Jun 15 2021

Using Product Promotions to Benefit Your Business

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Posted on June 15, 2021 by Justine Rivard

When a product manufacturer or distributor rolls out new product promotions, it’s very tempting to sell those items to your clients at regular price, pocketing the extra savings for yourself. On the surface, this strategy makes a lot of sense. After all, you work hard and picking up a few extra dollars feels like being rewarded for that.

While that approach will surely make you a little extra money in the short term, passing along the promotional savings to your clients can help you steadily increase your long-term income.

Hear us out.

There is a lot of competition for beauty product sales these days. Big box retailers (both brick and mortar and online) are usually able to undercut small businesses price wise, because they deal in higher volume. Lowering the price of a bottle of shampoo by a few dollars is more than made up for when you’re selling hundreds of bottles a week. It’s difficult for small businesses to compete in this area because every sale (and every dollar) counts.

The number one reason that clients do not purchase their products in the salon is because they can usually find it for less, elsewhere. If you get a price break on a product from your manufacturer or distributor, you can use that “breathing room” to offer a discount to your clients, this gets you back on the playing field, in terms of pricing.

Passing along promotional savings also takes a job off of your plate—namely marketing sales and deciding which promotions to offer in your salon. Using your manufacturer and distributor promotional calendars as a blueprint for your salon’s marketing efforts is an easy, time saving solution. Typically, there is some sort of communication around upcoming promotions, well in advance. Take our digital magazine, beauty z.one. It is packed with upcoming promotions and marketing materials that can be used in your salon, immediately.

Time saved is money earned.

Finally, passing along promotional pricing to your clients goes a long way towards building a better relationship. Consider how nice it feels to get an unexpected gift form someone, it’s a small way to let someone know that they are appreciated. Making these small deposits in your and your clients relationship bank account add up over time and can help foster loyalty. Apart from your skillset, the relationships that you build with your clientele are your most valuable asset. Anything that you can do to strengthen and grow them is time and money well spent.

At the end of the day, pocketing the extra savings from a promotional offer may give you a little jolt of instant gratification and sometimes, times may be tough, and those discounts are all that is standing between you and the lights going out. However, if you are in the position to do so, consider what it might mean to your clients if you shared the wealth a little.

Jun 15 2021

3 Reasons Why You Should Teach You Clients How To Style Their Hair

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Posted on June 15, 2021 by Justine Rivard

Have you ever considered teaching your clients to style their own hair? You might be thinking, “sure, I’ll just go ahead and teach myself right out of a job”, which would make sense. Plenty of stylists have lucrative income streams from up styling, blow-out, and braiding services. While it may sound a little counter-intuitive, but there might be something to holding regular education opportunities in your salon.

It’s worth considering that the clients who can afford to have someone else style their hair consistently, will likely continue to do so. Time is money, after all. And maybe by expanding your offerings, you could be creating opportunities to reach clients who don’t have access to those same resources. Teaching your clients to style their hair beyond walking them through blowing out a fresh new cut could go a long towards building your relationships and your retail income.

Reason #1: Attract New Business

If you’re looking for ways to attract new clients into your chair, teaching a styling class may be something to consider. Meeting in a class setting gives both you and your prospective new client a chance to size each other up, without a lot at stake. A classroom atmosphere is a great way to assess how the two of you communicate and whether or not your skill set is the right match for that clients desired look.

Offering a styling class is also an easy way to try out new marketing techniques. Testing out different pricing models and incentive structures can give you invaluable insight into what works for your current client base. Maybe the idea of getting 25% off a of their choice isn’t enough of a driver to purchase a ticket for a braiding class but getting half off a ticket for their friend is. There are plenty of ways to incentivize your current client base to help you bring in new clients, the trick is finding the strategies that work best for you.

Reason #2: Sell More Retail

There are two ways that teaching a styling class can help you sell more retail products. The most straight forward way is to offer a class based on a product that is currently on “special” form your manufacturer/distributor and pass along the savings to your clients. This saves you the step of figuring out what the discount on the product should be, along with what type of styling technique should be taught. You could build out a class calendar based on product specials alone.

