Going LIVE on Monday, February 6

We’re adding dozens of new salon advertising and marketing templates to the Members only ‘sealed section’ website site every month – this month, a completely new series of templates for those salons offering specialized salon services.

Balyage (like Rachael Bilson’s hair at left), IPL, chemical straightening, remedial massage, hair extensions, fat cavitation and much more… the new templates are instantly downloadable in Word format so you can easily edit them to suit your own salon’s offers.

You’ll find them in various sizes and formats, both US and A4, postcards, posters etc.

Never stare at a blank computer screen again!

The new templates join literally hundreds of done-for-you advertising only for salons & spas, in the world’s biggest specialist library for salon & spa marketing.

Just a handful of the hundreds of instantly downloadable salon marketing & advertising templates in the Members Only website

All you do is simply download them from the website, edit them to suit your own salon’s offers and specialties, enter your own business name and address, and bingo – instant advertising! Never again stare at a blank computer screen, not knowing what to write or how to lay it out.

These templates are being continually produced by our copywriting and graphics team, adding to our vast library every month.

The Members website is a storehouse containing literally years of proven, done-for-you direct response marketing templates. They’ve been downloaded, tested and proven to grab salon clients fast, all over the world.

Online marketing, email, SMS, newspaper ads, radio ads, salon posters, client letters – you’ll find them all on the Members Only website.

Not yet a member?

Still sitting in front of a computer screen, tearing your hair out, not knowing what to put in your ads?

Go here to find out how you can get Instant Access, for less than the price of a cut ‘n color!

And each and every year the website grows as more material is added and the archive gets bigger.  In fact there is over 6 years worth of archived material on the website now.  It’s easy for some of the older archives to be lost in depths of the website.

And it’s safe to say that if you were to employ a design firm or an ad agency to create the material on the members website and give you multiple options for designs, template sizes and concepts, you would be looking at spending into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  On the other side of the coin, if you were to try and design all this material yourself, well firstly you’d probably need a degree in copy writing, graphic design and a heck of a lot of time on your hands!!!

So, in this new feature I intend to delve deep into the archives, blow the dust and cob webs away and unearth some of the hidden gems that perhaps you have never come across before.

In this first feature I am going to look at a clever little flyer that was actually created by a Pizza Shop.

This was actually one of the very first promotions we use for our salon D’Aguiar: hair.skin.nails after joining the Inner Circle Program back in 2007 and it was a huge succuss. Our version was slightly different and at the top said ‘FREE $20 Voucher – No Strings Attached’  We then looped a piece of string through the flyer and hung it on peoples door knobs around our neighbourhood.  We consistently got 10 bookings from every 100 door flyers delivered and we had so many people saying they LOVED the out of the box marketing!

We still have dozens of clients that come to our salon today who originally came from this flyer. So when you think for the cost of a $20 service, we have made upwards of $4 – 5K from EACH of those clients since then, it’s a pretty good return on investment!

Here’s a link to find this template in the members only sealed section.

http://www.worldwidesalonmarketing.com/members/salon-marketing-ideas/ideas-to-steal/a-different-kind-of-mailbox-flyer-try-this/

If you are an Inner Circle Member and want to share a success story from another members only website ‘hidden gem’ then drop me an email chris@worldwidesalonmarketing.com and I’ll be sure to feature it in an up and coming article!

If you are NOT an Inner Circle Member and are sick and tired of sitting in front of a computer screen trying to come up with designs and copy for flyers and ads then you need to apply to join the Inner Circle Program and get access to the years of archives on the members only website and get your very own copy of the Essential Salon Owners Toolkit to help you market your hair or beauty salon/spa. Click here to find out more and apply for a 90-day Money Back Guaranteed Test Drive TODAY

A lot of people had a lot of good ideas before you were born. And most of those good ideas are still good ideas. But their lessons have been largely forgotten, which is why most hair & beauty industry marketing in the ‘modern’ era is a complete failure.

Take a look at this Revlon TV ad from 1973.

A 'Charlie Girl' had power and confidence unheard of among women in 1973 - hence the briefcase, and her hand on HIS backside instead of the other way round!

