Phorest FM Episode 103: Phil Jackson On Using Facebook Messenger To Drive Conversations With Salon Clients

Killian Vigna: Welcome to the Phorest FM podcast, episode 103. I’m Killian Vigna.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And I’m Zoe Belisle Springer. This week on the show, we’re joined by industry mentor and author Phil Jackson as we have a look at how salons can think innovatively about building rewarding conversations with their customers, and more specifically, why salons should be using Facebook Messenger. We’ll also discuss Phil’s latest seven-week industry program, Salon Spark.

Killian Vigna: So grab yourself a cup of coffee, sit back, relax, and join us weekly for all your salon’s business and marketing needs. Good morning Zoe.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Good morning, Killian. Hey, you’re going to have to excuse my nasally voice again this week. I got sick again. You can blame the weather here!

Killian Vigna: I’m not surprised. You’re in minus what over there? Actually, I couldn’t believe it. You’re covered in snow, and you put up into our Facebook chat there the other day a guy skiing down your road. Actually not skiing, he was on a sledge with like three dogs.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. That’s my neighbourhood, yeah.

Killian Vigna: That’s insane!

Zoe Belisle-Springer: We’re like in minus 20s-ish, I suppose. Celsius.

Killian Vigna: I’m sitting here freezing, and it’s only like what two, three degrees, and I’m in a room.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Ah yeah, sure. We’ll deal with it, it’s okay! But listen, about today, I’m excited about this episode. It’s kind of the first, I suppose, regular episode of the year after last week’s monthly roundup.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, and we’re welcoming back Phil Jackson onto the show. Now Phil was with us on Phorest FM at the… pretty much at the beginning, like episode 26 where we discussed email marketing. So drawing on 20 years of salon experience, Phil – he’s an entrepreneur, the owner of award-winning salon Bravo Hairdressing, and he’s a salon consultant and author with a passion for the salon industry. What we’re going to talk about here… We actually have two things we’re going to discuss, but the first one we’re going to focus on is Facebook Messenger. Now it’s no secret that messaging is the fastest growing form of communication between friends and family, and increasingly now businesses. Decided last night – I’ll check out a few stats on the Facebook Messenger site just to really build us up for this episode, and really put Phil on the spot here. There’s like 61% of people in the UK who have messaged a business in the last three months, 53% of people are more likely to shop at a business they can message directly, and more than one in two people consider business messaging the modern way to communicate. So pretty big stats there.

Introducing Phil Jackson [02:30]

Killian Vigna: Without further ado, Phil, welcome back to Phorest FM. It’s great to have you again!

Phil Jackson: Thank you so much for having me back! It’s an absolute pleasure.

Killian Vigna: Well you did a good job the first time, so we said hey we’ll give it another shot!

Phil Jackson: But it took you 18 months to recover, didn’t it?!

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Details, details…

Killian Vigna: But look at all the audio equipment you have there now. We all have brand new mics, proper studio setups. We were just waiting for the big one to sound great.

Phil Jackson: We are all enjoying our Christmas gifts aren’t we.

Facebook Messenger, a salon business essential? [03:00]

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Definitely are. Yeah so Phil, we’ve already mentioned you were on the show in episode 26. We were talking about email marketing, and 18 months later now we’re talking about Facebook Messenger. I suppose what’s so different about it? Why should salons be using Facebook Messenger? Obviously, we’re going to discuss more than that, but let’s just kick it off with why is it this new business essential?

Phil Jackson: Well, a lot has changed in 18 months, to be honest with you. Messenger, I think it’s been on everyone’s radar in a social way for quite a long time now. Facebook has been very clear that this is going to be the big growth strategy over the next few years. Then more recently, we’re hearing that they’re going to be combining Facebook Messenger with WhatsApp and Instagram as well, so it’s only going to become more and more relevant. Then, of course, we had lots of stuff with GDPR, which changed the marketing landscape for lots of us, particularly on email marketing as well.

