Salon Sales Fatigue and The Toxic Effect it Has On Your Business
You are in business and that means you need to market and sell your products and services right!
Most creatives don’t love this part of the experience but as we all know without customers who pay us to do a job then there is no business.
I for one love that we can get paid really well for what we do but as a salon owner who employs a team I also know that it is not everyone’s favourite thing.
However, stylists do want to get paid pretty well too, so how can you manage to pay your team well, keep ahead of the rising costs and expenses plus make a living that gives you a feeling of being valued for your efforts and input?
You need to be very strategic with the inflow and outflow of money and if revenue is stagnant or trickling in with no real areas of growth well that flow of money will just not be enough. Not enough profits mean you’ll be going broke very soon.
Salon owners need to communicate and motivate their teams to help a salon tick over every day and one of those things is about sales, products and services and how to maximise what’s available to them.
Read on for some tips on how to do this effectively.
What does Sales Fatigue Look Like?
Are your reports telling you that
- Your stylists’ retail sales have plateaued for 3 months or more?
- New products you invested in are sitting on the shelves gathering dust 6 months later.
- Customers are having the same service appointment after appointment with no upgrades or changes for 12 months or more.
- New customer referrals and recommendations have dropped in the last 3 months and you don’t know why?
- Cancellations have increased from customers who rebooked at their last appointment.
- Your stylist’s service upgrades have become almost non-existent and they even let customers downgrade leaving unfilled gaps in their books.
- KPIs like average customer bill, appointment spend and return rate have dropped over the last 3 months.
- The percentage of services to customers is decreasing and salon weekly revenue is not growing.
- Your team are making excuses why they can’t get people to take up offers and promotions.
- Very few raving reviews have been posted to your review sites in the last few months.
These are all indications that sales fatigue is a problem in your salon and you need to address it before it’s too late
“Nothing is impossible; the word itself says ‘I’m possible!'” Audrey Hepburn
How you’re trying to fix Salon Sales Fatigue and why it isn’t working.
Using Team Meetings to rev up sales.
Even the most well-meaning team sales meetings usually just leave your team under pressure to perform and sell… sell… sell….
You might be trying to
- Have meetings more often in the hope that it supports your team to make changes in their habits and conversations with their customers.
- Pitch the team against each other to set up some friendly competition.
- Use the Stick, not the Carrot when trying to encourage them to make more of an effort. Threatening to not buy products they want, exposing the person who is the weakest link, stopping Friday drinks and Saturday lunches saying you can’t afford it.
- Manipulating extra training as a treat, thinking that will make the team try harder.
- Presenting a HUGE Change Strategy, price increase or promotion in the hope that it shifts your team’s enthusiasm.
- Communicate from your perspective and what you need done but not in a way that your team seems to respond to.
All people right now seem more fatigued and stressed. So it’s not surprising that their experience with sales, targets and performance meetings is causing more stress and pressure.
Their resilience is low. Fatigue sets in 😩.
When you approach these meetings the problem can feel like your team can’t motivate themselves to change their habits.
No matter how hard you try to encourage them nothing shifts them out of their comfort zone. They say they tried their best but:
- Their customer just wasn’t interested in any shampoo.
- Or just didn’t want the extra service or products. Just want the same as usual.
- After giving all their expert advice their customers go and buy it cheaper at some discount online store
- Customers respond with excuses like they already have something at home they want to use up. Or can’t afford anything new right now.
- Their partner gets grumpy when they see how much they spend on their hair so they need to keep it simple.
You can appreciate and understand these excuses…
BUT when the customers’ excuses become the stylist’s excuses for lack of results you need a new plan.
“When the customers’ excuses become the stylist’s excuses for lack of results you need a new plan.
Attempting to Fix this Your New Salon Sales Plan Involves..
Using data and statistics to show them that their stagnation or decline is real and that they need to do something about it but it just seems to confuse and overwhelm them.
Bribing them with offers of more money and incentives to try and shift them into action but it doesn’t get them excited enough to make a difference for longer than a week.
You create offers and promotions that you think they will like to use with their customers hoping it with motivate them but they don’t seem to want to talk about the offers with their customers and you don’t know why.
Reluctantly making more time for meetings and salon sales training to upskill them but they just don’t seem that interested in doing the extra work that it will take to shift them out of their habits and comfort zone. You start to get frustrated as your time is valuable and you think they don’t value that and are being a bit lazy.
Or maybe…
The motivation lasts for a few days after the meeting because they are afraid of letting anyone down but because this change is built on a shaky foundation of fear and pressure it crumbles leaving the stylist feeling worse off than before.
Their confidence is shattered when time and time again they are met with obstacles and objections from their customers they don’t know how to overcome.
Are you creating exactly what you don’t want with your salon team without even realising it?
Most well-meaning team meetings do nothing but leave your team under pressure to perform.
I know you try to make them productive and engaging. Putting time in to help them see how they can help themselves and the salon.
But the opposite usually happens even though you are trying to create more success for everyone.
Just look at your team’s faces when you talk about targets. Just look at the great resignation or quiet quitting movement.
We can only do so much to guide our teams to take on the challenge of sales and targets without them causing stress. Watch this video to find out more.
The problem you really face with motivating your team out of Salon Sales Fatigue is…
That you’re putting pressure on your team by using incentives, promotions and competition. BUT…It’s an outdated way of working with teams today.
If this is you .. don’t worry. I get it
In our industry it is promoted as being healthy and the only way to shift your stylist from their sales-shy habits into becoming Salon Sales Masters and beating any Salon Sales Fatigue.
All the sales gurus from other industries teach it, or maybe you were taught or experienced when you trained yourself. Perhaps you’ve even picked it up from another salon owner.
At training college for example they still teach really outdated ways of doing services so it follows that the influence they have on our industry as a whole is pretty outdated too..
The truth is pressure is the last thing your team needs. It’s not the smart Empowered Salon Leader’s way to get your team to shift out of their comfort zone.
Pressure makes the brain stressed and that, thanks to an unregulated nervous system puts them into threat mode.
Thank the good old flight or fight response for that.
The new way of helping your team increase their salon sales confidence and communicate effectively with customers is something I have helped hundreds of salon owners do with my coaching and programs.
If you want to see if I can help you check out this page.
If you’re after some pointers for making team meetings more productive and inclusive,
Read our ‘Team Meeting Guide’ Blog
If you’re looking to give your team meetings a face lift to make them more productive, inclusive and beneficial for your team while you’re apart and disconnected…
Get reading HERE
