Lynne Baker
Lynne The Skin!
Mrs Geek posted a thread on Facebook asking the question what made you choose the skincare range you did, and do you really believe in it.
She very kindly tagged me in the post suggesting that I might be a good person to add to the debate.
This is what I wrote. Hope it's useful for you.
What made you choose your salon skincare range, and why?
I'll attempt to answer this question as objectively as it's possible to, given it's a largely subjective subject.
Or is it?
When I was looking for a range for my salon I was already in my forties and I realised that I would need to make money from this fairly quickly; tempus fugit, and all that!
Having left an IT world where I was managing the design and implementation of an e-commerce site it was apparent to me that in time more and more people would be using the internet to buy their “stuff”. I set about looking for a range which wasn’t available at the click of a mouse. I was greedy; I wanted all the retail profits for myself, and I certainly didn’t want to get into a price war with the likes of Amazon and eBay.
The more I looked the more I found that skincare companies weren’t actually all that nice people to deal with.
No, how dare you ask if you can use our products – you’re only a one man band!
No, you work at home
Our opening order is £5K plus – wow…
You must buy £800 a month, every month
No, we don’t care if there are 10 salons around you selling the same thing
Images? Yep, that’ll be £25 a year, thanks.
Really? Really?!
That didn’t leave many options for me. In fact it came down to two brands.
One of them then told me that they had minimum orders each time, and I just didn’t like their principles on that.
That left one.
I took it on and was delighted with it. It was a rare mix of PAMPERING and DOING. Within a year I was the UK’s biggest customer of it. I loved the results my clients got, as did they, and I loved the ease of using it. My bank account loved it too!
I’m not going to comment on the choices of other people; that’s their business. All I will say is that it actually wasn’t a subjective choice; the range I chose ticked all the business boxes for me, and that’s actually all a brand needs to do for everyone. If you’re happy that it’s being sold for less online, cool. If it doesn’t bother you that there are 10 salons offering the same brand within spitting distance, great!
The only really important thing is that you love it, understand it, use it and believe in it. Your clients will spot a phoney from 50 paces!
She very kindly tagged me in the post suggesting that I might be a good person to add to the debate.
This is what I wrote. Hope it's useful for you.
What made you choose your salon skincare range, and why?
I'll attempt to answer this question as objectively as it's possible to, given it's a largely subjective subject.
Or is it?
When I was looking for a range for my salon I was already in my forties and I realised that I would need to make money from this fairly quickly; tempus fugit, and all that!
Having left an IT world where I was managing the design and implementation of an e-commerce site it was apparent to me that in time more and more people would be using the internet to buy their “stuff”. I set about looking for a range which wasn’t available at the click of a mouse. I was greedy; I wanted all the retail profits for myself, and I certainly didn’t want to get into a price war with the likes of Amazon and eBay.
The more I looked the more I found that skincare companies weren’t actually all that nice people to deal with.
No, how dare you ask if you can use our products – you’re only a one man band!
No, you work at home
Our opening order is £5K plus – wow…
You must buy £800 a month, every month
No, we don’t care if there are 10 salons around you selling the same thing
Images? Yep, that’ll be £25 a year, thanks.
Really? Really?!
That didn’t leave many options for me. In fact it came down to two brands.
One of them then told me that they had minimum orders each time, and I just didn’t like their principles on that.
That left one.
I took it on and was delighted with it. It was a rare mix of PAMPERING and DOING. Within a year I was the UK’s biggest customer of it. I loved the results my clients got, as did they, and I loved the ease of using it. My bank account loved it too!
I’m not going to comment on the choices of other people; that’s their business. All I will say is that it actually wasn’t a subjective choice; the range I chose ticked all the business boxes for me, and that’s actually all a brand needs to do for everyone. If you’re happy that it’s being sold for less online, cool. If it doesn’t bother you that there are 10 salons offering the same brand within spitting distance, great!
The only really important thing is that you love it, understand it, use it and believe in it. Your clients will spot a phoney from 50 paces!