But I think what’s happening in a much more subtle way, is we’ve now got a generation of people who are spending money in our businesses, and they’ve leapfrogged a whole batch of technology. They’re people that have never particularly used email, and they’re people that have never particularly used SMS even, and they’ve gone straight into these instant response conversations.

As they’re spending power increases, I think this is going to become much more important. Then, of course, there are some trailblazers leading the way on the technology front. We’re seeing lots of businesses embracing this in a very innovative way. I think it’s about time the salon industry bumped up their ideas a little bit and caught up, because ultimately what we’re talking about of course is conversations, and that’s something we do really well.

Killian Vigna: One thing I want to ask though is… okay so we’re so used to the phone calls. If you ring up a salon and you can’t get through, we recommend you use voicemails. With emails, if they cannot get through, you have an autoresponder. With those, when you are busy you’ve got to have those auto-responses and just assure the clients that you will get back to them, you’re just busy at the moment. You’re still busy, and now you’re saying to add another form of communication. To me, it’s an instant messenger. People have, like you said, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, we’re expecting instant responses now. How does a smaller salon deal with that because the last thing anyone wants to see is just seen on the Messenger? What do you put into place when people are looking for instant responses using Facebook Messenger?

Phil Jackson: Okay, so you need to jump into the settings. If you go onto your Facebook page and click Settings, and then there’s a whole messaging section. You can set up an auto-response, which goes out to everybody who communicates with you through Messenger. It just lets the customer know that their message has been received in the same way as a voicemail would if somebody called into the salon, and I think that’s a really good start, so at least people know the message has got through and you’re going to get back to it when you are able to. But I think there’s also… Oh I’m going to start telling people off now, sorry! There’s also a bit of a mindset shift that we need around this method of communication. In fact, about lots of our communication. I work a lot on what we call Messenger bots, which takes care of lots of inquiries automatically. People are putting these things in place because they’re seeing these messages as a kind of irritation.

I kind of think that’s a little bit, I don’t know… I don’t want to use the word arrogant, but what a horrible attitude to have! Oh god, people want to talk to me about business. I mean this is supposed to be a good thing, guys. People are supposed to be making phone calls and getting in touch with you because they want to spend money with you. I think we kind of need to see that this is a good thing and perhaps be a little bit more grateful when people are trying to reach out for us. I do think though the autoresponder should be something that’s switched on in everybody’s Facebook page. I’ll be really honest with you, I mean I know we’re talking about how salons can use Facebook Messenger, they are using Facebook Messenger, it’s just they’re using it really, really badly. It’s not necessarily about me telling people to use Facebook Messenger for marketing, it’s about just making that much more effective and listening to our conversations in a much more meaningful way.

I think ultimately if this is going to be something that just irritates you, just switch it off. That’s in that Settings section as well. If you really can’t be bothered with it and you’re fed up with people sending you messages through the evening, just switch the whole thing off because it will be doing more harm than good if you’re not actually listening to those messages.

Using Messenger bots to drive conversations and grow your salon or spa [07:36]

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. Something that you did mention just there was the bots. I know that you’ve been playing around with bots in the last year, or at least a couple months I suppose. Is there… For anyone already using Facebook Messenger to its full extent or capacity, how do you even go about creating your own bot? Have you seen good results from it? Is there anything that you could do in the salon landscape for that?

Phil Jackson: Well yeah. I mean I’ve been building bots for salons for I’d say seriously for about the last six months. It’s something that I’ve been playing with for my own salon for quite a long time. My own salon is always my testing ground for these things. They can be really effective. The reason I started building bots for other people was again; I just saw people getting this really wrong. What people are trying to do is shift their entire website onto Facebook Messenger, which just isn’t going to work. But what the bot can do is take care of a lot of those simple queries. Now I think this is where people go wrong. I think they start to automate without really understanding what it is that customers want.

