Publicity Planning to Get Out Front!

I often network with brilliant marketing minds outside of this industry. A really good friend of mine with an MBA in marketing manages a lumber yard and hardware store. What do salons and hardware stores have in common? Marketing is marketing. We both need to constantly recruit new clients. We need them to return and buy more often and we need them to purchase more with us when they visit. Today we were sharing what we have going on in our worlds and he shared his Publicity calendar with me. It reminded me that publicity is a very real and very cost effective strategy for increasing your visibility within the community and often times a great way to give back. You might think it is a stretch, but it's really not.
February is a tool blow out sale. Maybe you have some left over holiday inventory hanging around that you need to clear out for Spring specials. What about a tool talk night? Purchase one of those horrific kits they sell at Target or Wal-Mart and explain the dangers of using improper implements. You can also instruct clients on proper care and maintenance between salon visits.
March is garden show time. Look for women's events at local community centers, teacher appreciation weeks at schools anywhere you can donate your time and talents to be in front of a group of potential clients. Our local community center has a spa day I participated in always bringing in spring trends and updates. This would be a great opportunity to have your program dispel all the misinformation about the dangers of gel manicures.
April Lawn care clinic. How about a foot care clinic? Do you have an educator in your area that can come in and help conduct a live event? Or invite a local podiatrist to share health foot care habits and have special pricing on pedicure packages. If you get 10 ladies to attend and they each purchase a pedicure package for 250 for a series of 5 pedicures that's a $2500 dollar evening. Add on polish, sandals and pedicare socks and it could quickly add up to 3 thousand.
May, is adopt a pet month. Do you sell pawlish? Why not partner with a local shelter or pet center and put together a Pooch pageant? Have some fun raising awareness for these dedicated rescue centers. Maybe a portion of any sales that month can be donated to the center.
June is tent sale month. Do you have an area you can use outdoors and have a "tent" sale? Every summer I held a Tent sale of sorts. I had a sidewalk sale complete with free hotdogs, chips and a beverage for every purchase. I often brought in more boutique items, summer bags, toe rings, flip flops, you get the picture. I borrowed a tent from a family member and set up in a courtyard for a Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Clients looked forward to it every summer and often brought a friend.
July offers an ice cream social. Many towns have these in their community, have you ever participated? Bring in a ice cream pedicure service and raffle off chances to win. Set up an area to do demos so participants can see smell and experience this amazing service for themselves.
August its festival time. Does your town or surrounding community have a festival? Get involved offering nail art, glitzy lips, retail items and don't forget a special incentive to visit your salon. Many have door prizes so make sure to offer a signature service, not a basic one, put out the good china for your new guest.
September/ pig roast clambake client appreciation sale. You know I personally would probably offer a different menu, however this particular areas demographic is quite 4 H rural and works for them. I would have a client appreciation wellness event with signature healthy dishes, maybe bring in a local area chef for a small presentation and offer 10% off any retail or service purchases all evening. I held a client appreciation event once a quarter and they were always loads of fun bringing in many new guests.
October offers a Pumpkin carving festival. Many communities have a fall festival. Why not partner with the planners and offer nail art booth and sell premade Halloween press on nails? Many of you know any festival I attend I always have a fishbowl contest to win a $25.00 gift certificate. Entries must include name, phone and email address and will automatically get added to my marketing email list.
November is the 2nd annual girl scout girl power event. Partnering with your local girl scout chapters can be a tremendously rewarding experience. Nail Parties are simple to put together and brings new faces to your salon, should you choose to hold the party in house. If you don't host the nail party don' t miss out on the opportunity to market to moms. Send a goodie bag home with mini polishes, nail brushes, mini files and an incentive for Mom to visit your salon. So there you have it, two totally different industries, sharing a marketing calendar. Thinking outside the bottle. Take a few minutes this week and write out your publicity calendar. Post your events on Yelp and your fan page and send a press release to your local papers, TV and radio stations. Putting a publicity plan in place is smart planning so get planning!
Need more? Purchase marketing tools on my website Millie Haynam

Can a Healthy Brain Make the Difference?

     This week's tip is a success tip. Many of you know I am a bit of a health nut and a success junkie and last week I came across a video that combined the two. I was so fascinated by this video I wanted to share some of its highlights.  The video is of Dr. Daniel Amen of the Amen clinics speaking about having a high performing brain and how it directly effects your success to give you a high performance life. I know it doesn't take a genius to figure that out but the information that he shared was eye opening, even for me. He shares a brain study that really changes the way we look at success and longevity.

