The GOOD news is that there are still 5 tickets left for this seminar.  The BAD news is that there are only 5 tickets left for this seminar and they will be snapped up fast, so don’t dilly dally and ACT NOW before your competitor down the road does! 

Tickets are only $87 and every person who purchases a ticket gets a $320 Business Building Pack, Absolutely FREE  

Call us Now on 0800 029 668 to secure your place

WARNING - This may be the last Christchurch seminar in 2010.  We are only having a maximum of 30 people at these mini seminar events, so it’s a great opportunity to get all your burning questions answered by Chris and Rachael D’Aguiar-Sanders in a intimate environment.

Rachael D'Aguiar-Sanders

In this jam packed 2 hour mini seminar listen in amazement as salon marketing guru Rachael D’Aguiar-Sanders reveals why 99% of everything you’ve been told about marketing your Salon or Spa is utter nonsense. 

“It’s time to STOP wasting money on marketing that doesn’t get a response.  I show salon owners exactly how to use tested & proven marketing systems that will bring in a flood of new clients and get your existing clients spending more, more often”

The Dunedin Seminar on March 29 at the Kingsgate Hotel is also almost sold out with just 6 tickets remaining. 

Every ticket comes with a guarantee too!  If you do NOT feel like you have got what you wanted out of our seminar then we will happily re-fund your ticket, no questions asked!  We have been running these seminars in New Zealand for 2 years now, and have never had one person ask for a refund….so we must be doing something right!

So if you want to finally earn the money you deserve from your salon in 2010 then call the TICKET HOTLINE now on 0800 029 668. 

We look forward to meeting you and helping you to achieve your goals in either Christchurch or Dunedin!

In a state of shock from the news, Rachael and I walked into the Flight Centre Galeries in Downtown Sydney and explained our situation.  We were literally 4 hours away from flying back to New Zealand and needed advice and quickly!

The Exceptional Service Award Goes to Rick Monk of The Flight Centre, Sydney Galeries.

Luckily, the fellow we had sat down in front of not only understands customer satisfaction but knew how to totally exceed all of our expectations of what a travel agent could do for us.  For those of you who saw John Lees presentation in Sydney, this guy, Rick the travel agent is definitely at the top of the triangle.

Rick explained before he called Air NZ that sometimes Airlines choose not to re-route flights and would end up charging me for a new flight.  To make matters even more tricky, the original flights were booked through a different online agent, both our bookings were made as one, so the booking had to be split to allow Rachael to travel back to NZ and me to fly to Brisbane, and the e-ticket didn’t even have a reference or booking number on it.

Rick spoke with the Air NZ agent and explained our situation clearly.  After a few moments he gave me a smile and wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to me…

‘IT’S ALL IN THE WORDS YOU USE’

Rick had managed to cancel my Sydney flight and re-route out of Brisbane a few days later for a small additional fee.   When he got off the phone, he explained that he had told the Air NZ agent the message they needed to hear. ..

‘Tell them what they need to know.  It makes it easier for them to make a decision quickly’

…boy did this guy know his stuff or what?  Who has children and knows what happens when you give them too many options?  Yet sometimes we forget this in business and offer our clients so many options that we confuse them and they choose the easiest option – nothing.

Sure, this is what you would expect a travel agent might be able to do for you on 3 hours notice.  And had he stopped here we would merely have been satisfied customers, not raving evangelists for the Flight Centre.  Rick then went onto book a flight to Brisbane at the exact same time that Rachael needed to check in as well so that we could share a taxi, aware that we had missed our shuttle because of the unexpected news and proceeded to not only book and prepay a hire car to be waiting for me in Brisbane but had it pre-authorised because our credit card was playing up in the Australian system.  He even made duplicates of everything and told us which ones we’d need when we went to claim travel insurance.   And most of these he did simultaneously with a phone on each ear and his fingers on a website.

I had multi-tasking envy and wondered how any man could do this!!!

Like a true expert, Rick had thought of things that hadn’t even crossed our minds yet and he shared his knowledge with us making our experience so much better than it could have been.