Anybody over the age of forty will remember the famous print and TV campaigns for Revlon’s ‘Charlie’ perfume. In the seventies, when women were still fighting to be seen as ‘equal’ to men, these ads were a revelation.
For the first time, they portrayed women as strong, deliberately sexy, confident and powerful at a time when most advertising put women firmly in the kitchen and laundry.

And if you’re a student of marketing, you’ll notice one more crucial thing: the ads aren’t about the product! There’s not even a hint about what’s in it, no dreary nonsense about how it was created by white-coated scientists with lots of letters after their names, in clinical laboratories using secret ingredients distilled from the purified secretions of a now-extinct South American tree frog.

Revlon founder Charles Revson knew the secret that most business people seem to have forgotten long ago; that nobody cares a damn about the product.

Revson’s advertising answered emphatically the only question that really matters:

‘Why should I, your prospective customer, buy this?’

There’s an old saying that talks about not being able to ‘see the forest through all the trees’.

Everybody suffers from it from time to time, even those who’re often seen by others as super-successful.

Like the salon owner who approached me last week for some advice. This very young salon owner joined the Inner Circle marketing & mentoring program a few years ago when she was working alone and struggling, and became almost an ‘overnight’ success.

She devoured everything I teach about direct response marketing for salons, soaked it up like a sponge, rapidly and repeatedly implementing everything she found in the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit, and pretty soon found herself creating her own advertising through everything she’d learned.

Became, in effect, a marketing machine.  Her salon grew and grew, she bought another salon, and within two years of joining WSM was working almost exclusively from home, while her salons ran on automatic pilot.

But that wasn’t enough for all this new-found entrepreneurial zeal. It had to find another outlet somewhere. So she decided she’d develop her own skin care product line, and use the internet to sell it.

All good so far. Then she ran into a bank of fog that clouded her once-clear vision. She wrote to me and asked

“Greg, I need a bit of reassurance…is this web-based ‘glop’ a good idea, or am I frigging mad???!!! We all have these days when we wonder ‘what the hell…’ – don’t we?”

We do indeed. This is what I wrote back to her:

“Don’t think of it as ‘web-based glop’. There is no such thing as an ‘internet business’. The internet is not a business, it’s merely a media. Just one media.

You need to think of your idea as a business, like any other business. As a marketing and sales business that just happens to be selling a beauty product or products, using the internet as just one of the many forms of media it uses to get its message out, gather leads, make sales to those leads.

It’s much bigger than just an ‘internet business’. And it’s not something you can do for a couple of hours a week, sitting at the kitchen table in your track pants, thinking this is all it takes.

You’re contemplating setting up and growing a business. Not a hobby. Don’t think of it as a ‘internet glop’ hobby. Imagine instead that you’re setting up a drilling company, or a construction business, or a fashion brand. Do all the same things you would do for your ‘glop’ business as you would do for those businesses.”

She got it immediately.

“ Thanks for that…..reality check. You’re exactly right! It comes down to marketing and sales…there are companies selling the same product, the difference will be my marketing and my sales ability…which these other companies have no idea about!”

She hit the nail on the head.
Most people, particularly in big, dumb companies, lose sight of the fact that it’s not what you’re selling that matters, it’s how you market and sell it.
They fall under their own spell, mesmerised by their own wonderful product or service, deluded into thinking that their prospects, customers and clients actually give a damn about the product. They don’t, at all. People only care about what a product does for them, not the product itself.
Which is exactly why you see most companies selling any kind of hair or skin product blathering on endlessly about obscure and meaningless ingredients – essentially, selling the sausage instead of the sizzle.

So the next time you’re tossing around product options for your salon, look closely, ask questions, and when the product rep tries to blind you with science, hold your hand up and demand clear, concise answers.

“If you were standing in front of a customer, what would you say to this customer that would clearly, in a single sentence, convince the customer to buy your product as against any and all options available to her?”
Unless and until you get a great answer to that question, all you’re selling is ‘glop’.

But there is a problem : No marketing equals no clients. No clients means no lifestyle.

The investment that you make in the business by marketing to the public, and to your existing clients, is paramount to the success of your salon. And with any investment that you make in your business career, you want to invest now and see a return for a long time to come.

The results that you want are new and existing clients in the door spending their money with you, and not even giving a thought to any other salons.

