How to build your stylist column

As a stylist there are many ways to build your column, from focusing on the key industry measures and developing your communication skills to discovering your individual identity that brings your own style and personality to your work. Ryan Fox, salon management consultant, looks at what you can work on to make your column busier. Background One of the biggest issues facing salons in recent years has been low utilisation rates leaving too many gaps in their appointment books. Utilisation, sometimes referred to as productivity, is one of the standard measures for a salon and is usually shown as an average of time booked with clients compared to white space in the stylist's column. Average utilisation rates have been surprisingly low for the past 15 years and are usually around 55% overall for the salon if you include assistants. What can you do to grow your column? We need more clients, I hear you shout. That is certainly true for most salons, but you don't need as many more as you think to significantly improve your utilisation and make you busier. Growing your column involves both attracting new clients and making more of the clients that you have. New clients Start attracting new clients by talking to your existing clients about who they might know who would like to try you for a cut or colour. Most salons have a recommend-a-friend promotion in place, which could be a card or automated through text messages using some salon management systems. However, the key to this is the conversation between you as the stylist and the client. There are also many other ways to attract new clients to fill the 'white space', such as internet marketing, discount sites and specialist marketing companies. These can help but should be used in moderation and tightly controlled. You can also approach local businesses or go out into the streets and talk to potential clients yourselves. Existing clients You should also make the most of your existing clients by working on your rebookings. The more clients you rebook, the busier you will be. This is because clients not only tend to lengthen the time between visits when left to their own devices, but they also leave the booking to the last minute, which often further lengthens the time as you are unable to fit them in straight away. You should also therefore work on getting clients booked in on the right time frame to shorten the frequency. If, for example, you have 1,000 active clients and a utilisation of 55% and they coming in on average every 11 weeks, if you get that down to 8 weeks your utilisation will increase to around 77%. Rebooking also massively increases the chance of that client coming back so your client retention also improves. Key Performance Indicators Other places to look if you want to grow your column are at the industry Key Performance Indicators. We have already looked at the impact of focusing on your Rebooking and Frequency, but growing your column isn't just about getting busier, it’s also about driving up the quality of your offering and increasing the value that you bring to enable you to recommend upgrades and additional services to increase your average bill. You may have targets set in your salon already so focus on what you need to do differently to achieve them. If what you are doing isn’t getting results then change an aspect of it to see what impact it has. Keep trying new ways and refining your process. You may have set targets, but are you actually working on improving your methods to achieve better outcomes? “If I am not me, who will be me?” One of the keys to being a successful salon stylist is bringing your personality to the role. Clients come back to stylists who they connect with and like as much, if not more, than because the haircut or colour is good. It's important to let your personality shine through into the role and create your own personal style. This doesn't mean doing everything differently to everyone else, as clients want a consistent approach, but what it means is they want you to stamp your personality onto the creative and human parts of the service. These are the things that make you unique and which can’t be replicated by anyone else, it’s therefore very powerful. Think about how you can strengthen your identity as a person first, then bring it to your role as the stylist so it’s you. Ryan Fox is a Hair & Beauty Salon Consultant who improves salon performance through training and innovation.www.umbrellaconsulting.co.uk