
Welcome to the Salon Ownerโs Podcast, Phorest FM Episode 64. Co-hosted by Killian Vigna and Zoรฉ Bรฉlisle-Springer, Phorest FM is a weekly show that puts forth a mix of interviews with industry thought-leaders, salon/spa marketing tips, company insights and information on attending Phorest Academy webinars. Phorest FM is produced every Monday morning for your enjoyment with a cup of coffee on your day off.
Phorest FM Episode 64
After a month of podcast interviews on employee retention, GDPR and leadership in the salon, Killian and Zoe dedicate this weekโs episode of Phorest FM to a round-up of everything thatโs happened on the Phorest Blog during the month of February. From the most popular blogs to new contests and upcoming Phorest Academy Webinars, youโre sure to get all the marketing advice you might have missed.
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Transcript
Killian Vigna: Welcome to the Phorest FM Podcast, episode 64. Iโm Killian Vignaโฆ
Zoe Belisle-Springer: โฆ and Iโm Zoe Belisle-Springer.
Killian Vigna: This weekโs episode will feature discussions around Februaryโs must-read material on the Phorest blog. Weโll touch upon various topics mostly focused on management, finance and marketing.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: As always, we top off the show with our upcoming Phorest Academy webinars.
Killian Vigna: So, grab yourself a cup of coffee, sit back, relax and join us weekly for all your salonโs business and marketing needs. Good morning Zoe.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Good morning Killian, how are you?
Killian Vigna: Iโm good, now. We were just kind of chatting about it before this episode, but it just feels like we havenโt done a blog-focused episode in a while now, it actually hasnโt.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, no, I donโt think weโve had a proper one since the monthly round-up.
Killian Vigna: Back in January.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, because even in January we had the Phorest Live episodes and we had the Live From the Summit and all these other ones, soโฆ
Killian Vigna: Yeah, because Iโm just looking here, the last monthly round-up we actually had was where we brought Ronan and Paddy in to talk about retention tools and new features to look forward to for 2018.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, exactly. Listen, thereโs loads of things to catch up. Weโll stick to Februaryโs most read material.
First off, Valerie Delforgeโs โ10 Salon Business Mistakes That Hurt Your Bottom Lineโ. Very, very interesting. So, the idea behind this, and sheโs going to follow up, this is essentially a part one of two. This one, sheโs looking at her experience in the industry as a salon coach, as a mentor, and looking at all the different mistakes that people, not necessarily do because they donโt know, itโs just things that once youโre stuck in to the busyness of the day, you just fall in to without realizing.
Killian Vigna: Things that fall through the cracksโฆ
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, exactly. They are actually quite easy to learn from, and avoid if you know what to look for. The first one is failing to update your database and that makes absolute sense. If you have 10,000 names and addresses in your database, but you only have a quarter of that, thatโs active, why do you have all of these names on your database, you really donโt need them.
Essentially, if youโre going to do marketing, youโre not going to be able to be really targeted and get the best return on investment. Youโre just going to send out loads of marketing to people who wonโt even open it.
Killian Vigna: Not only that, but your database just looks like a vanity metric after a while. Like the example here, if youโve 20,000 names on your database, but actually, only 5,000 of those keep coming back to you, youโre going to have this inflated idea of how successful your business is going to be.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly.
Killian Vigna: Even half of those again, you might not even have mobile numbers for those clients. So, for your marketing campaigns; names, numbers and most up to date information. Whenโs the last time you visited it? Start looking into that sort of stuff.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, and then the second one that she was saying, was not upselling or providing cross-selling training, which makes sense, once again.
Three, giving little to no importance to customer reviews. That is positive or negative. Customer reviews, weโve talked about it loads at the beginning of last year with online reputation feature that we have in Phorest. Not only it will help you with your SEO and get you ranking higher in Google, but it gives the impression that you actually do care about your customers. Whether you reply to the positive ones or the negative ones. The negative ones, you are trying to solve the personโs problem and the positive ones, you actually care about their input and youโre grabbing any little piece of feedback that they are giving you.
