















BRILLIANT CONSULTATIONS
March 2008
Coach Shelly Kovach
Why are consultations so important?
We have discovered that finding a new customer costs five to six times more than it does to keep the one you already have.
With this in mind, we know that we have to WOW our current guests every time they walk into our salon! It starts with an
organized front desk with great systems and continues to the chair with an amazing consultation from the stylist.
Being Brilliant!
You don’t want to be Boring in your consultation do you? Of course not or you wouldn't be here gathering new, better, bigger
ideas. So let’s get started on your quest to be Brilliant in your consultation!
We’ve all heard the phrase, “actions speak louder than words.” UCLA professor Albert Mehrabian, one of America’s leading
communications experts, conducted an exhaustive study and found that when speaking to another, our entire message is
interpreted this way:
*7 percent of what is heard are the words (verbal)
*38 percent of what is heard is voice tone (vocal)
*55 percent of what is heard is body language (visual)
Knowing this, can you imagine the impact of a consultation with the stylist on the phone, chomping gum and not making eye
contact? If I were the guest I would get up an leave for sure!
Body language is key!
When coaching my newbie’s on the floor I say, “Fake it till you make it” be confident and calm, don’t show your nervousness.
No one wants a scaredy cat with sharp objects working on them! Have good voice inflexion - don’t let your voice be shaky.
Again, confidence and calmness will set the tone for your brilliant consultation.
Get eye level and face your guest, which sets a more relaxed feel to your communication. It is welcoming, and your client will
appreciate looking at you in person rather through the mirror.
Your most important consultation tool – listening!
Get a stool and grab your look books and prescription pads and get ready to LISTEN! THAT’S RIGHT LISTEN TO THE GUEST!
Not your inner voice, like the “to-do list” that you have going off in your head 24/7. The guest will give you clues to amazing
customer service opportunities!
You can even take what you learned in your consultation, when you were listening so well to them and their needs, call them
back the next week and see how they are enjoying their “new look”! You may even want to mention something that the two
of you talked about. They will be amazed at your memory and how you put the focus on them, they will feel like your only
guest!
Giving your guest the hair style and experience that they come to love month after month must include good listening skills
and a brilliant consultation! To get more information on how to become Brilliant in your consultations, check out the Sam
Villa interview from our Wild Wednesday recorded MP3 downloads! (click here)
Until Next Time,
Coach Shelly
June 25, 2008
It's always a wonderful when someone tells us that they found us quoted in another publication!
Here's an article from the May 2008 issue of Salon Today -
"Retail Answersl" By Laurel Smoke
Here are a few commonly asked questions on retail. Check out what other owners have to say on the subject!
Q. How should I introduce my new employees to retailing?
A. “It should start even earlier,” says Patricia Owen, owner of the skin-focused Faces DaySpa, BeautyBoutique and SpaShoppe
in Hilton Head, South Carolina. “We include questions about retailing in our interviewing process.”
Kristi Valenzuela, success coach, speaker and owner of the consulting firm Crystal Focus, Inc., suggests that can be as easy as
handing the applicant a red pencil and asking her to attempt to sell you the product. “They may feel silly, but what you’re
looking for is their willingness to try. If they push it aside and say they can’t do that, chances are they won’t attempt to retail
your products either.”
Once you’ve made the hire, retail training needs to be an integral part of your orientation and training program. Valenzuela
recommends developing a retailing system, writing it down in black and white, scripting the pitch, and role-playing the system
during orientation. “Finally, draft an agreement that says they’ve been introduced to the system and agree to play by the
rules, and ask new employees to sign it the first day. It makes them take retail seriously.”
But make sure all your employees play by the retail rules, or your new employees will quickly backslide into bad habits.
Valenzuela saw the power of an entire organization in retail action when she recently coached a salon in Round Beach, Illinois.
“Their retail to service ratio was a startling 23 percent, where the national average is about 8 percent,” she says. “We kept
questioning the math, but found the ratio was right—so we took a hard look at the system. We found that when appointments
were booked, the front desk advised clients of upcoming product specials. When clients checked in, they were again reminded
of specials and told to ask their service providers what products would work best for them. Service providers talked about
products during the service and at the shampoo bowl. At the end of the service, the service providers pulled recommended
products and handed them to the client as they checked out. It’s solid and it’s brave, but because everyone in the salon did it,
it didn’t feel uncomfortable, and it worked.”
