Above: Alan Forrest Smith consulting salons in Switzerland
Dear salon owner
Last week we had an email from a salon owner, based in sunny Spain. Her concern was Spain been a country with different culture, it’s non-English speaking population was not used to same tactics and strategies in salon marketing as we know in England, therefore would not work as well.
What you have to remember is receiving kind of emails is not unusual… asking whether this or that salon marketing strategy would work in this or that country…so nothing new, but since we had quite a few concerned salon owners asking same question we thought we’d shed some light to the “problem”, cultural differences and salon marketing.
Here’s Alan’s reply below you might find it interesting to read.
…Alan from Salon Punk here.
I have read your emails back and forth with Tamara with interest and if I can be frank … You like almost ALL salon owners I deal with believe that your clients, country, cultures etc are different to everyone else’s.
As a person that has worked all over the globe, New Zealand, Australia, All over Asia, Europe, all over the USA, every country in the UK and a few more I can tell you this.
Clients, customers, buyers are all the same. Yes you have to take into the mindset the mentality of certain areas but basically they really are all the same.
Why?
Every human being has two things.
Wants and needs.
Now as a hairdresser for 20 years and a salon owner for over 17 years I can tell you those are very basic.
After working and training with salons since 1992 it seems to make no difference if the salon charges 500 or just 5 dollars all can be as busy or as slow as each other.
So if your salon is slow you need to ask a couple of questions before you do anything.
1. Are we giving salon clients what clients want and need?
Be honest and go over everything but most important – ask your clients.
2. Is the service a good exchange for the value of the service.
In other words, if you charge £25 is it £25 worth? Once you decide on the two answers the next steps are simple. Either train in service or train in your marketing messages?
Salon Marketing School is not a magic button that will or won’t work but I can tell you what you read in there turned over 3.1 million for me and has worked with many very, very successful salons.
The only difference between success and failure is this.
Taking action on what you learn.
Not taking action on what you learn.
In my life I paid one guy $5,000 for 60 minute chat. He gave me something in those 60 minutes that was to help me create a newer much more powerful business. I would even say 55 minutes of the chat was worthless but 5 minutes was pure gold despite paying 5,000 for those 5 minutes but worth every single penny.
Bottom-line… The info you get in Salon Marketing works but ONLY if worked out with a salon plan and strategy.
We hope this sheds some light to myths and lies around salon marketing, country and cultural differences when it comes to marketing your salon business.
Alan Forrest Smith and Salon Punk
PS. If you are based in a country, or community where everyone is doing same old thing in the way they run their salon, there is a vast amount of fortune awaiting to you if you could be the first to introduce new, and tested salon marketing proven to build your salon fast.
