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Welcome to the Salon Owner’s Podcast, Phorest FM Episode 23. Co-hosted by Killian Vigna and Zoé Bélisle-Springer, this show is a mix of interviews with industry thought-leaders, roundups of our most recent salon owners marketing tips & tricks, all the latest in and around Phorest and what upcoming webinars you can join. Phorest FM is produced every Monday morning for your enjoyment with a cup of coffee on your day off.

Phorest FM Episode 23

When discussing marketing strategies nowadays, they mostly revolve around social media and online campaigns.  This leaves a gap in the market, with older potential clients who may not have as much of an online presence.  In order to get the word about your salon out to this group, a different approach must be taken.  Another group salon owners need to consider when providing services is people with disabilities — both mental and physical. Putting in the effort to ensure these clients are comfortable will make a huge impact in their overall treatment experience.

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Transcript

Killian Vigna: Welcome to the Phorest FM podcast, episode 23. I’m your host Killian Vigna.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And I’m Zoe Belisle-Springer, your co-host.

Killian Vigna: This week’s episode, we’ll run through two of our latest blogs, “Marketing to Mature Hair and Beauty Clients in the Digital Age”, and “Providing Access to Salon and Spa Services for Clients with Disabilities”. We’ll interview Graham Kent of FHC about how to run a successful charity event in your community. We’ll talk about Zoe’s latest eBook, the Salon Owner’s First Steps to Online Reputation Management. And as always, we top off the show with our upcoming Phorest Academy webinars.

This podcast is produced every Monday morning for your enjoyment with a cup of coffee on your day off. Now, let’s get into the show.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Welcome back.

Killian Vigna: Welcome back indeed, yes.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, after a week break.

Killian Vigna: So last week we took a week off because we had a bank holiday, mid-term, Easter, all that going on over here.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly.

Killian Vigna: Actually it was going on everywhere.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Everywhere, yeah.

Killian Vigna: So, yeah. If you start following Phorest on Instagram-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Ah, yeah.

Killian Vigna: You would have caught us doing a little shout-out there explaining why we were taking a day off and being lazy.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: It wasn’t being lazy. We were just not in.

Killian Vigna: I don’t know about you but I had a great lazy holiday. Yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, so this week we’re back with quite a few things, actually. And we’re going to talk about two of the latest blogs. So they’re not necessarily just from last week or this week but “Marketing to Mature Hair and Beauty Clients in the Digital Age”. That’s one that I wrote because most times I get emails asking me how to get new clients or keep the actual clients coming back and fill empty spots. So, the most common thing is to give social media methods and techniques and this and that, but there’s also another opportunity that we barely ever talk about, and it’s targeting your older audience within your clients. Because most people don’t really know how to do that.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, I mean, like any clients I’ve ever helped with campaigns, it’s all been for kind of get young kids back in. But this is your audience who’s actually going to spend the money.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Mature clients I’m talking here, like Baby Boomer generation. So like from 45 to 70ish. And realistically, that portion of the population are the ones who have usually the most leisure time and usually the most… The ones with a bigger portion of disposable income. So-

Killian Vigna: Basically you’re saying they’re retired and they’ve got money.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Not necessarily retired, but just like-

Killian Vigna: Yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Most likely be only Monday to Friday in work, but then always have the weekends off…

Killian Vigna: Yep.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Like that kind of gist and if you’re 45, there’s a bigger chance that you don’t have young kids. My mom is close to 60 now, so she has her weekends off. She doesn’t have to mind me. You know?

Killian Vigna: I’m not going to say how old my parents are because they’ll kill me. But yeah, roughly around the same.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. So like…

Killian Vigna: We’ve all moved out. It’s just the younger brother and the parents at home.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So the weekends are just empty. You could do whatever they… They can do whatever they want.

Killian Vigna: Exactly.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. So there’s a few things here. It’s really important that if you’re thinking about targeting that specific group in your client database, that you don’t talk to them the same way that you would talk to millennials.

