At the recent Spa and Beauty Expo I was overwhelmed with great new ideas, revolutionary new products, packaging to-die-for and brands with massive sales opportunities.

But what about the sales spiels the companies used to ‘pitch’ their brands? Did they live up to the standard of the products and their sales possibilities?

I must admit the Beauty Expo was different.

When directly compared to the same sales experience at the recent Hair Expo, there were two key things I noted:

• Our sisters in the beauty industry definitely convey their USP more effectively.
• At Hair Expo price featured very early in most of the sales conversations.

While my comments are very pointed, there is much that can be learnt from the style and attitude demonstrated in the beauty industry.

The beauty industry is achieving growth in a number of categories, albeit generally driven by new technology or equipment. Regardless of the amount of ‘newness’ available to sell, I’m a firm believer that the quality of the sales experience is also directly connected to this growth.

It seems I’m not alone in this thought.

Sales technique research

Research results were recently released from numerous US studies conducted on sales skills, since 1988. The US sales force consultancy, Chally group, discovered that the skills required for sales success have changed:

“Analysing data from more than 100,000 business decision makers, Challydiscovered that 39% of business-to-business buyers select a vendor according to the skills of the salesperson rather than price, quality or service features”¹

Given this research, at the recent expos I focused on the quality of the sales presentations from company representatives on each exhibitor stand. I was interested in evaluating the relationship skills of sales people – and my curiosity was piqued as to how we would stack up as a country and an industry.

Is the hairdressing industry making the grade?

Between the two expos, I heard sales pitches from close to one hundred exhibitors. I can clearly say some sales people were real pros, whereas others got it abysmally wrong. 

A few highlights from both expos:

• My ‘Owner’ badge seemed to trigger the launch of nonstop blaaaah… at me (not even to me) about their product or service.
• Rarely was time spent asking about my businessbefore they launched into selling their products and services.
• I awarded bonus points for showing genuine interest in my business, enthusiasm about how they could help solve my issues and if they made me laugh.
• Too many features were mentioned with no conversions into benefits for me or my business.