Business

This year has been a whirlwind. Didn't it seem like just yesterday it was January 1, 2022? So much has happened over this past year that it's worth reflecting on as we bring in the new year. When we look back on this year, 2022 can be described as turbulent, a little rock n' roll and the age of influencer marketing. REFLECTING ON 2022  Economic Implications With COVID taking a front seat at the beginning of the year, Omicron struck the nation with its contagious furry. While it was less deadly, it had a huge impact on people's ability and desire to travel or to even just be out and about. The pandemic has forced people to take their businesses online. While this was already happening prior to the pandemic, it just sped up the process. This year many new beauty businesses have been created online. Only time will tell how many of them stick around. In response to the pandemic, processes we had come to get comfortable with became unpredictable. The movement of goods across the nation and international lines became more expensive as well as disrupted. A lack of workers and new international shipping policies came into effect. As a result of the disruption, havoc ensued at the shipping docks delaying consumer products from arriving on a timely schedule so they could be placed on retail shelves. The effect trickled down to the consumer as we noticed many empty shelves and higher prices for products. On top of this, inflation has reached an all-time high. The cost of goods, gas and food skyrocketed. Higher costs without an increase in pay has left many with less disposable income. By increasing interest rates, the housing market has begun to cool down and finally gas prices have started to calm down. But it's unlikely costs will go back to pre-pandemic levels. What did this mean for beauty professionals? This meant rising costs for supplies, less clients coming in and more uncertainty. While many stylists have kept their clientele, others have seen drop off. Clients either found new stylists, delayed services or have opted to cut their own hair. With the lingering effects of the pandemic, hair professionals have had to find other ways to supplement their income.   Hair Trends With people finding their way back to salons and barbershops, some emerging hair trends have unfolded. The shag continued its popularity into 2022 but the biggest trend was the mullet. Mullets were everywhere. Mullets were modernized with a fresh vibe where it could be worn by either a man or woman. Most easily done with a razor, mullets have begun to fade in popularity toward the end of 2022. We also saw a lot of textured looks. Especially for young men, the tapered sides with textured hair on top hairstyle has been the look of 2021 and 2022. The perm has stayed afloat due to this haircut. But natural, textured looks have remained strong throughout this year.   Influencer Status Social media influencing for hairstylists and barbers have continued to grow throughout 2022. With Instagram's algorithm change where original content is favored over reposted content, this has only encouraged influencer marketing. On top of this, Instagram is favoring reels over regular posts, making it harder for brands to push out content. This change has been influenced by the rival app TikTok which has exploded in popularity in recent years. In addition to these changes, large companies like Facebook and Google have been under scrutiny over their lack of privacy policies. With new privacy laws in place, it's become more difficult to market products to the end consumer. All these factors have led to a lot of influencer marketing from businesses. Especially in the beauty industry, influencers have a lot of opportunity to make themselves known to their fellow peers as well as clients. Stylists, barbers, nail techs and estheticians have thrived and grown their businesses significantly through social media alone. The trend will only get stronger going into 2023. We will see what TikTok and Instagram have in store for us or if a new social platform will rise to the top. 2022 has been a year of ups and downs. Recovering from the pandemic will take some time. But people love creating and that will never change. For beauty professionals, things are looking much more normal this year. In person classes and trade shows are starting to pop up again and people are eager to see people in person. But with spikes in covid and other new diseases popping up, some have remained cautious about making an appearance. We hope 2023 brings more stability so we can focus on the fun things like the next hair trend. It will be interesting to see what's in store for the beauty industry, but one thing is for sure. People will always want to look good even when times get tough. In this, we have comfort. As we wrap up 2022, we say farewell to another year, but we welcome a new one and are excited to see what's to come.   Workplace, Business

According to Ivan Zoot, when a customer is dissatisfied with their service, 95% of the time it can be traced back to miscommunication during the consult, not the actual technical performance of the haircut. Not having a clear understanding of what your client wants is a sure way to getting undesirable results. To avoid the challenges of misunderstanding it goes back to the consultation. The consultation is a very important part of the service. It sets the tone for what will happen for the rest of the appointment. During the consultation you need to be careful and get very clear on what the client is thinking. This means repeating back to the client what you think you heard. Change the wording a bit when you repeat back to them what they want. This is called paraphrasing. Watch a video where Ivan discusses paraphrasing. Measure twice, cut once. That's the mantra you should be telling yourself. Measuring twice or gaining complete clarity beforehand can save you stress and frustration of any backlash from the service. When performing the consultation, be sure to be completely present. Avoid doing other tasks while you are doing the consult. This means looking at them directly head on. Have the client face the mirror but sit in front of them. This positioning allows for the client to look at themselves in the mirror while explaining so you can completely focus on the client.   