"How I increased my sales by 42%."

by Greg Milner on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Read on if you want to get the same kind of results, recession or not!

From time to time I get an email complaining that “all you do is talk about the salon success stories, but there are far more failures out there than successes, how come you never talk about them?”

Well, call me old-fashioned, but I’ve never actually been able to figure out what constructive use could be gained from hearing endless complaints and excuses for failure. The 80/20 rules holds good in all things, and in the salon & spa industry, just like EVERY other industry, 20% of the people will make 80% of the money.That’s just the way it is. Those stats have been immovable for decades, ever since the first studies were done in the 1950s. The ONLY choice you have is which group you will belong to, which side of the line you stand. In my business life, I align myself with the 20%, I look to them for inspiration, help, advice, mentoring – and ignore the 80% who complain ‘its the economy’, or “my customers are too mean’, or “my business is in a poor area”, or “my business is different…”.

So I’m going to continue feeding you all success stories, because they’re more valuable than stories of “how I failed because my miserable customers kept complaing about my prices so I kept discounting them and then the competition undercut me and eventually I went out of business…” Anybody can copy. Copy what works, or copy what doesn’t work. I figure it’s better to copy what works. Which brings me to a great ‘what works’ story. It comes from long-time Inner Circle member Michelle Weston of Northmead Beauty Therapy in Sydney.

How My Salon Website Brings MeÂ a Steady Stream of New Clients

Most salon websites are the usual ‘pretty’ brochure-style sites, with lots of nice graphics, moving pictures of gorgeous models, some text about how wonderful the salon is, and not much else. As an instrument of selling, they are virtually useless.

Michelle’s website, put together by Worldwide Salon Marketing, can hardly be called ‘attractive’ in the typical salon sense. But, combined with well-crafted pay-per-click advertising, copy designed to sell, and good search-engine-optimization, it is devastatingly effective in doing the ONLY thing that websites should do – generate leads and sales.

You can see for yourself how ‘ugly’ it is compared with most of the so-called competition. http://www.beauty-salon-parramatta.com/

Michelle Weston’s website is generating business worth over $250,000 a year

That’s okay with Michelle.

“My website is my pride and joy so I am happy for you to share “some” of those secrets with other members.

“We are getting around 240 hits a day on our website – that’s up by 47% on the same time last year – we are getting 2 or 3 free gift vouchers downloaded – but they will come in and use those vouchers, and then they’ll re-book because we market to them via their email address,” says Michelle.

According to Michelle, her re-booking rate isÂ 74%, but even ifÂ she’s converting only one of those clients per day into a long term client, that’s adding say, $1,000 a day to her annual revenue. Do the sums, and that’s around $250,000 a year in new business just from the gift vouchers downloaded off the website.

“I love that website, it’s my baby! Online sales will increase by a massive amount (we have done $300 in Gift Voucher sales online just today!)

Overall, with her website, Toolkit, coaching, Michelle’s business is up 42% July to October this year over last, her gift voucher sales are up 300%Â this year on last, and she’s well and truly on track to increase sales 08-09 over 07-08 by her target 50%.

“With most of my work now done for December and January well prepared, I will be stepping away from the business for the next month or so.Â (Can you believe a salon owner would be saying that 2 weeks before XMAS – never in my wildest dreams!!) The next couple of weeks will just see me watch how well my systems are working and hopefully counting the $$$ and just pick up any slack and loose ends!!! I will be away with my family on holidays until mid-January.”

Here’s the lesson: what YOU think about your website (indeed, about ANY of your marketing material) matters not a damn. It’s what your CUSTOMERS think, and how they act on what they see, that matters, not your opinion, or that of your friends, family or your pony-tailed website designer.

A post by Greg Milner

The odd idea, a bit of prodding, a nudge here and there, a little fun, and the occasional dose of brutal reality. Greg is co-founder and CEO of Worldwide Salon Marketing, a writer, direct response marketing consultant, specialist marketing systems adviser and coach.