Nikki Smith and Phil Newman of NV Hair, Wanaka, NZ

Nikki and Phil joined the program in July this year and have seen their takings sky rocket since then.  For those of you unfamiliar with Wanaka, it’s in a fairly remote location in the South Island and has a population of around 7,000 (which grows a bit depending on the season).

Nikki and Phil actually took over an existing premises in Wanaka and it’s fair to say that prior to them taking over, the business was on a downward slide, with few customers and the clients that did come in, simply paid whatever they wanted to pay.   It’s VERY hard to run a business like that!

But Nikki and Phil are a ‘no-nonsense’ team and knew what they had to do to turn things around…FAST.  As soon as they join the Inner Circle program and got their very own copy of the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit® they took massive action.

“Hi Chris

We did the Hollywood promotion last month and here are our results…

We printed 2000 mailbox flyers at a cost of $110, and purchased 2000 envelopes at a cost of $230 (and we’ve now found them even cheaper).

We also ran 2 adverts in the local newspaper for $188 (we now do trade on service with advertiser so costs less, sometimes nothing depending on advert and time scale)

Our total number of bookings was 34 and out of the 34 only 3 paid the minimum $99.  The average client spend was $130 (this was from up-grades and product sales).

The script for selling product and the method in the ‘Selling Like Crazy’ manual works a dream. I now have only 4 bottles of treatment on my shelf and my supplier loves me…..lol.

Thanks Chris this is definitely proof that the system works anywhere. The salon was on its knees when I took over and now, well I’m that busy I now need staff….lol.”

So let’s break these results down a bit more…

All up for the printing, envelopes and newspaper ads the cost was $528 (*You can get plain envelopes from the Warehouse Stationary for around $20 for 500…so this would have saved Nikki even more money).

3 packages were sold at $99 = $297

31 packages were sold with an average spend of $130 = $4030

So that’s a total income generated of $4327 for a cost of $528.  A return of investment of $8 for every $1 spent…WOW!

If each of these clients were to spend on average $130 with Nikki and Phil every month for the next year, they would be worth over $1500 to the salon each.  So potentially they have just increased the salons turnover over the next 12 months by $51,000….and that’s just from one promotion!

It’s pretty amazing considering that the salon was turning over a mere $2K a month before they took over.

Well done Nikki and Phil, keep up the good work!

Oh and by the way, Nikki and Phil will be at our Auckland Salon Profit Secrets Seminar on September 6^th at the Hilton.  So if you’d like to meet them both and many other inspiring NZ salon owners then book now.  There are already over 100 salons booked in and only 15 seats left.  Click the link below to book your tickets.

BUY TICKETS NOW http://www.salonprofitsecrets.com/buy-tickets-now/auckland-salon-marketing-seminar/ or call 0800 029 668

Whether you are in a small or big town, you CAN achieve results like Nikki and Phil. To join the Inner Circle program TODAY and get your own copy of the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit®. Go here to see if you qualify for a 90 Day Money Back Guaranteed Test Drive of the entire system – completely risk free.)

Worried ‘it’ won’t work for you in a small town? Check out where Nikki and Phil’s salon is located…you don’t get much more remote than that!
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New IC member Ian Simonsen from Gallery Hair Design in Auckland, New Zealand, wanted to get more clients in the door.

In particular, he wanted old clients back in, and fill some empty appointments Monday to Wednesday. To keep the marketing cheap we created a very powerful offer that was NOT discounting, and Ian sent this offer in a text message to 500 clients he hadn’t seen in 3 months or more. The offer went out on a Friday afternoon.

The promotion to ‘raise the dead’ has had spectacular results - and a brilliant return on investment.

Within three days Ian had booked in 26 cleints for a cut and color on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. This promotion cost Ian about $100 (at 20 cents per text message). Talk about great results for his marketing dollar…he made over $5,000 from this single Inner Circle promotion.

As you know Greg (the lucky dog) is off fishing with his pals till next week, so he’s left me in charge of the Success Strategy bulletins. For those of you who don’t know me I’ll introduce myself. My name is Jemma Lole, and my last name is not pronounced ‘lolly’, as much as I enjoy sweet sugary foods. I am extremely passionate about copywriting and marketing, I just love finding those ‘triggers’ that make people buy. I think it’s fascinating, exciting, and better yet, it makes lots of money for the people I work with!  

Jill Groves, the director of Worldwide Salon Marketing, and I have just returned from our Super Conference with 150 fantastic attendees in Adelaide (check us out on the right, enjoying coffee in the gorgeous Hilton conference room). Though tired from the action packed trip, the office has been buzzing with energy as Jill and I shared with the team everything that happened during the Super Conference. Some highlights or ‘Ah-ha’ moments included:

- Perry Mardon unveiling the three most common personality traits of salon owners, amid gasps of realization from the audience. Perry invited audience members up on stage as he used his amazing mind skills to reveal why being ‘nice’ is destroying your business and staff morale, and how to overcome this salon saboteur.

- Inner Circle member Nikki Gilbert bravely standing up in front of the audience and sharing how she made $8,000 in two weeks after sending out just 200 marketing letters.

- The Panel of Experts, one of the most popular parts of the day when the entire audience was invited to come to the microphone and ask their burning question of the panel, which included experts on staff, marketing, policies and procedures, and sales.

- The intimate details of real-life salon success stories revealed to the audience, including the in-salon strategies that won Le Beau Day Spa owner Karen Briffa so many national awards, and how Inner Circle Sharon Bremner from Body Sense doubled her salon sales in just 3 weeks.

Jill says “I feel privileged that these genuine and hard working salon owners took the time from their week to attend our conference. We had an amazing day and from the comments I’ve been getting it seems that everyone had some fantastic ideas and breakthroughs during the day.”