Q. How can I get my staff to take retail seriously?
A. The most effective retail systems directly tie retail goals to an employee’s ability to advance in the salon. Daired Ogle,
owner of Daired’s Salon and Spa Pangea in Arlington, Texas, maintains a system where staff providers advance through a
series of levels with goals set in retail, retention, pre-booking and conditioning treatments sold.
“When a staff member accomplishes these goals and maintains them for a period of three months, they are promoted to a
higher classification where they can charge more money for their work and they receive a new title. Each time they receive a
promotion, they are given new goals and the process begins again.”
Employees are evaluated weekly on their goals, and management discusses strategies for improving if necessary. “Our main
goal is to elevate our customer service level, and all these areas we measure tie together—when we’re doing them all well we
really are creating a great experience for our guests.”
Q. Do retail contests encourage staff to sell and clients to buy?
A. Yes, but only when structured properly, says Ogle. Be careful what individual goals you are rewarding, or the same people
end up winning each time and everyone else gives up. Ogle structures competitions to include an overall team goal and reward
with individual goals and rewards.
“We track retail dollar per ticket for everyone here, and often will reward a growth in percentage of retail dollar per ticket. But
you have to realize it’s much harder for someone averaging $20 in retail per ticket to double their percentage as it is for
someone whose averaging $7—so you have to mix up your rewards.”
During his last contest, Ogle organized a three-month long competition where for the team reward the salon rented out a party
barge and entertainment for a Sunday afternoon event on a local lake.
“When the salon reached the goal, everyone shared in the reward, but staff members who reached individual goals got to
invite a friend along.”
Ogle stresses for these competitions to work, results must be posted daily, “as much as humanly possible.” For this recent
promotion, his staff created a chart with a boat as the goal, and as products were sold the water level on the chart rose toward
the boat. “Our staff were so excited, they actually would call on their days off to see how we were doing,” he laughs.
Valenzuela recommends pulsing promotions—alternating contests that reward service providers every eight weeks with contests
that reward clients.
“For example, during an eight-week period, every time a stylist sells a dozen of a promotional product her name goes into a
hat for a drawing for a prize that’s determined by your budget. Then, for the next eight weeks, every client who purchases two
products gets to enter in a chance to win a spa gift card or whatever you want to give. The pulse keeps the momentum of the
motivation going by switching it up.”
Valenzuela believes in the ‘chance to win’ contests, because like Ogle, she stresses that competitions can’t simply reward those
who sell or buy the most. “If they do, then in the end the only people competing are those in the top two spots—everyone else
simply gives up.”
"Sharing Is Caring"
If you have a successful service or retail promotion that you have completed in the
past and you would like to share it with our visitors, we would like to read it over and
consider posting it in our Blog area! Sign in below, or email me at
coachkristi@crystalfocus.com Many people would be interested in your ideas!!!
We want our "blog" page to be About and For YOU! Send us your ideas, challenges and solutions!
|
Crystal Focus Inc.
202 Astor Knolls Dr.
Ortonville, MI 48462
1-877-378-8212

January 1, 2008
Don't Guess At Success -
Plan Your Promotions!
by Coach Kristi Valenzuela
Take a deep, long gaze into your crystal ball of 2008 - what do you see? If it still seems a little fuzzy and hazy, it's time to
order up a tall cup of creativity and clear up your business plan for the new year!
With the predictions from the experts warning us of a recession, it is more important now than ever to buckle down and get
your head into business!
Without a concise, strategic approach to advance your business and life in 2008 you are bound to end up with a whole lot of the
same results you've experienced the last couple of years. Remember - repeat is a defeat! Even if you had a great 2007, make
sure you are planning ahead to exceed your own success!
One area to GET CRYSTAL FOCUSED on is planning your service and retail promotions! The objective is to keep your clients
loyal, your team excited, and the business building profit on the bottom line! To do this you will want to plan service and retail
promotions 6 times throughout the year - every 8 weeks.
Pulsing your team and client excitement - every 8 weeks
A way to keep everyone on their toes wondering "what's next" is to pulse your business building strategies between clients and
your team. Here's an example:
January - February: "Pre-book and Win" client contest/game. Have clients book their next one or two appointments before the
leave and their name goes into a drawing to win! Depending on your budget this could be a flat screen TV, Ipod, or a basket
full of Redken Products and $100 gift card to the salon.
