Insurance or members club HELP!

[cliffy]

Can anyone out there from the real world help with their point of view and feedback.

My daughter is a recently qualified nail technician and my wife was a professional hair dresser until 4 years ago. Now my daughter has qualified we have some money from a house sale (yep they are still selling, but only just) we are looking to setup shop as a family business.

This brings round the question of insurance. So far I’m not clear on what may be the best way forwards.

I have looked at the straight insurance companies for the salon and for individual insurance and these all appears very competitive. Then there is the Beauty Guild and Babtac they appear to offer fringe benefits of membership to a body. Does anyone have any feedback on the benefits they have had since being a member of a group rather than just normal insurance purchasing? Does it help bring in additional business over local advertising? If things go wrong do these groups step in directly to actively help or is it just like normal insurance and you end up dealing with a broker and hoping for the best?

I am sorry for so many questions but I’m not sure which direction to pursue and spending days calling around to get a PR job done on me down the phone by all the organisation isn’t my idea of fun. And personal recommendations are always the best to go on I have found.

 

[The Guild]

Hi,

For a list of all the benefits that come with Guild Membership, take a look here: Beauty Guild : Membership Benefits - Beauty Guild

If you need any extra information, feel free to either PM me, or call one of our friendly membership advisors on 0845 2177 383.

 

[cliffy]

Hi, thanks for that. I spoke to a lady there last week called Renona? apart from being focused on wanting to sell me advertising in your magazine she was informative. I spoke to BATAC on Monday and this is why I'm now scratching my head.

I don’t want to sound dismissive but the benefits that both the Guild and BABTAC have listed are not all benefits as such and the thing that I’m wrestling with is, is what are the real benefits of membership or buying insurance from other areas.

Looking at the benefits I get:
The beauty bulletin board:
I can access this without membership and if it were to a closed members only then that excludes the public that are potentially my trade and the content here is also good.

Insurance:
This is kind of my main question and is covered above

Window sticker:
Ok, your branding in my window. I’m not sure that the local customers I will get would care too much.

The Guild Gazette / vitality Magazine
This would be informative and the copies I have seen from the other local salon owners it does appear to be a vehicle for selling advertising. If I can pick one up once a year than I think that would cover me.

Web design service:
My hosting company offers me that as part of the £9.95 a month deal for my url

Salon directory / classified advertising:
Again I’m not sure most of my customers wouldn’t use local internet searches or the yellow pages or mostly word of mouth and local press. Buying and selling used salon equipment is pretty much covered in this forum and others & ebay?

Thompson and the yellow pages:
I spoke to them and they have done a cracking deal with the first year free by signing a 2 year agreement. Thomson’s also put line listings in for free its only boxed adverts that need to be paid for.

National Promotions:
If backed by take up figures and foot fall information then this may be good. But experience from other areas discussed with my banks marketing people say that these can be more effort than they are worth because of the time to get cash back and the admin effort to do so.



Criky....thats something of a can of worms. Sorry for washing my head in public, but, like I say, I’m not having a go at anyone individually, but I’m confused and would like some real world feedback and views of people that are members or customers and their experiences. If people don't want to reply here then a PM would be just as good.