a wasted word in this plan…you want beef - not hamburger helper!
And it has to be SMART.
S - specific
M - measurable
A - actionable
R - results oriented
T - trackable
So what does this look like?
I’ll break it down for you. Your One Page Plan has only five parts to it.
- Your vision: describes what you want this salon to be in a few years.
- Your mission - describes why your salon exists
- Your objectives - lists the measurable results you want to accomplish this year.
- Your strategies - describes how your salon will achieve its objectives
- Action Plans - Lists the projects you’re going to do this year
Sound simple to create? It is - and I’ve never found a salon owner who after putting their mind to it couldn’t create a plan for themselves.
For example Salvatore Minardi creates a One Page Plan for his salon every year.
At the beginning of the year he meets with his eight person salon and reviews the plan with them - making sure to have everyone on the same page.
The results? Salvatore told me “instead of being paralyzed (you know how easy it is to become stuck with all the doom and gloom news we’ve had) he follows the plan which gives him “a purposeful course of action”.
And what does that purposeful course of action lead to? Salon sales and profits that have grown three years in a row.
Salvatore’s secret weapon is his One Page Plan. For a copy of Salvatore’s plan click here.
Want to get started with your own plan? Book yourself out for an hour, download the FREE TEMPLATE and start filling in the blanks.
Quotation: Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending – Maria Robinson
How’s this for counter intuitive.
Just as it seems that the world has turned digital the numbers show that direct marketing spending (which represents 52% of all marketing expenditures) increased in 2011 by 5.6%.
Savvy marketers understand the power of direct mail (postcards, letters) in order to:
- Generate Leads
- Promote Special Offers
- Follow Up with New Customers
- Announce Sales or Events
- Increase Name or Brand Recognition
And much more.
It’s only a penny. Come on..
What’s a penny anyway?
The postal worker laughed out loud when I said that the one cent increase in the cost of a regular stamp was “a lot”.
Postal Worker: Why it’s only a penny she replied.
Me: And a penny can be a lot…it just depends on how you look at it. On a regular stamp 44 cents is nearly 2.5%. Now while that may not seem like a lot think of it this way - I’m paying more for the same old thing.
Postal Worker: I get what you’re saying it’s just that I never looked at it that way.
Frankly, the one cent increase is not going to deter me from marketing with direct mail.
And I highly recommend that you look at using postcards and/or letters as part of your salon’s marketing strategy to get and keep more clients.
To Life!
Andrew
PS....Be sure to follow Busy Salons on Facebook: Click Here.
Andrew Finkelstein, President of the Beauty Resource, is a successful New York City-based entrepreneur, author, speaker, and coach who helps professional beauty businesses make a ton of money. Andrew's E-zine The Finkelstein Report is the beauty industry's #1 marketing resource with free articles, marketing tools, and valuable advice for salons and day spas owners. E-mail Andrew at Andrew@TheBeautyResource.com, or call him at 212-831-2421 x202.
What’s a penny anyway?
The postal worker laughed out loud when I said that the one cent increase in the cost of a regular stamp was “a lot”.
Postal Worker: Why it’s only a penny she replied.
Me: And a penny can be a lot…it just depends on how you look at it. On a regular stamp 44 cents is nearly 2.5%. Now while that may not seem like a lot think of it this way - I’m paying more for the same old thing.
Postal Worker: I get what you’re saying it’s just that I never looked at it that way.
Frankly, the one cent increase is not going to deter me from marketing with direct mail.
And I highly recommend that you look at using postcards and/or letters as part of your salon’s marketing strategy to get and keep more clients.
To Life!
Andrew
PS....Be sure to follow Busy Salons on Facebook: Click Here.
Andrew Finkelstein, President of the Beauty Resource, is a successful New York City-based entrepreneur, author, speaker, and coach who helps professional beauty businesses make a ton of money. Andrew's E-zine The Finkelstein Report is the beauty industry's #1 marketing resource with free articles, marketing tools, and valuable advice for salons and day spas owners. E-mail Andrew at Andrew@TheBeautyResource.com, or call him at 212-831-2421 x202.
Author's note: You're welcome to use this article as content for your own e-zine or web site! Just make sure the article remains complete and unaltered (including author information and copyright line at the end), and send a copy of your reprint to Andrew@TheBeautyResource.com.
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