Salon Business – It’s not the SEX that sells, it’s the EXPERIENCE…
by Greg Milner on 29/01/10 at 10:03 am
Sydney Biddle Barrows - the 'Mayflower Madam'. WSM Academy members will be receiving her best-seller 'Uncensored Sales Strategies' as part of their continuing education in business success
The woman in this picture hardly fits the stereotype of the average brothel madam. But that’s exactly what New Yorker Sydney Biddle Barrows was, before she re-invented herself as one of the best-selling business authors, talk-show guests and in-demand corporate trainers of all time.
Between 1979 and 1984 when it was shut down by the cops, Barrows’ notorious, high-priced New York escort service Cachet was host to some of America’s best-known industrialists, financiers and lawyers.
These titans of industry paid top-dollar for Cachet’s services because they were buying the experience of being guests at the best-run, most professionally-organized – and by far the most expensive – brothel in North America at the time. If all they’d wanted was the basic commodity common to all brothels, they could have had that for a fraction of the price everywhere else.
So what has this got to do with your salon business or your spa business? For 99% of the owners of salon and spa businesses, the answer will be ‘nothing’, and few will read past this next full stop.
But that’s okay with me. And I’m sure it’ll be okay with the elite members of the new WSM Academy for the true entrepreneurs among our large Inner Circle salon & spa membership. Because it’s the Academy members who’ll soon be receiving – among other goodies – a copy of Sydney Biddle Barrows’ new best-seller
“Uncensored Sales Strategies – the XXX-Rated Secrets”
co-authored with one of the world’s best business and sales strategists, Dan Kennedy. If you want to know how to create a true experience from what is little more than a commodity (hint #1: think haircuts, or facials, not just sex-for-sale) then this is required study – and fun reading – for anybody serious about creating something that customers clamor for, rather than merely paying for.
Worldwide Salon Marketing webmaster Vanessa Goh with just part of the rich library of audio CDs, books and videos our new Academy members will be receiving throughout the year as part of their elite training in entrepreneurship
But for Academy members – those long-term Inner Circle members who ‘get’ the basics of direct response marketing, who understand what business they’re actually in (hint #2: they’re in the marketing business, not the ‘beauty’ business), it’s just the beginning. Quite apart from the four flagship Academy entrepreneur training seminars scheduled for Sydney (twice) Melbourne and the Gold Coast beginning on March 9 (in Sydney), we’ll be delivering to Members some of the best business and ‘outside-the-square’ material sourced from all over the world.
(Among them, a copy of the 8-CD audio book ‘Made to Stick’ by brothers Chip and Dan Heath, in my view the most insightful and brilliantly-crafted books every written on the subject of what makes some ideas ‘stick’ in the mind, while most fail miserably to gain traction, and die an early death.)
To those whose eyes glaze over at the mere thought of more (or any) ‘education’ I can only say this: to quote the late Jim Rohn, “poor people have big TVs. Rich people have big libraries.”
Like gravity, it is a Law of Nature that success in business comes to those who know more than their competition, and that includes knowing more about how to implement any new-found information.
I have more than once flown clear across the country – even across the world – to sit in on a seminar, get just one BIG idea, flown home again and immediately implemented that idea.
All successful people have one thing in common: implementation. And Stage #1 of Implementation is getting of one’s backside and taking action to acquire the necessary information, education and advice needed to implement decisively, accurately and efficiently.
That’s why those Inner Circle members who’ve signed up for the Academy cannot fail to be ever-more successful – because they understand that no matter what the economic circumstances, the statistics never change in the salon business or any other business: Only 1% will get rich, 4% well off, 15% relatively comfortable, 80% living week to week.
Those figures have never changed. The only choice you have is which group you decide to be in, and take the required action to get into that group.
NOTE: Current Inner Circle members of at least 10 months standing who wish to join the WSM Academy in time for the first Entrepreneur Training Seminar in Sydney on March 9 should call the office NOW on 08 9381 6621. You will be getting a rare chance to not only rub shoulders with other successful salon & spa owners (as against the 95% who struggle through ignorance) but get face-to-face time with some of the brightest entrepreneurial minds in the country.
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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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