Episode 4 - 5 Steps to Success in Holiday.mp3

[ 00:00:05

]Welcome to the Hair

Hustle Podcast. I' m Heather Podlesny, your salon coach dedicated to helping

stylists master the business side of beauty. Whether you' re starting your

journey behind the chair or you' re a seasoned pro looking to level up, this

podcast is for you. Each week we' ll dive into the tips and tricks you need to

run a successful salon business with topics that will change the way you work

and earn. From budgeting hacks to help you keep more of what you make, to time

management tips that will keep your schedule stress-free, and the strategies

for boosting your retail sales and nailing that next promotion. Get ready to

build your dream business without burning out. Together we' ll cut through the

noise and get to the root of what makes your salon thrive.

[ 00:00:47

] So grab your shears,

turn up the volume and let' s hustle. Welcome to a very special episode of the

Hair Hustle Podcast. I' m Heather Podlesny, your salon coach dedicated to

helping stylists master the business side of beauty. Welcome to the Hair Hustle

Podcast hosted by me, Heather Podlesny. I am so excited that you are here

today. We are going to talk about the five steps to holiday success. If you

haven' t started your holiday already, whether that is your express menus, your

holiday menus, so on behalf of services or it' s on behalf of retail, you

haven' t even placed your order yet. It is not too late. Let' s get you started

today. Okay.

[ 00:01:25

] If you kind of want to

get yourself into a funk, we' re going to get ourselves right out of it and we'

re going to get going with these five easy steps. As you guys know from prior

episodes, I typically like to keep these episodes at 15 minutes or less. So we'

re going to try really hard, but I' m going to make sure that you have all the

nuggets that you need to get started. Let' s go with the first step in your

steps to holiday success. And that is: We re going to build a holiday retail

game plan. We' re going to start with holiday. Number one, we' re going to

start ordering and we are going to set our goals. Okay. Whether that is, I have

10 stylists and 10 weeks until Christmas.

[ 00:02:06

] I know that they can

literally sell one set per week. Whether that is you use a formula that was

given to you, whatever that looks like, we are going to order and we' re going

to set our goals. Part two is to get that display together. If you haven' t ordered,

we' re going to get some inspo going. If you have ordered, we' re going to make

sure that it' s displayed beautifully and it should be out now. If it' So not

out already, we' re going to also line up our team incentives with a planner

and a date. So what does that mean? That means that every single time that we

have an incentive lined up or changing. So for example, right now you might be

running like bingo cards.

[ 00:02:46

] Every time a stylist

gets a bingo, they get a, like a small gift card. Okay. Maybe you' re doing a

coverall that started a couple of weeks ago and that' s running. You' re going

to get a little bit of money out of it, but you' re going to be running until

December 16th because it' s a bigger prize. Whatever that looks like, we' re

going to get our team incentives locked down. If we have multiple greats, and

we' re also going to put those on the calendar and we' re going to know exactly

when we' re changing those. Fourth is going to be the same exact thing only

with guests. So we are going to make sure that we look at our calendar and

every single time that we have a date, we are going to make sure that we have

the signage.

[ 00:03:18

] So for example,

November 4th, maybe you are making a full on switch over to holiday and you do

hang tags. So you make every single set look like a gift. Okay. But we. We are

going to make sure that we have all those dates locked in and we have all of our

tasks in our calendar, because then this way we know when we need to print it,

when it needs to be done. Five, we are going to nail down any events. So if you

do not have this done right now, you, I want you to literally look at that

calendar and name that event and put the date on it. Okay. You' ve got to have

that locked in because you want to make sure that you' re shopping in the best

way, but also that you' re guests have enough time to attend or shop for the

event, whatever that' s going to look like.

[ 00:04:03

] Even if it' s gift

cards, that' s a great one as well. Make sure you have that down. So if that' s

like an event, maybe you' re doing a week long event. Maybe you' re doing a day

event on gift cards. Even if it' s something that' s not necessarily that the

salon is shut down, get those dates and events locked in and then have, and

know exactly what you' re going to be doing. The next thing, the last part of

step one is tracking. Okay. Make sure that you are tracking every single thing

that you need to know. So whether that is you' re incentivizing your team by

how many sets they sell per week, or you are incentivizing your guests to share

something on social media, whatever that looks like, we need to make sure that

we' re tracking and we' re holding everyone and everything in our company

account.

[ 00:04:48

] Step two is creating a

festive shopping experience. Nothing sells like nostalgia. Keep that in mind.

And when we literally create the experience, it puts people in the mood to buy.

So when we talk about creating a festive shopping experience, we want to touch

all the senses. So whether that is touch, whether that is what everything looks

like and what a guest can see, whether that is the smells. So if you have some

essential oils or candles, whatever those things look like, we want to create a

full on festive experience. For our guests to be in the mood to buy and to get

in the mood to Christmas shop. Okay. Whether that is they want to treat

themselves or they want to literally start buying for their list.