The second approach takes a little more time and preparation but could reap far more rewards in the long run. You could plan a class based on the finished look. Let’s say that you were planning to create a 1-hour class, teaching three different braiding techniques. You could consider creating a braiding “kit” beforehand, that would include all of the tools and products needed to accomplish all three looks. You could choose to either have the cost of the kit included in the price of the class, or you could offer it to attendees, afterwards. Either way, you have just sold several products, in addition to class tickets.

Reason #3: Building Relationships

Outside of ticket and potential retail sales, there is no immediate financial gain to offering your time, talent, and expertise to your clients. Instead of simply investing in the direct monetary growth of your business, you will be building trust with your client base. The more your clients see you as their “beauty coach”, the more likely they are to seek you out for more services, and also to recommend you to their friends and family members.

Also, the feeling of seeing a parent light up after finally nailing that fishtail braid their child has been asking for, is pretty priceless.

Beauty professionals have a unique gift that when shared, can strengthen whole communities. It’s not just in creating a beautiful new look or keeping up with trends. It’s never really about the finished look or technique. At the heart of it all, by highlighting and encouraging clients’ natural beauty and teaching them skills to do the same on their own, you’re giving a truly priceless gift: confidence. Now that is a gift worth sharing.

Jun 15 2021

This is Why Natural Ingredients are So Important

Categories: Sustainability, | 0 Comment(s)

Posted on June 15, 2021June 15, 2021 by Justine Rivard

Have you ever stopped to think about why you choose to use natural products? Most chemical alternatives are faster and cheaper, promising “advanced” results and “cutting edge technology”. Especially in the beauty industry, where “new” always seems to mean somehow better, the fight to incorporate more natural ingredients has been an uphill battle. The argument for slow and steady seems to have no place in beauty, and yet…here we are.

To us, it seems like common sense to think that anything that comes from the earth is automatically going to be healthier and better for you than something comparable grown in a lab. After all, humans have been living alongside nature since, well, we’ve been here.

The idea that healthy, beautiful hair requires a holistic approach is anchored in using natural ingredients. We’ve gathered a few reasons why we believe that natural ingredients are better but would love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

Less exposure to toxins and chemicals

Anything that you put on your body, eventually makes its way into your body. Toxins and chemicals applied to the skin and hair are broken down and passed through the bloodstream, eventually finding their way all through the body. Just as it’s important to feed yourself good, natural food, so it’s important to care for your body with good, natural products.

Natural ingredients also tend to be gentler than their chemical counterparts, which leads to less potential side effects from use. Let’s take surfactants for example, like SLS. sodium lauryl sulfate is a chemical cleaning agent that has been historically used in cleaning products like soap and shampoo. The reason SLS is so effective, is because it strips away oils, in order to provide a “squeaky clean” surface. This can have a huge impact on overall scalp and hair health, however, which is why most of our products are SLS free.

Better for the Environment

What goes on in the shower, unfortunately does not stay in the shower. Harsh chemicals from personal care products wash right down the drain and eventually find their way to our rivers and oceans. This has caused immeasurable damage to fish and other aquatic life. By cutting down on how many foreign contaminants we include in our care products, we can ensure that our waste is broken down faster, with minimal impact to wildlife and ecosystems.

Beyond just the negative impact to the environment after a product has been used, natural ingredients cause less harm to the environment while the product is being made. Synthetic ingredients have a huge carbon footprint to produce, while extracts from fruits, grains, and dairy are able to be harvested and extracted from natural sources.

Better Smelling

What would you rather smell, bleach or tea tree oil? Both are strong antiseptic disinfectants, but one smells like the community pool and the other smells like a shady tree on a warm summer day. Smells that occur in nature are just more pleasant, period. Our sensory wiring gives preference to anything that could potentially be food, and I don’t think any of us want to even come close to ingesting some of the things listed on most product labels.

Our natural fragrances is one of the first things that both beauty professionals and their clients notice about milk_shake products. Even our hair color uses gentle scents derived from flowers. This creates a relaxing and enjoyable experience from start to finish.

