Building a take-home culture
Whether you have a full team in your shop or you work alone in a studio take home hair care product sales do not just happen. It takes work. It takes the building of a culture of retailing.
Creating a mind set that focuses on using, suggesting and recommending take-home hair care is vital to making sales a regular, ongoing occurrence.
If your haircutting business lacks a foundation in product dales here are a few powerful techniques that will help you build from the ground up.
1. The Core Item Concept.
My John Amico brand has nearly 600 skus. That is a lot of product. No one can stock all of that. No one can offer all of that in their business. No one has any chance to know enough about that many products to feel informed and confident of all of it.
Start small. Start with what I can the core item concept. Pick 4 or 5 items. Know everything you can about just these few items. Choose these items deliberately. These 4 or 5 core item choices should be appropriate for a wide swath of your clientele. 3 or 4 of the 4 or 5 should be applicable to 80% of your traffic. There should be something or more than one something for every client that sits in your chair.
Sell these focus items. As you are serving clients be thinking of which one or more of the core items are right for this client? Use and suggest the items from the core group that are right. Close sales with these core items.
Be sure to stock deep on the items in your core group. Have enough product to sell anyone and everyone for whom the core items are appropriate.
After some time you will begin to feel rock solid and confident in using and selling your core group of products. Once this happens you are ready to build around the core. Add items to your sphere of confidence. Add one or two items that you will make the effort to know very well. Put back bar samples on your station top and at the shampoo bowl. Use these additional skus to broaden your circle of confidence and competence.
Then repeat the process.
2. Item of the week
Pick an item of the week to feature for the week. Pick a different item every week. Tell every client about the item of the week. Tell the clients even if you know the item is not right for them. You are not selling, you are telling. Tell them about the item simply from an informational standpoint.
There are several powerful benefits of this tactic. You become a product specialist by talking more about product. Clients will come to expect to hear about hair care from you. You will become the go-to authority on hair care products and their choice and use. Some of the clients will be right for the featured item. Others will take the conversation to the appropriate product for them. The featured item of the week simply serves as the jumping off point for the product discussion and engagement.
Next week pick another item to feature. Start your first 4 or 5 weeks with your core items.
3. Run a Buy 1 get 1 50% OFF Promo
Pick a week or two to run a powerful promotion. Buy 1 get 1 50% off is a great way to have a reason to talk product with every client. Offer the deal to everyone. Have a sign that calls out the deal, too. Have a start and an end date for the deal to create some urgency.
One of the key elements of the B1G1, 50 promo is that it drives sales and volume. It moves a lot of product. If you follow me you know I never like to discount the haircut. I am happy to play with product pricing to drive sales. You are still making money on the full mark-up item. With the John Amico program you are also making rebate dollars with all the 50% off goods moving through. You are also moving closer to your FREE cruise vacation as you accrue sales dollars for the year. There are a LOT of great reasons to drive sales volume.
The 50% off second item also expands the range of products the client is using. It serves as powerful paid sampling.
These three tactics will serve to jump start any retailing culture.
I am happy to help you get these dollars flowing.
- Ivan
