If you’re not buying the salon as a going concern then this is not for you. If you are going to buy a salon as a going concern then you should definitely consider the points below.

• The price being asked includes all the fixtures and fittings right? So, do they actually work? How old are they? What would be the cost of replacing them with similar pieces of kit? Let’s face it replacing a second hand nail station with another second hand nail station would be relatively easy. So don’t pay too much for them!

• The rent & rates. How much is currently being paid. Can this be re-negotiated with the Land Lord? Or can a ‘honeymoon’ period of lower rent be negotiated? Quite often Land Lords will take a lower rent for a short period of time to keep the premises rented out.

• Does the business have any debts? If it does are you expected to take them over?

• What is the name of the salon? If the salon is called “Dawn’s Beauty Treatments” then if you’re not called Dawn you’re probably going to have to change the name! Which, obviously has the associated costs attached to it.

• The existing staff inside the salon. If there are staff employed are you going to take them on under the same terms and conditions of employment? Further, will the salon owner continue to be employed within the salon?

All of the above are all right and proper things to consider. BUT here are some of the REAL things that some purchasers ignore:

• How many clients are listed as visiting the salon? Now, when I say ‘clients’ I mean folk that visit the salon on a regular basis. Not folk that ‘pop in’ now and again. Take a good, long, hard look at this. I’ve known salon owners get thousands knocked off the price because the number of clients was far, far lower than indicated. The trick to remember here is that, like it says above, replacement fixtures and fittings are easy to find. But how difficult and costly is, say, an extra hundred clients to find? (Actually if you follow the tips and techniques in the Marketing Toolkit this can be quite easy - but that’s another story!)

• How ‘sticky’ are these clients going to be? Does the salon owner consider these people as ‘hers’ (‘his’) and plan to take them with them after they leave?

• What perception do the clients have of the salon? Tricky to find out I know. But it is your money you’re spending don’t you think you should spend a little time finding out?

• How strong is the website - if the salon has one? You should be able to access reports on how many folk are visiting the site. Is it included in the sale? The reason I mention this is that Diane Matthews website (www.dianematthews.co.uk) gets £10,000 per month in new business alone. (And if you want a site that does the same get in touch!) So, how much is that resource worth?

• Social media. Does the salon have a social media presence? Will this be included in the sale? Having a great social presence can be a source of revenues

• What is the footfall outside the salon? Take a little while to look at the folk walking past the salon. In the UK some high streets are, frankly, on their last legs.

Please note this list is NOT exhaustive. There are probably one hundred and one other things to consider! Your feedback to add to the list would be invaluable!

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Buying or Selling a Salon?

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Why is Valentine’s Day so important? Put simply, if you’ve NOT got a Valentines Day offer you’ll be missing out on some £1.3b spend in the UK alone. Furthe,r over half of the UK population spend money on their loved ones over Valentines Day.

Can you really afford to miss out on this opportunity?

But what, as a salon, can you offer as a Valentines Day gift?

Obviously you’ve got gift vouchers. Hopefully, you’ve not got that many left after Christmas! These can be easily turned to work as Valentines Day gifts.

Further, why not work up at least one Valentines Day gift package. This could be a bundle of services aimed squarely at the romance surrounding the event. You can even give them a ‘romantic’ theme. Like:

• “Cupids Arrow”
• “Loving Hearts”
• “Kiss and Make-up”

Remember that giving your bundles names enables people to talk about them as a ‘thing’. This is as opposed to “Oh that’s the offer with the spray tan and manicure”

Also, why not try to be a bit ‘trixy’ with your promotions. At this time of year and with the current economic climate, High Streets up and down the country are, well, just a little bit deserted. So, why not try to join forces with those shops around you?

For example: many High Streets now feature walk in photographic studios. You can walk in and get your photograph professionally taken and walk out with the prints in your hand. Why not attempt to join forces and offer their services along side yours? It gives a great proposition to both parties.

Or why not try to do joint promotions with the local card shop? Or the local florists? Give them £5 off vouchers to put in with Valentines Day cards or bunches of flowers. What’s in it for them? Well you could offer them a free treatment, or just the fact that, between you, you’re doing your own little bit to increase footfall in the area. A must for these difficult times.

You then need to use every single media at your disposal to promote your Valentines Day offer. Including: texting, emails, direct mail, door drops, posters, in salon promotions and so on.

