One business model that is very prominent in here in the U.S is the hair salon. While there are some who do quite well and develop their businesses into profit machines that run on auto-pilot unfortunately the vast majority of salon owners scrape by and never end up generating very much revenue and even less of a profit margin. When you step back and look at the overall industry, particular business and finally the owner themselves it’s easy to understand why these business fail far more often than they succeed.
Far to many owners of small businesses believe that they know whats best for their business when it comes to generating more new customers and even extracting maximum value from the current customer base. Unfortunately it’s this faulty sense of ability that leads so many businesses down the path to ruin.
As an very interesting side note consider this. If you sent out a memo asking all 15 people of a medium sized salon to help with the marketing, all 15 are likely to try and help out. If you were to put out another request to the same people asking for their help in implementing a new accounting database and new business structure to add the benefit of a tax shelter it’s likely that no one would help. Why is it that this happens? The cold hard truth is that getting an adequate number of new customers is far more important to a business than tax write offs when the business is in a stage where it’s struggling to create sufficient capital to create reserves and enough margin to expand in directions like marketing, market testing and even product development.
In order to grow a hair salon a simple approach generally works best. Here is a simple plan to help any salon grow and prosper in any economy. If there is no list or database of customers, create one immediately and update it every single day with as much information as you can get from each customer. After you figure out which people you prefer to work with survey your clients over the course of general conversation to see what motivates them to come into your salon. Also find out what products they use and why. It wouldn’t hurt to find out if they are willing to recommend you to others either. This is a simple start. Next you need to consider hiring a consultant that has experience in direct marketing. Through the use of direct marketing campaigns that are tracked and measured you and your marketing consultant will be able grow your business consistently and predictably at a minimal cost.
If you are interested in learning more or speaking with a direct marketing professional you can reach our office at 313-350-0865 or contact Jason Snyder by email at jason [at] wolverinemarketing.com
To Your Success,
Jason Snyder