CONSULTATION QUESTIONS TO ASK Q: How long has it been since you've had a haircut? Q: Is that normal for you? By asking the first question you get an idea of what their haircut looked like before. Since hair grows ½" per month you can do the math and imagine what that haircut was like. By asking the second questions this tells you whether they just want a trim to keep the same look. This will help you understand what they want.  For clients who want something different, encourage them to come in with a picture of the type of haircut they want. A picture tells a 1000 words and this can be helpful for the both of you. If the client doesn't come with a picture, have an online look book with various hairstyles that you cater too. Perhaps these are past looks you've already created or they are looks you've seen done by other hair professionals that you are confident you can do. In any case, it's easy to create.  If you have a Pinterest account create a private board that features all these looks. Look books or galleries of haircut images are great for people who don't talk much or aren't forthcoming with information. Another important question to ask is... Q: Do you have any allergies related to cosmetic toiletries I should know about? This is very important and can save you and your client any pain or suffering.   Also, ask... Q: What is the best haircut you've ever had? The best haircut can give you an indication of what they like and what type of maintenance is required.   Q: What is the worst haircut you've ever had? This will tell you what NOT to do. This is just as important as what you should do. During the consultation talk about product early and often. Show the client what products will be used on them and educate them a bit about why you are using these product This plants a seed in their head that they can buy and use the product for themselves at home. The consultation is an important part of any haircut. Paraphrasing, asking important questions and having a visual representation of what the client wants can help you do your job better. Get in the habit of doing these things and evaluate why any past redos occurred. Gain clarity during the consultation and your work will become easier and less stressful. Watch a Facebook Live Replay video of Ivan Zoot on mastering the consultation.   Service Offerings, Business

It's that time of year again. And you know what that means? The holidays are an incredible opportunity to gain business and make good money. In fact, the holidays could comprise a good portion of your yearly income. People are in the mood to spend, they have holiday parties to attend and they want to look extra good. You are in high demand this time of year. So what can you do to maximize your services during the holidays? Here are tips to get you started! PROMOTIONAL TIPS Special Promotions Conducting special promos during the holidays can be extra enticing to clients. If you sell retail products, perhaps you can ask product manufacturers if they have any small sample sized bottles you can give to your clients. If so, you can offer free samples to clients to book certain services. Or you can give free product with service. You can market sample sized bottles as stocking stuffers. Bundling your product with services is a nice opportunity to introduce clients to the products you sell. Think of what can make you stand out or what can make your promotions unique and memorable.   Gift Certificates The holidays are a time for gifting. So why not have gift certificates available for your clients to gift their friends and family. If they like you, they will refer you anyway so you might as well get prepaid haircut vouchers. Gift certificates can be made in any denomination and given out digitally or as physical paper certificates. There are many businesses that make a lot of money from gift certificates because they are pre-paid. You can also throw in extra money on top of the gift certificate cost to entice purchase. For example, when someone buys a $100 gift certificate, give $20 free. So the value is $120 but they are paying $100 for it. This is an enticing deal.   Holiday Packages Perhaps create a bundle of services for a special price. For example, bundle a cut + color for a slight discount. Or throw in a free service with the purchase of select services. Creating packages that incorporate multiple services can be a great way to increase your average order value.   How to Promote You should begin to think about the holidays around September or October. Determine the promotions and prepare for them early November. Then start the promotions when you feel it's best. Usually people start having holiday parties before the end of November. So start offering your specials earlier rather than later. When you start to promote your holiday specials, word of mouth will be important as well as social media and displays. Tell your friends and family and current clientele. There are several ways of communicating with everyone. Text, call, email (if you have an email list) or promote through social media to get the word out. Remind people to book early to ensure a spot this holiday season and make sure you give a sense of urgency so people act sooner rather than later. On social media, post about your specials and create daily stories to let everyone know what you're up to. Show examples of holiday updos or styles you can create and share on every platform you're a part of. Put a special promotion on Yelp if you have a presence there. If your store front faces the street with good traffic, create a nice display outside the salon or shop. If you can stand out and gain the attention of people driving or walking by you might get a new customer as well. Decorate the store and make it festive. It gets people in the mood to spend money and get in the holiday spirit. Create an Instagrammable moment for clients. Today it's all about experiences so give clients a unique experience. Perhaps set up a holiday background where clients can take fun selfies of themselves after getting serviced. Be sure to take some yourself so you can use them for your own social sites. If it's fun, people will want to come in just so they can get the selfie pic. Holiday promotions are an important time of year for hair professionals but especially stylists. Don't miss out on the opportunity to get more services in this short period of time. Get creative but start early so you can get the most out of your holiday promotions.     Service Offerings, Business

