Reaping the rewards of retail

Retailing haircare products through your salon is undoubtedly the easiest and most lucrative way to transform your turnover. While all too many salons are still missing that opportunity, those that have mastered the art of retailing are reaping the cash rewards. One salon group that has successfully cultivated a retail culture is Sean Hanna and its Canary Wharf salon is the current winner of HJ's Retail Salon of the Year at the British Hairdressing Business Awards. Group owner Sean has devised a plan for his team to follow that makes retailing simple: "It's important that clients are not bombarded with questions during their visit, but it's necessary to teach your staff that opportunities to retail do genuinely exist," he says. "It's not about a hard-sell situation, it's about passing on their knowledge, skills and experience to help the client achieve optimum results. It's providing a truly professional service."

Sean's Top Tips For Retailing

• Retailing is not all about selling - it's about creating a retail culture. There are key elements where retail 'touches' the client's journey through the salon.
• At the consultation stage you need to ask the right questions, discover the challenges and suggest solutions. At seanhanna, we have developed a hair and scalp consultation, where we can ascertain the needs of each individual client in relation to their scalp and hair type.
• At the backwash, inform the client which shampoos and conditioners are being used, and why.
• Still at the backwash, offer clients the opportunity to super-condition and prepare the hair, particularly prior to technical work.
• At the cut and colour stage, reiterate the importance of using the correct shampoos to keep clients' hair colour vibrant and lasting.
• At the styling stage, explain how products can style the look, hold the hair, texturise it, finish it, and add shine.
• When checking that the client is happy with their finished look, ask if they have the right products and tools at home to keep it looking salon-finished.
• The receptionist can offer a courtesy question to ensure that the client has everything they need to continue looking after their hair in-between salon visits.
• It's important that retail products are attractively displayed, placed in a well-lit area where clients can browse and try products undisturbed.

Offering Incentives

North of the border, product sales account for an highly impressive 25% of the annual turnover at Edinburgh salon group Paterson SA. Group Creative Director Jon MacLeod says that if you want to motivate your team into retailing, you need to stop offering commission and start offering incentives. "To my team, high retail sales equal professionalism, so the first motivator is nothing to do with the incentive that we offer - it's about getting recognition as a professional," says Jon. "Each month we publish a list of the top 10 retailers in the company and that is hugely important to them - more so than any prize we offer." Jon believes that the problem with offering commission is that the time it takes for a stylist to get the money after selling a product is too long. Therefore he has created an incentives system to keep his staff motivated:

• Daily Incentives - These include every day items such as make-up, CDs and products. The incentive might be awarded to the person who sells the most retail that day, or the first person that sells £200 worth of products, or they may do a lucky-dip raffle whereby the team gets a ticket for every product they sell and that goes into a draw.
• Weekly Incentives - These includes tool rolls, hairdryers, aftershave and perfume - however, you can only put prizes at that level once you are taking over 25% of your turnover in retail otherwise it doesn't pay.
• Monthly Incentives - These are bigger and include items like an iPod Touch.
• An Annual Incentive - Everyone who retails more than £1,000 gets entered into a draw and can win £1,000. However, Jon has found that people lose interest in any incentives that run longer than a month.