Killian Vigna: Your clients are looking for information, they are looking to see what people like them are saying about you. Theyโre not going to go on and read newspaper articles about how great your salon is, they want to see from your customers how great your salon is. If there has been a conflict, how have you responded to that customer? Have you responded in a professional manner or have you just tried to create World War III up on Google? Theyโre looking out for these sort of things.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, and then no merchandising plan, weโve talked about that loads, again. Visual merchandising, we even had a workshop at the Salon Owners Summit this year. It really, really is important if youโre trying to sell more retail, look at how you are displaying your products, to begin with.
Killian Vigna: Make sure they are dusted, as well. When you go in and your product is full of dustโฆ
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Management training is another big one. Of course, if youโve been tuning in to our webinars youโll know that sheโs running a series of management webinars with Phorest Academy. Weโll talk about that later because she has another one coming up soon in March.
Not training staff on retail, again, ties into the visual merchandising. Retail is a constant battle and a lot of people are having a hard time increasing their sales on retail, thatโs something that you have to look out for. David Barnett, who we had on the show just last week, had a really great episode on that at the end of last year as well.
Not re-booking clients systematically. Thatโs another big problem. It really is just about informing the client that, if they want to keep their style looking great for the longest time, they should be coming back at โthisโ time, like three weeks, four weeks, six weeks.
Killian Vigna: I find that one very interesting one because, weโve all done a couple of workplace material in salons ourselves, just to get a feel for the industry. One thing, that I couldnโt believe was, even though the staff are telling me, โOh, yeah, they are regulars, theyโll re-book, theyโll re-book.โ Every time on the Phorest system when that prompt came to re-book the client back in, when I went to say, โDo you want to re-book back in,โ the staff member would say, โOh, no itโs grand, theyโll always come back. Theyโll always come back.โ
Itโs like, it just takes one or two, so letโs say that one out of every ten of those guys that donโt re-book to forget, or end up trying someone new because they are in a hurry to get their hair done, or whatever it is. I just find that one really interesting that they donโt tend to ask if they want to re-book in.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, if youโre not going to re-book, at least try to get them loyal through a loyalty system or anything. I was in the spa just this weekend, right? When I left, and I actually bought a retail product, like โOkay, Iโll take it.โ I took one out of the two suggestions, but I was surprised when I left and it was just, โOh, Iโll see you in the next season or in six months time.โ There was no mention of loyalty cards or any loyalty program at all. I just left. To me, if you had even just given me a key tag, or anything that would inform me, โKeep coming back to us and youโll be rewarded,โ it would have made the world of difference.
Killian Vigna: I suppose there is that confidence side of it where, if youโre so focused on trying to upsell a product to your customer, then youโre asking them if they want to join your loyalty scheme, then youโre asking them if they want to re-book in, it might feel like an awful lot of information that youโre asking of the client. But, like you said, just there, you were there for your treat day, you were caught up in the moment, so the minute she showed you a product or two, youโre like, โActually, yeah, Iโll take one.โ Or โDo you want to be a loyalty as well?โ โYou know what, yeah, Iโll take that.โ โDo you want to re-book in again?โ โActually, yeah, good idea. May as well do that now.โ
Youโre creating a customer journey, that we talk about as well. Youโre creating a flow that doesnโt sound like itโs multiple sales pitches, itโs just a journey that youโฆ So, you went to the salon this weekend, you were brought on a journey and the more that they offered you, the more you would have probably kept saying, โYes.โ
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, and even if I had been offered the option to re-book and I said, โNoโ, she could have just said, โOkay, fair enough. Hereโs how our loyalty program works, if youโd like to come back at a later stage and re-book with us over the phone,โ or something like that, then I would have considered it and even grabbed the key tag or whatever the card would have been.
Killian Vigna: You have to make [crosstalk 00:08:04]
Zoe Belisle-Springer: And left with an incentive to re-book. It struck me as odd when I left, maybe because we talk about it a lot, but anyway.
Another mistake there, not having a marketing strategy for the year. Weโve talked about that loads at the beginning of this year. Not focusing enough on reception, it is the core of your business, after all. It has to function efficiently and you can gain a lot more than you think from it.
The last, last one, which is actually very interesting, and Iโll get Valerie to write something more in depth about this, but missing out on mystery visits. She will do mystery visits here and then, different salons and it gives you an insight into whatโs working and whatโs not working in your customer journey. But you have actual, constructive criticism about their visit because that person is doing it so they can help you. Especially, if you command it with someone professional that you know. Itโs really interesting because theyโll give you loads of insights.
