Tearing your hair out over staff who won't let you relax about not being in the salon?

It’s a Catch-22 that almost all salon owners face: ‘how can I get off the tools so I can work “on” the business more, when I’m too afraid of losing money/worried about what the staff will do/can’t work out what to tell clients…’ blah blah blah.

There’s no easy answer, as one of our Inner Circle Premium members is discovering. In a post in the Members Only forums this week, Amanda writes:

Hi all.
I decided to go off the tools in April this year, only working on the floor 3 days a week. The remaining days I work at home on marketing, paperwork etc & have a manager in the salon. The thing is that I don’t feel things are being done fully in the salon & I don’t think it is just a case of getting the jitters about handing the reins over….

Amanda goes on to detail how clients aren’t getting what’s advertised, how staff are using her personal tools and not cleaning them or putting them back, and how frustrated she feels when the staff wonder why she gets angry at them.

Our members are encouraged to log into the Members Only ‘sealed section’ here and give Amanda whatever help they can. But my own take on this? The tail is wagging the dog, because of a lack of systems. And it comes down to the little-recognized difference between managing people (you can’t, really) and managing systems.

When you have properly thought-out and effectively-implemented systems in a business (and the staff have signed off on and agreed to those systems) you don’t have to manage the staff, you just have to manage the systems.

In my business we have simple ‘tick sheets’ for all the important processes. For example, when a new Member is enrolled in the Inner Circle Premium program, there’s a single-page tick-sheet detailing a dozen or more tasks that must be completed before the enrollment can be ‘signed off’ as having been completed. Credit card billed for shipping, form faxed or emailed for signing by the Member and returned, data entry, Toolkit packaged and shipped, coaching call booked, and many more.

The point is, the system makes people accountable and responsible; if even one of those tasks isn’t completed, or is done incorrectly, the system allows us to track the breakdown and easily pinpoint where a breakdown has occurred.

(And there’s a similar checklist for every major process in the business. Any decently-run salon or spa’s Operations Manual should have a checklist for everything, down to and including the process of opening and closing the salon, turning on the computer, arming/disarming alarms…the works.)

For those who care about systems, I’ve posted an example of this checklist below.

For members who want to add their two cents worth, please log into the Members Only ‘sealed section’ here to read Amanda’s full forum post and see what helpful advice you might be able to offer.

Two Dogs alcoholic lemonade. Yes, it IS relevant to this story. Read on.

A few weeks ago, long-time Inner Circle Premium member and million-dollar salon owner Tracey Orr sparked a storm of comment, support, ‘AHA’ moments and ‘Wow’ letters from other Members when she posted a stunningly-simple but effective method she uses to get her staff to sell.

Tracey calls it her ‘buddy system’ and it’s been instrumental in sending her retail sales through the roof.

From Tracey, in Tasmania, the idea flew all the way to England where another IC Premium Member, Clare Cockell of The Reef in Maidstone, Kent, picked it up, implemented it in her salon and wrote this week:

“I did this ‘buddy system’ for one week. The targets I set were based on the employees previous 5 weeks retail sales. They had to hit their buddy’s average weekly target plus £30 more – as some average sales were very poor and I realized they should be a lot better!.

In the one week of the buddy system we took 65% of the amount of retail sales of the previous 5 weeks!!!

Brilliant! Thank you Tracey!”

(NOTE TO PREMIUM MEMBERS: If you have NOT yet studied this brilliant sales-boosting system, log in to the Members Only ‘sealed section’ here and draw yourself close to the screen. There’s also an audio interview with Tracey as she explains exactly how she does it.)

Little hinges really do swing big doors. It was yet another example of the power of belonging to a ‘mastermind’ group like the Inner Circle Premium program for salon businesses…. How a single, tiny kernel of information can have the momentum to empower lives, drive sales, change perceptions and create wealth, halfway across the globe.

Another idea that came from one of our Members, Sandy Mott, was a way of offering ‘mini-memberships’ that kept clients coming back and spending more and more money. Sandy even provided the exact marketing piece she used to promote the program to her clients.

Stephen Green of Streamline Hair Design picked one good idea and made money with it

The idea took off. Members all over the world took it up, including Stephen Green of Streamline Hair Design in Lakewood, New South Wales.

As Stephen writes in the Members Only section,

“I ran the mini membership a few weeks ago for the second time with the same response, we sold 17 memberships in 2 days. The memberships are a great way to bring in money fast. It is designed to be sent to your existing clients who already know how good your service is. Let’s face it, it’s a great deal, paying $200 for $350 worth of services.”

