How to keep bookings up during the quiet months at the beginning of the year
Susan Routledge, owner of award-winning salon Finishing Touch Clinic, gives Professional Beauty readers some tips on how to keep bookings up during the quiet months at the beginning of the year.
The best advice I can give is start planning now. Most salons focus so much on Christmas they totally overlook the three subsequent quieter months. Easter isn't until late April in 2014 so you potentially have 19 weeks to fill before the next holiday season.
Everyone wants a revamp in January and the secret to successfully selling this concept is to tell clients about your 2014 promotion packages before Christmas and encourage them to ask friends and family for gift vouchers and to save their money for your great upcoming offers.
Look at your treatment menu for treatments that make a difference – such as inch loss, toning or anti-ageing facials– then make a customised course to offer a “New Year, New You” package. Even packages to get nails or feet in shape will work.
Selling packages is a far easier way to keep columns busy than constantly selling single treatments, plus you can resell the package as a maintenance programme to keep up the results. It must look like you are doing this to benefit your client and not to fill your columns, though.
Read the full interview on page 35 of the November issue of Professional Beauty. If you are not yet a subscriber, sign up to a yearly subscription for only £37 here.
