In our overwhelmed state of busyness, distraction and message overload, it’s easy for your sales team to lose sight of the important things – like how to help salons make more money – and instead, get absorbed by the urgent, fire fighting things.

Clearly their focus should be on remembering that in the salon industry there’s only two ways to help a salon grow. And that’s by using the basic Rule of Two.

There are just two keys to it: clients and services.

Pretty simple really. Applying it, though, can be a bit more difficult.

This guideline works as a general rule of thumb for many service based businesses – but especially those in hair and beauty industries alike.

And if I could have a dollar for every time I’ve been asked as a salon coach, “How do I make more money?”… I’d be a very rich man.

Every time I give the same two answers: clients and colour.

1.   More clients

The number of clients x the average client docket = the salons turnover

There are only two ways to ‘to do more clients’, that being:

a)   Attract new clients –
Carefully select a marketing concept (that works) and execute it exceptionally well.

Measure and monitor the results.

However, in today’s crowded climate this option is a real challenge and definitely has a lot of associated risks.
Actionable takeaway: This is what salon owners will tell you they want – new clients!

Rarely though do I find this is what they need first.

b)   Do more with the clients that you have –
All salons already have a client base. By servicing those clients differently and raising the average client expenditure, that base has the potential to dramatically increase salon turnover (usually up to 20%-30% increase in turnover).

Quite often this will produce a greater result than the risks associated with trying to attract new clients.

Actionable takeaway: This is actually what they need.

What can your company do to help salons offer different services to their current clients and therefore increase their average expenditure?

2.   More colour
There are only two ways to do more colour:

a)   Convert non-colour users to new colour users 
Every salon has existing clients that aren’t having colour. To convert them, try introducing new colour services that are designed to entice colour-shy clients to try colour.

Actionable takeaway: What can your company do tohelp salons stage a promotion on a semi/demi colour service for new colour clients?

b)   Do more colour with the existing colour clients
This is the fun part. Try introducing multi-dimensional colour services that take clients from solid colour, to multi-dimensional colour. Introduce seasonal changes – new colour collections in Autumn and Spring – for the two most successful seasons.

Actionable takeaway: What can your company do to help salons build this level of creativity and excitement?

Have you noticed that doing more retail was NOT on the list of keys to the Rule of Two?

That’s because the KPI’s for a solid salon performance are –

80% of salons’ turnover comes through services
20% of salons’ turnover comes through retail sales

However, 80% of industry sales people go through the door focusing on selling the salon owner retail – and are quite often, unsuccessful.

The other 20% of industry sales people go through the door focusing on selling professional product or a new professional service to the salon owner – and are generally successful.

What does your sales team do when they call on salons?
Are they in the 80% or the 20% club?