How to Raise Your Prices

Should you do a gradual increase or one big jump?

Small but often is the best policy. You can do it yearly or 6 monthly to keep in line with other cost increases.

Your cut and style price is the one you most often quote and is your entry-level service for many customers. Raise this a few dollars each time and no one will feel put out.

Have a ‘From …’ price on your printed material to cover this as it can be a problem every time you need to do an increase. We have all been in the situation where we have got the extra printing because it was cheaper but ended up with price lists we can’t use because the pricing is outdated.

If you have a scaled price list then this covers it too. You will become more in demand as the owner… your prices need to reflect this.

Stylists will also grow to higher levels and charge more. This is easily explained to the clients as a ‘graduation’ for the stylists as they are busier and more in demand.

If they want to pay less they can go on to a lower level stylist for the same price they have been used to.

Technical services are more easily increased as they are not always the same each visit. Sometimes they have more foils or a treatment. The client will not always be charged a set amount and will not worry too much about an increase.

The product companies put their prices up each year so pass on the increase and explain it this way.

Can you charge more for clients who just want you?

Yes, and please do. If you are busy and in demand and want to filter out some clients who would be happy with other stylists, this is a great method of passing them on.

We recently put up an owners price and offered a membership rate to current customers who wanted to sign up… otherwise, they paid the increased rate each visit. Worked wonders at filtering out the clients and helped me, as the owner, transition to less time on the floor.

The clients that stayed were happy to pay the increased amount and they felt special. You can apply a more significant price increase here and really enable yourself to increase profits.

How to deal with resistance from customers

We have covered this with the grading in prices and it being small and often, but you will get some who will not be happy.

It’s a fact of life and a couple of dollars is not worth worrying over.

Give them the option of a lesser experienced stylist. You don’t need to spend the whole visit justifying yourself and explaining every detail of your costs.

Feel confident and move on.

“Don’t say my prices are too high, just be honest. Say you can’t afford me. It makes more sense.”

Explain that you let them know in the email and that if they didn’t read it, perhaps they might take more notice of your emails in the future.

We have 2 ways of ranking our customers.

The amount they spend in dollars and the amount they engage with the salon via emails, promos, events and social media engagement.

The more engaged a customer is with the salon, the less likely they are to leave, complain and be dissatisfied. We all want more of those customers, so ones who do all that aren’t worth worrying about.

Cheap attracts cheap.

How and should I let my customers know?

We were discussing this with a partnership the other day.

One wanted to advise the customers and put prices up by the end of the week, and one didn’t see it necessary.

Neither could see each other’s perspective, but when we introduced the idea of using it to boost the month’s lagging sales, they both could see the benefits.

Send out an email letting your customers know of the price increase and the date it will come into effect.

Give them an incentive to book in before the increase. Post it on social media if you have a good following of customers and you will reach more this way.

If you have the problem of customers not opening your emails, have you tried segmenting your list and using different subject lines to get the open rates up?

Think about other businesses. Do you get a notification from the dentist or physio when their prices increase? What about your car service… do you ever know what this will cost?

Recently an online coach doubled the price of her course. Great example valuing of her worth, but she gave lots of notice and gave people the chance to sign up before the price increased.

It sold like hotcakes and everyone thought they were getting a great deal for something that was actually the same price at the time.

What about team resistance?

If you have team members that are undercutting the prices and selling their services cheaper, that needs attention.

If they don’t value themselves or your business, they will not grow with you.

Front desk staff can deal with the billing, but if you don’t have a front desk team, then you must make sure all your team are playing by the rules or hurt them where it hurts… in their pocket… not yours.