January Grab Bag!

Last week we talked about the Success Start small win Big challenge. Those of you interested in following along have your first action step. The first week of the challenge is to figure out your why. Why do you want to start a business or grow your current business. Forget the cliché’s like make more money, flexible schedule and get to what having these things would mean to you personally. What do you want more money for? A retirement account? Boat house? Helping your kids through college? What exactly is the root of your why? Maybe you are fulfilling a passion or sharing in a cause. Maybe you want to control your own destiny or fulfill what you think to be your purpose in life. Whatever the root cause of your why, spend some time fleshing it out. When you have written everything down spend some time distilling it into one sentence and post it somewhere you will see it every day. Having this mission statement helps keep you on track on those days you can’t seem to even get to the station. January is a good time to reevaluate your menu. Do you have too many services that just confuse your guests? Look at what your guests focused in on and let go of the rest. Look for new treatments and services to offer your guests. With spring coming you should be thinking about spring treatments, maybe adding a wellness service like reflexology or Reiki, a growing area in the industry. Think about hosting an anti-superbowl party at your salon with fluffy treatments, drinks and chick flicks. You should also have your Valentines specials in place offering Gift cards and special treatments for that special someone. Partner with florists, restaurants, massage studios and offer a special gift to anyone that returns your business card to your salon. Maybe offer a first time incentive or free gift, whatever works best for your market and your brand. With the start of show season this weekend what shows and classes are you going to attend this year? Keeping up with current trends is a fantastic tool to keep guests. January is a good time to budget out your educational investments for the year. Car pool, grab roommates and get yourself to these meccas of all things nails and beauty. Don’t get left in the nail dust. I also just joined Smart Brief from ISPA. This new service delivers newsworthy articles relevant to the salon and spa industry in one convenient daily email. Save time and be smarter. And last but not least, I saw an interesting newsfeed on Internetq’s website. A recent study found that consumers are spending more time surfing the web on their mobile devices than their pc’s. Mobile users spent 94 minutes a day browsing content through mobile apps compared to 72 minutes a day on mobile and traditional PC.s. Their advice?  “With consumers spending more time on the web via mobile devices, it grows increasingly imperative for businesses to optimize their websites for mobile viewers.” I took a look at my own website from my mobile phone and it works beautifully. Make sure your site is mobile friendly so potential new guests aren’t clicking off your site before they even get a chance to see how awesome you really are. Here’s to working smarter On our business and not just in it!.