If this is all a little daunting for you we have a massive 20 page guide on promoting Valentines Day. Plus 25 different media messages that you can simply copy. For more details got to our Valentines Day Salon Promotions pack. And remember, you can get this pack FREE if you join our Monthly Salon Marketing Plan

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Promotions - Valentines Day Marketing

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The Washington Post reports that “self-gifting” is on the rise this year - Consumers Are Buying for Themselves this Holiday

The percentage of shoppers who say they plan to indulge in a little something extra for themselves has risen four points since last year to more than 57 percent - the biggest jump in at least six years, according to an industry survey. Sales of jewelry, apparel and consumer electronics are up so far this holiday season from last year, and experts attribute part of the boost to what has become known as “self-gifting.”

And the good news for salon and spa owners is that the kind of treatments you can offer are often high on the list for people who have decided that they deserve a treat themselves this Christmas -

And shoppers reported plans to spend an average of $107.50 this Christmas on themselves, the NRF said…

Bennett said the sense that the recovery is on track made her feel a little less guilty about spending $200 online at Ann Taylor for herself while she was scouring the Internet for gifts for her teen cousins. They got Best Buy gift certificates and J. Crew sweaters; she got two new tops and a dress and then booked an oxygen facial for herself at the spa.

General manager Michelle Caron said customers are not only booking “maintenance” appointments - the manicures and waxing counted as necessities among some women - but also reserving more indulgent services such as facials and massages. This holiday, the spa launched a new service dubbed Shopper’s Delight, a lower leg massage and exfoliating treatment for $70.

“We’ve only been getting busier and busier,” Caron said.

So, make sure you take advantage of this growing trend this year. You might not have time to do a huge mailing campaign, but you can put together a few “You deserve it” packages and promote them with posters and leaflets. Make your Christmas a little merrier!

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Christmas Promotions - “Self-gifting” is on the rise!

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The other month I was working closely with one salon owner on their Mothers Day promotional ideas. We’d both worked really hard together putting in order a great Mothers Day promotion. The offer was great. The advertising was right. All done in good time.

The offer was designed so that her clients could bring their Mothers in for a special treat. A “Yummy Mums and Daughters” special treatment. Perfect.

But …

Nothing happened. Well, to be honest a very small trickle of orders. So what had gone oh so wrong?

Like I said there was nothing wrong in the promotion itself. But then we both looked a little closer ….

Studying her salon clientele we found that:

1. The majority of her clients were female around 40 (ish) years old. This meant that, with the best will in the world, their mums would be 60 (ish). And probably a good deal older.
2. Her salon was in central London. Most of her clients came to see her in their lunch hours or directly after work. This meant that the majority of Mothers would actually be living a good commute from the salon. Actually getting to the salon would be a feat in itself.

In short, the Mums we targeted were (a) perhaps a little too old and (b) far too far away to actually take advantage of the offer.

Oh isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing! What we should have done is made up a Mothers Day offer targeted at young Mums in the area rather than the Mums of the existing clientele!

So, please do learn from our mistake! Make sure your Mothers Day offer is hitting the right target market for your salon. Clearly a central London salon has a totally different demographic client base than a salon based outside the city.

My advice would be to take a good, long, hard look at your existing clientele before you put in place a similar (and perhaps doomed) promotion.

Am I embarrassed about this? A little. But, then, as the saying goes, if you’ve never made any mistakes you’ve never made anything.

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Promotions - Mothers Day promotions

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From the website -

We give you:

• A free .co.uk address
• A free customisable website
• Free unlimited website updates
• Easy to set up business emailBuilt-in online payments

Why is it free?

Because we’re working with Google & BT we’re able to offer you a free website for 2 years, after that you’ll only have to pay a few pounds to renew your domain name for a further 2 years - you’re not tied in to a contract and we won’t put ads on your site without your permission.

Who are we?

GBBO is a joint initiative by Google, Enterprise UK, BT, e-skills UK and many other partners to help small businesses create their first website and help them understand the opportunities offered by the Internet. We’ve set a target of helping 100,000 UK organisations get their first website easily and for free by the end of 2010.

There’s help and advice on the site, plus a freephone number to get free online business advice. So now you have no excuses for not having a salon website!

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Websites - free websites for UK business

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For most salon owners thinking up salon marketing ideas can be a thankless chore. Many find that salon marketing ideas are simply a 10% off day or 20% off when you book a course of three.

Frankly, salon marketing ideas like that just won’t ‘cut the mustard’. You see these types of promotion don’t build your business. They kill your business.

Why?

Because each time you employ this type of marketing you are simply taking money OUT of your till. You’re not putting extra cash INTO your till.

Also you’re setting a precedent. No-one will now pay the full price for any of your service offerings. They’ll simply sit back and wait until you cut your prices.

Really, cutting prices is almost the same as cutting your throat. DON’T DO IT.

But what then?

How exactly, are you going to build an offer WITHOUT slashing prices?

