Are You Yelping Your Business?

 

     So I got a message on Facebook from KaSundra Anderson asking my opinion about advertising on Yelp. When she told me it was $300 per month my initial reaction was wow that seams high.  I started a blog post a few months ago about Yelp and I also remembered that Vicki Peters raved about her salon start up success with Yelp and thought I need to give this a closer look. Yelp launched its namesake web site  in October 2004 by a couple of former PayPal software engineers. Stats from their site state "Yelp had a monthly average of 84 million unique visitors in Q3 2012*. By the end of Q3 2012, Yelpers had written more than 33 million rich, local reviews, making Yelp the leading local guide for real word-of-mouth on everything from boutiques and mechanics to restaurants and dentists. Yelp's mobile application was used on 8.2 million unique mobile devices on a monthly average basis during Q3 2012." Every business owner can set up a free  account to message their customers and post photos. Posting pictures is key for salons. Yelp knows that a picture is worth a thousand Yelps. Yelp searchers spend 2 and a half times as much time on a business page with photos as opposed to one without.

 I called Vick today and asked her more about her Yelp success. Yelp, she says, is the new yellow pages of the decade. She was quick to offer up the name of her sales consultant Ashley Blok for my in-depth questions. Ashley called me back within 10 minutes and spoke with me for about 20 minutes in the middle of her day. She has been with Yelp for over two years and I couldn't help but notice she is still quite passionate about helping small businesses grow. She was eager to help with information and even sent out more informational emails right away when I told her it was for tonight's segment. She couldn't have been more accommodating. Yelp not only helps start ups it gives existing businesses more visibility and helps expand their market. I believe Yelps key advantage is a strategy I talked about last week. They direct customers to your business who are searching for you. Ashley shared with me their target audience is between 25 and 45, working adults that aren't necessarily looking for the cheapest but more quality businesses in their area. They have a need, they're searching after all, they have money to spend and they don't have a loyalty to another salon. Vicki contemplated a few other options before she went with Yelp and partnering with her sales consultant Ashley Blok has proven a winning strategy for driving new business to her salon. When researching Yelp Ashley encourages business owners to go through a phone appointment to see all the ways Yelp can help your business. You can always say no at the end, but at least you know all your options. Vicki recommends taking advantage of everything Yelp offers. When Ashley visited the salon for a manicure Vicki took the opportunity to grill her about Yelp. There is also a business blog on the Yelp site that has great pointers and offers a ton of business advice.  Yelp also has some other fans, bigger fans like Apple and Bing.

     Partnering with Apple and having their apps on I phones and Ipad has harnessed the power of Siri. Apple’s Siri default search engine is Yelp. Their SEO team, and I quote, " kicks butt. For most business name searches on major search engines, Yelp’s review is on page one. " It was a client that initially posted a review about the salon that got Vicki's attention.  Love them or hate them reviews are the life blood of Yelp. They cannot be manipulated or controlled but they can be managed. While it is not recommended to solicit reviews you can encourage feedback. Negative reviews are inevitable, but the more positive reviews you have will push the negative ones further down the list. Yelp has an automated review filter, which is always on the lookout for suspicious reviewing activity (like those anonymous rants and raves you see on other sites). Getting started is easy. Claim your business listing, try and get more reviews and consider advertising on Yelp. And for Vicki's numbers? Polished Salon has had over 150 walk ins since opening this summer. She believes 99% of their clients found her salon on Yelp and her numbers shot up since advertising. Ashley shared with me that there are over 3000 nail related searches per month in her area. How many potential customers are out there searching for you?

 

 

High Falutin with Light Elegance

Love this color from Light Elegance. After a gel fill I painted one coat of High Falutin cured. Added line art and just a hint of glitter on the accent nail. So easy!

Don't Neglect the Basics

          Tonights tip is from my friend Michael Colosi with Hair Salon Marketing. No matter how awesome your skill level or amazing your personality or perfect your location, a certain percentage of clients will leave. Some will move away, some pass away, some will choose another technician or stop getting services altogether for a variety of reasons, many out of your control. It's called attrition and it happens in every business. So the bottom line. You must market for new clients all the time. This presents a few challenges. One you are already busy servicing the clients you have and don't have time to get new clients. Two you don't have marketing skills. Three marketing yourself and your services costs money, money you don't have. There are ways you can get more clients than you can possibly handle for a minimal amount of money. Take the path of least resistance, the easiest and the cheapest ways first. There are 3 categories of clients that money flows to you from. Current, past and future. First, you must retain current clients. Look at your business and shore up your strategies to make sure you are not loosing clients before you add new clients. It's throwing money down the well for new clients if you cannot keep your current clients. Understand the LTV of a client or the Life Time Value. You can figure this amount by multiplying the number of visits per year by the amount they spend by the number of years they come to you. So as an example, a client in my chair comes every two weeks so that's 26 visits times $40 on average so that's about 1000 dollars times 10 years that's $10,400.00.