Are you a hair professional looking to grow your business? Of course you are! If you're looking to gain new clients and entice current clients to return, sometimes you need to change things up and make things fresh. There are many ways to do sales promotions and get people talking about you. In this article, discounts and free are discussed by Ivan Zoot, a JATAI Academy educator.  Ivan is a known educator in the industry and has specifically built a niche for himself around business building for hair professionals. He is a big advocate of some sales ideas and not of others. Let's explore those and find out why. Watch this video and read below.  FREE AND DISCOUNTS Free Ivan loves free. In fact, everyone loves free. Free is exciting and it's difficult for people to resist free. Free is more exciting than just a basic discount and so it grabs people's attention. But Ivan specifically loves free in the beauty industry because you don't undermine price integrity. What does this mean? Well say you do $20 haircuts but you offer a $5 coupon on your haircut. This means you really do $15 haircuts. And by doing this you are telling everyone that a $15 haircut is ok for you. However, if you do a $20 haircut and you do a special where you give something for free along with the service, your haircut is still valued at $20. When you give something away for free you maintain price integrity but at the same time offer a deal that can entice clients. In Ivan's world you should do one of the two 'F' words...Full price or Free. When it comes to free, the giveaway can be whatever you want. It can be a free product (perhaps samples) or an added service such as a scalp massage. Or maybe you do a free upgrade or provide a beverage. Get creative with what you give away for free.   Discounts Now what about discounts? Discounts are different from free in that this is a dollar off amount which undermines your haircut price integrity. Participating on coupon sites is not good for the longevity of your business. The problem with sites like this is that they often draw the wrong kind of people. These are people who are only looking for deals. So if they get a haircut with you for 30% off the regular price, they will want this price to continue for as long as they come to you. Generally, they do not want to pay more on subsequent services.  Also, these types of sites also take a large chunk of what the customer pays, reducing your overall take home pay. While it is a good way to gain exposure, these sites often create more problems and headaches than they're worth. In the end, it's in your best interest to not discount. And if you're going to do anything, just give it away for free. You can use products or services as free incentives. But at least you'll maintain price integrity. Watch Ivan speak on the topic of free and discounts. Watch Ivan speak on the topic of if you should use coupon sites to promote your business.   Finances, Business

Are you looking to do something different in your salon or barbershop? Would you like to increase your client retention rate or just support your best clients? Then, maybe a membership program is worth looking into. A membership program can benefit your salon or shop in many ways. It can encourage customer loyalty, increase client predictability and keep chairs filled. It can even give you a competitive edge in the industry if you do it right. When you have a membership program this increases income consistency and makes members feel like they are a part of something exclusive. And who doesn't want to feel like they're special? A membership program is also a great way to expose your clients to new or different services you offer. Of course, there are downsides to memberships. They do take extra work. Memberships require figuring out what the membership program will consist of, how many members you want, the pricing of the membership and promoting it to gain new members. You will also likely need established clientele to offer the program to. Since a membership is put in place to support your best customers and encourage further loyalty, it would be difficult to implement this without already having loyal clients. Memberships also might require more staff or more robust software to handle the administrative side. But if you still think a membership will provide greater upside, you need to determine what kind of membership to offer. To determine this, evaluate what your most popular services are and what the average transaction value is. How often do your clients come in? What are your outgoing costs? The answer to these questions should give you a baseline of what you should offer and what the pricing should be. So what kind of membership benefits should you offer? Offer member only exclusives such as: Offer discounts on retail Included beverages (non-alcoholic unless the place has a liquor license) Include a head massage If you have other services like waxing, manicures or facials, make a package with those services For barbers, offer extra 'experiences' like aromatherapy, scalp massage, hand massage during hot towel shaves Use better products during shaves and haircuts (higher end creams, moisturizers during shaves, styling products etc.) You can always ask your current clients what they would like to see in a membership Whatever you offer for the membership, just make sure it's not a discount according to Ivan Zoot. What does this mean? For example, if you want to offer unlimited haircuts in a month and your customers come in twice a week, make the membership at least 2x the price of a haircut. The cost should be higher than the minimum number of haircuts your clients come in because you're gambling. You're gambling they're not coming in as often and they are gambling they're going to come in more often so they come in ahead of the money. The offer needs to be valuable to the client but also, don't cut yourself short. It should be beneficial on both sides. Membership value comes in the form of the added benefits of membership. There is a lot of value you can add to a membership without discounting the basic haircut.   Another tip by Ivan is to only offer a limited number of memberships so that it feels exclusive. Start with a small number. You can gradually increase that number but by keeping it small, it becomes a marketing talking point to clients. Scarcity makes people want the service. Keep in mind that membership can't be short. They should be long, at least 6 months to a year. But you can charge per month. Make sure you have terms outlined so that everyone is on the same page and knows what it means to be a member. Clearly define any late fees, cancellation fees or booking restrictions. Maybe even have them sign a contract. Lastly, you need to promote it. When you have the specifics of your program together and are ready to gain members, start with talking with your most loyal customers. These customers are the low hanging fruit. If they don't want to join your membership, certainly people who have never had a haircut with you won't want to join either. So it's important to test it out with your current clients. Otherwise, use social media, your email list or ask for referrals. Perhaps, you can give a reward for referrals. There's so much you can do in a membership. Just get creative and explore a variety of possibilities. If you want to watch a video on memberships, check out this video by Ivan Zoot in our Education CONNECT portal of JATAI Academy. Good luck!   Service Offerings, Business