Killian Vigna: It’s a whole different language.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. And not even in just the way you write things or write messages because for instance, if you said, if you’re trying to market eyebrow micro blading, for instance. To millennials, you could say something like, try micro blading for yourself. Get those bold, flaky brows. You’re going to go for that Kardashian kind of feel, feel good, look great kind of vibe.

Killian Vigna: Yeah the real sort of fun kind of attitude.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah exactly. But for those more mature clients you’ll probably go for something like “Provide rich and filled-in eyebrows, keeps your natural look, but it makes you feel more confident, more beautiful in your skin. Try it for yourself, blah blah blah.” So it’s more of like… It’s not the trendy kind of, catch on to the trend, it’s more explaining what it will help you with.

Killian Vigna: Well these aren’t gonna be your clients who are wrapped up in the whole, I suppose the celebrity personalities-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Instagram story, yeah.

Killian Vigna: Yeah the celebrity personalities and stuff like that. Where it’s all these new words that are coming out that are in the dictionary. Listen to your older clients, listen to what they talk about, experiences they have and stuff like that.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: There’s a thing that says, look past the age and look at the attitude. And it says it all. What are you clients job roles? It’s about creating a persona basically for them. So in what industry do they work? What’s a typical day for them? What are their biggest challenges? Where are their concerns in terms of skin or hair or anything really depending on what you provide, obviously? What kind of activities do they like? What kind of associations and social networks do they belong to? How do they prefer to interact? So is it by email?

Do they prefer calling you over the phone? Do they book online? Do they rather just pop in and say hi? It’s all those different things that you have to consider and try and adapt to different groups.

Killian Vigna: Yeah that, how do they prefer to be engaged with or interact. That’s a very important one, because we’ve helped clients out with campaigns where they just wanted to do Facebook ads. But then when we looked deeper into it, why they weren’t getting results, it turns out their clients were older. They were out and kind of… Not busy town stuff like those. And their kinds just don’t use Facebook or stuff like that.

So then we worked out it’s actually SMS marketing because again emails… Now we’re not saying this is all older demographic, there are quite a few who are tech savvy, but we just found emails and Facebook ads just wasn’t really hitting them, but the SMS was getting straight to the phone, that’s where they were getting most of their bookings then, from those Baby Boomer generations.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So that’s one thing and then, obviously if you’re gonna adapt messaging itself, you also want to adapt your marketing imagery and packaging.

Killian Vigna: Well I’m being blunt here and kinda being realistic, but if you’re gonna have… Marketing to a 53-year-old with a picture of a young beautiful 25-year-old, is that realistic?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: It’s not gonna appeal.

Killian Vigna: No because that person, that client knows that they’re not gonna go in and walk out looking like that. So be more realistic.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly yeah. But at the same time, you don’t necessarily also want to have the typical grandmother kind of look. People still feel beautiful, still want to feel good, so there’s loads of calendars and photographs that you can just have a look online of people in their 40s, 50s, 60s that look absolutely stunning.

Killian Vigna: Look at Helen Mirren, that’s realistic.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah exactly. Go for that imagery, and think about who you’re targeting, because even if you say 45 – 70 that’s still a big age bracket. So you might just want to target 40 – 50 with a certain type of image. And then 60 – 70 maybe you’ll do something more in person, go into your community and associate yourself with a local organization or something like that, where you can actually talk to them.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, and don’t be worried about scaring off older clients if you feel you’re doing any marketing that’s, I suppose, too mature. Guys in this age, they’re embracing that golden era, they’ve gotten past [inaudible 00:07:27] They’re happy to be there. So embrace that.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. So realistically, there’s seven tips on that blog. I really encourage you to have a look at it, but the big takeaway from this is just, think about who you’re talking to and adapt your messaging and imagery to that audience. If we go on to the second blog now, so this is-

Killian Vigna: This is a very good one.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: This is a guest article by Michelle Bolger, she writes for us every month now, she’s an employee and law consultant at ESA consultants. She was talking about providing access to salon and spa services for clients with disabilities. And when we say disability, it’s not necessarily just someone who’s in a wheelchair or something. It could also be as simple as someone who has big trouble of anxiety, where it’s hard for them to go into the salon, because they feel very overwhelmed, or just anxious to be there with so many people around.