While it can be tempting to chase after the latest technology and cutting-edge science, it is possible to do so while still keeping natural ingredients at the forefront. Science and nature can work hand in hand to create effective, sustainable products that are better for people and the planet.

May 21 2021

How to manage client’s hair color expectations

Categories: Hair Color, | 0 Comment(s)

Posted on May 21, 2021 by Justine Rivard

Becoming a beauty professional often means that you never see color quite the same way again. While your local barista may describe your coffee as “dark”, “light” or “medium”, you will probably see it in more of a level 6-4 range with gold undertones.

Knowledge is a beautiful thing.

Unfortunately, the highly specific, technical language that enables colorists to do what they do so well, isn’t always easily translated to clients. Most laypeople have no idea what a “level” of hair color is or that the word “ash” has anything at all to do with hair.

Even if a client does have some understanding of these terms and concepts, it’s likely that they have no idea which ones apply to them. This can make things a bit complicated when trying to communicate ideas and expected results.

While it’s not entirely reasonable—or necessary—to provide a full education to each client on the fundamentals of hair color theory, it can be useful to have some translations “on hand”, as a way to respond to a future blank stares when you mention “mushroom” while talking about highlights. This can help cut down on miscommunication and keep your color business strong.

Demystifying hair color levels

Clients typically think of hair color in very rigid terms. Hair is either “dark” or “light” and falls into a color category such as brown, blonde, red, or black. Of course, there is a lot more to an individual’s hair color that that, which is why beauty pros have the terminology that they do. Explaining the concept of levels is a great way to introduce your clients to the nuances of hair color.

You may want to consider using a clients’ natural shade as a starting point for your explanation. Oftentimes this can help them to visualize how going up or down a level or two will impact their look. As much as you probably LOVE talking shop and sharing your color knowledge, at the end of the day, all a client really wants to know is how a shade will look on them.

The warm and cool spectrum

When a client pictures a “warm” color it’s likely they are going to think red or blonde. It is difficult for someone who does not see the full spectrum of hair color side by side on a regular basis to understand how large a role undertones play in an overall color scheme. Knowing this on an individual level can help clients choose a desired color result that is a better fit for them. This can help clarify expectations and cut down on shock or disappointment if an end result doesn’t look exactly like the Instagram photo it was inspired by.

Again, the best place to start here is with whatever undertones your client naturally has. You can walk them through the “white test” by holding up a piece of printer paper or having a pure white cape or towel handy. Another fun way to help clients understand undertones is to have some gold and silver jewelry on hand for them to try on. One or the other will look better depending on whether they have warm or cool undertones. If you happen to carry jewelry in your salon, this is also a great way to bring that up and make a sale!

Decoding the inspiration photo

Typically, a color client finds an image on social media of a color that they like on someone else and brings it in for reference, expecting you to recreate the exact shade. Of course, we know that the color in the photo was likely custom blended for that individual wearer and the formula for your client will be not at all what was used to achieve the color in the photo.

By explaining some of the individual characteristics of hair color (like level and warmth, etc.) you can help your client understand what customized variation of the color in the photo would work best for them. Again, this helps to set expectations before you unveil the final result. This way your client won’t expect to see Blake Lively staring back at them from the mirror but will instead appreciate a head of gorgeous honey-blonde highlights of their own.

A full-on hair color education isn’t really necessary for having productive consultations with clients. However, a little sharing of your wealth of color knowledge can go a long way when it comes to managing expectations around desired results.

May 18 2021

Shiny healthy hair color with The Gloss

Categories: Hair Color, | 0 Comment(s)

Posted on May 18, 2021 by Justine Rivard

We all want hair color that is effective and easy to use and for that, liquid formulas simply can’t be beat. When creating the gloss — our innovative liquid, low pH, demi-permanent hair color—we took it even further by ensuring our latest color product would also be extremely versatile for use in the salon and beneficial to the hair’s overall health.

