I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about business. He just couldn’t figure out why he was not busy. He had mailed out to people, done radio, TV, newspaper magazine even advertising on the screen at the local movie theater. He had written articles that were published in his trade journal and even done interviews with reporters. But he still couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t busy.
Here is what I told him.
There were two people of equal means that were getting ready to open up a restaurant. Both of them had a concept for a family friendly high end dining restaurant. Both of them had all of the details of the restaurant figured out, everything from staffing right down to portion costs. They were both ready to start building and open. Everything was calculated right down to the penny. The only thing still left to do is look for a great location to open up.
They both did much research and decided on a location. They were in different towns, but both towns were very similar.
Day one and the restaurant opens its doors for the first time. Both owners are 110% sure their restaurant will be successful, otherwise they wouldn’t have opened it. One of the restaurants is fully booked on the first day and pretty much every day after that. The other has a few people for the grand opening and customers slowly trickle in for the next week or two.
The owner of the slow restaurant starts to panic so he starts spending money on advertising, promotion, magazines, newspapers. He even invites the mayor to come in for a free meal. He does coupons, discounts, and charity events.
The other restaurant does not spend one dime in advertising, the dining room is always full, the customers are always happy and the servers always get big tips.
Six months down the road the first restaurant is going strong. The slow restaurant never really got off of the ground and now is closed.
How could you have two equal restaurants in two almost equal places and one thrives and the other dies?
Let’s go back to before the restaurant is even opened. Both owners had confidence that their place would be successful. That is the first thing you need is confidence.
One restaurant owner decided to put his restaurant in a town with higher income families with an average of 2.2 children. They were mostly busy home owners with lots of social commitments. The schools were top notch and there was ample parking.
The other restaurant owner opened up his restaurant in a town where the people were hungry.
You see, the best place to put a restaurant is in the middle of a bunch of hungry people.
You may have tried advertising your services in a monthly coupon mailer or the newspaper. You may have tried to get your clients to send you their friends. You may have even tried entering nail contests and writing letters to the trade magazines.
But have you tried marketing your services to people that want them?
Who gets their nails done?
Bank Tellers
Retail Sales People
Food Servers
Entertainers (ie. Strippers) You may have an ethical problem with this one, but you would be surprised about what great clients they make. They never miss appointments and they tip extraordinarily well.
Real Estate Agents
I would be willing to bet that at least 50% of the people that go to a nail tech regularly are not satisfied. They are looking for a change, but the search to find someone new is just not worth it.
Call the HR department of any large higher end retailer and offer to give them as many 20% off coupons as they need to be put in the next cycles pay envelopes or handed out at the next sales meeting. You will be giving them the opportunity to create good will with their employees and you may just end up with a more business then you can handle.
Do the exact same thing at every bank, grocery store, restaurant, real estate agency and yes, strip club.
You will not be able to handle the business you get, be sure to have two or three other nail techs in mind that would honor the coupon to get a new customer. You will probably be so busy that you will need to shut off your cell phone and put a message with another nail techs name and number to refer to because your book is full.
Welcome to Hungry Town!
Friday, November 30, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
I added a little gadget called Twitter to the blog. It is a couple lines of text that will say what I am up to at that moment. I hope you like it.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
How is the economy doing?
I thought it was doing pretty good. I hadn’t really seen any problems. I know housing prices are in decline. I heard that high risk mortgages were seeing an increase in defaults. But that is to be expected. When you buy a house and an expert tells you that you can afford it, you believe them. But then in a few years your rate adjusts and you payment goes up a few thousand dollars you’re in trouble.
Then I heard that there is a marked increase in defaults on people who have the highest credit scores. That made me take notice.
I went to the mall for the first time since Christmas the other day. I noticed a few stores were boarded up. A few big stores. This mall is what I would consider to be the most successful in town, is now starting to lose tenants. There were clearance sales everywhere and more stores going out of business. I also noticed a big increase in aggressive sales people. In one sunglass store the sales person kept steering me back to the store brand when I told him I just was not interested in it. I imagine that he was told to do that because the store makes a better margin on those products. Oh and he wouldn’t leave me alone for a second. Every time I picked something up he started to say something about it and offer an alternative in the store brand. Problem was the store brand just did not have any styles I liked. We didn’t buy anything there.
I counted three stores that we used to shop in that were either closed or going out of business. There were six or seven others that had already closed.
I haven’t heard that it has been slow for salons, our business hasn’t slowed down. But what is coming next. Is the mall a sign of what is to come for Salons and Day Spas? Time will tell. Perhaps it is time to start thinking about new ways to market your services. How about a gel manicure and a gel pedicure?