The answer is actually very simple. You build an offer for the client that adds massive value to them at little or no cost to you.

Yes, it is true, this type of salon marketing takes a little bit of work. It takes a little bit of application. BUT, if you build the promotion properly and sell it effectively, it can end up building you a strong following. Which is, after all, what successful business is all about.

Still Struggling?

Then take a look at our Super Successful Salon Marketing Toolkit and associated Gold Membership. Inside you’ll find it brimming with salon marketing ideas, so that you don’t have to rattle your brains too much!

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Marketing Ideas

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We posted some new videos on our Salon Marketing Youtube channel recently aimed to help you.

For those of you who don’t follow us on Youtube, here they are below -

Salon Marketing - Surviving the Cuts: Introduction

Salon Marketing - Surviving the Cuts: Cutting Costs

Salon Marketing - Surviving the Cuts: Maximise Revenues

Please let us know if the videos have been useful for you, and what other subjects you’d like to see us cover.

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Marketing - Surviving a tough economy

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“Half price deals on Wednesday and Thursday”

The result: They were choc-a-block all day Wednesday and Thursday… and deserted the rest of the time. Are they still in business? I’ll let you decide!

But now this notion that discounting kills your business instead of building your business has been proved. The Institute of Promotional Marketing (www.theipm.org.uk) has carried out a research study into the subject. They found that:

• over using price-lead promotions has a long term damage to brand values
• promotions can play a central role in encouraging brand loyalty by encouraging early adoption
• promotions should be chosen that encourage repeat purchase not discourage it

In real English this means that:

• if you use price only promotions then folk are LESS likely to buy from you in the future
• Promotions CAN be used to encourage folk to buy new products or services
• Promotions should be chosen very carefully

But this is not something new is it? I’ve come across numerous salons that have a plethora of clients just waiting for the next money-off deal. This group of clients will NEVER, EVER buy at the regular price.

So, if price alone promotions are bad, how can you have promotions that still generate a response? Watch our free salon marketing videos to get your thoughts flowing.

Alternatively, if you’re still struggling, give us a call on 0114 263 1232.

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Marketing - Cut Price Promotions Cause Long Term Damage

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But why does FREE work so well?

Apparently we all love spotting a bargain. (Don’t we?) So much so that when we spot something FREE on our favourite products, the response can be the same as when we watch pornography. (The Institute of Promotional Marketing’s thoughts not mine!)

This emotional response can be as powerful as physical arousal!

On an arousal scale a FREE offer scored 5.8 out of 10. Where erotic images score between five and seven. A score of 10 is equivalent to complete trauma.

The research also found that the promotions that worked the best were the ones that scored the highest in the arousal scale.

The morale of this story is that if you want a promotion to work then make sure you’ve got something that’s FREE.

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Promotions - Why FREE works so well

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The extra sales. The extra revenues. The extra discounts you’ll get on your purchases.

BUT

Think again. Whilst your super keen website developer will be encouraging you to put a retail outlet onto your website (After all they’ll get more cash from you if you do) will it really ever pay back the return?

Think about it. You’ll have to:

• Maintain a complete list of all your products and prices
• Review all these products and prices regularly
• When you get an order someone will have to:
  Pick the item from the shelf
  Put it into an envelope
  Take it down to the post office
  Pay for the postage
  Return back to the salon
• Then what happens if the goods are damaged in transit, or not fit for purpose …

PHEW! What a lot of work! For how many orders again ….?

PLUS with the nature of the web as it is there WILL ALWAYS be someone who can sell the stuff cheaper than you.

So, what can be done? You want an online shop. You want to ‘dip your toe’ into e-tailing.

A far, far cheaper and easier way to grab your share of those sales is to become an affiliate of a specialist online e-tailer.

Typically, this works by you taking the relevant part of their website and replicating it on your own site. Orders for goods are then passed directly to your partner. They do all the fulfilment, billing, ordering and processing. You, in your part, simply earn a commission from the sale.

You, generally, never have to touch a thing. Simply look at your monthly commission payments and bank the cheque. Easy.

That’s not to say this process is without its drawbacks. You won’t get the bulk discounts for buying and selling the products. You might find that your partner sells products cheaper than you can in salon. You won’t get the lower priced tariffs from your credit card processing machine. And probably a host of other drawbacks.

But look at the upside. No maintaining of prices. No fulfilments. No returns.

It is a quick and simple way to enter the market at no or little cost to you! Now that HAS to be a better way of doing business don’t you think?

Plus, if your online selling really takes off then you can launch your own at a later date can’t you!

Of course you might want to sell gift vouchers for your salon online. But THAT’S another thing all together!

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Websites - Should you sell retail goods online?

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