(NOTE TO PREMIUM MEMBERS: if you log in here you’ll find not only Sandy’s original post on the strategy of mini-memberships, but the actual marketing piece used to promote it, and a bunch of comments from members underneath.)

It’s ideas like these that prove the power of belonging to a ‘mastermind’ group like the Inner Circle Premium program. Years ago, when I started developing the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit® that forms the backbone of the program, I had little idea then that eventually, the thing would take on a life of its own.

These days, there are as many profitable ideas and strategies flowing between members themselves, via the Members ‘sealed section’ as there are from our own office out to members. For the many hundreds lucky enough to be in the program, the days of plodding off to the salon every morning, tiresomely re-inventing the wheel and plodding off home again – and doing it day after day after day – are long gone.

There IS power and immense support being part of a group. Yet the vast majority of salon & spa owners continue to live lives of quiet desperation, isolated from each other – and therefore isolated from the collective knowledge and experience of each other – because of the very fragmented nature of the industry.

Some say they just can’t justify the ‘expense’ of Membership, failing to recognise it’s an investment. You can’t operate a hair salon without chairs. Are they an investment, or an expense?

Yet so many cannot, will not make that life-changing differentiation. For those who do, all it often takes to pay for itself is a single, tiny idea – and the action to implement it – that might come from the other side of the world.

Many years ago, a citrus farmer in South Australia had large quantities of excess lemons he couldn’t offload. A neighbour, Duncan McGillivray came up with a new drink, an alcoholic lemonade. But the secret, as it so often is, was in the naming of the product.

It was launched onto the world market with a global-ready name that more than  ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’ connection to one of the oldest, funniest dirty jokes ever told. He called this new lemon brew

TWO DOGS.

(And no, here is not the place for the joke. Buy me a beer sometimes and I’ll tell you.) A few years later, when the brand was sold to a multi-national for gazillions, the now-wealthy farmer was famously quoted as saying “you only need one good idea in your life.

Here’s an email that arrived in my inbox today, begging for help. For obvious reasons, I’ve removed identifying information, but otherwise it’s as is.

Readers may wish to contribute their ideas in the comments field below. But my thoughts should be obvious from this previous post.

Hi Greg,

My name is XXXXX and I own a hair salon in XXXXX , New South Wales. Currently I have 2 seniors and one junior working, I was working full time on the floor but I had to cut down due to my pregnancy.

I am due to have my second child in 4 weeks and I am still working 3 full days on the floor because I can’t find anyone to replace me. I have been looking for someone for months and months and I can’t find anyone suitable.

I NEED YOUR HELP.

I’m getting desperate now, I feel that all the hard work I put into it it’s just going down the drain.

I can’t say things that I want to say to the staff that I have now because they know I need them so bad so they just do what they want.

I thought of you as my last hope, maybe you have a special ad that will attract the right people?

I don’t know what to do, I need time off with my baby and at this stage I think it’s impossible.

Please help me if you can. Thanks.”

As a business owner, you're there to give ulcers, not get them. Be demanding of your staff. INSIST that it's your way or the highway.

I get a LOT of questions from Members all over the world, and some of them resonate with almost every salon owner.

Our own surveys show consistently that apart from the challenge of getting customers (marketing), THE elephant in the room for 99% of salon owners is staff – how to find good ones, how to train ‘em, how to get them to do what you want them to do.

Untrained in the ruthless management of resources and people, many salon owners allow their staff to call the tune, and resentfully dance to that tune while the hired help look on with a baleful gaze and contempt in their eyes.

This from one of our Members just this week, and my response below. (If you are unaccustomed to brutal reality, if the idea of confrontation makes you weak at the knees, better stop reading now.)

I have put on a new receptionist last Tuesday and she won’t answer the phone the way I have asked her to.

I want her to say “(Name of salon),  Sharon speaking, how can I make your day fantastic?”

Sharon says she is uncomfortable, saying this it sounds like a sex shop

She has made many other mistakes.

How long do you give someone a go?”

Do I call it quits now as I cant stand wasting my time on things that may not work

Please let me know what you think.”

I certainly will, but you might not like it. Here’s what I wrote back to this Member:

“I  have zero tolerance for staff who will not do what they’re told. You own and run the business, not her. It is not a democracy, it is a dictatorship.

Patience and tolerance in business is over-rated.

Listen in as these salon owners reveal exactly how they’ve grown their businesses in spite of
(perhaps because of!) the global economic downturn!

