One of the things that we hear most from beauty professionals, including hairstylists, nail techs, and makeup artists is that managing the “business-side” of their spa or salon is actually the hardest part of being an independent business owner. Some have even gone to work for larger spas and salons because it was just too exhausting to keep everything together and make time for themselves.
That won’t be your story! We’re going to share how you can continue to “be your own boss” without all of the stress. We know that you are too blessed to be stressed.
Hair stylists, nail technicians, and makeup artists handle everything from finding new clients, scheduling, taking deposits, making your clients look fabulous, collecting final payment and a whole lot more. To better understand all of the things that beauty professionals do on a day to day basis, we interviewed some successful, hair, nail and makeup professionals who actively use PocketSuite.
They highlighted 6 common challenges:
1. Scheduling, Scheduling & Scheduling: We know that your day to day schedule is EVERYTHING. You’ve got to get butts in seats and it’s always better when a client books you ahead of time. Your time is too precious to have to wait and see who comes through each day. Besides just knowing what your schedule looks like, there are two things that literally drive beauticians crazy. Not knowing which appointment on your calendar has been paid for and which hasn’t been paid for yet. You have to go back and forth between your email, Instagram DM, Facebook Messenger, and your text messages to figure out who paid and who hasn’t. Ugh!!!
2. No Shows: The other thing that is a big pain in the #$% are “no shows”. The worst thing is for someone to take a really popular time slot like Saturday afternoon and then not show up for their appointment…no call, no text, no heads up whatsoever. Besides the fact that it is super rude and disrespectful, it costs you money. Someone else would have literally #killed for that time and you can’t replace the money that you would have made for that appointment.
3. Product Sales: Some don’t just do hair, you sell products too. Whether you are selling bundles of hair, organic shampoos & cremes, or accessories, it’s hard to remember who bought what and to have it ready for when your client shows up for their appointment. Not to mention, having to keep track of how many products you have left on a notepad that you may not always have with you. #Help Products really boost your income, but the back and forth “remind me when did you buy it…” and “sorry, we just ran out…” messages to your clients are starting to look really unprofessional.
4. Getting New Clients: When you get a client and treat them right, they will stay with you for life! That’s, of course, if they don’t move or have some other major life change. Even though you have some loyal clients, you always need to build relationships with new clients. You should know how many heads of hair you need to do a week to hit your income goal. The typical hairstylist in the U.S. makes $3,000 a month, that means they make $750 a week. If 30% of their income comes from products, that means they will sell $225 in products a week. The rest of their income needs to come from doing hair. If the average client pays about $75, a hairstylist earning $3000 per month has to do 7 heads of hair a week to make $525 ($2,100 per month) in hair styling income. That income plus the product income of $225 per week ($900 per month) will get you to $3,000 per month. That’s basically serving 1 client a day if they work all 7 days or 2 clients a day, if they only want to work 3 and half days a week. That’s the cool thing about being “Your own boss!” You can decide how much you are going to make. Set your prices. Set your hours and do what you love for clients. To serve 7 clients a week when most clients do their hair every 2 weeks and some every month, you need to have a minimum of 14 and more likely ~30 regular clients to be able to earn $3,000 a month as a hairstylist. If you currently have 5 clients now, then getting new clients should be a top priority for you.
5. Rebooking: If you take the example above of the hairstylist who wants to make $3,000 a month, besides finding new clients she needs to make sure that every client that she serves becomes a repeat client. Otherwise, she will need to keep finding new clients in order to hit her goal. The best way to make a client a repeat client is to deliver 5 Star service. You know what they say, “If they love you, they’ll never leave you.” The second best way to make a client a repeat client is to remind them to book you again (and if necessary, give them an incentive like a discount or a free extra service to rebook you). Sometimes it isn’t enough to remind a new client to rebook you just once because they may not do it immediately or at all. You have to regularly remind them. If you are seeing 1 or 2 new clients a day, that’s a lot of people who you have to remember to remind to rebook. And it’s a royal pain because you already have so many things on your mind…
6. Tips or Gratuity: I’m sure I don’t have to say much about tips. You work hard for “your money” and really appreciate it when clients recognize that and tip you. But sometimes they forget to tip and that hurts in your heart and your purse. It’s awkward to have to remind them or ask for a tip. The whole point of a tip is that your client gives it to you because they recognize on their own how great a job you have done. If you have to remind them, it feels weird like you’re cheating or fishing for a compliment. But if you don’t remind them, then you really will miss out. The worst is when you take “the high road” and decide not to mention it when they forget to tip you and then your client gets home an hour later and sends you this message “I’ve gotten 3 compliments on my new look already. I’m so jazzed about it! You did such a great job. Thank you, thank you! Ooh, I totally forgot to give you a tip. So sorry.
