The Key to a successful holiday season
Throughout my life, I have heard a particular phrase from a wide variety of different sources: happy wife, happy life. As a kid, I heard it and it rolled off me like water on a duck’s feathers. But as I heard it more as I got older, I started paying attention. The four word phrase was so simple, yet so profound. It even helped shape my career and maybe even the world as we know it! Let me explain.
In my life and salon, I adapted this well-known phrase to happy team, live the dream! As we roll on toward the holiday season, I want to offer a fresh perspective that will prove meaningful long after you pack up your holiday decorations. Here’s my logic:
I believe success is contingent upon the solidarity of your team. During the holidays, the four major metrics my team is tasked with increasing are:
- Service dollars
- Upgrades and service add-ons
- Take HomeSM revenue
- Giving back to the community
And in my experience, hitting these marks, providing great customer service and boosting consumer buy-in is a direct by-product of a well-connected team. When you focus on the relationships among your team internally, it is much easier to meet your goals. Therefore, during the holiday season, I take time to do the following:
- Publicly celebrate and reward your team with products that you provide in the salon. This gives them an opportunity to experience a new product or method of styling their hair and, in turn, refresh their conversation with their guests.
- Take your leaders out to an amazing dinner, preferably somewhere that they don’t usually go. Margaret Cromeans taught me this lesson early in my career. She would take me to places with a high level of service and, eventually, I realized the real gift was in the lesson. These outings introduced me to a high level of service and allowed me to experience it from a consumer’s perspective—an important lesson that could be applied when trying to actively raise my service dollar and service add-ons in the salon. All too often we don’t take the time to understand the value of receiving great service because, as hairdressers, we are usually on the giving end. When we experience great service, we are better equipped to deliver it to our guests. Increased service dollars and add-on services will be a product of your team experiencing elite service themselves.
- The holiday season is all about giving back and in my experience one of the greatest investments you can make is in your team. Host an amazing holiday party with specific awards for outstanding performance, community involvement, commitment to family and friends to boost team morale—a non-tangible element of a well-run salon. Take this time to set goals for the next year to continue your success and unite as a team.
This holiday season, focus on the most crucial foundation that will make your salon efficient and successful: your team. Remember happy team, live the dream!
