Welcome to the Salon Owner’s Podcast, Phorest FM Episode 36. 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 36
July coming to an end also marks the end of our 30-day salon owners challenge! This episode will feature some last words on the campaign from Phorest Salon Software CEO, Ronan Perceval, but of course, it is a monthly round-up so we’ll also be discussing some of the most popular topics this month.
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Transcript
Killian Vigna: Welcome to the Phorest FM Podcast episode 36. I’m Killian Vigna.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: I’m Zoe Belisle-Springer.
Killian Vigna: This week’s episode is around July’s most popular posts from the Phorest Salon Software blog with some final #30Days2Grow words from our CEO, Ronan Perceval.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â As always we top off the show with our upcoming Phorest Academy Webinars.
Killian Vigna: 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, end of July, monthly roundup.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: As usual, yeah. There was a lot of things going on in July, and the first most popular post was-
Killian Vigna: These are always the kind of, they’re always up there, aren’t they?
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Oh, they’re always up there. Yeah. It was the August Salon promotional toolkit, or marketing toolkit, right. All the ideas that you can try and implement in your salon in August to help you bring in more business, or even just retain clients, and things like that. We had taken a break in, there was no toolkit for July, so this is the first one coming back from that.
This has a few graphics, there are SMS templates, there’s also a giving back to your community kind of checklist. We’ve been talking about that all month, so we decided to put together a little something for you guys to help you reach out to these organizations and charities. That’s there, yeah.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, that whole getting involved in your local, yeah.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, exactly. There’s loads there. I’m not going to focus so much on this blog, just because we had actually spoken loads about it in a previous episode. That was there, that’s on the blog, it’s still available for a free download as usual. There’s loads of content there, so jump on board and go pick that up.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, and for the Phorest Salon Software clients out there, we actually have the August newsletter, so the monthly August email template uploaded and the SMS templates. As always, they’re just templates, so run through and kind of tailor it to your own salon. Change the content around, maybe somebody that just might be beauty in your hair salon, vice versa, again it’s just guidelines.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly, yeah. The second most popular post was also another one that we had spoken about in a previous episode, and that was about creating your salon mission statement. It tied in really perfectly with #30Days2Grow, the challenge, so-
Killian Vigna: It was one of the challenges, wasn’t it?
Zoe Belisle-Springer: No, it wasn’t exactly one of the challenges, but it just tied in perfectly with it.
Killian Vigna: Okay.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: What this blog was all about was just to think about why you got into the industry to begin with, why you created your business, and sit down, write down exactly what you expect to achieve and what the purpose of your business is. It’s kind of like your blueprint for your staff, for yourself, for anyone who comes on board in the next years or anything.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, for anyone that still isn’t too sure of how to craft the perfect mission statement, because ours is perfect, obviously. Yeah, an example one, so ours is, “Getting your clients back more often, spending more.” It’s not, “We’re the best salon software, or we’re going to be the biggest salon software in the world,” because like that’s, like how do you know when you’ve hit that level?
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Exactly. It’s so vague, it’s not like a proper objective of why you’ve actually decided to go on with this business.
Killian Vigna: Exactly. What are your values? Is that …
Zoe Belisle-Springer: That’s, yeah, that’s pretty much the essence of that blog. As always, like it is hosted on Phorest Blog, you also can go back onto previous Phorest FM episodes where we did discuss that whole blog on itself. The third most popular blog, and this one we didn’t really have, we didn’t really chat about this one.
This one was a blog by Valerie Delforge, and she wrote about, “The Top 10-Need-To-Know Tips For Every First-Time Salon Manager.” It was a really, really interesting one because it’s something that can be kind of scary when you’ve never been into this big of a role of like managing people and stuff like that.
Killian Vigna: This kind of, is this from the approach of say I was a manager of a shop and now I’ve moved into a salon, is it?
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â No, well, it could have been that.
Killian Vigna: Or you have worked in a salon and been promoted?
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, both options could have been-
Killian Vigna: Oh, so it’s open enough, yeah.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like if you had worked in a shop as a manager you’d probably know most of these things because it’s basically just changing industries, but the role of a manager doesn’t change so much. I guess it is way more beneficial for people who are working in a salon and then are promoted to a manager role.