That’s super frustrating because it is such a hassle to collect tips after the fact.
Did any of that sound familiar? If so, we totally understand. We are going to walk you through how PocketSuite slays all of the problems above. It makes it stress free for Pros like you to get booked and paid by existing clients as well as super easy to find new clients.
Solutions to these Pesky Problems
“Once I started serving more than 5 or 6 clients a week, keeping track of schedules, deposits, products, and messages became way too much… I knew I needed help.” – Jane S.
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Appointment Scheduling & Calendar Booking
- You do everything on your phone already. You may as well manage your schedule there too. PocketSuite makes it super easy for hairstylists and beauty pros. Clients can book you and pay their deposit from Instagram, Facebook, your website, or over text message, using your PocketSuite online booking link. You don’t have to send messages back and forth with your clients anymore to find a date and time that works. Your calendar syncs to PocketSuite automatically so anyone can visit your Instagram profile, your Facebook page, or your website, see when you are free, and book you. You can block out your schedule whenever you want too. So clients can only see the availability that you want them to see. You can require clients to pay a deposit when they book you or require them to put a credit card on file (just in case they cancel super late or no show).
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Inventory Tracking
- Products are a great way to earn more money! You should be able to sell them without any hassles. You can use PocketSuite’s “add on” product feature to offer your clients products when they are booking you online. They buy the product from your online booking site and it gets added to their appointment. So you’ll know exactly what they bought, when they bought it, and you’ll have it ready when they come in for their appointment. PocketSuite also tracks how much inventory you have left, so you are never caught by surprise. You can track sales activity and re-order before you run out.
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Getting New Clients & Hitting Your Income Goals
- Getting new clients isn’t easy for successful beauty pros like you because you are always in the salon serving clients. You don’t have time to go out and network and you don’t need to. All you need to do is make sure that you post all of the beautiful before and after photos of your clients on Facebook, Instagram, and tag your clients so they’ll share those pictures with friends and family. If you do that, PocketSuite will take care of the rest. PocketSuite has 3 online marketing features that beauty pros really love. These features help them get new client leads: (1) Online Chat, (2) Suite link, & (3) Online Booking.
- With Online chat client leads can easily chat with you anywhere online, including on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or your website. The chat message from clients is sent directly to you via the PocketSuite app. You also get the contact information of every client lead … so you can follow up with them easily. Next, you can have your very own Suite link . A Suite link can be added to your website or Instagram and Facebook. You can use it to share your marketing links with your service information/products/other items, social media, pictures of clients that you have served. A Suite link can also be used by client leads to book and chat with you… the options are endless. Your Online booking site makes it possible for new and existing clients to schedule and buy anything from you. You can offer a free consult as a way to build your email marketing list and begin building a healthy, long term relationship with new client leads.
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Rebooking
- PocketSuite is the only mobile first, business management app for beauty professionals, including hair stylists, nail technicians, and makeup artists. Studies show that text messages have a 90% open rate vs. 40% or less email open rates. Most people check their phones obsessively throughout the day, so text based appointment rebooking reminders are never missed. When hairstylists use rebooking reminders, they see a 5x increase in client’s scheduling repeat appointments. Hairstylists simply set up a “Reach out to past client” smart campaign, which will automatically contact to any client who hasn’t (re)booked or paid you in a whatever time frame that you specify with a personalized text message from you focused on getting them to schedule their next appointment. The appointment rebooking reminder includes dynamic field options… in English that means they can be personalized automatically to include your client’s name, appointment date, special promotional offer, etc.
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Tips or Gratuity
- You shouldn’t have to worry about asking for tips from your clients. Let PocketSuite do the work for you! You can setup PocketSuite to automatically request a tip from your clients when they are booking or when they are checking out of an appointment with you. Either way, it’s not you doing the asking, it’s PocketSuite. So no need to worry about any awkwardness. Check out the dozens of other features that we offer you, your business and your clients.
PocketSuite has thousands of hair stylists, nail technicians, makeup artists who all started where you are right now. Our community of beauticians are always happy to help you ramp up, grow your client base, and achieve your income goals, both within the app and as part of our exclusive Facebook Community Group. PocketSuite’s vision is for any beauty professional to be able to work for themselves and make a great living. It starts here. It starts with you. It starts today.
Let’s get started, download PocketSuite now! Feel free to reach out with any questions (we’d love to hear from you)! Text us @ (415) 841-2300.
