Rebalance Prices? Overlays and A BIG THANKS!

[lanails]

A Great big THANK YOU to the Nail Geek members 8)

• Last Friday I passed my Four Day Creative Foundation - having read the tutorials.
  Can put on Acrylic Enhancements in 100 degrees,
  Have purchased top ten Creative Enamels for my new salon opening in September.
  Have spoken to Nicole in Marketing who is great, and got the coolest images for my ads and publicity materials
  And got points on my order!!!!! All thanks to messages.

I recommended all the course members to look here to answer all their questions, and I feel that the answers are really great. Thanks to those of you who encourage us "new geeks".

Anyway to my question :?: do you charge the same for an "infill" as a "rebalance"? Am trying to get price list done. Also do you allow
for being "newly qualified" am trying to be competitive with local techs and am not sure how to handle this.

Last question, if you do natural nail overlays, do you mainly use clear powder or white and pink? Nail tech that did mine before I qualified didnt offer me a choice, but would like to know what other do. Would you put an overlay on someone with good lengths natural nails, but with deep ridges going from sidewall to sidewall, to give them a better surface for enamel?

Keep up the good work.
Love
Lesleyx

 

[new-to-nails]

Well Done Lesley!

Good Luck with your salon in September...where is it? I'd like to come along and be nosey and you can put a set on me (your first paying customer)
Can't help with prices...need to pass my Foundation (hopefully on Aug 1st) and do lots of practice before I even consider charging!
Let me know where you are when you open and I can come and have a cuppa...we can chat Nails!!!

Take Care

 

[lanails]

Hi, nice to know the South West is thinking Nails.

I am in Sunny Sidmouth - where are you?

Would appreciate a Creative person to do a nail swap! Have done my own and everyone says they look great - but they dont look too closely!

Yes since discovering nails I would love to chat incessantly!!! It feels like I have become girly as I am getting older!

I am opening Salon on 2nd September at the back of my shop - if you can get to Sidmouth let me know, I will send you more details!

Thanks for message and good luck on your course - who and where are you training with?
Lesleyxxx

 

[mui]

Sawadee ka

Have happy time open and work your salon and not worry too much everything come good for for sure when i open salon i fright and think too much but now everything good .

Kop khun ka mui

 

[new-to-nails]

I have pm'd you, so I don't fill the board up with rubbish and digress from your first post..which incidently I am also curious about. So back to your question...

 

[lanails]

Thanks for your best wishes.

Lesleyx

 

[Mrs Geek]

well hi there Lesley - Ok if it were me, I wouldn't even have 'infills' on my service menu!! :shock: Add the word Rebalance and educate your clients on what you mean by it. 'Infills' are not something we teach how to do at the C.N.A.'s because we find that 'filling zone 3' doesn't last and doesn't look attractive either - a rebalance on the other hand is to structurally engineer the enhancement for strength and beauty - in other words, the enhancements should look like a brand new full set after a rebalance!!

Elevate yourself and be different Let the salon down the road do infills! and before I get any comments here, please know that I don't mean to offend anyone who has the word 'infill' on their service menu! Those that are trained with CND beginners, automatically learn the early stages of the rebalance and so tend to use this expression exclusively.

 

[lanails]

Hi Mrs Geek

Thanks for your reply, you are right - I have been taught Rebalance and am using nearby salon price lists to structure mine - I should stick to the way I have been taught (which incidentally feels right and gives a great look) - I guess I find it hard that the local "infill" prices are £10 or so, and my rebalance takes 60 mins to look great. As you say the client goes out with beautiful nails, but it is hard work for that money - I understand that there is no "tipping" so it cuts out time, I guess it is for me to introduce a whole new level of service to my town and price according to time/product rather than other competitors! Maybe my times will reduce too - although to get this right is always going to be taking time.

Anyway thanks for the view it has made me look at my price list again. Would still like to know what other people charge in relation to full set esp Creative trained!

Thanks for reply.

Lesleyxx

 

[Mrs Geek]

of course you don't want to price yourself out of your 'local' market!! Geeg used to include 1 nail in her rebalance price AND if they left it 3 weeks rather than 2 it was an extra £5.00 which I think is a BRILLIANT idea - why should we charge the same price for a 3 week r/b when we have twice the work!! Don't automatically assume that you should charge 1/2 price because a r/b isn't specifically a full set - if I charged £40 for a full set of tip and overlays, my r/b price would be around £28.00!! I would also EXPECT to take at least an hour to possibly a little more depending!! You always have brilliant clients that come back perfect even after 3 weeks so I would nurture those particular ones and 'train' the others to reguarly book their fortnightly r/b's!!
Yikes I'm going on but I hope this helps!! On your service menu you could put something on the lines of Rebalance (2 weeks), Rebalance (3 weeks) and add £5.00 for evey week they leave it - they don't have to pay it, they just need to book in normally!!

 

[geeg]

I guess I find it hard that the local "infill" prices are £10 or so, and my rebalance takes 60 mins to look great.

