Can anyone please help!

SalonGeek

Help Support SalonGeek:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

lagunalounge

New Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2014
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Hi everyone please could you all help me out here, me and my sister opened up our beauty salon on 1st December last year in our hometown of newcastle, we offer beauty services, nails, spray tanning and we have a couple of sunbeds.
about 2 weeks in we learnt that the shop we are renting has had numerous people open salons of the same nature then close again without warning, the last owners took block booking payments for the sunbeds and when the customers went back to use their minutes the shop was empty and closed.
A guy who works in the deli over the road told me this aswell and he said it is going to take a while for the locals to trust us.
this has resulted in us being EXTREMELY quiet, most days not a soul walks through the door! today the only person to set foot in the salon has been myself and the postman!
We have delivered thousands of leaflets as well as left them In the local shops. we are on facebook and instagram and we have posted loads of offers and even competitions. For some reason there is a massive lack of interest in us no matter what we do. We are just scraping by but the takings we are getting are barely covering the bills so we have no wages by the end of it. We had a January sale on where everything was 30% off mon-fri then 50% off on saturdays.
theres a huge lack of support from family and friends. Out of our entire family our mother and cousin are the only people who have even visited the shop, they have only negative comments from the very start, even before opening, we were doubted and patronised about every aspect of becoming business owners, even though we done a course last year prior to opening.
Our friends have no interes, they ask for freebies and when we say no they suddenly dont want the treatment anymore and they are 'skint', we had tried to organise a girly night for them within the salon after usual closing time with discounted treatments and free wine for everyone who came. As soon as it got around to prices a lot of them changed their minds about it.
I know im ranting and I am sorry but we are completely at our witts ends here as to ehat to do. I feel like we've tried everything possible but a lot of time and effort not to mention money has went into our business adventure and we are desperate to see it succeed.

Has anyone got any advice ar all for me please? I honestly don't know where we are going wrong here and im running out of ideas.
Thank you, Charlene xxx
 
Have you got a decent website up and running and in the search engines?

The thing is to be honest from what you've said about loads of salons coming and going from the same unit it's extremely bad news. Did this not come up in your research before taking the place on?

You'll struggle to shake it.

Also you shouldn't expect to take any wages for a year or so and the business normally won't make a profit for a couple of years. Especially if you have large overheads.

You really need to just keep pushing on and keep your chin up. If your friends said they're skint (I understand they are just freebie hunters) but you ever thought that it's the general issue with the area at the moment? Everyone has no money? Christmas was still not long ago.

When we had a customer facing shop we didn't have anyone walk in until end of march/april! It was madness.
 
You need to rebuild the reputation yourselves, it's normal for a lot of shops to not see a single sole for a week sometimes, especially this time of year, you can't assume everyone knows about the old salons issues either, it might be common knowledge in the local shops but I bet half the public don't have a clue, treat it as if u were starting fresh, go out and engage with customers, it gives you the oppourtunity to win them over :)

You seem on a downer tbh, blaming situations and circumstances but you need to build the business for yourselves, then stick ur fingers up at the naysayers later lol!

It takes a very long time to build a client base & I still don't take regular wages I'm lucky to take £50 now & again to help with the food shopping! People who live in the area STILL come in and say oh I didn't know you were here! So and so told me about it (I've been open 18 months & have a sign facing the main road!)

This just says to me there's more marketing oppourtunity that I haven't tapped into yet, so now I need to plan how to reach everyone in the area, a website is brill & with the right keywords etc you'll be the 1st one everyone people will find, Facebook & the other social media sites is good too, I would stop doing offers tho, it cheapens the brand, you need to build your reputation with good work & fab staff, not cheap deals, I'm yet to try out flyer drops I'm going to do it methodically tho when I do, an idea for you could be to hold an event and invite all the local shop keepers and do free treatments on them, I find the local shop keepers great for advertising :) every time I get a referal off one I give them a discount next time they get their hair done, they feel special and continue recommending my shop :)

Just go back to basics, look at your business, do a swot analysis & new market research plan and see where that leaves you
 
Thanks for the replies, no one mentioned anything while we were doing the research, the property was brought to my attention by a friend whose daughter had it before closing to have a baby and she'd said her daughter had done really well and this person is the only one the locals seem to have liked from what they say lol We do get a lot pop in for a price list and say they are glad weve opened as ots handy for them which is always good to know. You are right though I am on a downer about it ive been sitting wih a pen and paper this morning to think of new tactics. I'll chat to my sister about stopping the offers we had thought it might help with drawing people in. I do understand people are short of money right now too but I thought it would have been a bit busier this month. Thanks so much for your advice ive taken it all on board and I'll be getting my thinking cap on this weekend and completing a new swot analysis and doing some more market research.:) xxx
 
