Is Your Salon Wasting Color?
When you own a salon, every dollar matters. So why would you allow your stylists to pour color (aka money) down the drain? You wouldn’t! And now you don’t have to, thanks to a game-changing technology that will revolutionize your color business.SureTint Technologies is an innovative salon software that controls your color costs and inventory, making your stylists’ color applications more precise.
Seeing is Believing
When Martino Cartier, celebrity stylist and owner of Martino Cartier Salon in Sewell, NJ, was approached by SureTint to discuss a collaboration, he wasn’t sure about it. “It was all very analytical, very scientific, and it didn’t make any sense to me,” Martino shares. But at SureTint’s insistence, Martino finally agreed to bring the software in for three months, to see if he liked it. “It took one day for me to realize how amazing this system was.”
Precision Is Key
One of the best things about SureTint, according to Martino, is that it forces stylists to become precision colorists. “No one ever talks about that. You only ever hear about precision cutting,” Martino notes. So what’s a precision colorist? At Martino’s salon, you’ll see about 200+ clients a day with 30-some hairdressers running around—you have phones ringing, the sinks are full and you’re waiting to grab one like an old lady waiting to grab a slot machine. So what happens to the clients who are getting color? “The color gets slapped on, stylists tend to over-mix the color because they know they will be applying it fast and they are applying the color thicker; they’re overlapping it and everyone ends up using 4 to 3 oz. of color in their formulas,” says Martino. “And at the end of the day, when all of the bowls still have color in them, that turns into waste.” So how do you eliminate the waste? For Martino, the system forces stylists to become precision colorists.
The Breakdown
The system is very easy to use—simply create a profile for your client. For example, say you have a client whose medium density hair is four inches past her shoulders, is 10 percent gray and she has not been colored in six to eight weeks. Simply create a profile in the SureTint System, and it will automatically know how much color you need for the density, the regrowth and the 10 percent gray. All you, the colorist, have to do is create your formula in dollars and cents.
You might be scratching your head thinking, ‘What?’ But it’s actually quite simple. If every formula is $1, you will need 100 pennies to make a pure formula. An average formula for someone with Level 5 hair with some gray might look like this: 1 ½ oz. 5N + ½ oz. 5/1. With SureTint, instead of entering ounce measurements, you could enter $.75 5N + $.25 5/1, and the system will know how much of each color you need to create that formula. So what does all of that mean for Martino? “It means that even though your stylists are busy, they’re forced to apply their color like a precision colorist. They’re not putting it on too thick, they’re not overlapping. It’s absolutely brilliant!” Jesi Stranieri, Stylist at Martino Cartier Salon agrees, “What I love about SureTint is how much easier it has made my life! I work with assistants a lot, and the system makes it impossible for them to make a mistake while mixing—which is a stress reliever for me!”
The Numbers
Martino invested in SureTint four months ago, and his salon now saves on average $850 a week. When you do the math, Martino has saved more than $13,600 since investing in SureTint. Nowthat’s a sizeable chunk of change!
All Aboard
In the beginning of the process, Martino’s stylists’ were resistant, because they didn’t want it to add to their workload. “It took 24 hours for them to go ‘Wow,’ says Martino. “The system is so precise, it guarantees everyone’s color is applied correctly.” Nicole Horay, Assistant at Martino Cartier Salon adds, “The thing I like about SureTint is that I use about 1 to 1/ 1/2 oz. less then I used to. It teaches you that you really don’t need that much color!”
The SureTint Effect
“People were shocked,” recalls Martino. “My stylist, Nicole has a client with more hair than Mrs. Snuffleupagus, and was told by the system to mix up 2.75 oz. of color. Nicole was skeptical, thinking there was no way it would be enough for all that hair. When she was done and saw the bowl was empty, and that it was indeed enough, her jaw dropped. My jaw also dropped because she used to mix 4 ½ oz.” And the results are customized. “This is not a cookie cutter program, the system can create unique buttons for your services,” Martino shares. “We have a service called Face Framing Foils, in the beginning we were mixing too much lightener, so we called SureTint and they went through the internet, adjusted the formula, and now it’s perfect. Each button in SureTint is customized and tailor-made to fit your salon.” Best of all, the computers are connected to a server—think ADT—that monitors all activity with the system. This means your formulas are protected and if, God forbid, something were to happen to your salon, your information would still be sitting in the database, safe and sound.
Doing Business, Better
The SureTint System prints out a report to let owners know if any stylists needed to remix their color. “Every week I get a report that says how many stylists are using the system and how many of them are compliant,” says Martino. “For years I tried to master the art of not wasting color. I have cameras in my back room and we use digital scales, we don’t use bottles, only bowls and brushes, and still we had waste.” SureTint offers a fool-proof way of monitoring your color usage so waste can be avoided.
“It’s not fair to raise your client charges across the board because of color waste when not all of your stylists are wasting color,” notes Martino. “The report the system provides tells me which of my stylists are constantly remixing formulas so I can better address the issue with them. If they continue to remix formulas, their client charge will go up, but no one else’s, keeping things fair.”
Hairdressers are always trying to find a way to convince clients to stay with them, and SureTint is a great way. “The clients love it because we told them that we brought in new technology that gives them precision haircolor results. We showed them the tablet, and their profile, which is personalized just for them. It’s a great way to keep clients happy and loyal.”
Re-Invest in Your Business
With the money Martino saved on color, he has been able to put up more billboards, do more social media promotions and advertise in more magazines. “I can invest so much more back into my salon which will generate more revenue. With SureTint, it’s a win, win for everyone!”
Interested?
“It will only take you a day to see the savings,” insists Martino. “I was skeptical, too. It’s one of those ‘aha ‘moments. Try walking around on a Friday or Saturday in your salon and watch your stylists apply color. When you see how many stylists are over-applying color, and it’s super thick and the glazes are all over the sink, remember all of that turns into dollars and cents.” When hairdressers see a ½ oz. left in the bowl, they think it only costs a few pennies, which is true. However, when you do 15,000 touch-ups a year…it can add up more than you think.
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