| Years
ago Learned and partner Sydney Berry created Club
40, groups of salon owners who meet every six
weeks to share failures, successes-—even
financials. The salon across the street might
not join your networking group, but the one a
few miles away probably will.
Get together and start talking about
these six take-charge strategies for snapping
your salon out of the economic doldrums and going
for the grow in 2004.
1.
REBOOT HAIR COLOR
Much of the industry's 2003 growth
came from hair color, although that growth rate
has slowed from previous years. The salon's primary
challenges: to lure clients from home color-—of
the 55 percent of American women who color their
hair, 36 percent do it at home-—and build
a future base with the youth market, which is
more prone to do-it-herself.
Jet Rhys, co-owner with husband
David Rhys of Jet Rhys salon in San Diego, California,
says the 50-year-old home color user presents
her with the biggest challenge because her biggest
obstacle to buying salon color is time.
The salon uses a color accelerator
to shave processing to 13 minutes-—something
you can easily promote-—and focuses on correcting
the too-dark shades home users usually have.
"These women love the softer
salon shades," says Jet, who now works as
a full-time educator.
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In
addition, the salon saw a 50-percent increase
in young clients in 2003, including a substantial
number of men.
"The key to
the youth market is to make color affordable and
easy," explains Jet. "We get young people
in for our training program, for which we need
live heads. We go to all the colleges, fashion
institutes and international language schools.
When you get a teenager as a $15 model who will
let you do anything you want, you can do incredible
work."
Jet adds that young
people enjoy having someone who speaks their language
pamper them, and that most of her salon's former
models became clients.
Doing young models is also great
training for your staff, she says, because a mannequin
head can't teach colorists about body language
and communication. Once young clients accept you,
they will tell all their friends, who'll also
become clients.
So many consumers are getting color
that Jet has a hard time finding virgin heads
for her classes. With that demand, there's no
reason you can't reboot your color business in
2004, she argues.
"The number
one cause of a dwindling clientele is the colorist
got stale," comments Jet. "With so many
salons in the country, clients get bored of the
same old thing. If you aren't doing a lot of color
today, it's because you don't have confidence
in your skills or have rusty ideas, which can
be poisonous."
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