To start with you need to make sure every person who pops in for a pricelist books in. Engage them in conversation about what treatments they were looking to have, where they usually go etc, offer them a tour of the salon if you have no clients in and give them an insentive to book. Even if they are not interested in booking immediately then ask them for their email for your mailing list so you can keep them updated on any offers in the future. You also need to go into all the local shops and introduce yourself, then when they are asked about the new salon (your salon) they will have positive things to say. I would stop doing the major discounts as they give the wrong impression. Then you need to focus on retaining clients you do get through rebooking them before they leave.
 
Hi hon sorry to hear you're having such a tough time.
There is an awful lot to do to get clients coming through your door. Blanket leaflet drops aren't always a good idea. It is often suggested to leaflet drop say 1000 leaflets and do the same area again - banner penguin is better advising at this.

A website is a must. We get clients traveling quite a distance to come to us "because they like our website". Never assume people know you are there. Pretend you're down a back alley with a dark curtain in front of your door and advertise like mad, but think about how and why you're advertising. Use tools like Facebook to engage and inform especially with a younger clientele. Leaflet drop again and again. Is anyone else doing similar to you? If so how can you be better or different? Walk outside your door and walk towards your premises with a critical eye. Is there anything you can do better or to improve the first impression. Walk in the door. What do your clients see? Don't do it through rose coloured glasses. If it looks crap how can you improve it.

Where is your business in the market place? Are you high end or middle or low? You have to be realistic. If you want to do offers over and over you may generate money but you will always get the bargain hunters but that can be okay if you're realistic. If you're aiming at a higher end of the market, you need to know what they want and how you're going to achieve it - longer time spent on treatments, more luxurious products etc.

Try not to do discounts, but do value added. Offer a free massage/nail paint/whatever with every course of whatever booked.
We do however give a £10 voucher to every new client to use on their next visit. This pretty much ensures they'll come back. They have no expiry but the voucher has to be presented. They get this when they hand in their consultation form with email, mobile number, address, dob etc. We always say 'of course' with a big smile when the client says can they use their voucher!!!

Have you had an open day or evening? Local papers are often keen to support these events. Invite the world and his mother. Do promotions for one night only - buy a course of 6 and get 2 free or whatever but must be paid for on the night, and launch yourselves with style.

I don't know where you hoped your business would be at by now, but it is always going to be a hard slog. As always, the guide is losses in the first year, break even in the second (or close down) and if you're lucky, profit in the third.

Good luck

Vic x

Sent from my GT-I9505 using SalonGeek mobile app
 
This actually happened to me too! the salon was closed for two years before i brought it outright and then i discover that the previous "tenants" from the owner has not informed us of this huge betrayal. It was a massive mistake to not have this knowledge in hindsight. We had set our prices at a really high income reasonable rate only to learn nobody had faith in us due to it changing hands several times. It didn't matter what we had because our 1st year was with us chucking everything at it including our savings.

So how did we make it work... we preserved, made it affordable, gained trust back, created exclusivity and a warm environment. It took us three very hard years to actually establish ourselves. In my dire time i would research loads on-line, especially via salon geek, it helped me realise what i was doing wrong and right. there are some wise geeks up in this joint! ;)

Success story now is making it work. I did end up laying people off but i also found what worked for me. You're extremely lucky to work with your sister, do not give up faith! Be optimistic and review a plan of action for your business, and what you want to achieve over the next year and so forth. Good luck! xoxo
 
There is some really good advice.

I like the one about giving prospective clients a tour.

I have to say..if you are offering big discounts ( 50% is a very big discount ) it will make you seem quite low end..and out for an easy buck.

Just saying it would put me off, but that might be right for the area you are in if everybody discounts.

you have only been open two months so dont panic:)
 
Fantastic advise from Salon Geeks.....
It's such early days, 2 months, you've just opened your doors...., and Jan Feb are often the worst, so chin up and take a reality check!
As has been said, some day's, just tumble weed.....that's when you spend time thinking up your next 'big idea' :biggrin:
 
Thank you everyone for your responses and all of your fab advice, weve read through everything and are going to get our heads down planning new strategies to reach out to areas that dont know about us, a guy came in just before I closed last night to use a sunbed and said he didn't know we were there until he was passing just then, we had a good chat and he took a price list for his wife and will be coming back to make a block booking :) xxx
 

Latest posts

Back
Top