Then I heard that there is a marked increase in defaults on people who have the highest credit scores. That made me take notice.
I went to the mall for the first time since Christmas the other day. I noticed a few stores were boarded up. A few big stores. This mall is what I would consider to be the most successful in town, is now starting to lose tenants. There were clearance sales everywhere and more stores going out of business. I also noticed a big increase in aggressive sales people. In one sunglass store the sales person kept steering me back to the store brand when I told him I just was not interested in it. I imagine that he was told to do that because the store makes a better margin on those products. Oh and he wouldn’t leave me alone for a second. Every time I picked something up he started to say something about it and offer an alternative in the store brand. Problem was the store brand just did not have any styles I liked. We didn’t buy anything there.
I counted three stores that we used to shop in that were either closed or going out of business. There were six or seven others that had already closed.
I haven’t heard that it has been slow for salons, our business hasn’t slowed down. But what is coming next. Is the mall a sign of what is to come for Salons and Day Spas? Time will tell. Perhaps it is time to start thinking about new ways to market your services. How about a gel manicure and a gel pedicure?
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Now getting to the point
During the next 30 days scrutinize every commercial building you walk into. Look at the floor, look at the tables and displays. Think about them from the point of view of a customer. Look at things you would not normally look at like the light switches and the lines in the parking lot.
I believe these are the things that subconsciously create the feeling of a business. These are not the things that you normally see. Not the obvious things like the products on the shelves or the pictures in the menu. This would be the ketchup on the corner of the menu or the dust around a box on a shelf.
After your 30 days are up, go into your salon and look for the same things and fix them. Take about four hours and just walk around, fixing everything. If there is a greasy fingerprint on the light switch that has been there for years, wipe it off. If there is a piece of paper in the parking lot, don’t just walk by it. Pick it up. If there is a light bulb that is out in the bathroom, put a new one in.
After your cleaning session, pay very close attention to your clients attitudes. I would bet that everyone that comes in will be somehow magically happier, more relaxed and more friendly. Then raise your prices. Guess what, there is no one else that is doing this kind of thing.
Congratulations you have just become one of top salons in your town.
Now all you have to do is keep it up and never let it get away again.
I believe these are the things that subconsciously create the feeling of a business. These are not the things that you normally see. Not the obvious things like the products on the shelves or the pictures in the menu. This would be the ketchup on the corner of the menu or the dust around a box on a shelf.
After your 30 days are up, go into your salon and look for the same things and fix them. Take about four hours and just walk around, fixing everything. If there is a greasy fingerprint on the light switch that has been there for years, wipe it off. If there is a piece of paper in the parking lot, don’t just walk by it. Pick it up. If there is a light bulb that is out in the bathroom, put a new one in.
After your cleaning session, pay very close attention to your clients attitudes. I would bet that everyone that comes in will be somehow magically happier, more relaxed and more friendly. Then raise your prices. Guess what, there is no one else that is doing this kind of thing.
Congratulations you have just become one of top salons in your town.
Now all you have to do is keep it up and never let it get away again.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
How to fire a client in 67 easy steps!
Lets start the day with a story…
Yesterday I was in Las Vegas packing up during the last 10 minutes of the Las Vegas Hair and Nail Show, when a nail tech approached the booth. She said “I’m the one that talked to you on the phone.” Great… How are you doing, are you having fun at the show? I said.
Well come to find out she was having challenges with the product. Stress cracking down the middle, Pocket lifting, nails breaking and just falling off.
I was thinking that to have all of these kind of problems is very uncommon, unique even. I couldn’t remember anyone that had this many problems all at the same time.
So I said well your situation is unique, but I am sure we can find a solution for you. So I started to ask questions like, tell me how you prep the nail or how you apply the base. She interrupted me and said I apply the product exactly how you told me to. So I asked her about what kind of dehydrator she was using. She interrupted me again and said I only use your stuff. Then she said I was lying to her because she knew lost of people that were having exactly the same problems as her. So I asked who? And why I hadn’t heard from any of them. After all the phone number is printed on all the bottles and I had never heard from anyone that had as many problems as she did. She named someone who I was familiar with but as far as I was aware was not having the same kind of problems. She said I was lying.
I told her she could sit down and we would do a class with her to go over the proper application steps. So she sits down and we get started. We spray on the hand sanitizer and get the file ready when she says, well you aren’t doing a nail on me. Then we say well do you want us to do one on a tip? She says no you have to find something else….