If you're looking to build and grow your haircutting business, look no further. There are endless ways to get more people in the door and in the chair. This requires, however, some thought and creativity. Let's look at three great ways to earn more business: cross promoting, perks and effective sales promotions. 3 WAYS TO GENERATE BUSINESS Cross Promotions Cross promoting is one way to get the word out about your business. This involves 2 businesses helping each other out in a complementary, non-competing way. It needs to be a win-win situation for this to be a true cross promotion. An example of a cross promotion is if you have an agreement with another business to provide special coupons that are only available through each other. There are several ways to do a cross promotion. The easiest way is to look at what other businesses are located around you. Is your salon or barbershop located in a strip mall? If so, what business could you partner up with? Perhaps a pet store or even a food spot. People who frequent one store may frequent other stores in the same strip mall. Where else do your customers do business in the area? Look for other businesses that offer services in a similar space. For example, a nail salon, small beauty supply store or massage place would get a similar clientele if you're in a salon. For barbershops, a smoke shop, auto store or men's clothing store could be options. Think of other types of businesses you could partner with that are non-competing but would make sense to do a cross promotion. Watch a video where Ivan Zoot discusses cross promotions.   Perks Perks are the little things that make the deal just a little better. There are ways to add perks to make offerings just a little more attractive. According to Ivan Zoot, he doesn't like to offer discount on actual services, but he has no problems with offering discounts on retail product or giving something away for free. So one type of perk is to have ongoing discounts on products. This can entice clients to purchase desirable retail products at an attractive price. Many barbers allow walk-ins. One perk barbers can offer is walk-ins without waiting. Often walk-in clients need to wait a while to get a haircut. But not everyone can afford to wait. Offering this perk can be quite attractive. Another possible perk is to offer beverages with haircut or hair service. This can be water, soda or even alcohol depending on the rules and regulations of your business. A liquor license may be necessary. However, it may be possible to legally give it away for free without needing a license. One other type of perk is to offer special hours for select clients. This can be attractive for clients who are not available during your regular hours. There are many types of perks. All you have to do is get a little creative and see what gets people's attention. Perks are a fun way to close the deal on your haircut services. Learn more about perks with these tips from Ivan Zoot.   Effective Sales Promotions Another way to be proactive growing your business is to provide effective sales promotions. Create special promotions around holidays such as Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day or even St. Patrick's Day. There are many holidays you can choose from to revolve a promotion around. Sales promotions give you something different to talk about. It spices things up and keeps it fresh. If you are going to do sale promotions, make sure to plan ahead. Give yourself at least 2 months to put the promotion together, especially if it involves flyers, the need for inventory or special training. Having all the pieces in place when it comes to execute will make the process much smoother. If your team needs training, get them involved early so they are prepared for what's to come. When the promotion is active, be sure to promote it even more than the time leading up to it. Give it a feeling of urgency so people will want to take advantage of it sooner than later. For example, perhaps it can be the first 20 people who book an appointment for a dad and grad haircut (both father and son) will get a free head and shoulder massage. There is no limit to creativity here. When the promotion is over, analyze the data. Did it work? What were your sales? How many extra appointments did you get? Evaluate what worked and didn't work and then decide if it's worth doing again. Or perhaps you'll want to change some aspect of it for next time. Watch a video about effective sales promotions. Building and growing your business is work. It takes creativity, an action plan and execution. You must have some sort of marketing and sales plan in place in order to succeed in this business. If you're unsure what to offer, look at what other salons or barbershops are doing or even look at what other businesses are doing and see if those types of promotions could apply to your business. For more business building tips, see our Education CONNECT videos and filter under the topic of 'Business Building.'   Finances, Business