It’s times like this that I realise that money CAN buy happiness.  A few years ago there is no way I would have been able to drop everything and afford 2 extra flights and a hire car no matter how much I wanted to be with my family.  Wealth buys you options and can help take care of you and those you love.  Without it, you’re screwed.  For years I worked for free for ‘the love of it’, now I work for profit and spend it on what I love and I’d never go back.

But back to Rick.  Now, I’m the type of guy that WILL NOT  purchase anything from your shop if you can’t even crack a smile as I enter, so I figure when I’m given exceptional service I am going to sing about it from the rooftops.  Rick had no idea when he made my day easier last Wednesday that I have the ability to pass on his merits to 20,000 people who receive this email.  Just like you never know when you impress someone who they know.  But you can sure as anything guarantee that they will tell everyone that they know about you!  And if you’re ever in Sydney and need a remarkable travel agent, please visit my new friend, Rick Monk and tell him Chris Sanders sent you.

How to make sure you go off the rails, right from the start....

Ever seen a train wreck about to happen, and felt powerless to stop it?

Or imagined everything happening in slow-motion as a child reaches for the breakfast cereal and knocks the milk over?

It happened to me last week. Channel-hopping on a pay network, I stumbled on a documentary about a young couple in the UK, determined to open their dream salon business.

As the film detailed their ever-deepening financial commitment, I felt like I was a voyeur, watching through a peephole at impending disaster, holding my hand to my mouth and wanting to shout

‘NO….don’t do it!”

By the time they opened their doors, they had spent… wait for it…. FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS. Much of that was provided by investors who clearly had more money than sense.

That’s close enough to a cool one MILLION dollars. The salon looked fabulous. They’d gutted the premises and started from scratch. They’d travelled to trade shows in Europe, spending fortunes on expensive Italian fixtures and fittings.  They’d even hired a ‘celebrity’ hair stylist.

Finally, the thrill of opening day. A brief rush of customers in the first two weeks – almost all of them family and friends. And then reality struck, hard.

I could see it happening right from the beginning. These people actually believed that old nonsense about “Build it and they will come.”

Er, no, they won’t. Like a deer in the headlights, they’d  had been blinded by the ‘bright shiny objects’ of starting and running a business, oblivious to the harsh reality; that without customers, you don’t have a business. All you have is an expensive liability.

In all that half million pound spend, not a penny had been set aside for marketing – the only thing that gets customers in ANY business.

Within two weeks, they were facing bankruptcy. The investors had finally woken up. You could have fired a cannon through the salon, without a chance of hitting anybody.

I almost felt sorry for them. Almost. In the end though, they deserved to fail. A few years ago, you’d have had to attend seminars, got in your car and driven to the library, hired appropriate consultants.

Now, all the knowledge you need to avoid making such dumb mistakes is staring right back at you from your computer screen.

David sent me an article written by a purported ‘expert’ on customer retention that makes my eyes water.

Under the heading “Don’t ask customers why they left you!”,  Mark Fletcher argues, correctly, that customers leave for three main reasons:

* Drawn: They are drawn away to a supplier that offers them substantially more of what they value (e.g. service, benefits, savings, etc.).
* Drift: They drift away to a similar supplier who offers them marginally more. Most often this occurs at points of change in their own life (e.g. moving job/house/site, having children, etc.).
* Driven: In the absence of a strong engagement, they become disenchanted over time and then a particular incident (trigger) pushes them to change suppliers.

But then he falls in a hole, with the scholarly opinion that “…instead of asking them why they left you, try the following strategies to reduce customer defections:

1. Conduct value research

* Use analysis of relevant online discussion forums, traditional focus groups and other tools to identify what customers actually value from their relationship with you. Then use these insights to drive value into your customer relationships.

2. Leverage your customer data

* Use customer complaints data to prioritise and address those things that annoy customers (and start collecting it immediately if you don’t already!)
* Statistically analyse customer transactional behaviour to identify other change triggers (positive and negative).