The first step I think is really just to have a look at the conversations that you’re having and the kind of questions that you’re being asked. Then once we’ve got those responses sorted in a human way, we can look at responding in an automated way. It’s always the conversation comes first, and then we can automate that conversation after. I’ve got plenty of examples of the kind of thing that we are putting into the bots. In my own salon in Newbury, anyone who knows Newbury knows that parking is an absolute nightmare, so we’ve got a whole section which is about the location of the salon and good places to park. Anyone who mentions the word park or parking, and it’s a menu option in my Messenger bot as well, we can direct them to good places to be.

The other one that’s got really good results in my salon was around hair extensions. Now we charge for hair extensions consultations, and then occasionally when we want to see an influx of new clients for extensions, we’ll run a promo where we do free consultations. But I’ll be really honest with you guys, a lot of those consultations are a waste of time. You’ve got people coming in with an inch and a half of hair, and they want hair down to their back, and it’s just not going to happen. What we did was put a whole automated sequence of binary questions, so yes-no questions, that gently led people through the initial stage of that consultation through Messenger, so they were kind of self-selecting. Then the leads that we were getting for hair extensions at the end of that process were much, much better. They were only coming into the salon if they’d been through those preliminary questions. It kind of got rid of a lot of tire kickers and stopped wasting quite so much of our time.

Killian Vigna: Just kind of to do with that conversation of communication, you’re saying don’t put your whole website up, just have a few options, analyse your messages. Does Facebook offer any analytics at the moment, or do you literally just have to go through each message yourself and kind of see what people are asking?

Phil Jackson: It’s about the conversation, so we’re literally just going through and just make a mental note or even a physical note of the kind of conversations that you’re having. If you get three people asking in the same day what your pricing is, then maybe it’s a good idea to start getting some of your pricing information into Messenger. I would use a secondary piece of software to sit on the back of Messenger, though. There are bot builders out there, and some of them you can start for free as well. The big two are called Chatfuel and ManyChat. I use ManyChat because I find it the easiest. It’s literally dropping blocks into a sequence. It’s kind of like a little flow chart that you can build. I would say that you don’t need to be a web designer to be able to use Many Chat. I’d say it’s probably… If you can put a three-part email campaign together, you can certainly build your own bot.

Killian Vigna: So it’s like a form of logic. If they select this, give them these options. If they select that, give them the next few options.

Phil Jackson: Absolutely.

Killian Vigna: Or for anyone who’s played Bandersnatch on Netflix, it’s kind of like picking the scenario.

Phil Jackson: Absolutely. Kind of think of it as a sequence of menus.

Killian Vigna: Yeah. In terms of that communication then, are we talking keep it SMS style in terms of length, and mixing between words and emojis? Have you found any kind of… Like do you go all out in emojis and make it all fun, or do you keep it very business-focused, words short, straight to the point? How did you find your communication styles?

Phil Jackson: Okay. I think if you can imagine a scale where number 10 is a written apology to a customer arriving by post and number one is you and your friend drunk on a Saturday, I would say that email communication is probably around a seven or an eight, and I reckon your Messenger communication needs to be around a five or a six. It’s slightly more casual than email. These are, after all, called Messenger chats, so it is chatty. But I think the key to it is to be really clear about who it is that you’re talking to. If you’ve done your work on your customer avatar, that should give you a consistent voice across all platforms. If you have a look at the Bravo Hairdressing bot, it’s very light-hearted and a little bit tongue and cheek, and quite cheeky because that’s what I know our customer avatar responds to. I think as long as you’re talking with a consistent voice across platforms, you’ll be fine. But, shorter messages, emoji to death, little pictures and GIFs work really well as well. It is that kind of casual chat.

Phil Jackson’s top three Facebook Messenger recommendations [13:27]

Zoe Belisle-Springer: If you were to, and I suppose we’ll move into Salon Spark after this, but if you were to give three recommendations to salon owners around Facebook Messenger and how they use it, what would be those three recommendations?