Simple isn’t it!

So how do you make your marketing an investment? How is the marketing something that you will be able to “see” the returns on?

Your marketing, and learning how to market your salon CORRECTLY, is an investment in your business, and yourself. They are skills that once they are learned, are not forgotten, and will be used frequently in all your future business life. You will see the returns from the increased knowledge of how to market your business, through the business being marketed more efficiently to the market place, and more clients coming into the salon.

Your marketing, along with your salon owning mentor who will coach and guide you with learning how to market your salon, will become a tool that is used consistently to put new and existing clients into the salon with a minimum of fuss. The tools in the Essential Salon Owners Marketing Toolkit that you will use frequently and successfully, will need to be monitored to make sure that you are getting the returns on the investment that you want to achieve. There are headlines to test, offers to alter, and scarcity to create.

All of these help to improve the results that the marketing achieves for the business.

The investment in learning how to create and adjust your marketing so that you know you will get an “expected” result when  a piece of marketing is put into the market place, will pay enormous dividends to your salon.

The salon marketing tools need to be sharpened after every use. You will want to look at what the marketing  has achieved, and find where the tools have not performed. With razor sharp marketing tools and increasing skills, you will be putting clients in the salon, and see the investment in the marketing is producing positive results.

When the marketing puts clients in the salon, the investment in yourself and the salon is working. When your clients see you as the expert in the field, then the investment in the marketing has worked. When the client enters the salon and PRICE is not an issue, then the investment in the marketing is paid for. You now have marketing that is an investment. It leads clients to your salon who are pre conditioned to buying, no matter what the price.

There are many  forms of marketing that you can do that will be an investment in the salon. There are newsletters that you can use to talk to your clients about products and the benefits of using them ( versus the Coles and Woolies bought products ) and make them aware of what is happening in the salon, now and in the future. You also have Facebook available as a tool for letting your clients, and their friends know, what is happening  in your salon.

NOT yet a Member of the Inner Circle marketing & mentoring program? Don’t yet have the power of the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit? Click here to find out more and apply for a 90-day Money Back Guaranteed Test Drive of the entire system, including the Toolkit, one-on-one coaching (with our experienced coaches who are all salon & spa owners themselves) and access to the Members Only resources website.

The right tools for the job make it that much easier and more enjoyable, that it would be criminal NOT to use the tools that are starring you in the face. The idiom in the title says it best; If someone brings a knife to a gunfight, they are very badly prepared for something.

With the RIGHT tools, your salon will take you to places you had only dreamed of!

This email from brand new Inner Circle Premium member Susan Nguyen, of Classy Cuts unisex hair design, in Melbourne, says it all.

“Hi, I’m Susan Nguyen, you might remember me from the Melbourne hair and spa boot camp seminar last month ( the little Vietnamese girl that brought every packages that day)lol. The Reason for my email is to say a very BIG BIG THANK YOU for designing this amazing Marketing Toolkit ! I’m so so happy that I’ve finally found something that really works for our salon! I’m so impressed with the amazing, instant results! and also how much more motivated I’m now. Therefore I’ve decided to write to you at 3:44am to express my Thank-you.

You’ve taught me how to work with my head! work Smart! and now i can see light at the end of the tunnel.

thank you so much! and it was great to meet you last month Greg , keep up your great work, and have fun on your trip away .

ps : thank God i purchased every tool kit that day, best money ever spent .:)very ThankfulSusan Nguyen from Classy Cuts unisex hair design.”

As you read this you can hear that same thought in your own heads. Susan is a classic example of taking your salon from where you are now to where you want it to be. Although Susan is at the beginning of her journey, she has the right mindset and the right tools to get her there.

Here is “what is in it for you” inside the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit -

-A hardcopy Toolkit that contains “done for you” marketing that you can use straight awayto get new clients in your door tomorrow,

- Coaching calls that guide you through starting to use the “tools” and how to get the best results for your salon,

- Access to our “Members Only Inner Circle” webpage where you can access our library of tools that can be used in your salon,

- And last, but certainly not least, the world exclusive “Members Only Facebook Forum”. This is where the best of the best, or the TOP 5% of salon owners, go to discuss what is working in their salon.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more to see, under the surface.