This ammonia-free liquid formula allows you to create custom color services for clients with high levels of added shine. The gloss can be implemented in four different service types and leaves hair in better condition than before it was colored. By focusing on keeping pH levels low, we created a color that improves the integrity of the hair shaft, allowing for longer-lasting color and high-wattage shine.

Why pH levels matter

It’s no secret that keeping pH levels balanced is one of the foundations of healthy, beautiful hair. While a client’s daily routine is key, salon services can often throw even the most balanced haircare regimen off-track.

Typical color services often use a high pH level to lift the cuticle in order to deposit color onto the shaft. However, the low pH levels of the gloss actually counterbalance this damage by causing the cuticle to constrict and lay flat. This not only locks in moisture—another benefit of an oil-based color—but it also helps the hair shaft to lay smooth. This reduces frizz and increases shine.

The gloss is a true acid-based color. When mixed with the activator, this gentle but powerful demi-permanent hair color has a pH level of 6.7. This ensures amazing color tones without modifying the hair’s natural structure. While its foundation is in respecting the hair’s natural integrity, the gloss delivers superior grey coverage (up to 50%!) and corrects and tones chemically treated hair. After application, the gloss’s effects last through 15-20 washes.

Natural Ingredients for Added Benefits

The gloss incorporates several powerful fruit extracts, to infuse hair with added health benefits. Both the color formula and activator are enhanced with Prickly Pear extract, a naturally powerful antioxidant. This super fruit is also high in natural sugars, pectins, minerals and Vitamins C and E.

Our state-of-the-art extraction process reduces fruit waste and uses naturally occurring hyper-fermentation which increases antioxidants and flavonoids by more than 50%. This aids in the reduction of harmful free-radicals, preserving the health and integrity of the hair.

The gloss also includes our amino acid complex, to aid in keratin production, along with blueberry extract for nourishing phytonutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

The color formula also contains sunflower seed extract, for additional emollient properties, and the activator incorporates our patented Integrity 41 complex, for additional hair health benefits.

All of these natural benefits result in hair that is nourished, radiant, and full of life.

The Gloss in Your Salon

The gloss fits well into any salon service menu and can be used in combination with other milk_shake color products for a total of four unique services.

colour gloss

Use the gloss after a lightening service to tone, modify or intensify a desired shade.

hd shine

Use the special Neutral shade in combination with milk_shake integrity reconstruction fiber sealant to deliver high shine without additional color toning.

gloss and colour

Combine milk_shake smoothies conditioning semi-permanent color with the gloss for additional grey coverage and unbeatable shine and softness.

hd color

When you apply the gloss in conjunction with a milk_shake illuminate pure pigment color service your color toning results will be greatly intensified. Use this combination for high-definition custom color.

Apr 28 2021

Sustainable Practices for Natural Beauty

Categories: Sustainability, | 0 Comment(s)

Posted on April 28, 2021June 15, 2021 by Justine Rivard

These days it’s quite fashionable to be sustainable and eco-friendly. Brands from all industries are concerned with how their products and practices are impacting the planet. At milk_shake, sustainability has always been the foundation of not just our brand, but our business practices as well.

To us, being a sustainable company goes beyond using natural ingredients, or recycled packaging. Instead, we opted to adopt a sustainable mindset from the very beginning. To us, it’s less about focusing on one or two individual sustainable practices and more about having a holistic view of health, wellness, and impact.

We believe in being accountable for the impact that we have, both as a manufacturer of products and as a brand that is part of a larger industry and ecosystem. We are committed to consistently re-evaluating our methods and practices, in order to not only increase our positive effects, but also to reduce our negative impact.

In order to better understand our impact, we monitor and assess the ingredients and technologies that we use, our behaviors and practices as a company and how we how up in the world, as a global brand.

Natural Beauty

The core of our business is haircare, and this is where our practice of sustainability begins. We operate from the standpoint that the only way to guarantee beautiful hair is to support healthy hair. This is why we only offer the highest quality ingredients in the highest percentages, possible. This helps to ensure that our products are consistently effective.

We choose organic ingredients wherever possible, and when organic or natural ingredients are not available for a particular formula, we are transparent in our communication about using a synthetic ingredient.