Killian Vigna: I feel you can make a bit of friendly competition out of this where every quarter you and a couple of salons owner peers would all chip in to get a professional mystery shopper. That mystery shopper could goโฆ so say, thereโs you and four other salon owners, every quarter it could be whoโs providing the best service and they rank them the top five. You can make that as a little bit of competition where every quarter you are trying to beat the others. But, itโs friendly competition, because youโve all agreed to go in on it, youโre all being judged on the same level. Just make sure you and your team are always on top of the ballโฆ on the ball.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, exactly. Thereโs loads more in that blog for every single mistake that she lists, she gives also a tip on how to avoid or prevent it. I strongly encourage that read, itโs called again โ10 Salon Business Mistakes That Hurt Your Bottom Lineโ and itโs by Valerie Delforge, one of our guest contributors.
The second most popular blog of this month was โHow to Get Your Salonโs Facebook Business Page to Rank Higher on Google.โ Essentially, Facebook has now, well, Facebook Business Pages have become your second website homepage for your business. It is something that will rank on Google and it is, if you have the โbook nowโ button, it is something that you can get more bookings out of.
Thereโs a few things that you can do to get your Facebook page really, really optimized so that it actually gets higher in that ranking. The first thing is to make sure your pageโs name is your salon/spaโs name. Then, thereโs something here that not a lot of people know about, Iโve actually had some comments say, โOh my God, thank you so much, I didnโt know how to change this, but this is amazing.โ Itโs changing the default URL that Facebook gives your page.
Usually, when you sign up for a page or switch over from a personal profile to a business page, itโll give you some sort of Facebook.com/ref/fs and then like a million numbers and letters [crosstalk 00:11:10]. Itโs really hard to find, so thereโs this place in Facebook, if you go to Facebook.com/username where you can select your username and then that will actually give you a new URL for your page where people can actually look for that. It makes it so much easier.
The third thing to do, is optimizing your โaboutโ section. Page category, business opening hours, mission statement, phone number, email, when are you open. People need to know this information, and if they are not up to date, youโre putting yourself at a lower opportunity to get bookings.
Killian Vigna: Think about what youโd want to find when you need to find someoneโs business page at a glance. What information are you looking for? Use that. Email, phone, mission statement, about, location, things like those, again, they sound simple, but they just get forgotten about.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, 100%. A lot of business goes through Facebook these days, so even if your website is really well optimizing, and has all of this information, it doesnโt mean that your potential client will find your website first. They may get a recommendation from a friend and they are on Facebook looking for you and if that information isnโt there, then they might not decide to go on your website and they might just go with someone else.
Killian Vigna: Regardless, if someone actually clicks into your Facebook page, once the Facebook page appears on Google search, youโll see those preview snippets, as well, from the information that youโve entered.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Absolutely.
Killian Vigna: So, they donโt even have to click your page to just quick Google search, see all the listings and just read from your preview text on.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Absolutely, yeah. The obvious, perhaps, but adding a call to action button. The little โbook nowโ next to the send message link on your Facebook page. A call-to-action on your page can increase your revenue by up to 29%, weโve found. So, can you really afford to miss out on that? Not really.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, itโs for online booking and even if you donโt have online booking, just have a โcall nowโ call-to-action or something like that.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, anything that allows the customer to get in touch with you.
Five; leverage customer reviews. Again, Iโve mentioned this in the past blog, but customer reviews do help for SEO, so do encourage people to leave reviews, but also do reply to them and engage with them.
Killian Vigna: Your overall online reputation.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yes, yes. On to the third one, which another guest contributorโs article, this is one by Gloria Moray, โThe True Costs of Opening a Salon That Will Thriveโ is the title if you look for it on the Phorest blog. What she talks about there, is what do you need to have in place before you open your business for the first time.
Because it is an exciting thing, anyone who has an entrepreneurial mindset, opening their first business is a big deal, but if youโre not ready, if you donโt have the finances and if you donโt know your numbers behind that, chances are that within six months to a year, you might face the unfortunate event of closing.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, you could be packed with clients every single day, but unless youโre fully utilizing your staff and those product upsells, if youโre charging enough money, and just because you are busy every day, you might have a low-profit fit margin coming in. So, thatโs not exactlyโฆ that doesnโt tell me, โGo open a second location,โ it means I need to start charging more.