 

     The fact is the "Don't Worry be Happy" people died the earliest. The number one factor on longevity was the quality of the decisions you made throughout your lifetime. Conscientious people live the longest. There are 7 steps to creating a high performance brain. Brains run the world yet we rarely think about the brain, a huge mistake because success always starts with a healthy brain. The good news is with a good brain plan you can slow and even reverse the aging process and improve everything in your life. Brain excellence is your competitive advantage in anything you do. Your brain controls how you think, the decisions you make, how you act, it controls everything. Dr. Amen scanned hundreds of brains looking for the normal brain and in the end discovered that if you struggle, that's normal. In life we make decisions that are either above 100IQ decisions or below 100 IQ decisions. When your brain works right, you work right but the opposite also holds true. You definitely want to keep your decisions above 100 IQ if you want a high performance life.

      Amen clinic has a test called the SPECT test, unlike CAT and MRI scans this test  measures brain  function. The images he shows comparing a healthy brain and a non healthy brain are quite dramatic.  The quality of the decisions you make are a direct reflection of the health of your brain. With a healthy brain you are happier, healthier, wealthier, wiser and you make better decisions and you are more successful. With an unhealthy brain, you are sadder, sicker poorer, less wise and make poorer decisions and you end up less successful. Unfortunately your brain gets less and less active with age much like the rest of the body, the brain deteriorates. You do have a choice,  you can slow or even reverse the aging process with his recommendations. You have to know your motivation to have a healthy brain. Identify that specifically for yourself. Do you have children and grand children you want to stay healthy for? A great mission and purpose to stay healthy for? Get clear. Write down five positive reasons. Being mentally slow is not normal, it is a sign of a brain in trouble. Next write down five negative reasons, things maybe you want to avoid like Alzheimer's and aging diseases. Alzheimer's disease is expected to triple in the next 25 years and there is no known cure. The key to avoiding this horrible disease is to avoid all the illnesses associated with it. The best predictor of longevity are the people you hang out with. Healthy habits are contagious. There is a condition called the dinosaur syndrome that means that as your weight goes up the actually physical size and function of your brain goes down. Big body, little brain, become extinct. Obese people have 8% less brain tissue and their brains looked 16 years older than healthy people. Physical health is directly related to mental health. Fat stores toxins and being overweight causes inflammation in your body and inflammation starts to kill everything. Use anchor images to remind you why you must be healthy. Do others depend on you? Put these images front and center every day. You need to understand the health of your brain. 7 or 8 hours of sleep is critical to brain health.

Lower blood supply to the brain causes inferior decisions.

   

 

      One story in particular he shares hits very close to home. It is about a man who had a horribly unhealthy brain, much like a drug addicts or an alcoholic. The doctor asked what he did for a living. Turns out he worked in a furniture factory spending his days finishing furniture. He was doing drugs, in fact the worst kind, inhaling organic solvents. He mentions the dangers of people that work in hair salons around toxic substances with their brain being damaged. This is clearly one of the best arguments for the Valentino beauty pure to date. Alzheimer's disease starts in your brain 30-50 years before you have any symptoms.  What to avoid? Avoid things that hurt your brain, do things that are good for your brain. and even if you have been bad to your brain, getting on a brain healthy program can start to reverse the aging process.  

     Even though your brain is only 2% of your body's weight, it uses 20-30 percent of the calories you consume. It uses 20% of the oxygen and blood flow. Be more thoughtful of what you feed your brain. Your decisions either accelerate or decelerate the process of aging your brain.  Drugs and alcohol, right, bad for your brain. Avoid Obesity, treat sleep apnea if necessary. Smoking constricts your blood vessels starving the brain of oxygen, prematurely aging your brain. Caffeine is not our friend it  constricts blood flow, dehydrates you and your brain is 80% water, not a good combination. It's addictive, it interrupts sleep, increases stress which puts fat on your belly and effects memory centers. The answer to needing caffeine is getting more sleep, it is hugely important.  Diabetes and High blood pressure affect brain health. Toxins, maybe mold growing? Low hormone levels and low levels of vitamin D. Poor diet, too much sugar increases inflammation not good for the brain. Chronic stress kills cells in the memory center. Untreated depression doubles your risk for Alzheimer's disease. Untreated ADD. Lack of exercise, Poor decisions , unhealthy peer group and not knowing your brains own vulnerability round out the list. What are the things to do?

 Make good decisions

 Have a positive peer group

Protect the brain

Clean environment

Physical health

8 hours of sleep

Keep learning new things.

Healthy weight

Great diet

Wise calorie spending

Get rid of your ANT thinking. Automatic negative thinking.