Online discussion forums? Focus groups???

Oh, yawn. In other words, tip-toe around, do anything except send ‘em a letter, in an envelope, with a stamp on it, asking them to come back and giving them a bloody good reason (offer) to do so.

It’s classic avoidance strategy, padded with big words and fancy phrases, to give business owners comfort for not doing what it takes to get the damn customers back.

If you want to do ‘research’, here’s my contention: get the customers back first, then find out why they left in the first place. If they’re standing right in front of you, having eagerly responded to your ‘come back’ offer, that’s a pretty good place to start your ‘focus group’. Particularly after they’ve just been blown away by a ‘wow’ experience.

“C’mon Shirley, we haven’t seen you for three months. What happened?”

Sometimes, ‘experts’ just love to over-think things. Thankfully, our Members know the value of a well-crafted Raise the Dead series of letters they can simply download from the Membership area. Many are getting a 30% response rate, sending these letters to their ‘missing in action’ clients.

Good grief. If you really want to read this dreary, over-wrought article, you’ll find it here.

If you want to read some common sense about getting ‘lost’ customers back, go here.

Sydney salon owners listen intently as Worldwide Salon Marketing CEO Greg Milner explains how to use hard-nosed Direct Response marketing tools to get customers faster....

All over the conference room at the Novotel Pacific hotel in Sydney this week, light bulbs were turning on above the heads of dozens of salon business owners who gathered for this week’s Salon Profit Secrets seminar. They were there to hear the brutal and unhappy truth about what passes for ‘marketing’ in the beauty industry -- a mish-mash of wasteful, expensive but oh-so-pretty advertising -- and find out what actually works.

In a special 'closed door' breakout session at the Sydney Salon Profit Secrets seminar, Inner Circle member salons gather to network and share their winning strategies with each other...

(And what more than 600 salons and spas are already using to increase their cash flow and profits, cheaply and quickly.)

As always, the most popular session at the seminar was the Panel of Experts, where some of our most experienced Inner Circle members took ‘how-to’ questions from the audience.

For new salon owner Karen Buckles of Karen’s Beauty & Body Care in Milperra, it was a ‘baptism of fire’. Karen won the ‘Hotseat’, joining the Panel on stage as we microscopically analyzed her business -- and put together a devastatingly-effective Unique Selling Proposition she can use ruthlessly to drive customers through her doors. (Our thanks to Inner Circle members Wendy Marron of Prima Hair on the Gold Coast, Peter Rickman of Making Waves in far north Queensland, and Rachael D’Aguiar of D’Aguiar Hair Skin Nails in Auckland, NZ, for generously offering their expertise for this week’s Panel)

Salon owner Karen Buckles (far right) won the 'Hot Seat' - and and the right to have our Panel of Experts analyse her business and send her away with a handful of easy-to-use marketing 'jewels'....

Among the salons to join the program at the seminar: Skin Expressions in Ramsgate, Cherye’s Beauty Q in Newport, LA Hair and Beauty in Tanilba Bay, Hair on Bridge Street in Waratah, Evolution Hairdressing in Oatley, Mosman Beauty Studio in Mosman, Hairitage Salon in Rodd Point, Devine Hair & Beauty in New Lynn and Bojangles Beauty Basix in Glossodia.

They were among over 30 salons & spas to have joined the Inner Circle Premium program in the past month, in Australia, the UK, New Zealand and the USA. (Each month, more than 100 salons & spas apply to join the program.)

Lesley Blake and owner Sarah Jeffree of Evolution Hairdressing in Oatley, New South Wales, among the new Inner Circle members at the Sydney Salon Profit Secrets seminar

We were delighted to welcome veteran sales and marketing man (and former National Marketing Manager for Schwarzkopf) John Lees back to the seminar stage…John had the audience in stitches with his unique and gently self-deprecating humor.

And our own Senior Coach, Annette Gomez, sent jaws dropping when she replayed ‘mystery calls’ she’d made to many of the salons prior to the seminar. For those owners who recognized the voices of their own staff on the recordings, it was a shock to hear just how well their ‘Sales Prevention Department was working!