Susan invested in herself for the good of the salon, only 4 weeks ago, and is seeing real results straight away. Only really happy people send emails at 3 44 am in the morning!

How do you plan to make the transition from where you are now to where you want to be? Do you have the right tools to get you there?

NOT yet a Member of the Inner Circle marketing & mentoring program? Don’t yet have the power of the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit? Click here to find out more and apply for a 90-day Money Back Guaranteed Test Drive of the entire system, including the Toolkit, one-on-one coaching (with our experienced coaches who are all salon & spa owners themselves) and access to the Members Only resources website.

With the 2011 Salon and Spa Superstar Bootcamp being only days away for Melbourne, and a matter of weeks for Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, it can be revealed who the mystery special guest is. The person in question has been a motivational speaker and author who has sold over 2 million books worldwide. His expertise is to SHIFT MINDSETS AND TO BUILD BIGGER PEOPLE to produce results.

This man has spoken for, and shared the platform globally with some of the world’s most influential people including, Sir Richard Branson, Donald Trump, Denis Waitley, Robert
Kiyosaki, Mark Victor Hansen, Jim Rohn, Charlie Tremendous Jones, Captain JerryCoffee, Allan Pease, Bob Proctor, Willie Jolley and Morris Goodman “The Miracle Man”.

So, the question remains… WHO is this mystery guest speaker?

Who managed to cause the phone to melt as salon owners scrambled to get the last remaining tickets? Ladies and Gents, I present to you …

Pat Mesiti.

His enthusiasm combined with his great sense of humor gives him the ability to move an audience into action as well as give them practical resources to help them achieve their goals. He is a gifted communicator and will add tremendous value to the lives he touches. Pat is Dynamic – Entertaining – Unforgettable!

And if you think that Salon marketing does not apply to you, then read how Dee Lawson, of Dee’s Classic Cuts in Armidale in NSW, gives another reason why salon owners want the Essential Salon Owners Toolkit from the 2011 Salon and Spa Superstar Bootcamp.

“Hi eveyone. Just letting you know we have had 167 new clients come in to our new salon since the 4th April 2011. WOW…. I checked the retention and only 18 people have not been back and some of these people were only in in May.”

Dee has implemented marketing out of the toolkit so that new clients beat a path into her NEW salon, and is now seeing massive returns in the number of new clients that are coming in, but also in the retention rate, which is just UNDER 90%.

This is no small achievement in any language, and has been created by Dee implementing systems into her salon that allow her to work on her business.

Book a ticket now, before it’s too late:
Online: www.salonprofitsecrets.com/buy-tickets/

If you have NOT yet secured your ticket(s) to one of these events, time is short.
The venues and dates are:
Melbourne:
Monday, July 4, Citadines on Bourke
Sydney:
Monday July 11, UTS Function Centre, Level 7, 235 Jones St (Building 10), Ultimo
Brisbane:
Monday, July 18, BTP Technology & Conference Centre, 1 Clunies Ross Court, Eight Mile Plains
Perth:
Monday July 25, Royal Perth Yacht Club, Australia II Drive, Crawley

How to book:
Online: go to   www.salonprofitsecrets.com/buy-tickets/
Phone: call the Bootcamp hotline, 08 9381 6621

NOT yet a Member of the Inner Circle marketing & mentoring program? Don’t yet have the power of the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit? Click here to find out more and apply for a 90-day Money Back Guaranteed Test Drive of the entire system, including the Toolkit, one-on-one coaching (with our experienced coaches who are all salon & spa owners themselves) and access to the Members Only resources website.

NZ Salon Owner Coffee Group Session Kicks Off in Ponsonby, Auckland!

If you are interested in registering for future ‘Coffee Group Sessions’ then email chris@worldwidesalonmarketing.com to get notified first!

Both inner Circle and non inner circle members came together to share ideas and knowledge on how we can improve our businesses in general and how we can make these daily deals websites work for us.

There has been an explosion of these websites over the last 12 months with some 80 plus in New Zealand alone and I have been fielding calls from salon owners on a regular basis asking me my thoughts, so we felt it important to discuss the pros and cons of these daily deals sites so that salons can make an informed decision before committing to it.