Basically, you just need to be ensured that you are taking more money in than what youโre breakeven figure is, essentially, your baseline.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. Thatโs the things that you have to consider before you even open your doors for the very, very first time. Determining your breakeven figure. You know what your rent is going to be, you know what your business rates, what youโve put them at, you know how much your heating and lighting is going to cost. You need to calculate all of that to make sure thatโฆ what is it going to cost your salon to run weekly, monthlyโฆ
Killian Vigna: Also, make sure that you are giving yourself a salary, too. I know thereโs a lot of salon owners out there who will think itโs time to move to a second location, everythingโs doing great, but theyโre still not paying themselves enough.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: To continue on that, before you open your doors for the very first time, make sure you have money to cover any kind of contingency. If something happens, and itโs really unexpected, maybe thereโs a flood or a problem with anything in the salonโฆ
Killian Vigna: Think about washing all that hair getting stuck in the sink, your sink gets clogged up, now you need to get a plumber to come in.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: All these things, if you donโt have this fund where you can actually just go and pay for the repairs, youโre going to look at the problem and go, โOh no, now what. I canโt afford this.โ
Killian Vigna: Always have a rainy day account.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. Current clients; how many current clients do you have and will you try to get new clientele or will you try to bring over your older clientele. Think about your new client retention, so that we were talking about with Ronan and Paddy on the last few episodes. Hire an accountant, thatโs really, really important.
Itโs okay not to be able to do all the things in your salon, and numbers are probably one of your most important things to be on top of, so if you donโt really feel too comfortable doing everything that has to do with accounts, then hire an accountant. They know what theyโre doing. They will show you areas of your business that you might not know arenโt working so well. Itโs definitely something to look out for.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, thatโs definitely a good blog there. She has a nice breakdown about what percentage of new clients you should be looking at and if you donโt have the software to help you work it out, she has a nice formula here. Sheโs also got a list of how to determine your breakeven figure. Definitely some good points for checking up on that. Then, I think, she has a few other smaller points down at the end of it as well.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Again, thatโs Gloria Moray on โThe True Costs of Opening a Salon That Will Thrive.โ
The very last, most popular blog of the month was โA Breakdown of Traditional Versus Digital Marketing.โ What is best in todayโs world? Digital has taken over a lot of things, but should we deem traditional marketing such as press, billboards, fliers, posters, should we deem them as irrelevant. The answer is, not really, because they both compliment each other.
Killian Vigna: Itโs like moderation as well, isnโt it? Youโre not going to go all in in one and leave the other one gone.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: No, exactly. So, which is best for salons? Itโs really up to you to find out, but there are differences and pros and cons and it might help you figure out which is best for you.
For instance, traditional marketing, such as magazines and things like that, they tend to target more local audiences. Hard copy of materials tend to be remembered best, so if you have an ad in a magazine, or even a newspaper andโฆ itโs just something to consider, when you actually have something in your hands that you are reading, you tend to remember it better.
Killian Vigna: Itโs nice sitting down and reading the newspaper on a Sunday. I wouldnโt read it any other day, but if I was just sitting there and chilling on a Sunday with a cup of tea, reading the newspaper, Iโm probably going to notice those ads a few more. I donโt know, itโs just an hour on a Sunday morning, itโs either that or watch TV.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: The cons though, they are more expensive to produce. It is a fact. The results are actually more difficult to measure. Itโs something to consider, if you want to go down that route.
Digital marketing, on the flip side, is very affordable. To reach 2,000 people on Facebook, it could cost you 75 pounds, dollars, or Euros. You run an ad, and then thatโs it, you have the instant results. You have analytics on how it performed. You can increase brand awareness very, very easily. Think about Instagram, think about Twitter, being at trade shows and events and publishing photos of you being there. That increases brand awareness in a very cost-effective way.
The potential of exposure is greater with digital marketing because itโs so cheap to produce and you tend to have a higher engagement. It is probably easier to refine a strategy, because you have these real-time results, you can actually figure out whatโs working instantly, and whatโs not, instantly as well.
