How to Increase Beauty Salon Business

A lot of sources online about increasing beauty salon business is all about upselling often offering other services but this is not necessarily practical if you are a small salon with mostly 2 to 3 person staffs. Training your staff to upsell is helpful but how much can you really motivate them to upsell when their hands are already full?

Real World Examples

There are more concrete and practical ways that I observed and deduced from being inside a lot of beauty salons for my haircut. The salons I visited are usually the husband and wife team or a 2-3 person salon. I have visited beauty salons from both Australia and the Philippines and researched others from USA, Japan and Africa.

The first thing I noticed is that some of the salons I visited tried to hook people as early as they can. There are salons that provide young children with toys while they wait their turn for their hair to be cut. There are even salons that lets children hold on to their toys even while their hair is being cut. This has the effect of making children like visiting the hair salon for repeat business.

There are even salons who give candies and small trinkets to patrons. One of the salons I visited would hand out cheap candies to children when they start to get impatient and unruly. This has the effect of calming them down. The trinkets are cheap as well but are effective in letting the patrons remember the salon which gave it to them. This probably means repeat business as well.

Another of the beauty salons I visited sell the candies and the trinkets instead. They are cheap products and considered impulse buys. Parents would buy the candies to calm down their child who is probably getting impatient or scared of having their hair cut. The trinkets are bought predominantly by women who have nothing better to do while waiting.

Other impulse products that salons can offer are beverages and small snacks. Again children would likely get tempted to eat when they see the food on display in the salon. The more they wait for their turn to be serviced in the hair salon the greater the chance they would buy. I remember visiting a salon where the waiting list is always long that people literally buy food to eat in the salon.

Salons Have Captive Customers

Since patrons normally wait a long time before being serviced by the salon they are a captive audience and there is a time opportunity to advertise to them products which the salon or their partners sell. This is the reason why many salons display personal care products such as shampoos, conditioners and so on.

I remember going to a salon where the haircutter instead of just cutting my hair silently would talk to me about my hair. He would comment about how it needs more maintenance so I would look better. He would teach me about the proper shampoo and conditioner for my hair. In the end he had me so convinced that I bought a few of the products he sold at his salon.

The salon owners can buy personal care products and sell them in their salon or they can negotiate with suppliers of personal care products to sell their products on their salon in exchange for a commission. There are actually companies who sell direct to salons just like pharmaceutical companies who sell medicines direct to hospitals and clinics.

Many salon owners provide fashion magazines for their patrons to read while they wait for their turn to be serviced. I would normally give these magazines a quick scan and finish them in no time. Salon owners can mix marketing materials such as flyers or brochures together with the magazines. For example if the salon owner sells real estate they can mix real estate brochures with their magazines.

Advertising in Salons

Salons can also offer ad space in their salon. They can place an Ad Space for Rent sign in any flat surface in their salon. They can also indicate the number of patrons they get on a daily basis to give potential advertisers an estimate of the value of this ad space. The ad space is most ideally located outside the salon where many patrons and passersby can see it.

This does not mean that ad space inside the salon is less important. Ad space inside the salon combined with the sales talk of a hairdresser could be an effective sales strategy to implement. For example waiting patrons inside the salon can see a real estate ad and can become interested. Patrons can ask questions to the hairdresser while they are cutting someone’s hair.

One of the best ad space location in a salon is the front of the salon chair. Usually a big mirror fronts the salon chair so patrons can see how they look while their hair is being cut. Salon owners can place small ads in the edges of the mirrors so the patrons can see the ad all the time while they are being serviced. This hopefully will translate into a sale or at least an inquiry.

Conclusion

These strategies for increasing earnings from one’s beauty salon are inexpensive and are easy to implement. These are good for small salons with limited budget and staff. By offering other products besides beauty services salons can diversify their income sources. They could get additional income by selling other products while servicing their patrons.