Ummmm…. OK, what would you like us to do? She then gets up and starts to walk away, I say we can help you out. She keeps on walking and just mumbles something like… It has only been two months and we will see what happens.
After she left I started to recall our telephone conversation from two months ago. There were several steps she was doing that were just plain wrong. She skipped several important things and she was using a UV lamp that we have tested and does not properly cure our product. But she still insisted that we were ruining her life because she was not having success.
What more can we do if someone will not take our advise or even take the time to sit and have a nail put on.
….
I think that was the most confusing, and one of the most frustrating few minutes I have ever experienced.
What do you do when a client misses appointments without calling, shoves paperclips and other assorted items under their enhancements, picks constantly and always tells you they are not happy but they keep coming back?
Fire them.
Here’s how…
Start a policy of no shows and hang it on your wall. If a client misses an appointment without 24 hours notice tell them they must pay for that missed appointment in order to schedule another one. In other words do not schedule another appointment for them unless they pay for the one they missed. Let them know that you don’t charge to do nails, you charge for your time, weather they are there or not.
Start a policy that if there are more then three broken nails, you charge for a full set instead of a fill.
Or just straight out let them know that you cannot take them any more and refer them to someone else that might be able to accommodate their hectic lifestyle.
Firing a client is never easy but trust me, there are some people that no matter what you do they will never be happy. It is best to identify these people as soon as possible and send them on their way. There is no amount of money that is worth being abused.
Yesterday I was in Las Vegas packing up during the last 10 minutes of the Las Vegas Hair and Nail Show, when a nail tech approached the booth. She said “I’m the one that talked to you on the phone.” Great… How are you doing, are you having fun at the show? I said.
Well come to find out she was having challenges with the product. Stress cracking down the middle, Pocket lifting, nails breaking and just falling off.
I was thinking that to have all of these kind of problems is very uncommon, unique even. I couldn’t remember anyone that had this many problems all at the same time.
So I said well your situation is unique, but I am sure we can find a solution for you. So I started to ask questions like, tell me how you prep the nail or how you apply the base. She interrupted me and said I apply the product exactly how you told me to. So I asked her about what kind of dehydrator she was using. She interrupted me again and said I only use your stuff. Then she said I was lying to her because she knew lost of people that were having exactly the same problems as her. So I asked who? And why I hadn’t heard from any of them. After all the phone number is printed on all the bottles and I had never heard from anyone that had as many problems as she did. She named someone who I was familiar with but as far as I was aware was not having the same kind of problems. She said I was lying.
I told her she could sit down and we would do a class with her to go over the proper application steps. So she sits down and we get started. We spray on the hand sanitizer and get the file ready when she says, well you aren’t doing a nail on me. Then we say well do you want us to do one on a tip? She says no you have to find something else….
Ummmm…. OK, what would you like us to do? She then gets up and starts to walk away, I say we can help you out. She keeps on walking and just mumbles something like… It has only been two months and we will see what happens.
After she left I started to recall our telephone conversation from two months ago. There were several steps she was doing that were just plain wrong. She skipped several important things and she was using a UV lamp that we have tested and does not properly cure our product. But she still insisted that we were ruining her life because she was not having success.
What more can we do if someone will not take our advise or even take the time to sit and have a nail put on.
….
I think that was the most confusing, and one of the most frustrating few minutes I have ever experienced.
What do you do when a client misses appointments without calling, shoves paperclips and other assorted items under their enhancements, picks constantly and always tells you they are not happy but they keep coming back?
Fire them.
Here’s how…
Start a policy of no shows and hang it on your wall. If a client misses an appointment without 24 hours notice tell them they must pay for that missed appointment in order to schedule another one. In other words do not schedule another appointment for them unless they pay for the one they missed. Let them know that you don’t charge to do nails, you charge for your time, weather they are there or not.
Start a policy that if there are more then three broken nails, you charge for a full set instead of a fill.
Or just straight out let them know that you cannot take them any more and refer them to someone else that might be able to accommodate their hectic lifestyle.
Firing a client is never easy but trust me, there are some people that no matter what you do they will never be happy. It is best to identify these people as soon as possible and send them on their way. There is no amount of money that is worth being abused.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
What else do you do?
I know you do nails, but what else do you do?
How long do you spend at work when you are not doing nails?
What does your station look like, what does your bathroom look like?
How long each day do you spend creating a clean, comfortable, relaxing, happy place for your clients.
How long do you spend between clients cleaning and sanitizing your station and your implements?
What do you charge for a set of nails?
Think about that tonight and come back tomorrow for something else to think about.
How long do you spend at work when you are not doing nails?