I loathe cliches, but there IS truth in many of them – like ‘Success breeds Success’. In this conference call, three of our most dynamic Inner Circle members reveal the strategies that have taken them from Struggle Street to owning salon businesses that are bursting at the seams with customers, sales and re-bookings.

My guests on this call are:

Rechelle Mackay (nee Watt) of Lamonde Hair Face & Body in Sydney. Rechelle reveals how 2009 has been her ‘best year ever’ – and how breaking her leg before Christmas last year was the turning point that took her ‘off the floor’ – and took her business to huge new highs. “We did not quite $300,000 from January to October ’08 – and for the same period January to October ’09, a stunning $407,000 – that’s a 38% increase,” says Rechelle. On this call, find out how she did it.

Susi Keswani of Ministry of Hair in Adelaide has seen her re-booking rate go from an ordinary 30% right up to 70% since joining the Inner Circle program and getting her Toolkit 6 months ago. On this call she reveals how her ‘cheap and cheerful’ marketing has brought in scores of new clients.

“But the biggest advantage for me is how it’s helped my systemize my business,” says Susi.

For Gail Smith, 2009 has been a stellar year. Her Charmed Hair & Beauty salon in Queensland has leaped from sales of $30,000 in June to a remarkable $57,000 by August, and on this call Gail reveals all the steps she took to achieve that stunning growth.

Settle in with your headphones and press the ‘play’ button – or download this as an MP3 file to your iPod!

There is some truth in it. No, the customer isn’t always right. But there’s more truth in the frustration we often hear from our Inner Circle members about staff. Apart from finding customers to fill chairs and treatment rooms, the biggest challenge faced by any salon owner is finding, training and motivating employees to do what the owner wants them to do, when the owner wants it done, and exactly how she wants it done.

Unfortunately, most people in the beauty industry open their doors, hang out their shingle, and sit by the phone, having spent no more than a nano-second on how to systemise a) the getting of customers, and b) the hiring and training of staff to deliver the service and products to those customers.

Yet it is the systems which set you free, free to work on the business instead of in it, free to take a vacation and know that because of the systems, the business will operate efficiently without you being there.

Thousands of salons around the world have been using our tried and proven Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit to systemise the process of getting customers, getting them spending more money.

David Osborne took Kendal Degraaf through his Staff Recruitment and Training process with remarkable results

More and more are beginning to use the system we developed in conjunction with the “thinking man’s” recruitment specialist David Osborne (who until late last year was a Coach with us here at WSM).

David is quietly revolutionizing the way salon owners think about hiring and managing staff. His “Salon Owner’s Recruitment System” manuals, psychometric testing modules and coaching are getting rave reviews (see the website) and as you’ll discover in this 18 minute interview with one of our Members, Kendal de Graaf of Shendals Signature Salon, the results are remarkable:

If YOU want the kind of success with staff that Kendal is obviously enjoying, get David’s system. You can order it online here for a paltry few hundred dollars, and that includes a bunch of bonuses – and a coaching session with David.

NOTE TO INNER CIRCLE MEMBERS: Listen in – and ask questions – as we interview David live in our next Group Coaching call. Next TUESDAY (Australia/NZ time) or, if you’re in North America, next Monday evening. Check your email for details of the dial-in number. All Inner Circle members who employ, or wish to employ staff, should be on this call.

New Video: Inner Circle members reveal how their lives have changed since they joined the program and started using the Toolkit:

Staff deliberately promoting other people's products are the ticking time bomb in your salon....

How ruthless would you be if you caught one of your staff members deliberately sabotaging your sales?

Some do it simply out of ignorance. Others do it because they just don’t care. Either way, it costs YOU money when your staff don’t sell your products, or worse, promote other people’s products…

But there can be few cases worse than this one, just posted on the SalonCentral.com forums this week, from one of our Inner Circle members in Ireland.

“Hi everyone I am very new to the (Inner Circle)!! Just on the thirty day trial but I am amazed at the response I have gotten to an ad I ran last week so I think I am going to be joining for the long haul …

“I do have one dilemma that I would love some advise for…I over heard one of my staff members recommending a Clarins hand cream to a customer during her manicure and for the bad bit , we dont sell Clarins in our salon. Now to make a situation worse this staff member went to her handbag and got her Clarins handcream and used it on the client ….can you believe it ?

“I am so cross and upset and don’t know which is the best way to deal with this as she is very popular with clients. Any advice?”