Oftentimes it is necessary to use a synthetic ingredient—such a preservatives—to ensure you and your clients’ health and safety. Preservatives help protect against dangerous mold and/or fungi from growing in products, which could have a hugely negative impact to your health.

While it would be more “on-brand” to only offer natural or organic ingredients, ensuring your health and safety takes priority over our brand image, every time.

Sustainable Technology

We have been committed to developing new ways of working with our ingredients that are more effective and ecologically sustainable. We are approaching the ability to use biotechnologies, which is a type of natural engineering process.

This process not only gets the most out of our raw ingredients—which helps us to deliver consistently high-quality products—but it also reduces waste and human impact. Not just on the materials themselves, but also on the surrounding soil. This ensures a long-lasting, eco-friendly supply with minimal impact to our surrounding environment.

Eco-Friendly Packaging

Sometimes classic advice is the best advice, and our packaging is reflective of that. All of our packaging is made of at least 50% recycled materials and our product formulations are adjusted to ensure compatibility and making sure there are no barriers to being reused.

We wholeheartedly believe in a circular economy approach to reducing environmental impact and making sure our packaging is recyclable is a main component to that.

We are also always exploring innovative ways to approach how we package our products. Case in point? Our K-respect line uses refillable containers, which helps keep plastic out of landfills.

We work clean

Our headquarters uses 100% certified, renewable energy from sources like wind, solar and geo-thermal energy. We operate within the strictest EU guidelines (FYI: there are more than 500!!) for sustainability.

We encourage our corporate employees to work from home when possible, and also to print as few materials as possible. To offset the impact from the paper products that we do use, we have a partnership with the Print Releaf reforestation project. To date, we have planted over 150 trees, which makes us paper neutral!

We are part of a larger world

Sustainability has a lot to do with the environment, but it also has to do with relationships and citizenship. Our partnership with Print Releaf has had a positive impact on local communities and their economies, by providing additional jobs.

Print Releaf is one of several charitable organizations that we have partnered with over the years, including Polar Bear international, Amazonia Onlus and Caritas Charity. We are also annual supporters of breast cancer awareness.

As a global brand we recognize our responsibility and unique ability to contribute to making the world a better place for all. There is no better way to practice sustainability than to work towards providing health and wellness where it is needed most.

While an increased awareness of ecological impact and sustainability practices is an integral part of who we are as a company, it is also part of a larger whole. At the end of the day, the beauty industry is all about relationships. The way we see it, our business is to ensure a healthy, sustainable, relationship with you, your clients’ hair, the world we live in, and the planet we live on.

Thank you for being a part of our mission <3

Apr 19 2021

A Guide to Setting Boundaries with Clients

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Posted on April 19, 2021 by Justine Rivard

Hairdressers have a unique and special ability to develop relationships. Those relationships can be last a lifetime if they are healthy. If you look closely, you’ll notice that every healthy relationship has something in common: boundaries.

Boundaries give both people the opportunity to feel safe sharing their thoughts and feelings, which allows the relationship to grow close, naturally. This is true for all types of relationships, both personal and professional.

As a hairdresser, you have a unique relationship with your clients. If you are going to do your job well, a certain level of trust is required. Building that trust takes time, patience, and a firm sense of your own boundaries. While your relationship to your clients is technically a professional one, the bond between stylist and client is often a unique blend that blurs the lines between client, friend and even family.

Setting boundaries in a setting that is both personal and professional can be really challenging. This quick guide to creating simple, effective boundaries is designed to be a place for you to start exploring and discovering what feels right for you and your business.

What Boundaries are

Setting effective boundaries is rooted in knowing what works for you and what doesn’t. A well communicated boundary illustrates this clearly for yourself and others. In this sense, your boundaries are defined guidelines that inform people how to navigate having a healthy relationship with you.

Boundaries pull double duty by protecting both people in the relationship. They work to protect others from triggering a negative response from you, while at the same time protecting you from that triggering behavior.

For example, if punctuality is important to you, you may feel disrespected when clients show up chronically late for their appointments. You can draw a clear, firm boundary around your need to have your time respected by putting incorporating a “late charge” policy.