Here’s what a few of the attendees wrote to tell us:

“I really enjoyed the conference yesterday. You have a fantastic team with you, they are genuine and love what they are doing. It was really pleasing to see so many salon owners there, learning from the guest speakers and networking with each other. The few people that I spoke to about the ‘Inner Circle’ are very positive and get results. I wish you the greatest success in your vision, our industry will gain valuable support and guidance from your business and your team.” Cass Donnelly, Director of Vita 5, SA.

“Dear Jill, first of all I would like to congratulate you on a fantastic conference, Julie and myself found it very interesting and can’t wait for the next one”. Jenny Moynihan Reflections Day Spa, Blackwood SA

Jill and I are continuing to bring the sell-out ‘Road to Riches’ Super Conferences on tour across Australia. Don’t miss the opportunity to attend in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne; it really is the event that will transform your life and your business in a single day. Tickets are $159 per person, and the first 50 to book each event get a second ticket FREE! Call the office on 08 9381 6621 to book your ticket or visit the website www.salonroadtoriches.com for more information.

The 80/20 rule applies in all things. Eighty percent of the income is made by 20% of the people. Only 20% of all assets are held by 80% of the people. Eighty percent of the work is done by 20% of the people…. and in the beauty and hair industry, I reckon the real ratio is 95/5.

Only 5% of people in the beauty and hair industry who find themselves owning and running a salon actually started the thing as a business right from the get-go. Most appear to have found themselves in business almost by default…they’ve ‘bought themselves a job’, thought that ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have my own business’, hung out their shingle and bingo. Without doing a jot of research, not a line of reading, barely an hour of study about what’s required to get customers, keep them, manage the ‘back office’ – and worse, spend years struggling to get past ‘Go’, wondering why it is that nothing ever seems to improve, never bothering to find out why it is that you can’t solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it in the first place.

Inner Circle member Rebecca Skehan is not one of those. In fact, she’s most definitely in the top 5% – thanks to what I call ‘Accurate Thinking’ backed up by study (about what works, and what doesn’t) and by being a constant student. Oh, and the most important thing – speed of implementation, tinged with impatience.

(Hear this: in business, patience and tolerance are vastly over-rated)

Here is Rebecca’s story. As you read it, take notes.

“Just thought I’d let you know that we are 200% sold on Inner Circle membership and the Toolkit!  We opened our salon from scratch with no existing clientele.  We ran a flyer, dropped in letterboxes in the area over the weekend, and we started getting calls overnight!  We had 15 bookings of the package today alone!  I have never, in my 11 years of hairdressing, seen that kind of response so quickly.  We also dropped some flyers off at our local bank (whom we bank with), and we had two bookings from them only 5 mins or so after my staff member got back into the salon!
Very impressed!

We have a lot of your systems and strategies in place, and my staff take pride in creating the ‘wow’ factor for our clients. Our business is slowly building – and we get loads of comments on our little finishing touches that we do (namely the client personalised reserved signs we place at their station).
The quiet times we have are purely our own fault for letting our marketing lapse (and not getting it out soon enough). So to combat this I now take Wednesdays ‘off the tools’ and focus on our marketing strategies. In only a few Wednesdays I’ve managed to organise a Client Christmas letter, Newsletter, New Flyer, Gift Voucher Package Menu (to send out with our client christmas letter), and more – and Im really excited to think what I will be able to achieve now that Im making it a permanent thing.

Working ‘ON’ the business, not IN it

I’ts amazing how small minded people can be when it comes to business though. Most people I talk to seem to have it in their head that in order to create a great successful business I need to be ‘on the tools’ taking as many appointments I can (for me and my staff), and that one day when we are fully
booked out consistently, our clientele base is full – only then should I be taking time ‘off the tools’. I disagree with this – and I’m sick of trying to explain my reasons to people. I believe that I should set the precedent now of what I want our business to be – and how I believe it should be run (regardless of how long we have been running).

For example…

* I have set written systems and procedures in place (in a Gaia Hair Salon Manual) for everything from how to greet a customer to how to clean the salon. They are very detailed, and all staff know what is expected of them. I expect my staff to follow them completely, and if someone has a problem
with them I will not employ that person.

Results of Accurate Thinking

* My staff are trained to book themselves out with appointments before taking any for me. I only do clients that specifically ask for me, or others if the girls are too busy. My appointments get stretched right out in our computer so that I have time for business tasks in between clients. I block myself out entirely on Wednesdays now to do business tasks.

My plan is to open more Gaia Hair salons in the future, so I run the salon now the way that it would run if we had many salons. We often get asked by people how many Gaia Hair’s there is – and they cant believe that there is only one (so far!) because it is so organised. I guess was lucky to have
trained with a big franchise salon so I saw a lot of it first hand.

My gut instinct tells me Im doing the right thing.We learnt this the hard way with my husbands business. He has worked very hard on the tools for many years trying to establish his business. He has been trying to get off the tools for a few years now but struggles tremendously (he’s short-staffed) – and his business partner is very not business minded, he is stuck in employment mentality. So Mark has pushed me to think of the bigger picture when running the business.

I dont want to be stuck working in the business not on the business. And I need to find a happy balance because I have two small children (aged 1yr and 3yrs).

I look forward to your newsletters and new marketing ideas, as we are consistently running flyers (the most cost effective marketing we’ve found) – and it always gets my brain working!!

Cheers,
Rebecca Skehan, Gaia Hair, Queensland

NOTE: If you want to get the benefit of being a Member of the same Inner Circle marketing & mentoring group that Rebecca belongs to, you may qualify for a 90-day Test Drive of the Inner Circle system. We receive over 100 applications per month, and award only 10 90-day ‘Test Drives’.