Killian Vigna: So the hidden disabilities, and that’s what you need to be aware of now.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah because disability… The term disability itself covers such a broad range of issues that – and it goes from physical to mental restrictions – that you can’t really, there’s not many regulations for it at the moment in the industry. But realistically when you think about, that portion of the population does cover about 18% of your market. So it is quite massive when you think about it, and you want to be able to provide services to these people, you know?

Killian Vigna: And what’s so interesting about this is when you hear of disability and having to cater for it, people are thinking of overhauling your salon, putting ramps in, pulling stuff out, making bigger corridors and stuff. It’s not, that’s what’s so amazing, it’s just little small things you can do, to help those clients feel more comfortable.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: She goes, “Six questions to ask yourself”, and I find these six questions absolutely great, and it ties into what you were just saying. So the first one was “Can someone with sight difficulties get into your building safely?” You know? Just something like that. It’s simple, it doesn’t require much, but if-

Killian Vigna: If you have steps, throw a lamp on it.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah exactly. Second one “Can someone with speech difficulties be assured that they’ll be dealt with in a patient and respectful manner?” That again, customer service, it’s not tearing anything in your salon apart, it’s just being aware and helpful.

Killian Vigna: And all that is is… Like we know you’ve got hair dryers and stuff can be running in the background, can be noisy. But it’s just taking them aside to a smaller, little, quieter area and having that comfortable conversation. So they don’t feel like they’re being rushed or you shouting “What? What? What?”

It’s just being aware, they can’t really hear you or they can’t really speak that well so take them over to a nice, quieter area.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Third question she goes, “Can someone who suffers from anxiety be accommodated by having a longer time allocated to their session, so you can go slowly and keep their anxiety at a lower pace?” Makes sense again, maybe even have some lavender oil burning to help things along because it’s just calming.

Killian Vigna: Lavender oil, chamomile tea, even a quick head and shoulder massage, a five minute one before the treatment. Anything to make them feel more relaxed.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And because you do that, they will feel comfortable with you and they will come back to you. They’d rather have that security in their mind to come back to you than to try some other new place and go through that entire process again.

Killian Vigna: And if you do become aware of a client who does have anxiety, maybe it’s a good idea not to offer the coffee. Yeah it just kinda… As we do we go in, oh yeah I’ll take a drink, but that could be something that could rile that up. So just be aware.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Fourth question she goes, “Have you ever spoken to your staff about how to engage with a customer who needs a little more time?” Are they comfortable to do so? Do any of them have any experience with people with disabilities from family, friends. Would they be able to help out other staff members as to how to make it a more welcoming experience for these people?

And then she goes, “Do you have a policy for welcoming those with a disability?” You know, even if it’s just a grandmother having a hard time walking and she has a cane or something, will you help them go to the car, and back and forth… It takes two seconds, but realistically you do that extra effort and it pays off in their mind at least.

Killian Vigna: A client of ours told us about that one, wasn’t it. She walked the woman out to her husband who was waiting in the car, poor husband must have sitting there for hours. She had a few words with the husband and all of a sudden they were just so happy that they kept coming back then over and over. And that was from an initial first visit. So that was a new client

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And it was just walking that person back to the car and saying, “Yep, I’ll book you in as soon as I go back in” and “Hi how are you doing?”, “Have a great day.”