Phil Jackson: The first one would be to switch on that auto-respond. If you do nothing else today, get into the settings and make sure that you’re responding automatically to every inquiry that comes through Messenger. The second one I think would be to really drill down on your customer avatar and make sure we’ve got that consistent voice, so you know the kind of pitch and tone for the messages that you’re sending. The third would be to stop seeing it as something to be afraid of. I mean the results that we’re getting through Messenger are much better than we were ever getting through email. Emails you’re looking now open rates of about 20%. We can get messages that are opened very very quickly with 70% to 90% open rates. I mean it really is phenomenal. But it’s supposed to be light-hearted, it’s supposed to be fun, and it’s supposed to be human. So you’re allowed to get these things wrong a little bit, probably more so than you do in an email or on your website. Enjoy it. It’s supposed to be a conversation, it’s supposed to be fun, and it’s supposed to be quite light-hearted too.

Killian Vigna: Before we move over I’m just kind of really interested, you’re talking about the avatars. When chatbots first came out, it was quite obvious that you were talking to a chatbot and not a person. Do you emphasise the fact that you aren’t talking to a person here?

Phil Jackson: I do. I think if you are pretending that your chatbot is a person and the chatbot starts to spit out some kind of not quite accurate answers to what people are asking, I think you’re just going to come across in a really strange way. I go all over, I go in the other direction. I make it really, really obvious they’re talking to a bot. I give the bot a name, and I give it a little avatar of its own. For example, in BuildYourSalon, you chat to Brad the Bot. It’s very, very obvious that it’s not a human being. Because also at some stage you’re going to want the human being to take over those conversations, ideally, because that’s where the sale and the conversion come in, so it’s quite nice I think to emphasise that the bot is finished and now you’re chatting to a human.

Killian Vigna: I’m so glad you said that because I was talking to an airline chatbot the other day and it infuriated me because they kept trying to make it sound like it was a person you were talking to, but they kept spitting back the exact same responses template for template. Yeah, so just emphasise the fact you are talking to a robot first and foremost.

Phil Jackson: I think it’s a real mistake to try and mask the fact and to come across as too human. Like I said, if you embrace that and enjoy it and give it a little personality of its own, you can have some really good fun too.

Salon Spark Announcement [16:15]

Killian Vigna: Okay, cool. Now let’s move on to the second side of this, which I know you’re dying to talk about. We’ve mentioned in the intro that you have a new program coming out called Salon Spark. It’s a seven-week group coaching program meant to put the spark back into your business. If I’m a salon owner, first and foremost, what is Salon Spark?

Phil Jackson: Salon Spark is my baby. Salon Spark is what I’ve been working on for the last six months. It’s been through beta testing, and there are students enrolled in Salon Spark now, but it’s rolling out in a really big way at the end of this month with Phorest’s help actually. Essentially what I’ve done is identified I think that the seven key areas that I can offer salons some help with. I’ve put together really quite an intensive program.

What happens is you sign up for Salon Spark, and then each week some video content or worksheets will be downloaded into your member area. We’re going to go through how to reduce overwhelm and get everything done. We’re going to talk about how we should be measuring performance in our business, so we’re going to look at KPIs. We’re going to help people put a really effective marketing plan together. We’re going to talk about email of course because I always talk about email. We’re going to talk about recruitment, which is a really tough one for a lot of salons at the moment. We’re going to talk about one to ones and performance management. We’re going through team meetings. There’s so much content in there. I don’t want anyone to go away thinking this is going to be an easy ride. This is for serious salon owners who are looking to really get the year off to a cracking start.

Then all of that is supported with some live calls with myself, and I know you guys are going to come on and help me too. We’ve got two live webinars in there and two live, what I call any question answer calls. If there’s anything we’re not covering in the program, then people can bring that to the table too.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: For anyone looking into this, you can join from literally anywhere in the world as long as you do your homework and you watch those videos, and you do the worksheets and all of that.

Phil Jackson: Absolutely. Now the program… Normally, I sign people up for 550 pounds. It’s an investment. That kind of makes sure that I’ve got serious salon owners involved. But you’ve got, why don’t you tell us [crosstalk 00:18:35]. Why don’t you tell everyone what Phorest is doing as a late Christmas present?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, absolutely. Well like you said, this time around we’re sponsoring this class, so this seven-week program. You said it was going to start towards the end of the month. We’ll give all the information around that at the end, but yes, Phorest Salon Software offer is sponsoring Salon Spark this coming month, and so you actually get it for free this time to enrol. But, the requirement is still to be very serious about it.

