#17 How to fill white space on the salon’s book
Utilization, productivity, performance, whatever word you are drawn to use, the bottom line is, how much white space is left to fill.
Having a high utilization percentage as a whole is the golden ticket to supporting luxury careers for your team, comfort in paying your operating expenses, and being able to have higher profit margins.
… Can you say goals?!
Here are three well-thought-out, effective ways to support filling white space when done with tenacity and grit. Even when the going gets tough and it feels like it will never work, these are robust and proven systems that will work with a little elbow grease and within time (because even though we live our day-to-day with instant gratification, you will need some patience to make this happen) will fill the white space you want to go.
New Guest Challenge
This is a monthly, new guest referral challenge where the existing guest who brings the most friends or family to the salon, who is new to the salon, wins a gift card. (This idea came from one of our RLCEO student’s salons, Gilded Lilly in Chicago)
Now, how you want the gift card to be used is up to you. It can be a gift card just for retail, services only, etc. But it’s a fun way to get some interaction AND the whole team can be in on this, your front desk team can be telling the guests as they arrive as well!
Share the Love Referral Campaign
This is the referral program we call the Share the Love Campaign, where existing guests refer friends or family to the salon by gifting them a $50 gift card that’s free to them to give.
When the new guest comes in you can reward the existing guest with a free product, a $50 gift card as well or both. The more value that’s there for the existing guest the more they’ll actively refer friends.
There is a bit of leg work with this one…
The giving guest (which is the existing guest) will fill out a form with the receiving guest’s (new guest) information so you and your team can reach out to the new guest personally.
We have scripts ready for the team for what to say when they reach out to the new guest, along with a digital gift card they send by text or email.
Ps… A text has a higher open rate than an email, so if possible, a text message is the best!
This is where follow-through and tenacity come in. It takes work to reach out, keep track of it all, and follow up if you don’t hear back right away. When that new guest does come in, ensuring a high-level experience, making sure they prebook, and recommending retail and services that would meet their hair needs is crucial. We don’t want to just fill the white space we want to retain them too!
Direct Outreach
Directly reaching out on Instagram or Facebook to actual PPGs (Potentially Perfect Guest).
This is how you build the ‘trust, like, and know’ factor with people who may not be aware of your salon yet. So, first start out by liking and commenting posts for a few days before following them. You will see an example of a chart below that we use to follow through and stay organized, along with scripts we use to stay efficient.
Once you both are following each other, you will send a direct message inviting them to the salon. When you do this the best way to get them to say yes, is to offer a complimentary service and it can be a haircut only. Prebooking is key here to see the financial return in months to come!
Filling white space can feel like a dreaded task but it doesn’t have to be!
We are all creative humans and I am willing to bet that you have tried so many different things, with some ideas working, while others have flopped. These three utilization-building tools can be used for seasoned stylists in the industry and the new talent that we’re growing. It’s fully customizable, and it works.
Ps… Want to dive even deeper into these 3 campaigns? Listen to the full podcast episode with myself and Heather here :)
Salt + Light,
Professor Jessica
Learn more about our 12-month program, Rich Life CEO below. Enrollment is currently open for commission/hourly salon owners! We’ll send you instant access to real salon examples of how we’ve helped our students generate over a combined $1.2 million in additional revenue.