What does your station look like, what does your bathroom look like?
How long each day do you spend creating a clean, comfortable, relaxing, happy place for your clients.
How long do you spend between clients cleaning and sanitizing your station and your implements?
What do you charge for a set of nails?
Think about that tonight and come back tomorrow for something else to think about.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Tips
Would you be willing to drop your prices to $0.00 and work only for tips? Think about that for a while.
Would you actually be willing to give your services away for free, without the expectation for payment? What would happen if you did?
Would your income increase or decrease.
Tell all of your clients that you are no longer charging for your services and will now only be working for tips.
Would your business change, would you do anything different?
Think about that tonight and come back tomorrow for something else to think about.
Would you actually be willing to give your services away for free, without the expectation for payment? What would happen if you did?
Would your income increase or decrease.
Tell all of your clients that you are no longer charging for your services and will now only be working for tips.
Would your business change, would you do anything different?
Think about that tonight and come back tomorrow for something else to think about.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Master Nail Technician
Are you a “Master Nail Technician”? Or even a “Grand Master” or how about a “Super Grand Poobah Master Squared”?
Thank about what that means for a second. Does it mean that you are in the top 1% of your field or does it mean you went to a couple of classes 10 years ago. Think about what it should mean.
If you don’t have an esteemed title, what do you think you should have to do to get one? What do you think you should have to do to keep the title? How do you think you should run your business if you are a "Master Nail Technician"?
Think about that tonight and come back tomorrow for something else to think about.
Thank about what that means for a second. Does it mean that you are in the top 1% of your field or does it mean you went to a couple of classes 10 years ago. Think about what it should mean.
If you don’t have an esteemed title, what do you think you should have to do to get one? What do you think you should have to do to keep the title? How do you think you should run your business if you are a "Master Nail Technician"?
Think about that tonight and come back tomorrow for something else to think about.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Too Long
It has been too long.
Five months since my last post. I need to do this more often. There are so many things going on it is really crazy. Unfortunately it has taken me away from the blog.
The new building is seven months behind schedule, but we can see the end of the tunnel. Just a few more weeks and we will be all moved in.
Carol has done a great job with our UK office. It is up and running and will be in full service very soon. Look for us at several shows in the UK this year!
Issac, our new distributor in Canada is doing a great job giving all kinds of support in both French and English to our friends up north.
We have been to the Emmys, the Golden Globes and we have an invitation to the Oscars.
Wow, it cant get much better than that. We are having so much fun making great products and helping nail techs to be truly successful.
2007 is starting out to be an amazing year. I hope to be writing in 2008 with stories of even greater success.
We have a new web portal for technical support and will soon be adding all sorts of new features for registered users. Our new shopping cart is up and running, hopefully we will get the pictures posted up there very soon.
We are putting the final touches on our new instruction video. It will be released in the next few days.
We have just finished the requirements for a Gelousy Master Gel Technician certificate program and will be offering classes all over the country soon.
Of course we have several new products that will be coming in 2007.
Thank you for all of your past support, we know you will be very excited with all of the new stuff we have planed for this year. And... yes I will get better at keeping you posted on this blog.
Hope to talk to you soon or see you at an upcoming Gelousy event.
Take care and happy nails!
-Erick
Five months since my last post. I need to do this more often. There are so many things going on it is really crazy. Unfortunately it has taken me away from the blog.
The new building is seven months behind schedule, but we can see the end of the tunnel. Just a few more weeks and we will be all moved in.
Carol has done a great job with our UK office. It is up and running and will be in full service very soon. Look for us at several shows in the UK this year!
Issac, our new distributor in Canada is doing a great job giving all kinds of support in both French and English to our friends up north.
We have been to the Emmys, the Golden Globes and we have an invitation to the Oscars.
Wow, it cant get much better than that. We are having so much fun making great products and helping nail techs to be truly successful.
2007 is starting out to be an amazing year. I hope to be writing in 2008 with stories of even greater success.
We have a new web portal for technical support and will soon be adding all sorts of new features for registered users. Our new shopping cart is up and running, hopefully we will get the pictures posted up there very soon.
We are putting the final touches on our new instruction video. It will be released in the next few days.
We have just finished the requirements for a Gelousy Master Gel Technician certificate program and will be offering classes all over the country soon.
Of course we have several new products that will be coming in 2007.
Thank you for all of your past support, we know you will be very excited with all of the new stuff we have planed for this year. And... yes I will get better at keeping you posted on this blog.
Hope to talk to you soon or see you at an upcoming Gelousy event.
Take care and happy nails!
-Erick
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)