Phil Jackson: The requirement is to be really serious about it. We’ve got a maximum of 100 places, which Phorest have very kindly sponsored. We’re going to take 100 salon owners through the program. Yeah, you’re going to get all of my help and support, and Phorest is going to help us along the way as well, so it’s going to be really good. But I do want to point out you don’t, sorry guys, but you don’t have to be a Phorest customer to sign up. I do think you need to be using some salon software though because when we start talking about KPIs and things that are going to be tricky if you haven’t got any software at all. Also, I will point out there’s no obligation to Phorest at the end either. This is genuinely seven weeks of free group coaching.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yes, I totally back that up.

Phil Jackson: It’s on film now, so we can’t back out of that. There is no obligation.

Killian Vigna: So the minute this goes out we’ve basically filled up 100 slots. For anyone that may be a little hesitant, what is the format of this? You said it’s an intense seven weeks, but what is the actual commitment required from the salon owner to do this?

Phil Jackson: Okay, so every week a new module is going to land in your member’s area. That’s a self-study module, so that’s video content usually supported with worksheets. You go through that at your own pace. I would say you need about two and a half hours a week, so about an hour to go through the content and about an hour and a half to keep up to date with your homework. Then on top of that, we’ve got four live calls. The first one is on the 26th of February, and that’s our kickoff intro session. Those live calls are usually about an hour, but two of those live calls, like I’ve said, they’re my any question answered calls, and I will literally stay online as long as people have questions. I think our record in Salon Spark was two and a half hours for that call, but as long as people have got stuff that needs answers to then, I will stay on the line and help for as long as I need to.

Killian Vigna: Can someone, if they can’t make the live ones because things happen, things come up, is it a necessity, or can they just access recordings of those?

Phil Jackson: The recordings do make it into the member’s area, but I don’t usually tell people that. Okay, I’ll be really honest with you, you’re not going to get the maximum benefit from the training if you’re not attending… I mean I appreciate there are four live calls you may not be able to make all of them, but they’re always going to be on Tuesdays. They’re always going to be at 3:00 pm, so I really do encourage people to make room in their diary for the calls because that’s… When I’ve looked at the students that have gone through the training, the ones that turn up and show up and are coachable are the ones that get the best results out of this. There is a commitment in there, but yes the recordings are going to be there so if people really can’t make it for some reason, then they can catch up too.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, and just a quick note on that, you said 3:00 p.m., that’s 3:00 p.m. UK Ireland time. Not to…

Phil Jackson: Yeah, it’s 3:00 p.m. where I am.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly.

Killian Vigna: Center of the day. But yeah, I mean look you said things happen, but it’s best to make them all. If you’re really serious about growing your business, you are going to attend everything, you are going to go through this the way it should be.

Phil Jackson: It’s the only thing I’m a little bit nervous about is by Phorest being so generous and giving the places away I do need to emphasise that I really only want people that are really serious about growth in 2019.

Killian Vigna: So what are you most excited about kicking off this course actually? We’ve asked about the course, but what about you?

Phil Jackson: Me? I am-

Killian Vigna: … you said this is your baby!

Phil Jackson: This is my baby. The thing I’m most excited about is with your guy’s help we’re going to be taking 100 salon owners, I mean can you imagine the impact that’s going to be having. Me on my own I couldn’t sign up maybe 15, 25 people at a time, but with you guys’ help, we’re really going to make a difference to some salons this year. I’m really excited about that. And I love the live calls. I love getting online with my salon owners and just figuring out what’s going on in their heads and going on in their businesses, and helping them through some blocks.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: It’s going to be super exciting! I mean that’s why we got behind it at the end of the day. I think both our mission statements are very much aligned in the way that we want to help salons grow their business. It’s kind of at the heart of everything we do. So yeah, very excited to jump on that journey with you and with all of the students as well.