Killian Vigna: Yeah taking an extra 90 seconds out of your day to do that and now you’ve just got yourself a loyal client.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah exactly. And the sixth and last question she says, “Would it really be too expensive to meet someone at their taxi or bus stop and bring them to the salon or walk them back out?” That’s exactly what we just talked about. It all makes sense when you think about it, it’s not about thinking about laws and regulations as per se because it’s kind of all over the place at the moment. There’s no such thing as a particular law, but make the most out of what you can.

Killian Vigna: Again we can give you all this, but you understand your clients, you’re more aware of your clients’ needs than we are. So take this information and tailor it to your salon.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly yeah, so in there she also… Michelle also gives you a few general guidelines that are according to the National Disability Authority, good general guidelines to help your staff accommodate customers with disabilities. So there’s six there, I really encourage you to have a look at this. Start a conversation with your staff, just talk about what you could improve and see and go from there, you know.

Killian Vigna: You could even have a debrief at the end of the day. Were you in contact with any clients that you felt we could do a little more for next time? So get everyone involved in that because like you said earlier in the blog, you could have a staff member who has a family member or a friend who is in that same situation who will have a really good understanding of it. So talk to your team, debrief them at the end of the day or have a warm up meeting at the start. It’s a small thing but like Zoe said it’s 18% of your clients isn’t it?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, 18% of your market, realistically.

Killian Vigna: Of your market yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So it is worth it, and it’ll make everybody happy in the end.

Killian Vigna: Well think about it, when’s the last time you felt uncomfortable or nervous going somewhere? Now take that feeling and flip it around to every client that walks through your door and soon they’ll see your salon as a nice, safe, comfortable place to go to.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly. Yep. So that rounds it up for the blogs, and I believe we are now going to have Graham from FHC hair on the phone.

Killian Vigna: Yeah so we have Graham from FHC. So every year, they host the annual hair show. This is their 12th year going so what it’s about. It’s about getting your community involved and fundraising for a local charity. So every year their local charity of choice is St Michael’s Hospice and like I said, they’ve started 12 years ago and to date they’ve raised £31,000. This event that they held two weeks ago raised £1472 and they ran a circus theme.

So I suppose no better man than to talk about than himself so Graham.  Hi Graham, how are you doing?

Graham Kent: Hi, good morning.

Killian Vigna: So Graham, what is this annual event you hold every year?

Graham Kent: It’s basically a charity event, we chose a local hospice. And as far as the salon’s concerned, it’s a great way of raising our profile locally. It’s all about getting publicity for the salon without doing hard marketing work.

Killian Vigna: Yeah so I suppose it’s getting involved with your local community and other stores around you isn’t it?

Graham Kent: Yeah yeah. We use a local charity, we use a local dance school. We involve all the clients, for instance, one of our clients is a photographer for the event. We have another client who does the videoing. The DJ is one of our clients. It really is pulling everyone together.

Killian Vigna: Yeah you’re really getting your clients involved.

Graham Kent: Yep and of course it’s a great motivator for the staff. Which is really what it’s all about, you know, if you can get your staff committed and they’re having fun then it makes for a happy salon and hopefully a profitable salon.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, and what exactly do you do on the day of that charity.

Graham Kent: Right we use it as… I’ll give you a for instance. This year we chose a theme of circus. So all of our models’ hair styles… And we did 25 models, were all based on a circus theme. So one of the girls picked a traditional circus, another one picked the side shows that you have at a circus. And things like sea lions were created in hair styles. We did jugglers, all that sort of thing, fire eaters was another one of our things. Presented them as a cat walk. So here is out idea of a fire-eater… and then when we got each stylist has presented their particular group of models, because we’re using a local dance school, the dance school can then do a dance routine which reflects what the models have just shown.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: That’s so amazing.

Killian Vigna: And this is all done in your salon, is it?

Graham Kent: No, we are very lucky, we have a dance studio about 200 yards away.

Killian Vigna: Ah even better, so you get the bigger venue?