One of the biggest questions that stylists and barbers ask is 'How much should I charge for a haircut?' It's a question that takes consideration. You don't want to just use the same pricing as your fellow hair professionals. You want to price your haircuts based on your own personal goals and needs. But how do you do that? Many hair pros determine what they should charge by looking at what their fellow hair pros are doing. They might call up different local salons or barbershops and ask them what they charge. They might look at their websites to see if pricing is listed there. Or they might just ask their friends who are also hair pros what they charge. Then they might take an average of those costs and decide this is a good price to use. However, this is a terrible way to price your haircut. First off, if you are new to the industry, know that the price of the haircut you start with is important to your future pricing so take careful consideration. According to Ivan Zoot, you need to know 3 numbers about your business in order to determine a price. HOW TO DETERMINE HAIRCUT PRICING Haircut Capacity How many haircuts can you do? And what is considered full for you? Let's just work with some numbers for the sake of an example. Say you can do 2 haircuts/hr, work 10hrs/day and 5 days/wk. This means you can do 100 haircuts/wk or 400 haircuts/mo. 400 haircuts/month is your maximum capacity. However, you don't ever want to work like this because you need to take into account the time needed for lunch, to go to the bathroom, for adding services, for discussing with clients about take home haircut product or even just resetting your station. There are many activities that need and will be done outside of just haircuts. In the hair industry, if you are 80% occupied, you are considered to be full. Therefore, 400 x 80% = 320 haircuts/mo. 320 haircuts/mo would be your Haircut Capacity   Cost Per Haircut How much does it cost you to do a haircut? This is a very important number to calculate because you need to be able to cover your costs and then make a profit on top of that. So how do you determine the cost? You must take into consideration items such as rent, supplies, equipment, education, license, insurance and marketing. Of course there could be more, but let's assign numbers to these just to stick with our example. Your numbers will be different, but hopefully you are following along! Breakdown: a) Rent - $200/wk x 4 = $800/mo b) Supplies (neck strips, laundry, shave cream, razor blades, color, shampoo etc.) - $25/wk x4 = $100/mo c) Equipment (new clippers, shears, blades, razors, combs, brushes, blowdryers) - $100/mo d) Education (often is not consistent throughout the year so take your yearly cost and divide it by 12) - 1200/yr = $100/mo e) License - $9/mo f) Insurance (should have at least $2M insurance coverage) - $159/yr = $14/mo g) Marketing (buying sponsored ads for Yelp, business cards, flyers etc.) - $250/mo Total monthly expenses: $1373.00/mo Total monthly expenses/haircut capacity = Cost per haircut $1373/320 = $4.19/haircut   Profit per Haircut How much profit do we need to reach our goals? First you have to have a goal. Do you want to earn $60k? $85k? $100k? Say you want to earn $60k. In order to take home $60k you have to first incorporate taxes. If you're in the 22% tax bracket, you will need to make approximately $73,200 to take home $60k because: $60,000 x 1.22 = $73,200/yr $73,200/12mo = $6100/mo $6100/ total haircut capacity (in this case it's 320) = $19.06 So in order to meet your income goal of taking home $60k/yr, you need to incorporate $19.06 in profit on each haircut Now you can calculate how much you need to charge per haircut in order to meet your goals: $4.29 (cost/haircut) + $19.06 (profit/haircut) = $23.25 (minimum haircut price) NOW, call 6 salons or barbershops to get an average haircut price in the community. If you discover that the average price in the neighborhood is $26, you're golden because you only need to charge $23.25 in order to meet your goals and this is under the $26 average in the community. People will desire your services. But if you discover that the average price is $20.50 but you want to charge much more, you have to be unique, special and deliver fabulous service. To be more than the average in the neighborhood you have to deliver more than average service. Don't just make the decision without intention. Do the math and the numbers will tell you what you need to charge. Say the math tells you that you need to charge $23.35/haircut in order to make your goals but the average haircut price in the community is $20.50. If you don't think you can charge $23.35 you can lower your expenses where possible such as marketing. If you reduce your marketing budget to $150/mo. This will make your cost/haircut $23.03. If you need to lower your haircut price even more, you'll have to find other ways to reduce your costs or make yourself more special. The bottom line is that pricing should not be arbitrary. It should be based on this system. This is how you price your haircut. Watch the full Facebook Live with Ivan Zoot where he explains this all in detail. Finances, Business

If you're a stylist or barber who wants to make good money in the business, meaning at least $100k, you'll need to understand the dynamics of how one gets there. It's not rocket science but there are some key points that need to be made to fully understand the pathway to making $100k per year. And if you're someone who doubts this can happen for them, you have to realize that you are the only one stopping you from getting there. So have an open mind and listen up, because you probably haven't heard this information before...or at least you weren't told in this way. To start things off, our good friend Ivan Zoot has come to build his reputation in the beauty and barber industry as someone who is knowledgeable about business building. He has published several books and has done MANY videos for us at JATAI Academy. It is true, he makes you think differently and helps you gain new perspective on how to grow your business. As a stylist or barber you've been trained to cut hair. But little has been learned on how to grow your business. This is a completely different skill set that requires you to understand sales, marketing and economics. Just cutting hair isn't going to get you to $100k. The thought should be intentional and the actions you take to get there should follow this intention. Ivan likes to talk about pricing. Pricing of your haircuts and productivity are topics he loves to dive deep into. So we're going to explore one of his formulas on how to get you to earning $100,000 per year. The formula is: Work up to and down from 3 haircuts/hr The essence of this formula is that to be a $100k haircutter, you have to get slower to get faster. We have a full video on this topic called Efficiency, Productivity and Pricing.  