The coffee group started with 2 stories about businesses that had embarked on a daily deal offer.  One story reflected on how these daily deals can work against you, another on how it can work for you.  Here’s a brief outline of these 2 stories.

How a Daily Deal Offer Worked Against a Business

The first story was about a restaurant who signed up for a deal and quickly sold 500 vouchers.  They simply were not ready for the onslaught that followed as they didn’t have the staff or infrastructure in place to cope.  Once the deal had expired the restaurant owner said they would never do a similar deal again because the coupon they did proved very costly after the discount they offered and the commission they gave away.  In addition the customers that bought the deal were either existing customers already or they came from out of town and would be unlikely to return again in the future. They felt like many of these customers were on the coupon track and would keep searching out the best coupon deals and not be loyal to any one business.

How a Daily Deal Offer Worked For a Business

The next story was about a massage therapist who had just started up a new business and as a way to kick start her business she felt what better way to launch herself than to do a daily deal offer and get her name out in front of a whole bunch of people who had never heard about her before.  She sold 219 deals and about 75 signed up for more services. As a new business the influx of clients was invaluable to her and brought in people from areas of town she never thought about targeting.  The massage therapist explained that it was important to do a deal  that encouraged people to buy more (services or product), but not to expect to make any money from doing the daily deal, instead use it as a marketing tool to get customers in the door.

After hearing these stories and sharing their own experiences, what did salon owners at the coffee group session see as the major pros and cons of these websites?

Here is some of the feedback we got from Salon Owners about the cons of daily deals

• Bargain Hunters: Many of the salon owners felt like the majority of people coming in with these vouchers were bargain hunters with another 5 vouchers for different salons up their sleeve.  Therefore it was hard to build any loyalty from these people and turn them into regular clients.
• Not the Salons Target Market: As the daily deals have such a large database many of the customers who bought the offer were not the salons ideal target market. Lots even found their regular customers had bought the deal too.
• Annoys Loyal Customers: As the salon was busy with daily deal clients it made it hard to find appointment times for the regular loyal customers.  This annoyed the regulars who pay a premium price and they would not come back and instead go to a nearby competing salon.
• No Profit:  There was no profit to be made doing these deals as by the time you take off staff costs, product costs, daily deals commission, tax, gst you would be actually losing money
• Discounting: Salon owners felt like doing a daily deal lowered the value of their business and makes them look desperate.  A new client buying a discounted daily deal offer will always see this as the original price making it hard to charge more in the future.  The discount also devalues your service and costs you cash in the till.
• Too Busy: Sounds like a good problem to have, but many salons who had done these deals felt that they just couldn’t cope with the onslaught of customers and did not have the infrastructure or systems in place to cope.  This annoyed the people who had bought the deals as they couldn’t fit in sometimes for weeks.  You know what they say…’first impressions count!’  The salon would also be left with weeks of coupon clients to service and no profit to be made.
• Cash flow is Difficult: Some salons found they would be waiting up to a month to be paid, but they would still have staff and bills to pay in the mean time putting them under considerable financial stress.
• No Restrictions or Limits: Many found they were unable to set limits and didn’t put any restrictions on the offer, so their late nights or peak times were filled with coupon clients
• No Rewards or Incentives:  Because the profit margin is minimal if nothing at all, then salons could not offer incentives or bonuses for staff, meaning staff were unmotivated to rebook these clients.

Here is some of the feedback we got from Salon Owners about the pros of daily deals

• Good marketing Tool: Some salons found that the daily deals were a great marketing tool in order to get their business in front of thousands of customers who had never heard about them before.  Provided you didn’t just rely on them for income then it was a great opportunity to get new business and fast.
• Bigger Reach/Database: It allowed a salon with a relatively small customer base and no email software system in place the chance to reach a wider audience with no upfront costs.  It also allowed them to build their own database quickly.
• Utilising Downtime: It was a great way to fill downtime in the salon provided you had put day or time restrictions in your offer
• New Clients: It was a fast way to get new clients through the door and once they had established a relationship with the client they could personalise their future marketing to that client.
• Up-selling Opportunity: A few salons had put in place an up-sell so that when these clients booked in they were given the opportunity to upgrade to a higher priced serviced allowing the salon to make more money
• Mini Referral System: Although the client who has bought the deal may not be your ideal client or may even live out of town, if they enjoy their experience they may even refer other clients to you or buy a voucher for a friend or relative who does live in your area.