Graham Kent: Yeah they’ve got two big studios. One we use as a dressing room, and the other one will seat about 120 people. So we convert that into a theatre.

Killian Vigna: So this year you went with the theme of circus, and what really caught our attention was, not just were you hosting these events and getting your clients involved, but the amount of money you raised this year.

Graham Kent: Yeah, we’ve done 12 annual events now and we’ve got the total raised up to £30,000.

Killian Vigna: £30,000

Zoe Belisle-Springer: That is amazing.

Graham Kent: We’re very proud of.

Killian Vigna: From having a bit of fun, basically.

Graham Kent: Yeah basically, yeah. It’s an ongoing event now, because we can start in January talking about it and I’m still talking to you guys two weeks afterwards. We’ve got another probably four weeks of mileage out of it by promoting it to the clients. The local paper took it up, so we got lots of publicity there. The local radio station gives us support, they always give us a plug.

Killian Vigna: And like that, because it’s not just about you, it’s about the community, everyone’s gonna be willing to help share it as well. So I suppose in a way, kind of free marketing nearly?

Graham Kent: Yeah. Well to be honest, between you and me, it is all… From a salon owner’s point of view, it is free publicity. The write up we got in the local paper was two pages. Now I couldn’t afford that. That would probably have been two and a half grand just to get that sort of coverage in the local paper.

Killian Vigna: And most people would be in the same position, yeah.

Graham Kent: Yeah they did photographs, they sent a journalist down to cover it. And then they say, “Yeah this is what it’s all about” We got front page on the local paper as well as two pages inside.

Killian Vigna: So how did you come up with this whole idea-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: 12 years ago.

Killian Vigna: 12 years ago? So before we kind of go into any tips and advice, what made you get on board with this?

Graham Kent: Well I think all businesses are looking for a way to promote their salon, and the local hospice actually approached us and said, would we be prepared to do what they called “A bad hair day” event. We said no, we don’t want to be involved in bad hair, but off the top of my head I said, “We’ll do a hair show”. And the first one we did, I’ve got to admit, was pretty amateurish.

Killian Vigna: Well you’ve gotta start somewhere.

Graham Kent: After 12 years, it goes in the diary every year and in fact, the first email I got from the hospice was “Looking forward to number 13, tell us what the date is.”

Killian Vigna: That’s great because you’re building that relationship with others as well.

Graham Kent: Yeah, as I say, it’s all about the clients now expect it. They get involved, I mean I’ve got a client who comes in and just does the teas and coffees all day. She’s quite happy, she does that, and that’s her job. And I’ve got another client who’ll sit on the desk and sell tickets for us on the night.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And those clients, do they come to you and say, “I want to take part in this, I want to volunteer and help you guys out?” Or…

Graham Kent: Oh yeah, no. Initially, we asked, and now they’d be most put out if we didn’t ask them.

Killian Vigna: Yeah because now you’ve made this an annual thing, it wasn’t just a once-off charity here or there. FHC are now the annual hair show like.

Graham Kent: That’s right, yeah. We have a DJ who gives up two days. He comes to the rehearsals, he sets up all his equipment, and because he’s a client, that’s part and parcel of his annual year. He knows he’s gonna set two days aside for us. He does it for us, we do it for the hospice. And everybody gets a feel-good feedback from it.

Killian Vigna: So you said when you first started, it was kind of a bit amateur-y. What was the general feeling approaching this, were you kind of nervous, did it seem like a lot of work? Did you even second guess it?

Graham Kent: Oh yeah. The things you have to do, right someone’s gotta do posters, someone’s gotta do tickets. It’s not just, “Oh we’re hairdressers, we can do a few models.” You learn the hard way that, “Oh yeah, we need some tickets, who’s gonna do that?” Well you either do it yourself or you chat up a local printer and he says “Yeah if I can put me names on the tickets, I’ll knock out a hundred tickets for you no problem.”

Killian Vigna: So looking out for each other.

