Your salon guests are your lifeblood. They are the reason you have a job. They keep your lights on, pay your bills, keep your staff employed, allow you to grow and expand, pay for school, put food on your table, and buy all the cool things you want. If you really think about it, the client-employee balance is seriously tilted in your favor. You need them for a lot of things; they need you for one thing only: to help them achieve a tan. Really, they are not asking for much in return for everything they do for you! It makes sense, then, that you really owe it to your tanners to give them the best experience for their money. That’s where you come in as the tanning professionals. You control the end result that they will get and, ultimately, that will be the deciding factor in whether it was worth their time and money. When it comes to delivering that result, you need to remember what your role is and how they see you.
First, they see you as the tanning expert. Any questions they have, any needs they are experiencing, they look to you for a solution. This is why you need to understand that they are the star and your team is the supporting cast. The salon guest’s needs, wants, and expectations need to be front and center. When that focus shifts and you become the “center of the universe,” they see you as that “salesperson”: pushy, overbearing, rude and self-serving. No one likes to deal with that person, so don’t be that person. You and your team need to be professional consultants, experts.
Second, in many cases they need you to reassure them that their results are progressing as they expect. We often don’t see ourselves the way others do, and this holds true for the tan each individual develops from your services. We tend to think that we aren’t as dark as we actually are, that the results we expect aren’t being delivered and our color is fading too quickly. In some cases, this reassurance is nothing more than educating a tanner about how the tanning process happens, including color development and fading. When they understand this process and how the different equipment, products, and extenders can make a difference in their results, you gain their trust. Most sales will happen after you show your guests that you are the experts. Your team needs to be educators, coaches, and experts.
Third, and in many cases the most important, they need to see you as a friend. Friends are honest with each other, trustworthy, supportive, and are the people we enjoy seeing and introducing our other friends to. This fosters intense loyalty on their part toward you, your business, your products, and your recommendations. Eighty-two percent of small business owners have recently said that loyal clients are the most important way to grow their businesses. We tend to be fiercely loyal to our friends, and there is no reason that you can’t be a friend to your clients; in fact, it is necessary that they see us as such. You need to be a cheerleader, a “therapist,” an expert.
Clearly, you need your clients far more than they need you; for them to get the perfect results they expect, you are essential. As long as you remember that they are the reason you do what you do, you and your team are able to be that cheerleader, that consultant, that professional, that educator, that coach, that “therapist,” and that expert that they need.
Now, play those roles like the stars you all are!
Clearly, you need your clients far more than they need you; for them to get the perfect results they expect, you are essential.