Go here if you have some advice for Maria, but if it was my money this employee was flushing down the toilet, she’d get an instant warning, and if she dared do it again she’d be out the door, with a swift boot up the backside for her trouble.

But the business owner must bear some responsibility for this. In most such cases, it comes back to a failure of the business owner to set the rules in the first place. It starts with a written Policies and Procedures manual which ALL employees must read, agree to and sign as part of a formal induction process.

And backed up firmly with a cover letter which in effect says “Here is how things are done here. If you agree to abide by these rules, please sign below. If not, go find another business to sabotage…”

If you’ve had similar situations arise, or can offer Maria some advice, log into the Forums and fire away.

Thinking doesn’t achieve anything by itself. The world is full of educated derelicts. Only action makes a difference. Ghandi, Mandela, Martin Luther King didn’t achieve anything by thinking, they took action and got things done.

Which is why you should read on, because here is a story of action from one of our own Members.

Lisa Conway has been featured here before. She attended one of our Road to Riches marketing and business education seminars in Melbourne in July 2008. After many years living in fear as her business struggled from week to week, Lisa’s life and business was revolutionized overnight.

If you do NOTHING else this year, read this, and do whatever it takes to attend one of our seminars this year.

Here is where you go to find out more.

Here is Lisa’s story, as emailed to me this week.

Inner Circle member Lisa Conway, of Marinelli Hair in Gisborne, VIC

“Thank you for the wonderful support that you and the team so generously give to me.

When I look back at the way I used to let my business set my mood and how, if the staff were bickering,  I would lie awake worrying that some one might leave….

“I can’t believe the personal growth I have had in just six months alone. I would never have believed you if you told me that the way I am feeling now would happen back in July when I signed that credit card slip, joined the Inner Circle program and drove home with the Toolkit.

“Truth is I felt trapped by my own career, knowing full well that I certainly did not want to go back to working for a boss who was drowning like I was.

Thinking what I could do instead, when I love this industry (give or take a few peacocks), hair dressers are my kind of people. This industry needs help in so many ways.

“For my part I wanted to grow my business so that I stopped feeling physically sick when things went wrong at work. In just six months I have become a great boss. I have the Christmas cards from my team to prove it.
“I am learning about what my staff want and need in order to thrive in a working environment and thus return me  good money on my investment. (Those I employ)

Since I attended that conference and joined the Inner Circle, 3 staff members in a team of 5 no longer work here, they have been replaced by passionate people and everything has improved for the better.

“Together my sales have improved consistently, over $60,000 in the same 6 month time frame (August to January 07-08 compared to August to January 08-09) and I now know where it is I want to be and what is I need to be working on.  I have the best team of hairstylists (4 of them a mere 18 years of age) and now I have the knowledge and direction that will see me continue on this successful journey.

“I have things on the go now that keep me awake with excitement. That is how I felt 8 years ago when I opened my own business, however I lost my way somewhere along the way. 

“I am on the floor cutting only for two 4 hour sessions a week, to keep the loyal happy and I love it. And that sick feeling that comes along when something hits that fan…GONE!”

Lisa Conway, Marinelli Hair, Gisborne, VIC. February 5, 2009

Special Members Only Q & A Networking Sessions after each seminar

For the first time, we’re running closed-door Inner Circle members-only advanced training and networking sessions, directly after each of this year’s seminars.

If you’re an Inner Circle member you’ll want to be/you very much should be a part of these sessions. Lisa Conway will be there to share much more about how she’s changed her business. Another successful IC member, Sandy Mott of Lunatic Fringe in Queensland, will be flying down to Melbourne for the session, Beauty on Rose founder and owner Catherine Powell will be there to answer questions as well. This is FREE for IC members, call Jill in the office on 08 9381 6621 for more info.  

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Like most salon & spa owners, Michael Curtis’ Blush Day Spa has suffered for years from the whims of some staff members who would habitually, without notice, report in ‘sick’ – and leave the rest of the staff to carry the load, upsetting clients, costing revenue and profits, and causing Michael to lose hair he can’t afford to lose.

But four months ago, Michael ‘cracked the code’.

Michael Curtis eliminated staff sick days with some rigorous filtering

Traditionally, Blush would lose between ten and 21 staff days every single month. Add it up, and it amounts to an awful lot of distruption and lost business. But for the past four months, Blush has

not lost a SINGLE DAY!