March - April: "Rev Up Your Retail" team contest/game. Each week your individual team members hit their weekly retail goal,
their name goes into a drawing to win! This would give the team members 12 chances to go into the drawing! The more they
get their name in, the better the chances are to win! Again, depending on your budget, this could be an Ipod, a $150 gift card
to the local mall, or a dinner at a five star restaurant!
May - June: "Refer 3 Friends" client contest/game. During this eight week period, once a client has 3 friends come to the salon
their name would be entered to win the pre-determined prize. This could help breath life into your standard referral program
that team members may be forgetting to talk about. For instance you may already have a program that rewards a client with a
$5 gift card fro every new guest they send in. The new contest is an ADDITIONAL reward or chance to win.
We have you off to a good start...you can see the above plan can cover the first 6 months of 2008! All you need to do is
creatively come up with the next three promotions!
Remember - stay in budget with your prizes and additional materials you may need for advertising such as mirror signs, signs
at the front desk, newsletters, etc. We strongly recommend you follow the KRS/SUMMIT financial guidelines for marketing and
advertising, which is 4% of your monthly gross. Remember, this is all of your marketing and advertising in this budgeted
number - yellow pages, newspaper ads, and anything else you are spending already. For more information on how to purchase
the Financial Guidelines Binder, go to www.summitsalon.com.
Learn how to get your Front Desk involved in successfully offering your specials, sales and promotions! Check out
www.thefrontdeskdoctor.com - we invite you to take home the most powerful training tool for your front desk! The Front Desk
Doctor Kit!
Greetings!
Do you purchase your Hair Products at a grocery store, drug store, or other major retailers? We want you to read on and
educate yourself on the facts given by Lisa Wade McCormick at ConsumerAffairs.com. Take the advice of the experts at
Imagine Salon, and purchase your custom hair care prescription from our salon to be sure you get what you are paying
for and save money! Don't be fooled by a tactic called "diversion". Read on my friend...
Are you Getting Ripped off?
(from ConsumerAffairs.com)
..."Consumers who buy professional hair-care products at major Retailers --or at grocery store and drugstores-- are not
getting the bargains they may think they are. They're also fueling a grey-market industry that deals in counterfeit, stolen
or outdated merchandise. That's the warning issued by hair-care giants like Redken, Paul Mitchell, and Matrix, which are
trying to crack down on an industry-wide problem known as diversion.
This problem is not only costly to the image of hair-care product makers, but consumers also pay a hefty price.
"The consumer is getting ripped off because not only are they paying more for the products, those products did not come
from us, they are not guaranteed and they could be old, stolen, counterfeit or tampered with," said Vikki Bresnahan,
director of product-distribution control for Paul Mitchell. "It's definitely a buyer-beware situation."
To illustrate how this scheme affects consumers' pocketbooks, ConsumerAffairs.com purchased three professional
hair-care products from a Target store in Kansas City, MO...." (to read more....click here)
At Imagine Salon we believe that to give an excellent salon experience and achieve amazing results with your hair goals,
it is extremely important to use professional hair care products to create predictable results! We can customize your hair
care prescription and show you just how to use the products correctly. You can get optimum results and long lasting color
with our professional products rather than the store bought products that do not do what they say they do, or may be a
"diverted" professional product. Don't take that chance! Purchase your Professionally Recommended product from
Imagine Salon. Remember, we guarantee all of our services when you use our professional recommended products.
Keep on the look out for our up coming promotions. For a fun interactive website where you can research your
prescription go to www.redken.com and then come in with your questions and ask your Imagine Salon professional.
Colorfully Yours,
Shelly Kovach
We are focusing on diversion this month, and I want to help you with how to begin teaching your clients about this
industry-wide challenge.
Not long ago, on May 23, my salon, Imagine Salon in Grand Blanc, Michigan eblasted the letter below to our salon list of
clients and connected them to the blog on our website. Take it...make it your own and let's join the fight together to
EDUCATE the consumer!
Coach Shelly Kovach and
Coach Kristi Valenzuela
Diversion Alert!
July 9, 2008
Coach Shelly Kovach
Crystal Focus Monthly Coaching Video
A NOTE
from Coach Kristi
Diversion is a hot topic,
and it can heat up any conversation
about selling professional products in
the salon. Doesn't it drive you crazy
when a client says "thank you for
recommending _______ product, I
picked it up at the grocery store!".
Rather than slipping into extreme
frustration, it's time to do something
about it! The only way to stop
diversion is to first educate EVERYONE
on what it is, and why we need to
stand up for professional products
only being sold by salons!