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.

But this salon deserves to have the earth open up and swallow it whole, never to re-appear. This ad was sent in by long-term Inner Circle member Rebecca Skehan of Gaia Hair in Queensland. Like most Members who’ve been ‘converted’ and educated in the kind of Direct Response marketing we do (the kind that puts so many noses out of joint in the beauty industry), Rebecca has developed a keen eye for the wasteful, nonsensical, slap-dash crap that passes for ‘creativity’.

In fact it’s a burden that many of us carry. Many times, I’ve been taken aside by a member at one of our salon owner conferences, and told

“Greg, your system has ruined my life. Everywhere I go, I see small business advertising that’s so pathetic I’m constantly having to stop myself from going into that business and ’saving’ them…”

Inner Circle member Rebecca Skehan - like many of our members, troubled by the wasteful nonsense that passes as so much beauty industry advertising

Well folks, suck it up. Knowledge IS a burden. I can never go anywhere and simply switch off. I can’t stop myself looking at an ad, a billboard, a letter, without instantly and consciously analyzing it, wondering what’s it supposed be achieving, critiquing it, mentally re-writing it. But you can’t save people who won’t lift a finger to save themselves.

Whoever ‘wrote’ this ad is clearly desperate, like a cornered animal. But obviously not desperate enough to bother taking the time or putting in the little energy required to find out even a little information on what works in advertising.

And it’s not difficult. Fifteen years ago, you’d have had to get in your car, drive to the library, take out a couple of books, drive home again, and spend hours studying. Now, there’s Google. There’s NO excuse.

Try this yourself: Google ‘direct response advertising’. There’s page after page of people trying to sell you stuff, written by some of the best marketing copywriters on the planet. It’s a veritable university on your desk. If ALL you ever did was study what these guys have written, the structure of the piece, the way it leads the reader down a slippery slope to the Most Wanted Response… and applied even some of it to your own marketing, you’d be that far in front of most of your competition you’d be outta sight.

This particular ad is barely worth spending any time on. Certainly, I doubt any prospective customer did. But a couple of points worth mentioning.

One, it’s clear ‘distress selling’. May as well hire a megaphone, stand on your salon’s roof and shout “Hey, we’re starving, there’s really nothing going for us at all, but we’re really cheap!”

Second, the most important thing about any print ad is it’s headline. If the best you can come up with is the name of your salon, go flush your marketing money down the toilet.

Lastly, this ad begs for cheap clients, who’ll only ever want to spend five bucks. It has absolutely zero redeeming features. If I owned a salon nearby, I’d have a big sign out front that says

“We Fix $5 Haircuts”

Good grief. People like this don’t deserve the luxury of having customers.

FOOTNOTE: Even among our own Inner Circle members, there are always a few who are not long for this world. One, who joined the program recently, moaned and whined during a coaching call today that “no, I haven’t even opened the Toolkit, I haven’t been on the Members Only site, and anyway my business is different, this kind of stuff won’t work for me, and in any case I don’t want to do any of this marketing stuff, I want it all done for me…”

Sometimes, losers manage to weasel their way through a crack in our usually well-tuned Loser Filter.

If you are NOT a certifiable loser, can justify why we should accept you into the Inner Circle program, and think you can handle the ‘burden’ of knowing what works while getting aggravated with (other people’s) marketing that doesn’t, then you should apply to be one of only 30 salons we accept into the program each month (out of about 100 that apply). Here’s where you go to find out more and fill in the Pre-Application Survey.

]]> http://www.worldwidesalonmarketing.com/advertising-tips/salon-advertising-is-this-the-worlds-worst-ad/feed/ 7 http://www.worldwidesalonmarketing.com/blog/nz-2010-salon-owner-seminars-are-under-way/ http://www.worldwidesalonmarketing.com/blog/nz-2010-salon-owner-seminars-are-under-way/#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:18:23 +0000 Chris Sanders http://www.worldwidesalonmarketing.com/?p=2433 The first of 5 nationwide New Zealand Road Trip Mini Seminars kicked off on Monday at the Spencer on Byron in Takapuna.  The salon owners who joined us were the best note takers we have ever seen!!!  They took notes furiously as Rachael D’Aguiar-Sanders revealed powerful, yet simple marketing strategies and techniques to bring in floods of new clients, and get existing clients spending more, more often.  There were lots of laughs, nods and many a penny dropping moment.

Some of our veteran Inner Circle members were also there to share their experiences and inspire and motivate fellow salon owners, including Lynda Moodley of Lynnel’s Hair Studio in Manukau who had a record of 72 new clients in her salon in January!  In fact, things are going so well for Lynda that she has employed staff and is now only on the floor 3 days a week.

Sandra Pringle (left), proud owner of a Superkit!

And a HUGE congratulations to Auckland salon owners Margaret Walsh of Face and Body and Sandra Pringle of Cross Cut, who became the latest salon owners to get hold of their very own Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit®

Watch this video to see what Sandra had to say after the seminar…

The next Road Trip Mini Seminar is Monday 22^nd February in Palmerston North at the Hotel Coachman.  If you haven’t got your ticket yet then hurry, there are only 5 tickets left.  Call us NOW on 0800 029 668 to secure your spot!

