3 Ways Hairdressers Can Make More Money. Hope you had a great year. I know I did, but it was not without some challenges. Such is life. Now that last year is behind us, I look forward to even a better year. I am very optimistic that business will be good for all of us! What will you do to make this year more profitable? Have you even thought about it yet? The first thing I ask of you is to reflect back on last year. What were your successes? What were the things that did not go so well? Do you have any idea on how you will grow your business this year? If you are an independent stylist, you may go year-to-year hoping for the best. You think,"I will just work harder this year," and hope that more money is left over after expenses. But you most likely will not get there without a plan and some goals. In my opinion, there are 5 Ways Hairdressers Can Make More Money. You need to either: Offer Clients New or More Services, Find More Customers, Raise Your Prices, Get An Assistant, and/or Sell More Retail. Lets go into more detail on each one.
1. Offer Clients New or More Services
The first of the 3 Ways Hairdressers Can Make More Money is by adding new and unique services. Tip: It is always easier to sell to your current customers than it is trying to find and sell to new customers! I encourage you to have an open mind and always be on the look-out for new opportunities. Many customers love it when their hairdresser has a new service to offer them. Look how popular services such as Brazilian Blowout and Hair Extensions have become in the past few years. These are huge money-makers! You will greatly increase your profits by adding these two service categories to your customers.
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2. Find More Customers
The second way Hairdressers Can Make More Money is by finding new customers. Obviously, the more customers, the more revenue you will bring in. You don't just want any customer though. You want quality customers that demand chemical services, hair extensions, or other high-end services. But how do you find new customers? The old tried and true way of building customers is by referrals. Ask your customers (after you did an amazing job on them!) if they know of any friends or family they can refer to you. Get names and phone numbers. The old fashion way still works, and is probably the most powerful way to get a good customer.
Social media is the hot new way of advertising your work. Facebook and Instagram seem to be the most popular sites today. Take the time when you are not busy to focus on building a Facebook Fanpage to showcase your work, as well as posting pictures to Instagram. Don't forget to use hashtags when making posts for maximum search rankings! One of my favorite sites is YouTube. It is so easy to make a quick video with your smartphone these days. When you upload your videos to YouTube and optimize your video with great keywords, you can be found by potential customers when they Google the topic of your video. The more you can show your work to the world, the more chances people will discover you!
3. Raise Your Prices
The 3rd of the 5 Ways Hairdressers Can Make More Money is to simply...raise your prices! I know that is a scary proposition for most hairdressers. What will they think? Will they leave me and go elsewhere? You may not always be able to raise your prices without consequence, depending on where you are at with your business. But what I have seen, many hairdressers are not confident enough in their work, or they have not built a solid relationship with their clientele.
If the relationship and confidence is not there, yeah, your customers may leave you. That's why you need to treat every customer like gold! Over deliver. Give them so much value, that they would not mind paying YOU more. Listen, people will pay more as long as they value what you are selling. And don't let your head get in their pocketbook! When you are offering a high dollar service or product, let the customer decide if they will pay the price. Consider this. How much would a customer with unruly hair be willing to pay for a smoothing treatment that would give her maintenance-free hair? Hundreds. And they will never do without it after they get their first one.
4. Sell More Retail!
I know, you don't like selling, right? Whether you realize it or not, you sell yourself every day you get behind that chair. When you sell your customer the right product for her hair, you are doing them another great service. You are completing and adding value to your customer's hair experience. You are also insuring that your customer's hair continues to look good after they leave the salon. Offer them products that perform as advertised, such as the Color Wow Cocktails shown below.
Believe it or not, quality, high end retail products are perceived by the customer as offering more value. They generally perform better than lower quality products and have higher repeat buyers. Since the margins are higher, selling quality retail can quickly boost your earnings! Some services, such as Brazilian Blowouts, require the customer to buy the proper after-care products to protect their investment. Because of this, these are some of the easiest high-end products to sell. On Brazilian Blowout services, you get paid twice...first on the service revenue, then on the retail after-care products!
5. Get An Assistant
When you build up your customer base to a level where you are booked solid, getting an assistant can greatly leverage your time and earnings potential. It is vital that you are doing those tasks that make you the most money and that utilize your creativity and expertise to the fullest. The assistant should free you from laborious tasks such as shampooing, mixing color, blow drys, etc. A good assistant is like gold and can help you add more profit to your bottom line. Having an assistant also insures you are not prematurely burned out as a hairdresser!
As you can see, when you add up these 5 Ways Hairdressers Can Make More Money, your earnings potential is huge! The task may seem daunting, but just start with one until you are seeing results. Then do the next one. And then the next one, until you've got them all working for you. Before you know it, you will have more and more profit each month. Keep track and record your results in a spreadsheet, such as Excel or Numbers on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
How much do you want to make this year? Did you say $120,000? Ok, lets use that figure as an example. To determine your monthly goal, divide 120k by 12 months which equals approximately 10k. That is how much you will have to make each month to end up with 120k. To figure your weekly goal, divide 120k by 50 weeks (2 weeks for vacation), which equals $2,400. Now divide that number by 5 days, which equals $480 per day.
Ok, so how many haircuts would you have to do each day? About 19! Thats a lot of haircuts! What about color? Lets assume you are making on average $75 profit per color. You would have to do only 6 or 7 colors per day to reach your goal. Not bad, huh? Imagine now that you are doing 1 or 2 Brazilian Blowouts each day making at least $150 each. And what if you offer additional services, such as the new b3 Brazilian Bond Builder and Demi-Permanent Treatment at $50 a pop? I'm sure you can do at least 2 or 3 of those each day.
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Getting much easier and realistic now, isn't it? You may think these numbers are not possible in your area. Let me reassure you, there are some hairdressers that are making far more. All across the country. Believe it is possible, because it is. But lets say for some reason you don't hit your goal? And what if...you miss it by $20K? So what! You still made $100K this year. There's always next year, right?
I hope this helped open your eyes to the possibilities. If you liked this post, please share it with your friends. Also, while you're at it, please subscribe if you would like to get notified of my next post.
Until next time, happy selling and have a prosperous and fun year!
Rich Rose