How could this be? Well, Michael first purchased a simple, but powerful system of staff recruitment developed by our own recruitment specialist, David Osborne. (It’s called the Salon Owner’s Recruitment System and you can buy it here for $AUD597)

Using the system, Michael put every single job applicant through a rigorous ‘filtering’ – and then, once he’d got it down to a short-list, sent it to David who put each applicant through a special personality/suitability test that had nothing to do with technical skill and everything to do with a person’s psychological ability to contribute to a positive and enthusiastic team.

According to Michael, ‘aside from joining the Inner Circle program, getting David’s system and putting our staff through this testing process is the single most profitable and biggest business-building thing we have ever done in the ten years we’ve been in the spa industry’. If ONLY we had known about this a decade ago we’d be that much further in front, it’s not funny’.

Listen in as Michael talks about this ‘company-making’ advance.

As I’ve said many times, any fool can get customers in the door, given the right marketing tools and enough action. Shake enough trees, and you can’t help have money fall out of ‘em. But many good marketing campaigns have been ruined by sloppy systems, lousy staff and an active Sales Prevention Department at the back end.

If there’s enough interest among Members, I may run a special Group Coaching call (IC members only) with both David and Michael as my guests, so more of our Members can get the obvious business-building benefits of zero staff absenteeism that Blush is enjoying.

Want to comment on this post? Click here to leave your comments.

First, some interesting news that belies all the gloom and doom. International research and survey firm Synovate reports that a poll of 11,500 people in over a dozen countries found 41% of people plan to spend the same amount on beauty products and services as they did before the downturn, while only 27% said they would cut down. (source: www.synovate.com)

And there are other signs (hard to find in the mainstream press) that the outlook is not ALL thunder and lightning for 2009. China? The most recent figures I can find indicate China’s growth will ‘only’ be around 7% this year. ONLY 7%?? In any other country, 7% growth would produce dancing in the streets and joyful public fornication.

There are other indicators that the world hasn’t actually stopped turning. Principally from our own Inner Circle members. I love it when I hear from members who are truly kicking some serious butt… despite the ‘recession’, without regard to any and all obstacles put before them, regardless of nay-saying friends, family and/or staff, while ignoring the self-fulfilling talk of gloom and doom.

Like Chicken Little, for some people the sky is always falling in. For a few (certainly most of our Members) what falls out of the sky is money.

Nadia Valerio of Valerio Hair in Doncaster, Victoria. A real 'action woman'.

Among them, Nadia Valerio of Valerio Hair in Doncaster, Victoria.

Most salons struggle to fill chairs/treatment rooms at this time of the year. Nadia and her staff of 11 are struggling to keep up with the sheer volume of clients, all brought in using simple ads, flyers and sales strategies from the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit™

Get this: In November last year Nadia took an ad from the Toolkit and ran it in the local paper. The salon was run off its feet, in just five weeks they took in no fewer than

165 NEW clients.

(INNER CIRCLE MEMBERS: Log into the Members Only ‘Sealed Section’ and you’ll find the ad that Nadia used under “Getting New Clients – Hair”)

That result was achieved despite what many would see as a massive handicap – located in a huge shopping mall with no fewer than EIGHT directly competing salons.

“Every client that came in the week after then received a $10 welcome letter/gift voucher to come back to the store and so far in 8 weeks of the first ad going to print 45 of those clients have come back, it has been the most amazing response, I could not have asked for anything more and this is just a start. We have put together a plan for the next 6 months and can’t wait to put it all in to play. Once again thank you WORLDWIDE SALON MARKETING you have taken my buisness to the next level,” writes Nadia.

And that was just the beginning. As Nadia describes in this short interview extract, revenue, client numbers and profits have been nothing short of amazing since she a) began to educate herself about what works, and b) put the tools, strategies and advice as an Inner Circle member into action.

Special Group Coaching Call for Inner Circle Members – Monday, February 2

Nadia has agreed to be my special guest interview for our next Inner Circle Members Only Group Coaching Call. In this call she’ll detail exactly what she did to not only generate massive new business before Christmas, but avoid the post-Christmas lull that most salon owners suffer from.

Members will receive direct email notification of the dial-in number and PIN code for this call, but here are the date and times:

Date of Group Coaching Call: MONDAY, February 2.

(For North American Members, this will be SUNDAY afternoon/evening, February 1. If you miss the call, don’t say you got ‘confused’ by the time difference.)

Time of Group Coaching Call

In Australia:

Perth: 10am
Adelaide: 11.30am
Melbourne/Sydney: Noon
Brisbane: 11am

In New Zealand: 2pm

In NORTH AMERICA:

Sunday, February 1

Pacific: 5pm
Mountain: 6pm
Eastern: 8pm