Are you a salon entrepreneur...or just a Business Owner

by Greg Milner   

Even those salon and spa owners whose business is recording bigger and bigger sales in spite of the recession (and there are plenty of our Inner Circle members reporting extraordinary results, see www.worldwidesalonmarketing.com) it would be foolish to point at such results and say the recession does not exist per se.

While there may be green shoots of optimism, by and large the picture is a grim one across thousands of industries.

At home, my 28-year-old second son is glum. Just over a month ago he was riding high on the back of the China-driven resources boom, making over $100,000 a year as a fly-in, fly-out driller, about to buy his first property. Then the crash hit, Chinese orders for iron ore started drying up, his employer’s share price tanked 95%.

Within weeks his world has crashed, about to lose his job, no chance of buying that house. He’s no orphan.
But funny things happen when things get tough.
To me, it’s a time of terrific opportunity for (some of) those in the beauty business.

Lean close, dear reader: for here is a dose of reality that 95% of your competition doesn’t get, won’t understand, will to their detriment ignore….

The typical reaction – certainly among small businesses - to a downturn is to close the shutters, to actually stop doing the only thing that brings money in the door – marketing. For you, the savvy salon or spa owner, this is simply a brilliant opportunity.

Because most of your competition actually remove themselves from the market place, decrease rather than increase their visibility. They stop spending money on advertising. And that creates a sudden vacuum.
Less noise in the market place means your message can be heard easier. Fewer salons & spas spending on advertising means your ads, flyers, direct mail can cut through the clutter.

But it takes a certain entrepreneurial mindset to actually get this, a certain determination to not simply understand it, but put it into action. I wonder how many salon & spa owners reading this really regard themselves as entrepreneurial. Not many, I hazard to guess.

The relative few who do are those who tend to be attracted to the Inner Circle marketing & mentoring program. They understand that being in the salon or spa business is not about cutting hair, or applying glop to a client’s face.

They tend to be risk-takers, because if you’re totally averse to risk, you shouldn’t be in business anyhow.
Stubborn, delusionally optimistic, creative, fearless, flexible and focussed are some of the ways psychologists and business people describe the personality of the entrepreneur.
According to former Apple executive Guy Kawasaki, “you need to be in denial or in ignorance about the huge challenges you face.”

And Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway scooter, says he often suffers sleepless nights wrestling over whether to quit a project that’s not panning out. "You end up lying there saying, 'I'm not stopping. It would be an act of shallow cowardice'. Or you decide to quit and you say, 'This is one of those ideas that just isn't going to work.”

Of the entrepreneur mindset, Kamen says "It's not that they're brilliant or well-educated. They work all the time. They don't let failure demoralize or destroy them. They pick themselves up and keep going and eventually, every once in a while, one of your ideas actually breaks through and works, and it makes all that stuff seem worthwhile."
(source: http://us.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/01/12/entrepreneur.psychology/index.html)

Here's an example of Entrepreneurship at Work in the Salon Business

Tegan Messineo of Body Firming and Beauty in Bunbury, Western Australia, only joined the Inner Circle program and received her Essential Salon Owner's Marketing Toolkit in October 2008. Tegan obviously believes in ACTION. She writes this week how she used the Toolkit principles, resources in the Members Only 'Sealed Section' website and some 'sales thinking' strategies to craft a radio ad.
It ran on the local radio station for only ONE DAY before she had to take it off air because it was too successful.

Tegan writes:

"I was on the (members only) website and I listened to the coaching call with Cailee on how she has paid off her Endermologie machine in 2 months. We have a similar machine and I decided to take her ideas and her template that was in the newsletter and do my own spin on it. I decided that we would offer 19 appointments valued at $130 FREE. We also decided to get everyone to upgrade to include more into their FREE trial for an extra $20 (that way if they don’t purchase a package we have still made money for wages).
So I have had a simple radio add done up. Nothing fancy just straight to the point. It mentions the guarantee, 19 appointments only, free trial and our phone number a few times. I also made up my own flyer with testimonials and other info on it. The campaign starts on Monday on the radio but we started it in store during the week.

I put together 4 packages with HUGE VALUE ADDED into them, one of the packages was valued over $4000 and then I give them 3 options of payment. A standard price which is valid for only 30 days after their treatment, an EZYPAY option which is a payment plan (works out to be the most expensive way to go) and we also offer a RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW price which is the cheapest way to go. (this is only valid until they walk out the door)

We have already had 3 clients in and every single one of them has brought a 'right here right now' package. With 2 of them going for the gold package. Advertising hasn’t even started yet! So I will keep you posted on how that goes!!

Thanks for the great Ideas!!! Its sooo nice to see when all your hard work pays off!

Tegan Messineo
Body Firming and Beauty