Many of the salons who became Inner Circle members on the day were inspired by the success being enjoyed by the likes of long-term Members such as Michelle Weston of Northmead Beauty Therapy, and Sean Hayes of Access to Beauty in Coogee…

NEXT SEMINARS:

Brisbane, Hilton Hotel, Monday April 12. Go here to buy your tickets online, or call the office on 08 9381 6621. Early birds -- buy one ticket, get one free.

London, Warren House, Kingston-on-Thames, Monday April 19. Go here to buy your tickets online. Early birds -- buy one, get one free.

Property guru Margie Baldock takes Academy members through some of her little-known investment strategies

Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few years, you’ll have heard of The Secret, a cult book/video hit that flooded bookstores a while back.

For me, it was all a bit New Age, crystal-swinging, pig-fur-weaving hippie mumbo-jumbo. I’m more of a nuts ‘n bolts kinda guy. Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’ shoulda been titled ‘Think, ACT and Grow Rich’. Which is exactly what our first Academy advanced business thinking session was about in Sydney yesterday.

For the long-term (over one year) Inner Circle Premium members who attended the Academy session from all over Australia and New Zealand, it was ‘total immersion’ in an ocean of action-provoking instruction in wealth creation, advanced entrepreneurial thinking and sophisticated direct response marketing strategies.

Pat Mesiti's goal is to help create 10,000 millionaires through strategi business thinking

Uber-motivator and corporate trainer Pat Mesiti – who opens the speaking bill for Sir Richard Branson in Perth next week – had the Academy members in stitches with his frenetic, laser-focused, brutally funny delivery on what stops business people from being successful.

Margie Baldock, the ‘perfumed steamroller’ property developer and business thinker, had a queue of Members wanting to get ‘in’ on her property strategies, and the southern hemisphere’s best direct response copywriter and former “Rebel Without a Clue” Pete Godfrey widened a lot of eyes as he showed how just the tiniest change in an ad or letter can triple response. It was stunning stuff.

Self-made multi-millionaire businessman Justin Herald still has the kind of no-nonsense attitude he encourages all business owners to cultivate

Best-selling business author Justin Herald had the audience enthralled as he told the story of how a broke 25-year-old turned 50 bucks and a bad attitude into a multi-national, multi-million dollar clothing empire. (Turns out Justin and Pat are brothers-in-law, having married identical twin sisters!)

And for those who were there, feel free to give your feedback in the ‘comments’ field under this post. And let us know how we can improve the Academy experience for you!

Next Academy event: Melbourne, Tuesday, May 18.

We’ve lined up another stellar roll-call of business entrepreneurs and trainers for this event, PLUS, for the first time, a

Marketing Brain Challenge

At the Melbourne event, Academy members will be split into teams, with one hour to come up with a sizzling marketing Action Plan for a mythical start-up salon. And there’ll be a cracker of a prize for the winning team!

NOTE TO INNER CIRCLE PREMIUM MEMBERS:

We’ve already had several Inner Circle Premium members who’ve expressed their disappointment at missing out on the Academy. It’s not too late. If you feel you’re ready in your business life for more advanced wealth-creation and entrepreneurial strategies, call the office on 08 9381 6621.

Inner Circle member Lisa Zwart of Honey Body in Manly, Sydney.

South African-born Lisa Zwart was like most salon owners; struggling to keep the business afloat while she was drowning in the pressure of work. Lisa bought her Honey Body Salon in the northern Sydney beachside suburb of Manly 15 months ago. But it wasn’t until she attended a Worldwide Salon Marketing seminar in September 2009 that the ‘lights went on’ – and her life took a dramatic turn for the better.

Two months later, she was standing in front of 700 guests to receive the local Manly Business Achievers award!

“This is my first business I’ve been running by myself and I bought it and obviously it was a growing concern. It wasn’t doing really well, which is why I had to go get clients, and I’ve just literally had to build it up. I felt like I was building it up from scratch and I think we’ve just done really well. I’ve put in a lot of time and a lot of effort and now I’m putting in a lot more smart time…So, yeah, this is my success story.