Killian Vigna: Promoted into the role.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, exactly.
Killian Vigna: Cool.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: She goes through 10 need to know tips, like the first one is how to investigate on customer complaints, find out what’s happening within the salon before you actually get onto anything else. Just find out how the salon is perceived by clients and non-client. Then HR issues, how to deal with those. Recruitment, so finding out what the process is, ensuring the process, if there is one, is efficient, and if not, then put your own mark on it. Then she goes through budget and targets, she also suggests to observe the salon dynamic. Everyone working-
Killian Vigna: Kind of a backseat approach nearly, isn’t it?
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Yeah. Yeah. Just understanding how the team is built, how people interact with each other, how the team interacts with the clients. That would give you a better understanding of what you can change and what needs to be changed. Then creating your vision, individual meetings, checking the procedures that are currently in place. Asking yourself if you have anything to implement to make the salon run more smoothly. Then, nine and ten, 90-day action plan and not ever undervaluing team meetings.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, like bring your team together, after all you are a team, you’re only going to work as well as you work with each other. It’s again, it’s that whole thing of if I’m a client coming into your salon, you will sense if there’s tension or stuff like that.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Exactly, yeah. Obviously like I’ve just listed them off, but in the blog they’re all described one by one. It’s a really, really interesting blog to read. If ever you are a salon manager, you’ve been for years and you think we’ve missed something, let us know. Add us, write us a comment in the blog, and we can amend or even just use that a suggestion, maybe popup another blog on it.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, cool.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Yeah, so fourth and final most popular blog of the month was-
Killian Vigna: These ones are always a big, again like other than the marketing toolkit, these are a given.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Yeah, well, I mean announcing Tabatha Coffey for The Salon Owners Summit was kind of a given. Yeah.
Killian Vigna: Yeah.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: It was for sure going to end up in the top popular ones. If you haven’t heard, we will have Tabatha Coffey as our keynote speaker at Salon Owners Summit 2018, along with other industry speakers, so Steve Martin, Gavin Hoare, Valerie Delforge. We haven’t announced everything surrounding the Summit yet, so obviously-
Killian Vigna: We have to keep some surprises.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Oh, like the tours and things like that haven’t been announced yet. If you don’t know Tabatha Coffey, she is a best selling author and the star of hit US TV series Tabatha Takes Over, and I strongly recommend you check out the blog. There’s a huge description there of who she is and what she does, and she really knows her stuff.
Killian Vigna: You’re going to want to see this woman.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Oh, yeah, definitely.
Killian Vigna: Like for anyone who’s seen her show, she goes in and tears the salon apart essentially. The Gordon Ramsay of salons.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Kind of, yeah. That’s how I see her too, yeah.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, even just check out some videos.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â On YouTube, yeah.
Killian Vigna: You’re bound to learn a mindful of knowledge from her.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. That’s pretty much our four most popular ones. Today also marks the end of the #30Days2Grow challenge.
Killian Vigna: 31 days, exactly today.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Yeah.
Killian Vigna: It was well planned. Who did that? Yeah.
Zoe Belisle: How are you feeling about that?
Killian Vigna: Feeling about it ending?
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.
Killian Vigna: Really sad, because there’s just been an absolute utter buzz in our office for the last six weeks, yeah, six weeks, because we’ve had-
Zoe Belisle-Springer: The prep to do it, yeah.
Killian Vigna: The prep beforehand and then we’ve just loved tuning into the Facebook group every morning and-
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Doing the Facebook Lives on the Mondays as well.
Killian Vigna: The Facebook lives, yeah. No, it’s honestly been a great buzz, because we got to see how exciting salon owners got about this, how involved they got about it. Because they really wanted to, like I said, they might have had their salon going in the right direction, but they just wanted to see what areas they were missing.
Because it’s easy when you’re doing everything to miss some parts of your salon, like the marketing, the accounts, things like those. I think, yeah, no, there was like the feedback we were getting was brilliant, even emails. People were just so excited about it, yeah.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah. If you didn’t know, and if you weren’t participating, so we had been running a contest for the registrants. One of the prizes was to get a featured interview on our podcast, and we have our winner. Do you want to do the honors?