     Try and figure out an average from your current clients. So didn't your clients just become a whole lot more valuable to you? It's actually pretty interesting, the example I followed was from a hair client but guess what? A nail client is just as valuable if not more valuable than a hair client so no more whining. Understanding how valuable clients are over the long haul makes spending a few dollars on marketing a bit easier to swallow. So what's the best way to retain clients? Colosi recommends a monthly newsletter to keep your name top of mind. So when clients are speaking with family, friends or business associates and the subject of nails comes up you want them to talk about you, resulting in referrals. Referred clients are the best clients, they come from trust. Keep your newsletter timely and topical and not just about nails. You can have a hard copy at your station, a downloadable copy on your website, or send it email. You can also have an opt in box on your website where they can get it delivered to their email. So keeping in mind the LTV of each client you can afford to spend some money to keep them over the years. We've all heard the saying cheaper to keep her? I think you know what I mean. Next category to focus on is past clients. These clients trusted you at one time, so it stands to reason it will be easier and less expensive to get them back than a brand new client. Colosi uses what he calls his client reactivation letter.

 

      They most likely have stopped coming to us for a random reason not necessarily tied to our performance. First identify these clients then simply send a letter saying you miss them and would love to have them back offering them a special incentive. Some people would love to come back but maybe are embarrassed and they would welcome your invite. When done right 31% will come back. Next figure out your ideal new client. Age, occupation, income, gender location etc. Next locate these clients that have recently moved into the area. Mail them an invitation type letter offering them the opportunity to visit your salon. These clients are ideal because they are looking for you, not the other way around. Being brand new to the area they haven't developed a loyalty to a salon yet. Because you are reaching out to your target market in a personal way your response should be pretty high. Implementing these strategies will help you continue to have a full book now and in the future. A lot of these strategies are covered in my ebook plus you can check out Colosi's Facebook page Hair Salon Marketing.

Dashing Diva~ing

Love these super cute Dashing Diva wraps. Super easy to do too. After performing a waterless manicure I followed the instructions enclosed. These wraps have really good sizes to choose from for most nail types. I did apply heat  from a travel size blow dryer once applied to get a really smooth finish (although not mandatory). The heat seems to add a bit more flexibility for the application process. I also added Dashing Dive Base and top gel. My guest will get at least two weeks wear.

Glitzy!

     These nails are HOT! And so easy to do.

Prep/perform enhancement service.

Apply two coats of Gelish Night Reflection, cure after each coat.

Apply Glitzy Lips Rainbowdar Foil to the tacky layer in random pattern.

Apply purple/multi color glitter.

Paint random white marbelizing with Nubar art pen.

Top coat/ cure

The whole process for the art takes maybe 10 minutes.

Have fun!

Glitzy Lips
Gelish
Nubar

Are You Marketing Your Best Self?

 

   

     You can have the best marketing plan on the planet, have clients spilling over your chairs, but if you don't deliver high performance service, nothing else matters. Every once in a while a friend pops in on Facebook or in an email with a question. Millie, how do you do so much, where do you get your energy, I wish I had half your energy. I don't go to the energy store and buy a six pack. My energy comes from my lifestyle and my lifestyle comes from being broken and having to fix myself. Many of my new friends may not know the struggles I too have had to face. 2009 my world fell apart. My marriage failed, my shop closed and I felt all my life's work to this point had been just an illusion of success. Without any other choice I had to rebuild my world, step by step. I read, studied and listened to my mentors, to success gurus and also to friends and family. I pieced together strategies to carve out a new way of living. I believe for me,  it comes down to passion, balance and discipline. I looked at the strategies of other successful people I admired and took pieces and parts of their disciplines and adapted them to create a lifestyle that works for me. I had to change my mind, in order to change my life. The first thing I did was eliminate all negative information that we are all so inundated with these days. Yes, I quit watching the news. Any negative thought or event we allow in our brain takes energy away from the positive. At times we can even allow ourselves to get dragged down to pity city with no ticket home. I'm not saying I'm a Pollyanna, but you can limit what you allow in your brain. If we fed our bodies food like we feed our brains information we would be dead from the toxicity. Negative in , negative out. Positive in, Positive out. And by all means, don't talk about negative things with your clients. You become the negative experience. Speaking about food, I changed my diet entirely and became vegan. I'm not saying you have to go to this extreme however there is so much evidence about the poisons in the standard American diet that you can no longer turn a blind eye to it. I wrote a blog post about this after watching a video by Dr Amen so you can check that out here. Can a healthy brain make a difference?