A rebalance is a rebalance a fill (or infill) implies something quite different and is quite different.

A service that is going to last the client up to 3 weeks has got to be more than filling in a space of regrowth. You might get away with it for a client's first ever maintenance appointment after a full set, but after that the whole structure needs to be put back into balance and this of course involves more filing and an 'eagle' eye to make sure no potential problems get past you... more time and more cost.

A rebalance should be all about preventing anything from happening for the next 2-3 weeks ... not curing loads of problems that the client has come in to the salon with.

If you see many problems at the rebalance appointment (excessive lifting, cracks, breakages, missing nails etc) then there is something wrong somewhere. Either it is the technician not building the enhancement correctly, not laying down the product correctly, wrong prescription at the start (nails too long etc) OR the client is having a 'go' at the nails herself.

An hour for a rebalance is correct timing and sometimes it takes longer ... usually when the client has 'pushed' it further than the 2-3 week limit. Of course you should charge more for this and as Samantha said, if the client went over the recommended time limit for them in our salon (and this varied between clients) then the charge was extra.

 

[lanails]

Thanks for the replies Geeg and Mrs Geeg

That was really useful (and no I dont think you are going on - you need to nag me to get it into my head!)

Thanks for the price indication, as you say I expect to take 1 hour plus to get great nails, I just felt that £10 that locals salons charge did not take the time and work into account, but they do JUST DO ZONE 3!

That has given me a really clear way of building my pricing now - the rest I was clear on and great idea about including 1 nail!

so far sets I have done - have lasted well for 3 weeks, but need doing on dot of that time, and the people I have done would rather wait 3 - but when I open Salon, as you say it may be dependent on customer. My own daughter, who was nail model for course, needed rebalance after 2, as her nails grew and grew and grew! But she is unusual.

WELL ANOTHER BIG THANK YOU!

Just going to finish prices now - feel much more confident about this point.

Thanks
Lesleyxx

 

[lanails]

Got your name wrong - dyslexia maybe - or Sunday morning.

Sorry
Lesleyxx

 

[Anna from Toronto]

I totally agree, I always tell my clients that there is a difference between a "fill" and "rebalance" (I call it "maintenance appointment", because I maintain the beautiful look of the nails every time they come here)

My full sets are $50-$60 (takes me 1:15-1:30min, sculpted nails)
and my french rebalances are $40 (1:30 min)
and clear rebalances $35 (1:15) + $5 polish (+ another few minutes+ drying time

This brings up another question...why can I do a full set and the rebalance in the same amount of time?
Actually often full sets take less time :? :? :?

Here is my timing (full sets)
15-20 min prep
30 min application of white and clear/pink
20 min finishing
----
70 min (approx)

Rebalance:
30-40 min prep (I remove more product for the white, I thin the area where the white will go almost 90% for a thin enhancement)
30 min applicaton (white and pink)
20 min finishing
--------
1:30 approx

So why am I charging less for the rebalance?
What am I doing wrong? :frust:

 

[Anna from Toronto]

PS. Rebalance I did recently:

http://groups.msn.com/BeautyPro/nailenhancements.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=343

http://groups.msn.com/BeautyPro/nailenhancements.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=342

The pointer finger nail (nailbed) is shorter because the nail was broken so I had to sculpt a new extention...don't want you to think I do uneven nails

 

[geeg]

Hi Anna,

I think traditionally, and for years, nail technicians have worked out their prices by 'what the salon down the road' charges instead of doing a proper cost analysis of time+overheads+products+etc etc. before we define our prices. The trend has been set for over 20 years to charge less for the rebalance ... but now we do a rebalance where formerly technicians did just a fill.

My opinion is that the rebalance price should be set as the 'realistic' figure for what you need to earn in the salon against per hour what the business requires to run and make a profit. Then set the full set price as the 'lost leader' if you want to attract the customer. Does that make sense?

Whether it looks right or not, most of us are making good money even if the figures have been set traditionally in a rather hap hazard way.

 

[lanails]

Thanks Anna for that
Your nails are beautiful, great pictures, the finish is brilliant and something for me to aspire to!

The information set out is great and you are pricing much as Mrs Geek and Geeg are saying, that was my dilemma, which I now feel happy to say to a customer who says "down the road infills are much cheaper". Imust admit until I did my Creative Rebalance day, no one had ever worked on my nails like that before. My own daughter/nail model likes her rebalances much better - so I can say to people that I am offering a DIFFERENT service and one which IMPROVES their enhancements, not just ADDING to the regrowth.

Really useful thank you.

Lesleyxxx

 

[lanails]

Thank you for your words, this was exactly what I was getting at in the original question - I come from a Business background where cost analysis is the basis of all pricing - but could not work out why OTHER SALONS were charging that amount for the work.

I now realise that I shall charge what I feel and the industry feels, rather than TO BE COMPETITIVE LOCALLY.

This of course must be taken into account, but pricing will be done on cost.

I now feel much clearer in my head (makes a change!!).

Thanks again 8)
Lesleyx