By communicating your expectations and the consequences of overstepping your boundary clearly you are not only protecting your time, you are demonstrating to your clients that your time is valuable, and to be respected. As long as they understand the expectation of being on time, and the consequences for choosing not to be, the responsibility is on them to act accordingly.

Boundaries around Conversations

Hairdressers and therapist have a LOT in common. Both professions are rooted in supporting their clients to feel their best. That being said, it’s likely that you spend a fair amount of time listening to your clients while you are crafting their new look.

Depending on the type of relationship that you have with that client, this can range from polite conversation about the “goings-on” in their lives (work, family, vacations, etc.) to more intimate talks about their hopes, dreams, and hardships.

While this all goes a long way to building a close, trusting relationship, it can also be incredibly draining. Emotional labor is real, folks, and having to hold space day in and day out for multiple peoples’ emotional outpourings is hard, hard work. Boundaries are an essential component to safeguarding yourself from burnout.

Topics that you may want to draw clear boundaries around:

Political opinions
Religious views
Relationships
Social Issues

Boundaries around Physical Space

As a salon professional, personal space can be hard to come by. While a certain amount of physical interaction is necessary for you to perform your job, you are absolutely entitled to enact firm boundaries around your physical space with your clients.

Just because you are required to handle their hair, doesn’t not entitle anyone to any additional physical contact. If you are not a hugger, handshaker, patter, or arm-squeezer, you can communicate this to your clients, in clear, respectful language.

One way to accomplish this it to politely refuse a physical interaction that you are not comfortable with, and instead offer an alternative. For example, if your big-time hugger client comes into envelope you in one of their famous bear hugs post appointment, you offer your hand instead and say, “thank you so much, I am not much a of a hugger, but I am so happy that you like your hair!”

Encouraging Boundaries

the most important thing to know about boundaries is that they go both ways. Your clients should absolutely feel comfortable communicating their boundaries with you well. You can encourage this by asking “are you comfortable with this?” and making note of where their comfort zones begin and end.

As people change, so do their boundaries, and it’s perfectly natural to experience some expansion and contraction with where our boundaries lie. By staying in tune with our needs and reactions, we can revaluate our boundaries as needed, which helps to reinforce and grow those healthy relationships.

At the end of the day, having clearly defined boundaries protects both you and your clients and the relationship that exists between you. A healthy relationship between stylist and client starts with clear communication and mutual respect, and always results in something beautiful.

Apr 17 2021

How to Set Realistic Retail Sales Goals

Categories: Business, | 0 Comment(s)

Posted on April 17, 2021April 17, 2021 by Justine Rivard

We’ve talked about the importance of retail sales, and how to go about creating a sales strategy that fits your salon, but what if you’re not really motivated to sell in the first place?

That’s where sales goals can come in very, very handy.

There are many different approaches to creating motivational retail sales goals and it’s important to create one that works for you. In this post, we are going to look at one of the most widely used goal-making strategies and add a little something extra to make it more relatable.

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

It’s more than likely that you’ve heard of the SMART Approach to goal setting and that’s because it really does work. First coined by consultant George Doran in 1981, the SMART goal setting system has been implemented in nearly every industry that you can think of.

For those of us not intimately familiar with project management lingo, SMART is an acronym that stands for:

Specific: You can easily name the goal you are setting.

Measurable: You will be able to tell if you are making progress.

Assignable: You can identify who will handle this goal.

Realistic: You can identify what can be achieved with your available resources.

Time-related: You can set a realistic timeline for achievement.

The reason this approach has been so successful is because it’s simple and intuitive, while still establishing some key components for success. While “Sell more products, make more money” is a good place to start, there’s not a whole lot to work with.

Instead, let’s look at why you want to want to make a specific amount of money, so that we can create a workable plan to get there.

Making Sales Goals Relatable

One great approach to setting SMART retail sales goals is to give your retail sales the job of paying one or more of your bills. For example, let’s say that you set the goal of having your retail sales cover your electric bill. Here’s what that would look like:

S: Retail product sales profits cover monthly electric bill.