Stress management

Supplements

Exercise

To watch the presentation in its entirety visit this site

High Performance Academy



Social Media Fail?

I took a webinar online last week featuring Albert Maruggi founder of Provident Partners, a public relations and social media consulting company. He had a tremendous amount of stats and data and impressive examples of successful social media campaigns. The 13 minutes I spent on the phone with him this afternoon was much more valuable. He took the time to answer a few of my questions and cut through all the social media hype and gave me some real advice. While many of the social media mongers are preaching it to be the second coming you really have to do your homework to find out if it's the best use of your marketing minutes. If you are a techie and online all the time, you think everyone else is right? Remember what Holly posted in the chat room last week? That out of a class of 40 plus attendees only a handful had pages for their business? You might think well they are behind the times and the technology train has left the station without them on board. The fact of the matter is that maybe you really don't need to be on social media if your clients or potential clients are not. A lot of the social media gurus would have you believe that the entire world is going social media, but Albert states there are certain parts of the world that are very heavy into social media and other parts that are not. He says they are not necessarily behind the times, they know what Facebook is and they have elected to not participate. Some people are just anti social. He also believes some of the hype of the Facebook frenzy is overblown and I can see that, especially now with the IPO on the horizon. So do your own research and find out if your community is active online. He shared a neat trick on how to find out if they are. On your page there is a link called create an ad in the sponsored ads on your feed. Create a "test" ad and follow all the instructions. In this ad you can choose country, state, city or by specific zip codes, you can add as many as you like. You pick the age, sex, and interests, I chose between 25 and 60 both male and female and in family status I chose baby boomers, away from hometown, parents all ages, there is an age range to choose from. I also chose health and well being and pop culture, all mobile. In retail shopping I selected Beauty products, fashion and Luxury goods. So my grand total of possibles is whopping 42,640 people. That's a pretty significant number to go ahead and run an ad. Your area may be different but just for kicks do it for yourself and see what your number is. You also have to have the right personality for social media and many people just aren't suited for its demands. Albert shares that a lot of people look at social media like you are placing an ad in the newspaper, it's not, it's about your personality. If you don't have an outgoing personality the question isn't should you be on social media more like should you be in this business? We also talked about Groupon and how the salon and spa business has been burned by this discounting mentality. Think about it, It's not rocket science to figure out you can fill your salon with 50% off deals. I asked him what would be the best bang for the buck in our industry. HIs recommendation is to create something unique about yourself, your service or your salon. Also some good old fashioned business 101 stuff like try and connect on another level with your client outside the beauty world, maybe a common interest in cooking, reading, bowling, something to cement your bond. Otherwise there is nothing else to base the relationship on other than the service. Clients will look around if you don't give them a real reason to stay. Maybe a new place opened up that is more convenient or has better hours. What's keeping your client from jumping ship to that salon? What it boils down to is marketing is marketing whether it is on or off line. You still have to put in the same due diligence you would with any other aspect of your business. Connect with your clients and create a dialog, not a monologue. Customers don't want to be talked at they want to be engaged in your business. So be engaging, both on and off line. For all my blog posts check out Nail Talk Radio To purchase marketing products go to milliehaynam.com

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

This week's tip is about planning. I had an amazing skype session with Trish Rock yesterday and we talked about promotional planning and how we should all really have a 12 month plan. It's February so already one twefth of the year is already gone. This slower time in the salon is really a good time to plan because we all know what happens as soon as we get busy. Promotions on the fly if at all, marketing behind the eight ball. I know the drill, I lived it myself. So why not think about planning your whole year. Take a few hours and get everything set up. At least a few basics. you can always add as you go. For those of you new to Nail Talk Radio within the year I did post a whole year marketing plan last year and have reposted it on my Probeauty Success Page on Facebook. Don't forget to like it and share it while you're there. I also wanted to share a fantastic idea that a friend of mine had at her salon a few years ago. She ordered a together a promotional calendar with the salon name and info on it and gave them out to clients for the holidays as well as to new clients in their new guest bag. She had posted in the front the promotions for the entire year. I thought, wow what a great idea, so I used this as well my first year of business. Choose what promotions you want to focus on for what month. Remember you don't have to discount. Maybe you are trying to keep up the pedicure business in the northeast, when we usually see a drop in our pedicure clients. Offer a free upgrade to spa or an upgrade to a spa manicure if they book both. Maybe you're introducing a new service in March or April. A lot of times my promotions were promoting something that was more expensive than my regular services. So plan out your whole year and you'll never be at a loss for a promotion again. One lucky winner will get a free cd tonight that has 7 years worth of newsletters and enough promotions to curl your toes. Also