Secrets to Pack Your Column With Clients
Big promises, Big Lies

I know you've all seen the ads and web sites with promises to "pack your column with clients" by showing you the secrets they have used to build a million dollar business. Now for only $59.95, $199.95, $298.95 or some other phenomenally low price your can use the same system to save your ailing salon. Can you believe it? someone out there is willing to make you a millionaire for only three hundred dollars. What's that old saying? "If it sounds too good to be true, it is."

Think about it for a moment. What are you really going to get? are you going to get personalized advice from someone who has taken the time to understand your business? Or, are you going to get the same worn out suggestions that every other salon owner, manager, or stylist is going to get? Are you going to hear anything new or original that might actually help you boost sales in your salon? Or, are you going to get the same old promotions that have been passed around for the past ten years? My sense of it is that you are going to get less of the former and more of the later.

To top off their sales pitch you're promised a monthly newsletter, bonus materials (whatever that is), and a money back guarantee if you're not completely satisfied. All of these are tried and true marketing tricks that have been applied to a network marketing kit focused on salon owners and managers. If you go to any of these sites you will find something like this (or this).

In the first page you see the main pitch with several "secrets" that you will receive. If you give it just a little thought these aren't new or secrets. For example:

How To Use Your A Release Form As A Referral Generating Machine is simply asking the client to give three references or contact numbers prior to receiving a chemical or spa service in case the salon needs to call someone. Somewhere on the release form there will be a waiver that says the salon has the right to contact your references. Pretty simple really, and effective. For every chemical or spa service customer you get the name address and phone number of two or three referrals. Send them a note saying their friend has used our services now you have an opportunity to also.

It is a long standing sales practice of high dollar sales people to send a thank you note to prospects within 24 hours of visiting them. "A Thank You 'Marketing System That Has Been Creating A Frenzy Of New Business and Referrals Since Day One" is simply sending a thank you card to your customers and offering them a discount if they will provide you with three referrals. The referral card is prepaid postage card attached to the thank you note which will be returned to the salon. You can mail them a discount card or just keep the responses on file at the front desk so that they can redeem their discount when they come in for service.

How To Get Your Long Lost Customers To Come Back and Buy More Products and Services From You and Become Raving Fans Of My Salon. Read the book Raving Fans and you will find lots of suggestions to help you bring customers back for more services and products.

There isn't anything here that you can't figure out for yourself, but the trick to this or any system is that you have to apply it consistently. And if you bother to read the disclaimer you will find that the warranty is only good for 30 days and at their discretion. How many 100% guarantees do you think they honor?

My point here is that in order to offer meaningful advice someone must spend time in your business, get to know the players, get a sense of what your problems or concerns are, and then spend some time working with you to formulate a plan that will work for you. None of this is "secret," it's just good business applied to your particular circumstance.

So who do you think is really benefiting from those secrets? That's right, the folks who are selling them to you. I have a better suggestion for you, take a few minutes each day to read a book on marketing or management, develop your own marketing plan, and then work it. The benefits and results will be real, and the investment will be minimal, and maybe most important of all you will come away with a true sense of confidence and pride in your business that no "secret" program will ever deliver.

Pro Salon Solutions
pro-salon.com
Dallas, Texas 75248
phone: 469-441-8771