The life of your business looks like a bell curve. If the X axis is Time and the Y axis is # of Haircuts/hr you would expect this shape because in the beginning you are starting out as a haircutter and you're probably pretty slow and bad. Let's be real. Graduation is just the beginning and it can be tough to get started. So in the beginning of your career you might be able to do 1 haircut/hr. Say you charge $20/haircut. Now over time you do things to improve yourself and you get better. At some point you are able to do 2 haircuts/hr because you're getting faster. You figure out what works and what doesn't work. You become more efficient and more productive. Time has moved forward, you're more experienced and you stick to what's working. You continue to take better care of customers and identify mentors. So now you charge $35/haircut. You're making more money and are more efficient. But then, one day you are able to do 3 haircuts/hr and charging $50 per haircut. You are much faster and making over double per haircut from when you started. Good job! You keep up the work but then realize that you can't get faster than 3 haircuts/hr. Because when you tried to do 4 haircuts an hour the quality of service went down. It's important to acknowledge that every hair professional should be able to deliver a quality technical experience and deliver world class customer service in 20min at any price point according to Ivan. It doesn't matter if you are in a low or high end place. If you don't find that to be the case you have some work to do. At any price point, a customer can be very satisfied with the technical quality and service in 20 min. If you go faster than 3 haircuts, the quality drops. The haircuts are not as good and the customer service tanks. So what you do now? You've earned the right to slow down. You can start creating a higher value experience. You'll find yourself at 2 haircuts/hr again but now charging $65/haircut. The real gain is substantially increasing customer experience. That's the payoff here. Keep doing what's working and keep giving customer service. Keep going until you find yourself at 1 haircut/hr again but charging $100/haircut. At this point you've become a $100k haircutter. You are making good money because you've earned it. But of course, people want a shortcut. So is there a shortcut? Yes! Anywhere you happen to be on the chart, you can cut across to the other side of the chart. What does it take to shortcut the game? The answer is your USP. USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. This means that what you offer has to be something special. You have to find out what makes you magical. It needs to be compelling so that your friends and family will recommend you. Many times your USP comes in the form of specialization. If you specialize in hair color, short haircuts, pixies, bridal hair updos or men's haircuts (just to name a few) people will value you more because you're an expert at that one thing. But you should also be really good at it. Some people have figured out how to be so unique, special and amazing, the marketplace is allowing for it in a short period of time. The ability to use technology (specifically social media) to communicate uniqueness in powerful ways is helping to speed the shortcut across the bell curve. On the contrary, everyone is a dot along the chart. Those who get stagnant along the way of the bell curve are generally complainers and don't take responsibility or accountability for what they can control. Complainers just blame other people. So don't be that person. You're the driver. You can be anywhere on the chart you want to be. It's all up to you. So now that you understand the life of a hair professional, where are you on that chart? Where do you want to be on that chart? And how do you plan to get there? These are the questions you should be asking yourself. We want every hair professional to earn what they deserve. It takes motivation and drive to make it happen but it's definitely doable. So get out there and show the world what you've got!   Finances, Business

  Being a hairstylist or barber you know that tips can make a difference in your overall income. While it might not be the bulk of your earnings from day to day, at the end of the year, it can add up. Like restaurant service, tips are at the sole discretion of the customer. Some people are great tippers while others are not. Some people are not even accustomed to tipping. So you're going to get an array of tippers. For many people, what to tip can be confusing. Here in the US many service-oriented jobs rely on their tips to get by. From your food delivery person to maids to restaurant servers and more, tipping is subjective. So what makes someone tip more or less or even tip at all? Well, that answer is all over the place. As a hairstylist or barber you might think it's obvious that clients should pay you 18-20% on each haircut or service, this might not be obvious to your client. Here are some reasons clients tip the way they do. Reasons for Getting Higher Tips: Great service Great results Naturally generous They know what it's like to rely on tips for income Appreciate you and the relationship you have Price of the service was in a price range that affects their tip amount Have more disposable income   Reasons for Getting Lower Tips: Poor service Result was not what they wanted Naturally frugal Have never worked in a service industry They don't have much or any experience as your client Price of the service was expensive which affects their tip amount Can't afford a larger tip So how can you get Bigger Tips? One way according to Ivan Zoot is to basically forget about the tips. Meaning, don't focus on it. People who focus on tips are what he calls 'tip chasers.' Ivan believes that tips are small money compared to the overall money coming in from the services and upsells. He has a point. If you can look beyond the tip and see the customer as a lifelong client who will come in for more than just one haircut, then you can see other possibilities. Perhaps you can upsell them on a retail product or other services. This can increase your bottom dollar. Instead of looking at customers as just tippers, look at each client as an opportunity to grow a relationship. The better the relationship, the better the tips (most likely). Really focus on taking care of your client, understanding their needs and desires and delivering the best you can. If the client feels cared for and you did a good job, most people will want to reciprocate that with a larger tip. According to Ivan's experience in his barbershop, the largest earners were those who also got larger tips. These people really cared about their clients and worked on their relationships with clients. By becoming more valuable to your customer, the money will come. Be of service and serve your clients and they will return their appreciation in tips. Watch this video with Ivan discussing tips. Another thing you can do to increase your bottom line (not necessarily tips) is to increase your retail offerings and upsell your clients. A retail sale is a great way to substantially increase revenue. You can also make sure that when you ask for payment, make sure the software or receipt gives tip suggestions so that you are indirectly asking for a certain tip amount. Many software programs will show what the amount will be if they tip 15%, 18%, 20% or even 25%.   