Worldwide Salon Marketing

Do you choose your clients, or do they choose you because you’re ‘cheap’?

by Greg Milner on 06/10/09 at 12:05 pm

Couple of days ago a salon owner trying to get into the Inner Circle salon marketing & mentoring program was complaining to me that she ‘couldn’t put prices up because my clients won’t pay that sort of money’.

It begs a couple of worthwhile questions – and only you know the answers.

1) You choose your clients. So why do you insist on choosing the nickel and dime ones?

2) And why do you only provide ‘cheap’ services, if you want to attract expensive customers?

That old chestnut about ‘my clients won’t pay’ is a myth so ingrained it’s become gospel for so many salon & spa owners, for two reasons. One, they don’t value themselves, and two, it’s an excuse for failing to educate themselves on just what people will pay.

Encrusted with diamonds, these jeans sold for $1,000,000

(How many of your clients will bitch about paying your price, then blithely exit your shop and walk next door to shell out $300 for a pair of denim jeans? The Secret Circus Clothing Company sold a pair of diamond encrusted jeans for a million bucks. Jeans!)

There are good reasons the affluent are looking for new places to spend their excess cash. There was a time when the only place you could get a Louis Vuitton bag was at an exclusive boutique. Now, they’re likely to have been purchased at one of those giant discount stores, or on the internet. The democratization of exclusivity has by it’s very nature devalued the once-exclusive.

So the wealthy are actively looking for the next big thing. Young UK tailor Thomas Mahon’s English Cut on Savile Row charges and gets upwards of £3,000 for a single suit. Clients wanting the exclusivity that comes with a great story to tell are criss-crossing the Atlantic up to three times to visit his shop for fitting sessions, finally getting their new suit months later – and are grateful for it.

Are you undervaluing your services?

Are you failing to create up-market experiences your clients can and will aspire to?

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. He (sometimes) accepts private consulting clients.

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