The overall consensus from the first NZ Salon Owner Coffee Group Session was that daily deal websites should be treated as a loss leader.  A great marketing tool to get new customers in the door and build a database, but certainly not something that is going to make you rich!

After attending the Coffee Group, Michelle Govender has decided that Daily Deal websites are not for her Salon Rejuven8 Health & Beauty.  See her video below!

As with any marketing campaign that is a loss leader you need to know what a customer is worth to you so that you know how much you are willing to spend or give away in order to get a customer worth $xxxx per year to your salon.  If you don’t know what a customer is worth to you in a lifetime then it’s something you need to know!

So how can a salon beat the daily deal websites and keep all the money? Well, if you are determined to do a daily deal then you need to become familiar with the concept of value adding instead of discounting. This is a great way to offer your coupon hunters more perceived value but at the same time you will not be affecting your profit margin.

To answer my opening question, are daily deal websites destroying our industry? Well to a certain extent yes they are.  But I also believe that salons need to put more thought into their marketing long term instead of just going for the ‘quick fix’ which in many instances is leaving salons out of pocket!

Answer this question.  Do you make a sale to gain a customer, or get a customer to make a sale?

It seems like salons are continually trying to undercut each other on these websites and to be quite honest, it screams of desperation and resembles a pack of salivating hyena’s, all trying desperately to scrape the last bit of meat from the carcass.  In an effort to get a quick fix of cash, short sighted salons are inadvertently destroying the industry as a whole – these are the salons that see the purpose of a customer is to make a one-off sale. Harsh words I know, but it’s this thoughtless approach to marketing that really irks me.  I have spent years trying to get salon owners to see more value in what they do, and drive the price of our services up.  Why is it that many salon owners de-value what they do so much to the point of bankrupting themselves?

Hopefully this blog will help you make a more informed decision as to whether you should or shouldn’t do a daily deal, and if you do, how to manage it so that it works for you!

I would love to get more feedback on this topic so please leave your comments below!

If you want to know the secrets of gaining customers for life then you need to be a member of the Inner Circle Program and get your copy of the Essential Salon Owners Marketing Toolkit™ then Click here to find out more and apply for a 90-day Money Back Guaranteed Test Drive of the entire system, including the Toolkit, one-on-one coaching (with our experienced coaches who are all salon & spa owners themselves) and access to the Members Only resources website.

NZ Salon Owners Brainstorm Ideas!

Worldwide Salon Marketing NZ and The Salon Staff Coach have teamed up and are excited to announce the start of a new mini series of ‘Coffee Group’ Starter Classes for salon owners.  This is your chance to get up close and pick the brains of 2 NZ salon marketing and staff coaching experts. 

The first of these starter classes will be at the ‘Williamson Cafe’ in Ponsonby on June 20^th and will be from 9.30am to 11.30am.

These classes will be hosted by Auckland Salon owners and Worldwide Salon Marketing/Salon Staff Coach directors Chris and Rachael D’Aguiar-Sanders.  The cost is just $19 per person and complimentary tea/coffee and light snacks will be available.

Call 0800 029 668 Now to secure your spot or email chris@worldwidesalonmarketing.com

Each of these Mini Starter Classes will have their own unique topics up for discussion….So what can you expect to learn from this session?  

• The Pro’s and Con’s of Daily Deal Websites. There has been an explosion of these websites on the market (At least 80 in NZ alone!).  So how do you out-smart those daily deal websites – and keep ALL the money!
• Why building a database is like striking GOLD for your salon and how to get the most out of your database. PLUS why your business is worth nothing without it!
• The Lifetime value of a customer to your business.  Do you get a customer to make a sale or make a sale to gain a customer? How much money is slipping out of your hands by ignoring your customers?        
• How to get your staff seeing each new client as an opportunity and rebooking every single one.  What’s in it for your staff and what’s in it for you?
• Your Q & A – Let us know what you want to hear about!