M: Average the past 6 months electric bills and keep records of retail sales profits weekly.

A: I will be in charge of retail product sales

R: Averaging my last 3 months of retail product sales, I know this goal is achievable.

T: My timeframe is 30 days

By breaking your main goal (i.e., selling more retail) into smaller pieces, it becomes easier to fit into a workable plan.

Taking Sales Goals Further

There has been an update to the SMART Approach, that makes this strategy more easily applicable to long term goals. And luckily, it’s just as easy to remember:

Specific
Measurable
Assignable
Realistic
Time-related

Evaluated: You can look at your strategy and identify what worked and what didn’t

Reviewed: You can reflect and adjust your approach to achieving your goal.

Adding these two additional steps can help you grow your retail sales goals from “I want to sell enough to pay my electric bill” to “I want my retail sales to pay all of my utilities”. By looking at your retail sales as an integral part of your business, it takes some pressure off of your services, which are likely more profitable. At the end of the month, having achieved that goal, you’ll be able to pocket more of your service-based income.

Selling retail products doesn’t have to be a chore. By setting realistic, achievable retail sales goals, you can make retail a foundation of your business strategy and build more long-term profitability.

Apr 09 2021

How much time and money could you save with 9 minutes hair color?

Categories: Hair Color, | 0 Comment(s)

Posted on April 9, 2021April 9, 2021 by Justine Rivard

When you’re running a service-based business your time and expertise are your products. When you are at work, every moment is either costing or making you money. While it’s important to price your services accordingly, it’s equally as important to streamline your workflow in order to minimize waste.

Any time you can do quality work in less time, you are adding money to your bottom-line.

So, what if you could reduce the time it takes you to complete some of your most requested hair color services by two-thirds? With milk_shake 9-minutes color, that is a very real possibility.

A faster hair color makes money

The average salon hair color appointment lasts about 1.5- 2 hours, with anywhere form 30-40 minutes of that being processing time. If that is the case, it’s likely that a single stylist can accommodate about 5 or 6 color clients per day.

If you were able to cut the amount of time needed for processing from 30 minutes to 9, that frees up almost two hours per day. Put another way, by using a faster processing color, you could potentially add an additional 2 color clients to your day, working the same number of hours.

That adds up, fast.

This could also be a potential solution for color clients that have been wary of spending 90 minutes+ inside a salon. By offering to break up their appointments into smaller pieces, you can show that you respect their health and safety concerns. If you can whittle their color appointment down to under 1 hour and book a separate appointment for their cut, you may just get them back in the salon.

The bottom line is, if you can tweak your routine a little to save some time on each appointment, it adds up to increased earning potential at the end of the day.

9 minutes color: an overview

In order to shave time off hair color appointments, you need faster processing color. That’s where milk_shake 9 minutes color comes in. With a wide range of shade choices, full grey coverage and a light, floral scent, this color range delivers more than just a quick processing time.

9 minutes color offers a wide range of 36 permanent shades from ashes to chocolates. There is also a high lift shade, and a clear option—to soften and desaturate for a less intense shade. This complete color range also includes 24 additional shades, to maximize your creative option. What’s more, you can mix in milk_shake pure pigments, to add a new dimension, or extra “pop” to any existing 9-minute color shades.

As with all milk_shake color products, 9 minutes color was crafted with your clients’ hair health in mind. By using hyper-fermented daisy extract, this color range introduces proteins and amino acids, and vitamins back into the hair, during the color process. 9 minutes color also offers an extra conditioning base, for soft, shiny color.

While it may be tempting to swap out all of your tubes for 9 minutes color, it’s not designed to be a “one size fits all” solution. 9 minutes color is progressive color. Which means that it needs to be applied very quickly. Once 9 minutes color is mixed with the chosen oxidizing emulsion, it is ready to apply. The recommended time for color application is 10 minutes.

Another thing to keep in mind is that clients with extra stubborn greys, or very coarse hair will require an additional 2-3 minutes processing time.