Killian Vigna: Yes, drumroll… Lilac Miller!
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, so we will be reaching out obviously. Lilac Miller, you will have a featured interview on our podcast.
Killian Vigna: You just forgot to say congratulations.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Oh, I’m sorry.
Killian Vigna: Congratulations, Lilac.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Congratulations.
Killian Vigna: It’s kind of a big deal.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: It is.
Killian Vigna: I hope you’re as excited to be on the show as we are.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Yeah, it’s going to be great. I can’t wait to hear from some-
Killian Vigna: I’m dying to hear your story. Yeah. Because we’ve seen, like I said, we’re hearing from salon owners every day, little snippets, pictures going up, but I want to hear how you, how you got on. We want to hear, everyone here wants to here-
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Everybody, yeah.
Killian Vigna: …how you got on over the 31 days, because I mean like 31 days, it doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re still running a salon on top of doing this, yeah, it’d be great, and kind of, why did you sign up? Why did you want to do this in the first place? How involved were you in your team? Did you do it all yourself, or did you include your team? How much more open are you now to your clients? Like everything, there are so many questions.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Where did you see a massive difference with the challenge, like what changed over a period of a month? Because it’s bound, like something is bound to change.
Killian Vigna: Oh, has to be. Yeah.
Zoe Belisle: Yeah. That’ll be really, really interesting. For anyone who has participated in the contest, we will be sending out a little gift, a little surprise.
Killian Vigna: Just something teeny-tiny.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Just a little something.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, you’ve got that surprise, and then, everyone, just keep an eye on your email, just check that out.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: For anything else, we will be having a Facebook Live today, with our last one of the #30Days2Grow Facebook lives.
Killian Vigna: That’s going to be at 3 p.m. GMT, which is Irish time for anyone over this side, and if you’re over on the Eastern side, that’s 10 a.m.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: It is, yes, 10 a.m.
Killian Vigna: 10 a.m. Yeah, if you have a few minutes, I know you’re not going to be able to watch the full thing, but if you have a few minutes, check out that Facebook Live. Now it’s not three o’clock on the button.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.
Killian Vigna: It’s going to be, yeah. A bit of flexibility.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Well it’s around three o’clock.
Killian Vigna: Yeah, pretty much.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: You’ll see a little live button appear on the Phorest page, if you just go there. There’s no like link to signup or anything, you just go onto the Phorest Salon Software Facebook page, and then there’s a little live button that will appear, you just click on that, go to the post.
Killian Vigna: The video will be published later on today anyway, won’t it?
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, exactly.
Killian Vigna: It’ll be up on the group and on the page.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Yeah, of course. We’ll probably include it in our final little email.
Killian Vigna: I want to see what celebrations you’re doing. Is anyone doing a celebration with their team? What have you got planned? It’s the 31st day.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly, yeah.
Killian Vigna: Come on, share it. Throw everything into that group.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, we’d love to have the feedback.
Killian Vigna: I’d love to see who has the biggest party.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: In which country do you think that will happen? Ireland, UK?
Killian Vigna: I’m saying nothing.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â US?
Killian Vigna: To really, really wrap up the #30Days2Grow, what better way than from the man himself, CEO Ronan Perceval. Now he was a busy, busy man today, so we literally pushed him into a really quiet room, gave him a phone and said, “Ronan, talk. Say something.” Check it out.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â We’ll just play that now.
Ronan Perceval:Â #30Days2Grow has come to an end, it’s been a fantastic experience I think for all of us here in Phorest, and especially for all of you guys that took part. The big thing about#30Days2Grow was obviously increasing your average bill, so how you guys can get your clients spending more money with you. There have been so many different ways that we’ve looked at doing that, whether it’s selling more retail, adding additional services, doing magical moments in your salon so that more people recommend you and come in, to just putting up your prices. At the end there we had that as well. There’s loads of ways you can do that, and I think the reason that we did all those things is also the same reason that we’re announcing this new feature today, which is the new weekly update that every salon owner that uses Phorest will get every Monday morning at about 8 a.m., and in that new weekly update there’s going to be loads of figures telling you how your business is performing, in terms of increasing your average bill.