[ 00:05:39

] We are here and ready

with some great products. And we know that people love the gift of grey hair.

Make sure we have all of that experience that literally just warms the buyer up

to wanting to purchase. Step three is your purchase. Promotional plan. When we

talk about our promotional planning, this is a more in-depth version of what we

talked about in Part One, when we talked about our team and our guests'

incentives. We literally - when I say you guys', you need to go into your

calendar. You need to color- code them. And you need to put tasks and you need

to put events in your calendar. So, for example, on November 4th. I want you to

put on your calendar. We' re going to prepare for Black Friday.

[ 00:06:22

] What' s Black Friday

going to look like? Are you there? Do you have a skeleton crew? do you have a

full -on crew what does that look like what are going to be your goals for gift

cards that' s a great one do you have an event coming up what promotions are

you offering for that event do you need to go shopping do you maybe not have

the budget to go shopping so you need to reach out to a guest that possibly you

can barter with i am all about things like that and i understand if you' Re a

larger salon company, you probably are just fine to be able to offer certain

things and that could be in your budget, but if you are a smaller salon company

and you really don' t have the budget for things like this or you' re new,

that' s okay.

[ 00:07:01

] Start using all of your

resources so when we come up with a promotional plan, it is that number one on

October 28th, we are going to make sure that we have all of our holiday express

menus sent to print, we are going to make sure that we have our team incentive

sent to print. I promote a box set blitz board which is so much fun, so if you

don' t have a box set blitz board, you can re going to have to make sure that

you have a box set blitz board, which is so much fun. So, if you do want any

more information on that, please send me a message. We are going to count all

of our sets and we are going to then set our goal for our board for our team

incentive.

[ 00:07:33

] We' re going to print

all the tags for a free conditioning treatment that go on every single set

because we want to offer a gift with purchase on November 4th. Then, we' re

going to get that everything ready for Black Friday. We are going to make sure

that we have gift card signs all over are you forgetting anyone? Whatever that

looks like, we want those printed sent and ready to go. re also going to set

our goal for our gift card november 22nd what is that going to look like we' re

going to count all of our sets again i know you' re probably thinking why am i

counting my sets all the time

[ 00:08:06

] because you want to

make sure that you are tracking and what you track get managed which you do not

track manages you we are going to make sure that we are sold out by december

16th we' re going to do our last minute black friday deals on november 22nd december

2nd we are then going to schedule our 12 -day black friday schedule and we days

of deals on our social media. Are we going to do a social media campaign for

December? What does that, what is that going to look like? We' Re also going to

count our sets again, and we' re going to see, we' re going to check our boards

in the back for our team incentive, see how our team is doing.

[ 00:08:37

] We' re also going to

check to see who took advantage of the Holiday Express menu. How are our add-on

services going? That is everything that you need to make sure. So see, we

actually had three touch points. Then December 16th, we are going to celebrate

and schedule a pizza party because all of our sets are literally going to be

completely sold out because we had a solid promotional plan that we tracked the

entire eight to ten weeks of Christmas. Step four, client engagement and

upselling techniques. Here is what I' m going to say about client engagement.

We want to find every single way that we can get our clients to buy our

products. So we' re going to connect with our clients.

[ 00:09:19

] So whether that is on

social media, whether that is through an event, I want you to come up with a

campaign to keep your clients engaged. We' re scheduling like a like and share

contest on your Facebook, Instagram. Those could be options that keep all of

your clients engaged. And maybe that is something as simple as giving them a

conditioning treatment to enter to win. It does not have to be huge. It could

be a coffee card. It could be a treatment with a new brand. It could be a new

brand. It could be a new brand. It could be a new brand. It could be a new

stylist that is trying to build. It could be a pedicure if they' ve never had a

pedicure. It could be any new to you service.

[ 00:09:54

] So we' re going to keep

all of our clients engaged and we' re going to keep it fun and exciting and

enticing for them to want to shop, buy and have their services done with us.

When it comes to upselling, this is also something that you may need to train

your team on. Also, number one reason why it is so important to at least if you

do not do monthly meetings, I know it I' m recommended to do monthly meetings

and I know not all of us are doing them. And is that okay? Yep. So if you do a

quarterly meeting, if you do a twice a year meeting, and if you don' t do one

meeting, I am here to tell you, if you' re going to do the strategy, you need

to have one.

[ 00:10:34

] And it needs to be in

either September or October to talk about the entire plan that we just laid

out. Okay. And it needs to be to talk about upselling techniques because so

many stylists in this industry, they' re not going to be able to do that. They'

re not going to be able to I don' t want to be a salesperson. You' ve heard it.