Mar 23 2021

How to Use a Hero Strategy to Boost Retail Sales

Categories: Business, | 0 Comment(s)

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Justine Rivard

It’s no secret that big brands spend big bucks on their sales strategies. After all, selling products boosts profits and at the heart of every business is making money. Big brands typically have anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred SKUs to worry about selling, so creating an effective, efficient sales plan is a necessity. Savvy salons can put these same big budget ideas to work for their retail business.

While the average salon may not have quite the same number of products to worry about, there is no reason why you can’t adopt some of the same strategies that have been tried and tested by larger companies. The first one you’ll want to consider is the Hero Strategy. This hyper-focused approach to product sales can not only help you boost your retail bottom line, but with a little creative thinking, may help you re-evaluate your service offerings as well.

What is a Hero Strategy?

Traditional retail approaches typically focus on selling as much product as quickly as possible. There is usually a focus on moving old and unpopular products, quickly. The Hero Strategy takes the opposite stance. Instead, this approach focuses on what products sell well and uses them as the foundation for your sales strategy. This doesn’t mean that you will never promote a “non-hero” product or service, it simply means that the majority of your efforts will be focused on the ones that are most likely to generate additional revenue.

Applying the mentality of playing to your strengths helps to streamline efforts and marketing investment by following a simple, 3-step formula: Identify, Promote & Assess.

Identify your Hero Products

The first step in building your Hero Strategy is to identify which products are your best-sellers. Pretty much every product-based business operates by something called Pareto’s Principle which states that 80% of sales are likely to come from 20% of products.

This idea is easiest to approach when it comes to evaluating your retail products, but as we’ll see in a moment, the same idea can be applied to your service offerings.

If you take some time to review your retail sales from the past year, it’s likely that you’ll see two or three products that consistently outsell the rest. These are your hero products.

You’ll be focusing on them a lot, so make sure you are really knowledgeable about what makes them wonderful and how much volume for each you are typically selling per week. You’re going to want to be sure to keep enough product on hand to meet the current demand, as well as the increase we will be focusing on creating.

When it comes to services, you can take the exact same approach, simply review your overall service sales and determine which ones are the most requested. Feel free to get pretty specific here, instead of stopping at “haircolor” and “cuts”, consider narrowing these down to specifics like “blonding” or “long layered cuts”. This will help you target your efforts later in the process.

Promote Your Hero Products

Once you’ve identified your hero products and services, it’s time to talk them up. Don’t be afraid to make your heroes the focal point of your business. Your best-selling products and services should be front and center in your physical space as well as your digital properties.

In the salon this looks like focusing your retail displays, and in-salon marketing materials on your hero products. Be sure to have samples on hand and testers for clients to try. Incorporate your hero products into every appointment. This doesn’t always have to mean using the product, you may just mention it, the point is, it should make an appearance in some form.

You could also consider showcasing your hero services in the salon. This could be as simple as displaying examples of your work around the salon or your station. You can support your best-selling services by having them form the basis of the imagery in your space.

When it comes to your digital presence, your heroes deserve top-billing. Your salon website homepage, social media cover and profile photos and email headers are a great place to start. You can also build a digital marketing strategy from the basis of focusing on one hero product or service at a time.

Would you like to see a sample Hero Digital Marketing Plan? Tell Us in the Comments!

Assess/Adjust Your Strategy

Finally, you’ll want to continuously evaluate and update your hero strategy. While some products and services can be consistent best-sellers all year long, others fluctuate from season to season. Customers needs change and sometimes seeing the same thing presented the same way over and over again can get stale. You may need to make adjustments in how you are approaching your sales.

Another strategy that is often used by big companies that you may want to consider “borrowing” to boost your business, is a focus group. First, you’ll want to identify of clients that you can get honest feedback from. You can offer them discounts or occasional samples in order to thoroughly review and offer constructive feedback on your approach. After all, at the end of the day, it is your clients who will determine how successful your sales strategies are, their feedback is invaluable.

Did you know that a bottle of Leave-in Conditioner is sold every 2 MINUTES?!?!?! How’s THAT for a Hero Product?? Get Yours Here>>>