The top figure at the very top will be how many visits you had last week and what your average bill was, and has that gone up or down from the week earlier? Then lower down in the email, we’re going to breakdown each part of your business on how you’re performing that can impact that and increase your average bill. There will be things like, “How’s your TreatCard program going?” Because as you, many of you will know, the more TreatCard, the more clients that have a treat card and are getting treats, the more people are trying out services, which then leads them to spend more in your salon, be happier, you get a bigger average bill, they’re more likely to refer you because they’re experiencing more things in your salon and it’s a sort of positive feedback loop. There’s lots of things like that within the software that can help you increase your average bill. You would have got it this morning, so I recommend you go and have a good read of that, and get used to it.
Some people have asked me, and I think we put up a blog post there last week. They’ve asked me, “Why is this so important?” I think for me personally and for a lot of the team in Phorest who’ve been here a long time, we’ve been working in the industry for nearly 14 years now, and personally I’ve visited, I think I’ve visited something like 4,000 salons during that time, so a huge number of different salons. I’ve seen every type of salon you can imagine and I can see ones that are doing really well and ones that aren’t doing really well, and the thing that always struck me over the years, is that the salons that kind of focused on their average bill and focused on increasing that, tended to do better than those that didn’t. If that’s the one thing that I saw over those 14 years in the ones that do really well. They may not sit down every morning and go like, “Well, how do I get my average bill up?”
What they’ll tend to do is they’ll be doing things in the salon that will impact the average bill, even if they don’t realize that that’s what they’re doing. It’s been amazing to see Phorest where we see the data over thousands of salons and millions of transactions and import this every month, you start to see that, how that plays out. The ones that focus on it, by doing, implementing those tools tend to do better and tend to have more money in their pocket at the end of the month and at the end of the year.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: That’s pretty much it for our monthly roundup, but if we just top this off with the Phorest Academy Webinars as usual.
Killian Vigna: As always.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â We have a brand new one, and that will be the Salon Instagram Masterclass. That will take place for the very, very first time on August 21st at 3 p.m. UK, Ireland time, or 10 a.m. US Eastern time.
Killian Vigna: In this Phorest Academy first, the Instagram Masterclass, going to go through a couple of things, so like setting up your Instagram the right way, getting the most out of your Instagram posts, what are the best practices on the platform, and obviously the big one, the who’s who and who to follow.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, exactly.
Killian Vigna: Who are all your influencers and whatnot.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, and just how to get inspired by other accounts and –
Killian Vigna: Well, it’s like, yeah, it’s like any social media account, you’re only going to get value out of it the more people you follow, the more you create your own timeline. Start following people, start getting inspiration and start regurgitating that stuff.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly, and that’s led by none other than Chris Brennan, our content manager.
Killian Vigna: Chris Brennan.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: Who you probably know from the Facebook Masterclass anyways.
Killian Vigna: And who we just had last week telling us about storytelling, so I can’t wait for this story that he’s got.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Yeah, exactly. Jump onboard for that, but if you, if that’s a little too far away for you, there is also the Retailing Masterclass, which takes place on Wednesday, August 2nd, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. UK, Ireland time, or 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. US Eastern time, and that’s led by myself. We go through ways to create a retailing culture in your salon and breakdown the barriers of selling retail.
Killian Vigna: Yeah. Exactly.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Yeah.
Killian Vigna: As always you can go to the Phorest Salon Software Facebook page, go to events, find the events you want to register for, click “buy tickets” or “find tickets”. Now, as always it’s a free event, you just submit your registration details and then you’ll get a unique code for you to log in.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â Exactly, and that’s going to be through email, so just be mindful of that. It’ll come from GoTo Webinar.
Killian Vigna: Yeah. I’m excited for that one, I saw the slide deck. It looks good.
Zoe Belisle-Springer: It looks really good.
Killian Vigna: He’s made it interesting. How are you enjoying the show? Is there anyone you want to hear? As always leave us some feedback or, jeez, it would be nice if you could leave in writing. iTunes or Podbean, whatever you use, yeah, let us know how we’re getting on, how you’re getting on, and what we can do to improve this podcast.
Zoe Belisle-Springer:Â The show is made for you as always, and we wish you a wonderful week. We’ll catch you next Monday.
Killian Vigna: All the best.
Thanks for reading!
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