Lisa and her team, picking up their freshly-minted Business Award

I never used to give myself time to market the salon business,  until I went to my Worldwide Salon Marketing seminar. On my first coaching call, my coach told me just to shut the door. You get told to shut the door and literally sit down and do your budgeting and marketing plans. Because I really wasn’t making any time before that. So, now I’m more conscious of the time, forced now to leave my business to have good marketing strategies in place.

I’ve taken a lot of the guidelines that have kind of been given to us, like the ad guidelines, how to set about doing an ad, and what not to do in an ad, and what to do in an ad, and how to make things eye-catching. Obviously, taking tips from other people. If something didn’t work for them, I can say, “Okay, well it didn’t work for them”. They’re about the same as me. I’m not going to try anything like that. I’ll try something which has worked for them, or I like to see what everyone else is kind of doing and pick up ideas. Not necessarily copying them, but definitely taking ideas off what they’ve done and trying to use the guidelines that have been shown to us.
Also, I’ve been reading a lot about the hiring staff  and I’ve taken that onboard. Because that was one of my biggest issues before I just wasn’t getting quality staff. Now I’m at a really good point where I’ve got great staff and I think it’s thanks to looking at those guidelines. Also, retailing and all of the tips and guidelines. There’s just so much information in that kit. I can pick it up today and I will read something that I didn’t read two months ago.

Lisa’s hard work has obviously been working.

“I took my whole family on safari to South Africa in December!”

If YOU want the kind of results that Lisa and hundreds of other Members are achieving, and you are NOT yet a Member of the Inner Circle Premium program, here’s where to go to apply for a 30-day Test Drive.

Except when it isn’t. I’ve just had a less than exhilarating maritime experience that could have been much worse had it not been for one of the most remarkable examples of ‘above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty’ customer service I’ve ever encountered.

Managing all the electrical and mechanical systems on a large, modern boat such as mine can do one’s head in. And, because it’s a boat, Murphy’s Law is even more applicable; if it can go wrong, it will, at the worst possible moment.

Michelle and I had been looking forward to this recent long weekend. The late summer weather was forecast hot and still, so with fuel and fresh water tanks brim full, we eagerly pointed the nose of our 40ft Caribbean ‘Tides’ west, gunned the diesels and skimmed across the 15 miles of Gage Roads to our mooring at Longreach Bay on the northern side of Rottnest Island.

My elderly parents arrived late the following day on the ferry, and it wasn’t long after that that the wheels started falling off.

Without plenty of fresh water on a boat, life afloat can be pretty ordinary. You need it for drinking, washing dishes, showering, flushing the toilet…try doing without it for a day, you’ll see what I mean.

So the Milner floating household was not a happy one when, just as the sun dipped below the horizon and we were all looking forward to a nice hot shower followed by dinner on the deck, the fresh water pump down in the bilge decided to call on Murphy.

Rottnest Island raft-up - looks great from this angle, entirely different when you're down in the bilge lathered in sweat...

Without that pump, you’re toast. It ain’t like turning on a tap at home, where it just falls out of the thing. On a boat, it has to be pumped out of a tank.

All that night, I glumly contemplated the prospect of heading home the following morning, and missing out on a weekend of the best weather we’d had for weeks.

I knew my chances of ferreting out a new pump and getting it across to the island were worse than slim, they were anorexic. But I knew my brother Peter was bringing his boat across that day to join the family.

I called him. He called a guy he knew who owned a marine parts business. That guy was also at Rottnest Island, enjoying his weekend. “But I’ll call one of my staff, see what he can do.”

Within the hour, as Peter pulled alongside one of the jetties that dot the river banks down near its Fremantle Harbour mouth, young Alex arrived with replacement pump.  Barked knuckles, a layer of sweat and three hours later, I’d restored our water supply, and our weekend afloat.

How often have you heard of a business – any business – going to those lengths, particularly on a Sunday.