Graham Kent: Yeah. And we’ve now got a guy who’s… Again another client, who sponsors us. And all his sponsorship goes towards covering my overheads. So anything the girls want in terms of costumes or makeup, I’ve got a fall back… So it’s not coming out of the salon’s takings, it’s coming out of my sponsorship money. And in return, he gets his name on our posters, his name on the tickets, everything we do on Facebook, “We are sponsored by the local electrical company.”

Killian Vigna: So like we said, it could be an overwhelming thought, do you reckon with the years going through, has it almost become a template? Does it get easier or are you still always trying to think outside the box and challenge yourself?

Graham Kent: The mechanics get easier, because we know where to go to get support now. What gets harder is you make the standards of hairdressing much harder for yourself. Because you’re always saying, “Right we did that last year, we did that the year before, this year we gotta come up with something even better”.

Killian Vigna: So you’re challenging yourself.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And how do the stylists react to this kind of event? Are they extremely motivated? Do they come up with the theme for the show?

Graham Kent: Yeah. We have a brainstorming session and it’s not me that has the ideas. I make sure that everything that we do comes from the staff. And that way you get their commitment. If it’s my idea, they’ll pull faces at it. If it’s their idea they’ll go for it.

Killian Vigna: Make them feel like they’ve come up with it themselves, yeah?

Graham Kent: Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, I sit back and talk them through it. Guide them if I think it’s not gonna work, but I would never say, “No, you can’t do that.” If they’ve got a good idea, we run with it.

Killian Vigna: So Graham, just before we finish up, would you have any advice for any salon owners that were going out and trying to do something like this for the first time?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Even just a general event? Most people don’t really know how to go about events and so if you have even one tip, one thing that you would have done differently that first year, what would that be?

Graham Kent: I think I would have thought it through a lot more. As I say, there’s a lot of things that you think “Oh yeah we’re hairdressers, all we’ve gotta do is get a venue and it’s away.” But even selecting your models, we now work with the local dance school as I say. They provide the models and these are all people who are used to walking out in front of an audience, they’re used to performing, they stand properly. They do what they’re told and you… Probably as every hairdresser knows, you can do a great head of hair and then you say to the client, “Would you be a model?” And she says yes, and then you say”You’ve got to go on a cat walk” And she says “I’m not doing that!”

Killian Vigna: Not into that too well, yeah.

Graham Kent: Yeah so it’s probably… Pick a popular a local charity as you’ve got, the most successful charity in your area is the one you want to promote because everybody knows about it. So it’s no good picking Save the Whales. Pick the one that’s down the road, you know. That everybody knows about. Get yourself a good venue, and then make sure that your models are all confident about performing in public. That’s really what I’d say as my main tips.

Killian Vigna: Sounds spot on, yeah. So Graham, like I said congratulations you’ve 12 years gone, you’ve raised £31,000 for St Michael’s Hospice, and this year with your circus theme you raised £1472, so it is possible.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Congratulations.

Killian Vigna: Congratulations, you really blew it out of the park like.

Graham Kent: You do get a lot of pride from doing it. And it makes the salon’s name, you know, we are known in our area for that. That success. And it brings clients in. Everybody knows us, you know. We work at it with our publicity, Facebook and that is endless, we do it every day. And talking about it to clients every day in the salon. Everybody’s gotta be involved.

Killian Vigna: And it’s showing you’re giving back to the community, too. It’s not all just take take take, like most businesses would.

Graham Kent: Oh without a doubt, without a doubt. Yeah.

Killian Vigna: That’s been absolutely fantastic, and thanks for calling in Graham. I hope you have a successful year 13, yeah.

Graham Kent: Yeah well I’ll text you and let you know how we go.

Killian Vigna: Definitely.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: That sounds great.

Killian Vigna: All the best.

Graham Kent: Thank you.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So moving on to our resources section, we’ve now… Phorest has now released a new eBook, The Salon Owners’ First Steps to Online Reputation Management. Surprise surprise, after we’ve talked about it for so long.