This pre-calculation of tip has been very effective because it takes away the step of the client having to calculate what the tip will be in their head. When they see the amount pre-populated in front of them, they are more likely to select one of the tip options. Lastly, some people will never be good tippers. Even if you provide the best service and gave them the result they wanted. Just know, it's not you, it's something about them. You can't make anyone tip more because remember tips are essentially optional. As much as a tip is expected, at the end of the day, it's not a part of the service. Everyone has their own reasons for what they tip so the best you can do is be the best stylist or barber you can be, provide great service and encourage appropriate tipping in a non-pushy way. At the very least, don't let low tips get you down or mad. At the end of the day, tips are not the bulk of your income and as long as you did everything you could to create the style they asked for and provide excellent customer service, there was nothing more you could do. You should take satisfaction in that. If there are other ways you think can increase tip amount, leave a comment below. We would love to hear your recommendations.   Finances, Business

The importance of sales to our success in the beauty and barber business cannot be stressed more. After all, without sales, we don't have a business. In this industry you can't just be a haircutter, you need to also be a salesperson. You might not like hearing this because you became a barber or stylist to cut hair. But at the end of the day, you are responsible for getting your clients and retaining them and you are responsible for your own income. Barbers and stylists don't generally get paid a salary like typical office workers. So your income can be both stable and variable. So as a hair professional it's important to think like a business person. When we think of sales we often think of someone being pushy and annoying. But sales is not always so direct. One way you can influence your sales is to specialize. What does this mean? It means specializing in one specific task. In the words of Ivan Zoot, in today's world you are more defined by what you will NOT do instead of what you will do. What do you do? Do you do shaves? No Do you do color? No Do you do perms? No So what do you do? I cut hair. I cut women's hair. I cut short women's hair.   The more specific you get, the more specialized you are. Why is this profitable from a sales standpoint? Because... If you are Everything to Everyone, you are Nothing to Anyone. According to the long tail concept, when given a choice, most people will choose choice. What that means is, everything doesn't fit everyone anymore. People are seeking things that are highly specialized because we have more choices than ever before. And more often people will choose unique and special choices that they feel fit themselves and their lifestyle. As a hair professional, according to Ivan Zoot, if you're going to do world class haircuts for world class prices in a major city, you can't do hair color. There is just too much to know. Coloring hair has become very complicated and so has haircutting. In order to specialize you must say no to a whole bunch of things so you can say yes to something that you are passionate and enthusiastic about and you can be the best at it. You business will grow bigger, better, faster and farther when you start to specialize and started saying no to everything else.   Look at Your Business in Two Parts: What are You Selling Who are You Selling to   WHAT You are Selling You are most effective if you focus your sales efforts where you are the best. It's like sharpening a spear. When you can hone in on what you selling in a specific way, you are specializing. Specializing in perms would be one example. Or like Ivan Zoot, he specializes in short, men's military haircuts. For others it may be updos or color. Choose an area that you are good at and like to do.   WHO You are Selling to The second part is who are you talking to. Who are the best customers for everything you offer? Who is your target market? Is it for older people, women, men? Think about the hours you are open and your pricing as this can dictate your target market as well. When you figure these two things out, you can have a recipe for specialization success. So if you're ready to specialize, take everything you just read to heart. The more you can position yourself as the best in any given area, the more you can charge for it because people will pay for the best services. And that's right...the more sales you will have. So remember, if you're everything to everyone, you're nothing to anyone.   Service Offerings, Business

If you're a barber or stylist, are you analyzing your mid-year numbers? Meaning, are you evaluating the health of your business? Do you know how well you are doing? From January 1st through July 1st, this marks the half -way point of every year. So July 1st is the best time to calculate and look at your mid-year numbers to see if you're doing well, not as expected or exceeding expectations.   Year to Date Revenue One thing to note is that barbers tend to have different business ebbs and flows than stylists. If you're a barber, it's realistic to expect that your year-to-date (YTD) revenue is 50% of your total year revenue. This is because barber businesses tend to be more consistent throughout the year. However, if you're a stylist, it is likely that the first half of the year revenue is less than 50% of your total year revenue because a bulk of your business comes in the second half of the year due to back-to-school and the holiday season. But it could also be that you're busy in the first half of the year due to wedding season. So depending on what you specialize in, whether it's hair color, wedding hair or just everyday hair your revenue throughout the year is different from other stylists. Now that you've calculated your first half of the year revenue, double that number. Does that number look good to you? This is what you would potentially make for the year. For barbers, this should be a relatively accurate evaluation. And for stylists, adjust that number according to your busy times of the year. If you're not happy with this number it's time to start thinking of what you need to do to get those numbers up.   