I' ve heard it. All of that. And selling is simply telling during your meeting.

You' re also going to do tips and tricks on upselling. What are we going to do?

We' re going to tell them verbiage that they can use. We are also going to walk

them through an entire experience of a guest. Okay.

[ 00:11:10

] So when we talk about

upselling techniques, it' s, it could literally start something as simple as

this. Did you finish up all your Christmas shopping? Because you know, you' re

already asking that every single person that we see from November, probably

15th to December 23rd, actually probably the 24th. We' re literally saying to

them, did you get all your Christmas shopping done? An upsell technique can

literally start with something as simple as that. And if they say yes or no, we

still have an opening because if they say, ' yes', I' ve started my Christmas

shopping, you can say, ' Oh, did you?' Did you get all your odds and ends for

your babysitter, your nanny, your UPS driver? Because we all get all those

packages.

[ 00:11:53

] Did you get anything

for them? And they might say, ' no', no, I didn' t. And I have this person left

in this person left. You can say, ' great', because I can help you walk through

their hair type, or we have this really great color care package or a shampoo.

That' s just simply great for everyone. There you go. We sold them on net. So

that' s just one simple upselling technique. If you would like more upselling

techniques and more verbiage, please feel free to send me a message on any of

my platforms, because that is one of my favorite things. So that' s a super

simple one that literally anyone can do. And the question that everyone is

always asking, okay, we are now on to step number five, which is the post-

holiday follow- up.

[ 00:12:37

] So we made it, we made

it to December 16. Whether you sold them all, or you didn' t, it' s going to be

okay, because guess what? We have always got a plan. Okay. Our plan is to be to

count all of our sales on December 16. If we sold all of them, great. We are

calling our local pizza parlor and we are finding the day that we need to buy

our team pizza, we' re going to do something exciting, whatever that looks

like. If your team is all gluten- free, or whatever that looks like, that' s

fine. Maybe get them a salad bar, whatever anybody likes. That' s what we are

doing. And we are planning that for the week of the holiday season. We know

that our team is burnt out.

[ 00:13:19

] Also, when I was in

sales, I had a team that would set up like a grill outside and they would do

breakfast one day and then they would do you know, like hot dogs and things

like that for the afternoon. And it was simply to celebrate their team and the

team absolutely loved it. Those are all things that I want you guys to think

about, like simple, easy things that you can show appreciation for your team.

And if you are a big team, that' s okay. But if you are a big team, that' s

okay. You can have a big team that doesn' t necessarily cost a lot of time or

money. Even if you have a huge team and it' s not in the budget to do a huge

pizza party.

[ 00:13:55

] That' s okay. There' s

other ways that you can do it. Okay. So keep that in mind. Keep an open mind.

Now we' re going to move on to the teams that maybe didn' t sell all of their

sets. And is that okay? It is. However, we want to reevaluate how many sets you

actually have. Is this like, I' ve got six sets left, Heather, and I' m just

going to put them in out of, you know, 200 sets. You can do that. You can do

that. You can do that. You can do that. You can do that. You can do that. You

can do that. You can do that. You can do that. You can do that. You can do

that. You can literally break them apart and put them in inventory.

[ 00:14:20

] High five. You did it.

We' re not even going to sweat about that. Okay. However, if you have 25% or

more of your sets left over on December 16th, the first thing that we' re going

to do is we are going to do a blitz till holiday. So whether that' s you have

to work with, or whether that' s what you want to do a discount of an extra 20

to 25% off of the sets from December 16th until Christmas Eve. Whatever that

looks like, I want you to come up with a really solid plan and have an

aggressive sale for that week. Then we reach the week between Christmas and New

Year' s. I know that this is a time where people like to take off to spend with

their families, especially in this industry, because you guys have been busting

it out for months now.

[ 00:15:08

] And so I totally

understand. So if your salon company is running a skeleton crew, that's fine.

But I want an email going out to all of your customers. If you have SMS, we

want a text message going out to those customers. And we also want to still

have some type of a deal. So whether that is a dollar amount offsets, because

let' s say right before Christmas, you did 30% off or 25% off of those sets for

that week. Fine. Now, when we get to the week between Christmas and New Year'

s, we might actually have two different options. We might change that to a

dollar amount on those sets, because that percentage off may not have been

going great. So maybe we' re going to run the dollar amount.

[ 00:15:53

] That could be option

one. So instead of saying 25% off, we I' m going to say $10 off or $15 off of a

$50 set, and then run it like that. And then we would also create the signage

and even just do fun little star pops on each of the sets like $10 off $15 off

something like that. Because I do recognize that sometimes in certain accounts

and in certain areas and in certain salons, dollar amounts off do much better

than percentages off. So that' s also a hot tip for you to take home. And to

understand that like if you' ve been running percentages off and your

promotions have been flopping, change it to a