 

 

          I began running, at 48. I knew diet was only half the answer. I made a commitment to exercise every day, whatever form and have added Yoga, Pilates and strength training. I feed my spiritual self. I went back to church, meditate several times a week, read inspirational books and listen to motivational cds. Getting in touch with a higher resource gives me the grace I need to face the challenges ahead and to be continually grateful for my many blessings I continue to receive. I remain passionate about what I do and who I do it with. I don't take one moment of this career for granted, I don't take one client for granted and I look to the purpose and lesson from everyone put in my path. While at times I can be a workaholic I have also been fortunate to have the right people surrounding me to let me know when to take a break and enjoy time off. Even if they have to drag me. Many people tell me well I could never be vegan or I don't have the time to exercise or read. Here's another secret. I don't watch TV. Well that's not true, I did watch the Golden Globes, for research.. But in general I have to say I watch maybe 3 hours a week. That may be a little extreme for some, but I can tell you it frees up so much time, time you say you never have enough of.

     Please don't take this as a sermon, or an indulgence. Believe me I am a work in progress every day. These are strategies I have found that have helped me and I am constantly working on the right balance. While on the treadmill this morning, watching a YouTube video on High performance by Brendon Burchard he suggests you ask yourself several times a day What is my energy level and how present am I? Marketing yourself is marketing your BEST self. Not your 1/2 engaged low energy self. I encourage you to take a look at your lifestyle and think about some ways you can up your performance to market your best self.

The Secret Is Not Enough - Psychology And Physiology Of High Performance - Brendon Burchard



Eye on the Prize

         How are you going to stay on target for 2013? Many of you may have already broken a New Years resolution, or two. That's why it is much more effective to set goals instead of resolutions. I'm going to dig a little deeper into the goal setting program I spoke about last week. Define your top target  specifically..and keep focused intensely on that one goal.  You can have a few goals in mind, but when you focus on more than one thing remember your attention gets diverted and you make baby steps, not strides. Experts say any more than three and you're doomed. This is not to say you can't accomplish more than three things a year. Focus diligently on the first one or two goals until you put that big fat check mark next to it..Only then move onto the rest of your list. Think about what's great already in your life, in your career. Make yourself a success list and keep it close by. I have a wall of thanks in my home office. I keep all notes, print out all the thank yous and inspirations so they are never too far from me. One glance and I remember that I am making a difference large or small. Once you take stock and look at the positive, build your goal list for 2013 with the recommendations from last weeks segment.

     Think about what you want to reward yourself with when goals are achieved. Not just the reward of accomplishing the goal but a real tangible reward. Maybe a weekend away, or a shopping spree, maybe a new car if your goal was really rewarding. As tempting as it would be to reward those around you I still encourage you to reward yourself first. Remember what gets rewarded gets repeated. Create a dream board. Also called a vision board, it is the process of actually going old school and purchasing poster board and filling it with pictures cut from magazines that best portray your goals. I am actually signed up for a Ladies who Launch seminar this month  called Using FENG SHUI to Create Your 2013 Vision Board. Apparently I must not have had my pictures in the right place on the board all these years. Nonetheless, it's a fun evening out to network with fellow like minded business women.  I have to say the few years I did these boards I did manage to get a whole lot done. Coincidence? Maybe. But there is real power in staying focused and having your vision board out where you can see it every day.

     Put your goals out into the universe. Involve family members, co-workers, friends, even casual acquaintances. You might even want to bring in an accountability partner. Share your goals and your plan with someone and ask them to hold you accountable. Schedule reviews in regular time intervals to track your progress. Very rarely do we not notice being shoved off course but getting nudged little by little off course can happen to all of  us. Make sure you choose someone that won't put up with your excuses either. It takes candor to keep things on target. Have a system for checks and balances. Nothing is worth having if it costs losing too much in the process.