I often rant about the Sales Prevention Department that grows like a cancer in all businesses. Maybe I should start an award for the Above and Beyond Department.

(But the Sales Prevention Department will always be more finely-tuned, and much more widely distributed. Two days ago I paid a $9,000 invoice for some cosmetic work on the boat by another marine supplier. The actual work was okay, but the mess left behind by the tradesman – pencil marks on the gelcoat, tiny sharp metal filings all over the teak deck – was totally unacceptable. And not so much as a phone call from the owner of that business to check if I was happy with the job. Good grief.)

If you have any similar experiences of extraordinary customer service, tell us about them below. The world needs inspiration, and most business owners need more than that. A size 12 boot up the backside, for example.

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.

It shows clearly that most people in the salon business regard the ‘job’ of marketing as a mere chore, to be grudgingly endured rather than embraced as the most important task in any commercial operation.

(And don’t imagine that this is restricted only to ’small’ businesses. The Big End of town is just as guilty. Most big companies have Marketing Departments, as sure a sign as any that they too, mistakenly regard ‘marketing’ as some kind of
separate, compartmentalized component of business. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Marketing IS the business. Every part of every business should have its ears cocked and eyes open to marketing and sales opportunities.)

If you put a gun at my head and said I could only use one regular method of marketing to my clients and prospects, it would without doubt be a monthly hard copy newsletter. Yet if they do it at all, most salon owners do the very bare minimum,
throwing a few ’specials’ into a haphazard  single sheet document and calling it a ‘newsletter’.

Thankfully, there are some salon owners who ‘get’ it. Inner Circle member Louise Adkins of Lavish Life in the little Victorian country town of Benalla is one of them. Louise doesn’t just do a ‘newsletter’ she puts enormous effort into a monthly “Lavish Life’ newspaper, sending it to clients with excellent results.

We have found it is big enough to stay around for 6 weeks, we are already working our new one. On Monday I emailed it to 50 of my clients and suppliers, and placed a cover letter on it as well, if they commented on the paper i would give them a $25 voucher. 5 clients replied and gave back some positive feedback. here are 2 of the ones and i picked up 2 raise the dead clients as well.

I also tell the clients that there is a spelling mistake and a prize for it if they can find it ! makes them read the whole paper …………We are still working on it- we are now re-promoting Valentines day to say “what did you get ?”… nothing or very little, then ‘treat yourself to our Valentines day package as a treat to yourself for missing out!

Louise Adkins' well-crafted and beautifully-laid out client newsletter (actually, more of a 'newspaper'), demonstrating maximum effort rather than the grudging chore most business owners relegate marketing to. IC members can download the full-size newsletter in the MEmber's Only 'sealed section'.

“Hi Lou, Loved the newsletter, it covers a broad range of interesting topics.  Just wondering though, is VPL better than IPL.  I couldn’t determine much difference from the article?”

“I love the newsletter – I seem to read it more than once just in case I miss something!  I especially look out for the deals on the back page…..seeing the savings is a great excuse to book an appt. Keep the newsletter coming. J”

So far this is great ! we have had it mail box dropped to 3 different areas and clients have returned from this, we also place it on our beauty beds on a rolled up towel and give it to our clients before they get on the bed, and explain the specials to them.

It is also in our new client gift bags, and the local paper that produced it came and asked if they could showcase it at their meeting. The local business network are looking to do the same idea, and have said ‘why didn’t we think of it first?’ ! I have places for business to advertise in it and help me out with the costs.

So far to this date we have done in packages-

$99 nail packages= 6

$99 facial packages = 2

1x valentines singles package

$60 IPL vouchers = 5 plus 6 free consultations

Confronted with such a task, most business owners would rather stick their head in the sand and hope it’ll all go away….and go back to furiously cutting hair or doing massages, in the deluded belief that that’s the ‘real’ work.

NOTE TO INNER CIRCLE MEMBERS: download Louise’s complete newspaper in pdf format so you can see exactly how she’s done it by logging into the Member’s Only site here.