We have allocated time for a question and answer session so get submitting your questions now to chris@worldwidesalonmarketing.com or rachael@worldwidesalonmarketing.com   

Hurry! There are ONLY 15 spaces available at this starter class.  Once the spaces are gone, that’s it!

And for current Inner Circle Members we will be hosting a ‘Members Only Closed Door Session’ at the same venue from 12pm to 1.30pm.  This will be free of charge for IC members and coffee/tea and light snacks will be provided.  

To book in contact Chris Sanders at chris@worldwidesalonmarketing.com or call 0800 029 668

Bad Advice From Advertising Reps Can make You Want To Pull Your Hair Out!

Christmas is undoubtedly the time of year where BIG profits can be made in the salon.  It’s also the time of year the phone starts ringing red hot with advertising reps wanting to sell you all sorts of different advertising space from radio to newspaper.  The key thing is to choose your advertising media carefully to suit your particular target market, and to be very wary of bad advice from advertising sales rep who are looking to do nothing more than earn a quick buck from you so they make their targets!

Which brings me to a conversation I had today during a coaching call, with one of our newest New Zealand Inner Circle members.

This Inner Circle member has decided to run a radio campaign over the Christmas period and all sounded fantastic until she told me about the advice her advertising sales rep had given her…

‘The advertising rep has suggested I don’t put my phone number in the ad because there’s not enough room to say it and she said everybody knows where I am anyway…’

Well as you can imagine, my advice to this member was that this was the dumbest thing I had EVER heard.  It is this kind of thoughtless, money wasting drivel that makes me wonder how on earth some advertising reps get their job in the first place.

Here’s what would happen if you ran an advert with no phone number whether it be newspaper, radio, mailbox flyers or whatever….

Firstly, no-one would call from the ad so you would make NO money or bookings. Secondly, you would have completely wasted your money on running the ad – you might as well have flushed it down the loo. Thirdly, you would never advertise using that particular media again because you’d think it didn’t work, completely closing of an advertising avenue that if done correct can and will work very well.  Finally, the advertising rep would make that one sale but would never get your business again missing out on a lifetime customer.

It’s no wonder there was a global recession with advice like this.

You have to make things as easy as possible for your customers.  If they see your ad, like the offer, then have to go hunting around for your phone number, it’s just too much hassle.  They will switch off and put it in the too hard basket! A strong call to action is crucial to get the customers to do what you want them to do and do it now! Call (phone number) NOW!

NEVER assume that people know where you are….it will be fatal to your business.  About a year ago I was coaching a member who flat out refused to put her phone number in her advertising and she explained to me that everyone in her town knew who she was because she was so respected….blah, blah, blah.  The advice I gave her fell on deaf ears, and guess what….she went out of business!

Last Christmas, my wife Rachael and I planned to run a series of adverts in a so-called ‘reputable’ Auckland newspaper for our Salon D’Aguiar hair.skin.nails.  We put our ad together sent it to the paper for re-formatting and they sent a proof back.  When I got the proof, it was not only completely changed to look like your typical ‘pretty’ branding ad with lovely pictures and lots of blank space, but was littered with dozens of spelling and grammar mistakes, and the phone number was missing.  I called them back asking why they had changed the ad that I sent them and their response was…

‘because we think the ad we have done will work better than yours.’

Let’s just say this rep picked the wrong person to say that too and I gave him an earful, and pulled the ad because they refused to listen to what I wanted.

But guess what, a few days later they ran the ad they had come up with without my knowledge (without any sign off from us).  I got a phone call from Rachael letting me know, and as you can imagine my blood was boiling!!!  Needless to say, we didn’t pay for the ad, the paper apologised until they were blue in the face and they lost a customer who could have been worth thousands of $$$ every year to them.  Oh yeah, and their great ‘branding ad’ they came up with didn’t get 1 phone call….what a surprise!

So if you ever get this kind of bad advice from an advertising rep or they simply do not listen to what you want, don’t be bullied into something that ain’t gonna work for YOU, run a mile and give your money to someone who will listen to your needs and run your ad the way it should be!

If you want to learn the secrets to advertising that REALLY works and gets your phone ringing red-hot all the time, then you need to be a Inner Circle Member! Go here for more information and complete the brief online form to apply for a 90-day Risk Free Test Drive of the entire Inner Circle system, including the world-famous Toolkit.