Rate of Occupancy The other way to evaluate the health of your business is to calculate your rate of occupancy (ROO). This is the total capacity/total number of haircuts you did. So for example, if you can do 2 haircuts/hour, work 10 hours/day and 5 days/week that means you do 100 haircuts/week. If you actually did 75 haircuts, your rate of occupancy is 75%. Another example, if you can do 2 haircuts/hour, work 8 hours/day and 5 days/week that's 80 haircuts/week. If you actually did 60 haircuts, your rate of occupancy is 75%. You can calculate your ROO for any given week. So to analyze your most recent numbers, calculate your ROO for each of the last 6 weeks. Then add them up and divide by 6. This will give you an average ROO. This is a true and accurate representation of the health of your business. For comparative purposes, do this for the last 6 weeks of the year or at any time of the year and it will give you real time data. The goal is to always increase your ROO because the more you are occupied, the more money you are making and the more in-demand you are.   Retail The third part of evaluating the health of your business is retail dollars. If you're not selling product, then this doesn't apply to you. But if you are, look at the revenue coming in from retail sales. If your retail dollars are growing, this is a good sign of having a higher revenue for the remainder of the year. However, if it's declining, then you will need to take a look at how to increase it. Of course, evaluate your busy seasons and take that into consideration. Evaluating your mid-year numbers is important to get a pulse of your business. Keep a running record of your revenue, ROO and retail revenue from year to year. Then, you can evaluate these numbers on an even larger scale to see where you're headed. Watch this video featuring Ivan Zoot as he discusses analyzing your mid-year numbers.   Finances, Business

Love is in the air this time of year! When couples seal the deal they want their special day to be perfect, weddings are a great way to offer hair services. There are many wedding opportunities for stylists and barbers to make good money and have fun doing it. But there are some things you should consider before taking on weddings. Here are some points to chew on... FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WILL CHARGE Price by time, not by service or by the head: PROS: You get paid for the exact time that you work. CONS: Your clients might not like such an open-ended cost.   Price by day (half day, full day): PROS: Easy to price out. Straight forward. CONS: You will need to outline in the contract what happens if you go over the contracted time frame for whatever reason.   Price by package: PROS: Packages can be good in that you can include products and extra services they might not have thought about. They allow you to be more creative. Different price points allow your client to pick within their budget. CONS: People might not like everything that is included in the package and will want to pick and choose what comes in the package. Will likely need different tier packages.   Bounce Backs for Future Business For those you service who live close to your salon/shop, make sure they have your business card. Make it easy for them to patronize you in the future if they like your work. But even if you service someone not local, perhaps they can refer someone who is. Be sure to give everyone a business card because you never know who your next client will be.   Include Travel Time Whichever way you decide to price, be sure the price includes travel time. Time is valuable and if you have to travel several hours to and from, this is a lot of time and gas (if you're driving). Include other travel expenses that make sense.   Payment It's important to ask for a percentage of the fee upfront. You never know what will happen and it's important to protect yourself where you can to at least cover your initial expenses before the big day.   Go Out to Provide Services It's always best to travel where the wedding party is. The day is chaotic and often things come up that need to be addressed. Being where the action is to make you more available to meet their needs.   Have a Contract This should be a no brainer. Have a clear contract outlining what you will provide and how much it will cost. This is crucial to ensuring you are on the same page. It is also important to include what should happen in unforeseen circumstances that might happen on the day of the wedding.   Have a Trial Run Before the actual wedding day, do a trial run. Do the actual hair (and make-up if that's included) to make sure it's to the bride's liking. If you're doing the groom's hair, you could also do a trial run if you'd like. Trial runs can be done in your salon or shop.   Showcase Your Bride and Groom Looks A great way to tell the world that you do weddings is to showcase it on social media. Show your beautiful bridal updos and clean, crisp men's looks. Be sure to include these photos on any other sites like Yelp or your own personal website. It's best to have a separate category on your website dedicated to wedding services where you can post wedding-only photos of hair and makeup.   For the Men Most of the time wedding hair is directed toward the bride and bridesmaids. However, the men need to look and feel good too. If you're a barber, perhaps provide a package so that the groom and his groomsmen can all get nice hot towel shaves. It's a unique and fun bonding experience for the men. If any of them have beards or moustaches you can offer a facial hair service. Perhaps line up their beard, give it a good cleaning and conditioning treatment and/or shape it up nicely. Wedding hair services are big business. They can break-up the monotony of salon or shop life and you get to participate in someone's special day. Make sure you are organized and clear with your offerings and pricing because it's important to make the bride and groom feel at ease with using you for their wedding hair. Now get out there and promote your services. Good luck!   Service Offerings, Business