NZhairdressers

“The great thing is to know when to speak and when to keep quiet.” Seneca One of the necessary elements in business, and I mean in any business, is learning to understand what the customer wants. Caring about your customers is great, and developing your skills is important but when you get right down to the bottom line, you will not even have a business without customers.

They pay your bills, fill your bank account, and even put money into your retirement fund, so spend some time asking good questions and listening to their responses. I want to tell you about an experience that I just recently had with a very qualified and experienced stylist.

I visited a salon in town that has a reputation of having many very good stylists which all rent their own rooms to personalize as they see fit. I believe that this would be known as a successful salon in strictly a business definition, but from my experience lacking in providing the customer the very thing he/she is after.

This stylist took time with me, very methodical in her profession, knowing exactly what she was doing with my hair. She kept the conversation light and fun, was intelligent and thoughtful in everything she did. As this was the first time I had been to her, she asked me the standard question … how do you want your hair styled.

I explained in my non-stylist lingo exactly what I liked and then she proceeded to cut and style it exactly the way she liked. Just so you know how important this is, this stylist charges more than most, although to me that’s not a bad thing because I want and am willing to pay for extra service and care.

But the no – no is that I told her what I wanted and she did what she wanted. All this sticks in my crawl, and to further prove to you that you have a huge opportunity to build loyal customers, even with all the competition with other stylist, this particular lady had previously owned a large salon.

What I’ve discovered about all the stylists that have been in business for a while is that they won’t change the way they do things. They’re stuck in their own rut, and she could have had me as a regular customer, but as Frank Sinatra sang … she did it her way. So if you’ll learn that unless your customer says do it how you want to, listen to them and give them what they want.

The most interesting part of this story is that every stylist I have ever talked to wants more customers; and most certainly want loyal customers, so if you don’t want to be responsible for driving them away … ask questions and listen to what they tell you.

This article is an excerpt from my book "High Stylin' ... A Salon Business Building System" and is available to you at high stylin. If you want to take your marketing to the next level than you need to visit www.stylin2succeed.com