If you know this, you can actually turn around and say, โListen, this isnโt working, so letโs try this instead.โ You donโt have to wait a full month before you get the results, you know?
Killian Vigna: Yeah.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Thereโs other cons to that, though. People who are experiencing or dabbling into Facebook ads might find it very complicated to navigate. There are courses and trainings that you can do so itโs not all lost if you donโt feel comfortable, you can actually just go on trainings and learn about them. We also have loads of e-books to help you out. You could also need, possibly, someone who does graphic design, if youโre not very skilled at it yourself, or you want to delegate that to someone else.
Thereโs different avenues for you there and itโs really up for you to decide whatโs a good balance for my salon.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, I see you have listed that the cons of it would be getting trained up in those skills, and itโs complicated to navigate. Again, this comes back to, why not share that responsibility to one of your staff members? Why not find out who, and itโs not just someone whoโs actively or heavily active on social media, on their own social media account. See if they would be interested in holding your business account, and if they are send them off for a training. Or they could do an online training as well, courses. Youโve got Canvas, you donโt even need a graphic designer anymore, Canvas.com. Itโs got simple templates in there that you can use. Share that responsibility. When it comes back to the traditional one as well, you canโt beat when you get back to your parked car and have a window flier in your window. I mean, it works.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. It does, it does.
Killian Vigna: They compliment each other on different levels. Just kind of find out your own thing.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Killian, thatโs pretty much a very thorough summary of what happened on the Phorest Blog this month. We do have a few more announcements before we move on to the second part of our show, which is the webinars.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, first of all, for me, because I know youโve been saying a bit about it on social media, but, we came second! For anyone who doesnโt know what that means, we were nominated as finalists for Energiaโs Digital Media award ceremony and we were nominated for best podcast in Ireland. Out of five, we came second.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: We were blown away by the results, literally blown away.
Killian Vigna: I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I found out. Itโs all based on the growth of our listenership and, like we were saying, weโre going from a couple of hundred a month to 15,000 a month. It just goes to show, itโs down to you guys for tuning in. So, thatโs my shout out. I think youโve a few more?
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, so, weโve releasedโฆ itโs less exciting, but we have released the monthly marketing toolkit, so thatโs available to download on the Phorest Blog as well. It covers marketing ideas and graphics templates for Motherโs Day in the UK and Ireland. I know Motherโs Day in America is in May, but thatโs there. Youโve material for St. Patrickโs Day and youโve material for Easter because Easter is the last weekend of March slash the first weekend of April this year.
Thatโs there, itโs available to download. The other thing that we have running at the moment, is our monthly giveaway. This month weโre giving away three Bluetooth speakers that will really, really sit nicely in your salon. They are very nicely designed and they wonโt look out of place. Letโs just put it like that.
Itโs a limited entry giveaway, itโs limited to the first 500 people who enter, and thereโs three to give away. All you have to do is go on to our Facebook page, thereโs a tab on our page called โenter to win,โ you go on there and fill in your details; first name, last name, email and then thatโs it. The contest ends on March 5th, so weโll draw the three names, probably that same day and announce them within the week. Again, same as usual, the next contest will be up and running a month later.
Other than that, itโs the webinars. We have a few coming up, we actually have Connorโs second edition of the GDPR Masterclass. Thatโs on Wednesday, 10:00am UK/Ireland time, thereโs no US time for this one because it does not affect American businesses. If you have been at ProBeauty London over the weekend, on Sunday he was giving a talk on GDPR, so if youโve missed that, then donโt miss out on our webinar on Wednesday.
The other webinar coming up soon is Valerie Delforgeโs second to last instalment of the Salon Management series, so โHow to Handle Difficult Staffโ and thatโs on Tuesday, March 6th at 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm UK/Ireland time or 7:00 am to 8:00 am US Eastern time. Again, these events are all available on our Facebook page, through the event section. All you have to do is go to the event you would like to register for, click โget ticketsโ and sign up for the event. Itโs all free.
Thatโs it for us today. If you have any feedback, feel free to leave us a review on iTunes or on Stitcher, weโre always looking for suggestions on how to improve the show. Otherwise, have a wonderful week. Weโll catch you next Monday.
Killian Vigna: All the best.
Thanks for reading!
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