Phil Jackson: Honestly, it’s a massive boost to the program, and I’m very very grateful that you guys are involved.

Killian Vigna: Okay, Phil, here’s your moment, here’s your final push to really promote it out there. A quick summary of it, and how do we sign up for it?

Phil Jackson: Okay. I’ve set up a bit.ly link, so it’s bit.ly/signupspark all in one word. You head to that link and fill in your details. If you’re one of the first 100, you can grab a place. We’ve got seven weeks of very intense learning to really help you put the spark back in your business. By that, I mean getting away from that plateau, really getting you back to enjoying your business again and feeling like you’re in full control.

Killian Vigna: Well listen, Phil, thanks a million for joining us on the show today. You’ve really shed some light onto Facebook Messenger, and I’m sure we already have salon owners jumping on board with that now. I really wish you all the best with your program. I can’t wait to see how it works out for you.

Phil Jackson: Thank so much for having me back! I’ve really enjoyed it. Thanks.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Catch you soon on the live call!

Phil Jackson: Can’t wait! Can’t wait. It’s scary stuff mate, it’s scary stuff. You need to be absolutely on form and get rid of that cold.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Oh, I’m ready! Alright, Phil, have a good one!

Inside Phorest: reflections, upcoming events & final words [24:22]

Killian Vigna: So you’ve got the low down on Facebook Messenger, and I’m sure everyone is jumping straight onto it already, along with signing up for Phil Jackson’s Salon Spark sessions. What else have we got Zoe?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah well if anyone here is listening from the West coast in the U.S., on March 24th and 25th we’re going to be in Seattle! Phorest is going to be in Seattle. We’re happy to announce that we’re a proud sponsor of this year’s Thrive Sessions, a two-day intensive workshops for 300 and 500 students. If you recall from last year, we were at the Denver Thrive Sessions, and it’s moved to Seattle this year. For anyone looking to attend, the event is taking place on March 24th, 25th, at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle, Washington state. The premise of the weekend, essentially, is to reach your creative potential with a transformative and educational experience designed to help you grow your business, increase your client base, and thrive in today’s competitive salon environment.

Killian Vigna: Sounds good. We’ve got the premise. Is there anything we can expect to see over the weekend?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Of course! Loads and loads of classes. Last year was absolutely fantastic. I was walking around and taking loads of photos. There was; obviously, there’s a sponsor room, so there was a booth there. There was Sinead there as well. But yeah, I was walking around. This year I’ll be actually over to present and give an hour-long class titled “Lights, Camera, Post: Photography Basics For A Standout Portfolio.” Essentially in this session… It’s going to be hosted on both days, so I’m going to be doing it on the 24th and on the 25th, it will help you improve your understanding of composition, light, give you tips on how you can apply those concepts to your salon photos, and I’ll also discuss some of the tools that we in Phorest have developed to help salons and stylists build their portfolio, boost their presence, and improve their engagement rate on Instagram.

Killian Vigna: Great, so big focus on photography and Instagram. Is there anything they can get from that session? Are you giving anything away?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Of course we are, we always are.

Killian Vigna: [crosstalk 00:26:23].

Zoe Belisle-Springer: I should probably mention that all attendees will receive a light lunch and an exclusive copy of The Salon Owner’s Guide to Instagram ebook if they attend the session.

Killian Vigna: Sounds great. How do we sign up Zoe?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: For pricing and for more information, you can head over to thrive-sessions.com. Now all of this will be in the show’s notes. But yeah, thrive-sessions.com and all the information, the pricing is there. You can get the full package, or you can get just the day one, or just day two, or even the Thrive night. Yeah, loads to consider and hopefully we’ll see you in Seattle on March 24th and 25th!

Otherwise, that’s all we’ve got for this week guys. As always, if you want to share your thoughts on this episode or have any suggestions, you can send us an email at phorestfm@phorest.com, or leave us a review on iTunes. We genuinely love feedback and are always looking for ways to improve the show. Have a wonderful week, and we’ll catch you next Monday.

Killian Vigna: All the best!

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