Here is the full list of remaining seminar dates….

February 22^nd, Hotel Coachman:  Palmerston North

March 01^st, Sebel Trinity Wharf Hotel:  Tauranga

March 22^nd, Rydges Hotel:  Christchurch

March 29^th, Kingsgate Hotel:  Dunedin

Tickets are strictly LIMITED to 30 per seminar so call us now on 0800 029 668

Your Investment is only $87 and as a special bonus the first 10 people to purchase their tickets at each seminar will receive an additional ticket for a partner or colleague absolutely FREE!

Master copywriter Eugene Schwartz - his advertising skills sold billions dollars worth of products

The headline – the ‘ad for the ad’ – was written by one of the greatest direct response copywriters of the past 50 years, Eugene Schwartz. His ads, for everything from beauty and diet products to investment services and gardening, have resulted in sales of billions of dollars.

Schwartz’s ads are so powerful, so magnetic, they’ve been copied in some form for decades. They’re classic direct response.

And yet…and yet, despite overwhelming evidence that direct response-style display ads, hard copy direct mail and yes, online marketing is the only effective, measurable, accountable form of marketing that any small business owner should invest in, I still hear

“but it’s so unprofessional, my clients are far too sophisticated/educated/up-market for that kind of thing…”

Well, I’m more than happy for the ignorant and the arrogant to continue wasting their hard-earned money on pretty, ‘imagey’ kind of creative advertising while the rest of us get one with what works, instead of re-inventing the wheel.

As the master of direct response, David Ogilvy once declared, ‘creative is what sells‘. He might well have continued, ‘who cares about winning creative advertising awards, if the ads don’t get customers to pick up the phone and buy?’

For the education and interest of those readers wise enough to at least acknowledge they don’t know much about marketing and would like to inform themselves – being armed with knowledge gives you a pretty good buffer against making dumb, expensive mistakes – here’s a small sample of some of the greatest direct response advertising ever printed.

(And for Inner Circle members, the complete Eugene Schwartz ’swipe file’ of classic, powerful headlines, available for download now from here in the Member’s Only ’sealed section’ of the website.)

For those salon owners who are NOT part of the Inner Circle program, well I guess you’ll look at these examples, wrinkle your nose in distaste and sniffily declare them far too unworthy of your further study.

For those salon & spa owners smart enough to have joined the Inner Circle program including the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit®, the following examples will hopefully encourage and inspire you to go back to your Toolkit and begin to better understand the thinking behind the hundreds of advertising templates contained within it.

You can right click on these thumbnail images and ’save as…’ to download the ads in full screen, so you can study them in detail. My advice: analyze these from the point of view of ‘HOW can I use this information to develop better marketing for my salon?’ rather than “this isn’t for a beauty or hair business so it doesn’t apply to me!’

What does a gorgeous, “over-the-hill” international model do when sales of her new book are flat as a pancake and she’s got no idea how to turn it around?

Simple. If she’s Oleda Baker, she calls Eugene Schwartz.

This is the 1973 ad for “The Models Way to Beauty, Slenderness and Glowing Health” which eventually sold over 60,000 copies with the help of Gene Schwartz’s pen.

The caption beneath her photo is very effective. “This is an unretouched photo of 39 year old Oleda Baker, author of this eye opening new guide.”

Shirley Polykoff wrote this ad for Clairol in the 50s, “Does she …or doesn’t she? Hair color so natural only her hair dresser knows for sure.”

It was so successful in selling product that today Clairol is able to spend over $30 million a year in the USA alone on advertising – yet it won not a single ‘creative’ award.

The ‘Does she or doesn’t she?” headline was at first turned down by Life magazine as being ‘too suggestive’. The Life editors would turn pale at what advertisers get away with these days.

The myth that ‘they won’t read it if it’s too long…”

Advertising sales reps ought to be hung, drawn and quartered for insisting on spreading this toxic myth about marketing.

Most of  ‘em deride ‘direct response’ marketing as ‘okay for weight loss and hair replacement advertising, but you wouldn’t use it for professional services and products….’

Mmmm, really? Click on the picture here, the front cover of one of the world’s most respected business publications, and you’ll find a 15-page sales letter that’s pure direct response, sent out by the publishers to drive subscriptions.

Strange to say, it worked.

In 1919, Lillian Eichler was an 18-year-old working for a New York advertising agency when she was asked to figure out an ad that would sell a bunch of old copies of Ealnor Holt’s pre-1900 The Encyclopedia of Etiquette.

But most of the 1,000 copies sold came back within the 5-day guarantee period, the readers turned off by the antiquated text. But the publishers (Doubleday) were smart enough to realize that if Lillian’s ad could at least move the books, maybe she could re-write the original and turn it into something more appealing to the modern’ reader.

It did. Lillian’s version, the Book of Etiquette, sold 2 million copies at $2 each over the following two years, nearly $30 million in today’s money. Amazing to think that such powerful marketing copy could come from the pen of an 18-year-old.

Now, take a good look at all the examples above. If you note nothing else, note this: ALL of them feature columns of tightly-written copy, not mere pretty pictures and a phone number.

Go apply that thinking to YOUR advertising, and what your sales soar.