 

Random Rant

    

     I am so fortunate in this business to have many friends and supporters. As in any life calling, there are the haters. I've been told you are really not getting anywhere until you have a few. Being my naive self I though this would not apply to me but alas, once again, I was wrong. An "incident" happened a few weekends ago that really rattled me, for a moment. I was innocently (or so I thought) posting a random thought on another persons timeline and was blasted. Apparently Timelines are a personal platform that one is not to disagree or contradict? Geeze..really? Social media, the last time I checked was a Dialogue.....not a Monologue. And if you can't stand the cyber heat,  maybe you need to stay out of the Internet cafe? IDK just a thought? So not allowing myself to give this person or their rant any more of my precious head space I quickly analyzed the situation to ask myself is there any truth in it?
     I thought about posting this huge rant and the person in question, but I will not. Not my style. After looking at it a second time I realized it's batshit crazy. I did however think about it and now that I have better perspective, and have cooled down, I have decided to comment.

     So was my post malicious in any way? Maybe it was bratty, catty. OK Why did I feel that way toward this person? Then I reread a bit of her blog and remembered why I had such bad mojo with this person. I should have stepped away.
From her blog
"Let’s get one thing perfectly clear: There is nothing “beautiful” about the beauty industry…"
Really? Maybe this is where it started. I have been a beauty industry lifer, literally. I started as a 15 year old child and have never strayed too far from this industry because..it is the most beautiful industry ever. I have loved everything about this journey, even the challenging times. Any business is tough and has it's own learning curves, grow up! If there is not anything beautiful for you here, no one is forcing you to stay. Let's see next...
"99% of salon owners and employees are jerks in this industry-trust me, I know first-hand from personal experience; it’s made me tougher, stronger, and less forgiving of offenses."
 Wow 99% That's a pretty big statistic to throw around. I don't know what circles this person is hanging in but obviously we have completely different acquaintances. Are there some jerks? Ummm...sure, case in point. Here's a secret...every business  has them. But don't come into MY business (from another) and start throwing around generalizations and hate. Uh Oh...here I go. Sorry. I guess I am so passionate about this industry and all the wonderful, caring, amazing people in it that I took a huge offense to this statement. Plus this person is in school to do something else non-industry related. Another pet peeve of mine. People that get into this business, complain about it, on their way to another career. Just passing through, stinking up the joint.

"Obviously, I’m not here to gain popularity or fame, I’m here to talk turkey, even if it steps on some toes and exposes the divas for what they really are."

Oh, and it's easy to "Talk turkey" from behind an anonymous blog that you brag about being popular, when you didn't want to be?

 

   so........fast forward to my cyberspanking... Yes, I guess I do have an attitude about this person who shall remain nameless. Should I have commented on her Timeline? Gee I don't know, I didn't get arrested by the Timeline police, and I wasn't in hiding. Did I get sucked in to defend my industry? YOU BET! And I would do it again. Just not with this person, cuz she blocked me :)

RESOLVE

 

     I have seen a few posts in social media this year about picking one word to live the year around. Wow, as a writer this is such a challenge. I love words. There are too many to pick from, way too many. So as I contemplated this during the homily at church this morning...yes I was paying attention and yes today is a holy day of obligation..I was keying in on certain words that Fr. Dan was using. Fr Dan is a gifted speaker, which means he is a gifted writer as well. Pretty sure he writes his own stuff, however divinely inspired.

 

     Discipline? Love that one..Encarta says: Training to ensure proper behavior, order and control, calm controlled behavior, conscious control over lifestyle, activity or subject, punishment, church rules.., I wrote a blog post about discipline a few years back. It was one of my very first segments on the radio as well. A possibility.

          Let's see, Faith? That's always a good one, a little overused perhaps. Encarta says: belief or trust, religion or religious groups, trust in God, set of beliefs, loyalty... All good.   

 

         Next up... Grace? Really like that one. I tend to like the ones that can be used as both a noun and a verb...and a niece.. I like multitasking like every other woman. Being my youngest nieces name though...that might show favoritism. Encarta says: Noun...Elegance, politeness, generosity of spirit, prayer at mealtimes, pleasing quality, gift of God to humankind, freedom from sin. Verb : contribute pleasingly to something, add elegance to something, ornament music. Another possibility.

 

     Lastly, Resolve. Encarta says: Noun, Determination, firmness of purpose, decision.  Verb, Make decision, solve difficulty, settle arguments, dispel doubts, change. Hmmm... I think I have a winner. With Resolve I can sink my teeth into a few areas I struggle with. Decision making... or lack thereof, loss of focus AKA for me spinning too many plates at one time. Solving difficulties that crop up and steal my focus. Dispelling doubts, most especially my own doubts about my own abilities. And of course change, change is the best vehicle for moving forward. So yes I think resolve will be a good word of the year for me. I'm going to post it everywhere to remind me.  If you decide to choose a word, post below and share it with me. Happy 2013! I enter it with RESOLVE!