3 Ways to Increase Revenue and Motivate Staff

If you haven’t yet, kill your paper book now. Dramatic? Maybe. Effective? Definitely. If you are looking to upgrade your salon, your staff’s work, and of course, your bottom line, here are three sure-fire ways to increase revenue and motivate your stylists to go the extra mile from Robert Maconi, owner of Elysium Salon and Spa.

Lately, buzzwords like frequency of visit, productivity, retail per client etc. have become common discussions. However, knowing what you should be measuring and looking at it is just half of the battle. It’s about looking at process and then turning process completely on its head. Yes, you can measure retail per client every day, week or month and understand how much retail you typically sell. But what if you changed the process of how you sell retail?  Does that affect your numbers? What if you could ring up an item, pre-book and check out, all while your client is still sitting in your chair?

1. Timing is everything: While your client is still in the chair, you have a much better chance of selling an item while demonstrating how to use it—right then and there. Waiting until a client is at the front desk—with someone else—has a much lower chance of successful selling.

Typically, pre-booking happens at my front desk where I’ve set the conversation to go like this: “Sally would like to see you on April 15th at 2:00.”  But I know that my stylist holds the relationship with my client. The client trusts my stylist and therefore, in my opinion, the opportunity to sell products/services or pre-book is more likely to happen.  What if my stylist could ring up a product right as he/she is demonstrating how to use it in the client’s hair?  My stylist can then also recommend “I would like to see you in 6 weeks on April 15th at 2.” And book the client right as they are sitting in the chair. All ways to guarantee that the opportunity isn’t lost as the client goes from the chair to the front desk.

2. Book before they leave: Why wait to secure a next appointment? Like selling retail, the best time to schedule a follow-up visit is while the client is still in your chair. They trust you and will be far more likely to follow your advice on when to come in as opposed to whoever may be working up front. Use this time to your advantage. Bonus: Putting the power to pre-book on yourself and your fellow stylists is a great motivator to be pro-active with your clients—and make more money!

In doing this, I not only recognized that we were selling more retail, pre-booking more and as a result being more productive, but the power was in the hands of the stylist.  Motivating him/her to book their own appointments and create their own destiny.  This means, “Hey stylist, you can make as much money as you want to.”  This is powerful stuff.  

3. Kill your paper book: Having effective processes comes with having smart technology: it’s time to upgrade your salon software, which helps streamline salon processes and makes it quicker and easier to boost your bottom line!

So I get to my point – if you haven’t yet, kill your paper book now. Having smart processes comes with having smart technology that sees the world the same way the salon functions. I’ve recently implemented Meevo Software and they have built the system based off of feedback by thousands of beauty professionals. Smart technology should support your processes but should also inspire them. I turned my process on its head after implementing Meevo. The Meevo convobar creates killer front desk professionals that are efficient and revenue producing. 

For more info, visit www.meevo.com!