Killian Vigna: For months.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly.

Killian Vigna: Now you have the chance to download all this information yourself and keep it for a bit of homework.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly. So basically in this eBook what we go through is defining online reputation and online defamation. What the differences are. We throw in quite a few stats in there, the effects of online consumer reviews on purchasing decisions. So for instance-

Killian Vigna: Now you say stats, they’re done as pretty infographics. So it’s not scary.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: They’re easy. Yeah, they’re easy to read.

Then we go through understanding the importance of monitoring those online reviews. How to handle negative reviews. Setting yourself up on Google, Yelp and activating Facebook reviews. And at the end, we obviously talk about our own feature, the online reputation manager. And there’s an invitation to get your own online reputation audit of your salon. So there’s an interactive questionnaire that we’ve created here in Phorest.

There’s a link to that questionnaire in the eBook. You can just click on that and start your questionnaire and have a personalized action plan on how to boost your online reputation.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, it’s so much more effective than having me going through it the whole time. Because I was that interactive online reputation audit. But no, it was very interesting doing those audits though, because I suppose everyone takes a Google of their salon, but they know what they’re looking for. Where we had to come with the perspective of, “I’m looking for a salon in that area.” So what pops up? What salons do I see? Who’s rated the most popular?

So it’s very interesting to get a good, good look on how your salon is portrayed online. So, even if you just got the eBook just to check that link out, highly recommend it, yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Definitely yeah yeah yeah. As for the webinars this week, what do we have?

Killian Vigna: So we’ve got two webinars coming up. Now we have one that’s open to everyone, so it’s on at 10am EST or 3pm in Irish UK time. And it’s the Phorest Academy’s Become a Client Retention Expert. So that one is with our head of content Chris Brennan.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yes exactly.

Killian Vigna: It’s exactly what is sounds like, it’s how to retain your clients for longer and become an expert at it. It’s amazing how you just change words around and you get a different explanation. And then the second one is again, anyone can jump on board it, it is going to be more Phorest Salon Software specific, so if you’re a client of ours, I’d recommend this one. But it’s How to Implement an SMS Market Strategy. So we know SMS it comes at a cost, the whole point of this is how to create targeted filter campaigns.

So you get the most return on investment for the minimum spend on SMS. We also go through the importance of SMS, so comparing it to… Well there’s no comparison really like, the best, most effective campaigns are aligning SMS and email. Yep, so you can access both of those webinars through the Phorest Salon Software Facebook page, if you go to events, and you’ll see those events guides there. So you’ll have to go to the Buy Ticket, now they’re free events, it’s just the way it’s set up.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. It’s just to register yeah. Facebook has to… That section is called tickets, so just click on that, it’s free, just save your spot.

Killian Vigna: Click the link, enter your details, you’ll receive a personalized log in code in your email, and you’ll use that code then to get access to the webinars when they go on. So the SMS one is tomorrow and then we don’t… Yep, we’ve no more webinars this week.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah so that pretty much wraps it all doesn’t it?

Killian Vigna: Yeah, so as always guys, if you have any topics you want us to talk about on the show, or if you want to leave feedback you can go on to Podbean or iTunes. iTunes probably-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: iTunes’s the best and the easiest I suppose to leave a review or feedback.

Killian Vigna: Let us know what you think, we’re doing this show for you. Give us some… Even advice, I mean we’re always giving you advice, you give us some advice maybe.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: We’re good listeners.

Killian Vigna: Absolutely anything, just get into contact and let us help tailor this show more for you.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: We wish you a wonderful week, and we’ll catch you next Monday.

Killian Vigna: Have a great week.

Thanks for reading!

#LetsGrow


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Note: Phorest FM is designed to be heard, not read. We encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion which may not translate itself on the page. Podcast transcription by Rev.com