Heidi joined the Inner Circle program in the midst of a global recession (July 2009), but this didn’t stop her from growing her salon by over 40% and being so busy that she had to move to a new premises that was double the size of her previous spa!

Here’s an email I got from Heidi just yesterday….

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“After a full year of being involved in Worldwide Salon Marketing the results for our business speak for themselves. Whilst I had a good grasp of business and marketing options prior to becoming involved, Chris, Rachael and the team certainly made sure that I didn’t forget how important it is to ensure MASSIVE ACTION means MASSIVE RESULTS. I am now a firm believer in all wheels of the spoke.

Just over a year ago I had a profitable business that was making ends meet but certainly not a retirement plan. Being a busy Mum and a non beautician partner in the business I often neglected the marketing aspect of our business, focusing too much on the numbers at the other end. We had no trouble attracting and keeping clients but I knew we could do better, a lot better.

12 months later we have a brand new spa on Lambton Quay in Wellington, double the size of our previous spa, all paid for out of the increased turnover in our business. I would not have the courage to do this if I didn’t know of all the tools we could use that could generate us money.

We try everything and anything that WSM throws our way or we think can think of. Our Queen of Referrals competition run during 2010 (a version of the Queen of Referral program, but our Queens are competing for $1,000 of prizes by referring the most new clients and the most spend) has so far bought in over 200 new clients in 8 months whose first visits have spent over $10,000 let alone what they have spent after that. This doesn’t count referrals outside the Queens competition we run.

We have a monthly package deal that normally sells over 30 packages a month with add ons not discounts! We regularly do the Wellington Women’s package (our version of Hollywood women’s ? yes I like to put my own touch on everything!) and bring in 20 or so new clients when we do it. We sold over 100 of the packages on a voucher site when we ran it. 100 new clients in a day, $10,000 in a day – fantastic.

We put our karma cards on car window wipers outside the shop a free 30 minute service. The recipients of this love it and rave about how we have made their day. They refer their friends and we get more new clients. We use the yellow pages to advertise a package, not how pretty we look. Over the last 12 months we have had over 500 phone calls from our yellow pages ad (last year about 100). We display our packages everywhere , have a montly newsletter, weekly e-specials (always with add ons now not discounts). The only time I discount now is with our txt-a-deal days, whereby we may have a quiet day once in a while and then it is a discount to get them in the door today. Of course we don’t forget the basics, new client letters, raise the dead postcards, birthday vouchers, referral thank yous. These basics keep your current clients happy. Funny enough we recently moved from a $10 to a $20 birthday voucher and doubled the number we are getting back in the month, and a larger percentage of these back were clients we have not seen for a long time. At Christmas we wanted to up our retail sales so packaged together the retail products with free gift vouchers for treatments, this went down a treat. From December to February we always offer a deal for rebooking a free ad on service or product. We find if we can get the client 3 times monthly in a row then they won’t shop around elsewhere for a while.

Numbers wise, our turnover is up over 40% year on year, month on month. I have employed more staff and we are still growing. We have not gone backwards in over 15 months. I want to double over two years and we are on track for this to happen. Our staff love that they are more busy and have more $’s in their pay packets.

WSM is not an easy fix, it takes time and effort. I love the way it prompts me to think outside the square, I have some great ideas to implement in 2011 (2010’s move took up too much of my time!) and can’t wait to see what happens with my business.

By the way, this year I have had two overseas holidays, won another trip overseas (karma coming back to get me!), spent more quality time with my kids and have felt a lot happier about where I and the business is heading. However I never lose sight of the customer, our most important asset and whilst I know I can get new clients easily I still look after our current clients with quality, friendly service with value added services for them as well. They love it and complain to us if they are not getting enough deals or promotions like last month, which was our best ever and contained no promotions other than our monthly special as we were too busy all our rooms busy all the time. Now if only I could find some quality staff to expand!!”

Cheers Heidi

Now these are the type of emails that I LOVE to get! Fantastic results Heidi and I can’t wait to hear more in the future.

Not a member? Want results like Heidi Morton? Go here for more information and complete the brief online form to apply for a 90-day Risk Free Test Drive of the entire Inner Circle system, including the world-famous Toolkit.