You Don't Own a Salon. You Own A Business.
In his latest blog, Leon Alexander Ph.D., challenges industry conventional thinking to help owners add more to their bottom lines.
Digital Directors: Ronit Enos & Lacey Richardson at Maxime Beauty
As serving as a digital director for her salon Maxime Beauty, Ronit Enos decided it was time to grow her own.
July 1, 2014
3 min to read
Maxime Beauty
Hingham, Massachusetts
Owned by: Ronit Enos
Digital Director: Ronit Enos
Asst. Digital Director and Guest Care: Lacey Richardson
At 1,300 square feet, one might assume that Maxime Beauty in Hingham, Massachusetts, may be too small to have its own digital director, but owner Ronit Enos would disagree. While Enos, who is constantly pushing the technology, still considers herself the salon’s digital director, she’s working hard to groom her successor.
Lacey Richardson, assistant digital director at Maxime Beauty, and Ronit Enos, owner of Maxime Beauty.
Lacey Richardson currently serves as the salon’s assistant digital director and guest care, and in addition to posting most of the content the duo develops, she also serves as a gatekeeper for Israeli-born Enos, from whom English is a second language. “I might still manage the voice, but Lacey does quite a bit of editing for grammar, spelling and meaning, ” Enos says.
“I’ve learned quite a bit through social media classes and have been managing it myself by committing about five hours a week,” she says. “I’m looking forward to Lacey taking over that role. We sit down together every Tuesday for a few hours to plan our next marketing and branding steps. And in late September, we’ll dedicate three days to Strategies’ Game Planning Retreat where we’ll beplanning our calendar for the next year.”
Enos makes a habit of tapping third-party experts to fill in the marketing and technology gaps. Every six weeks, she brings in a technology consultation group who teaches her and her staff the latest new thing, and she counsels with a PR specialist to help with media and brand development.
While the consultants can be expensive, Enos feels they help her business stay on the digital cutting edge. For example, this past year Enos noted all the persona quizzes on Facebook luring people to discover what country they should live in or which Game of Thrones character they would be, and she decided a persona quiz would be a great consultation icebreaker.
Working with her daughter’s boyfriend who is a copywriter, then 619 Design out of San Diego, Enos spend approximately $700 to design her own two-minute engagement tool that helps clients and prospects determine their own personal style.
“Developing the quiz can be a little tricky, because you want to ensure that whatever outcome someone receives is flattering, and they think, ‘Wow, this is cool!” she says. “Not only does the quiz make our website and our social media vehicles more engaging, we’ve incorporated it into the salon service. When staff members are taking clients, especially new ones, through a consultation, they hand the guest an iPad and invite them to take the persona quiz. It helps open up dialogue, helps the client envision herself with a different style, and helps to develop that important relationship.”
Richardson isn’t the only staff member Enos is reeling in to help develop digital content. She recently assigned her latest class of new talent members an assignment where each an apprentice go into a going a store in their area and interviewing a sales consultant about what is currently trending in fashion, beauty and hair and how what is trending nationally is different than what is trending locally. Conducting the interview and turning in the paper was a condition of graduation, and Enos posted the best one and gave the graduate a credit. “The experience will teach them how to be social, ask questions, develop relationships with store owners---they can post it, promote the new relationship and create some buzz,” Enos says.
New stylists aren’t the only members Enos enrolls in her content development. To support the salon’s upcoming launch of the V76 men’s line, she’s asked each stylist to pick one of their mail clients to profile with a Q&A. Enos will bring in a photographer to capture the men’s finished looks and over the next year, the salon’s site will post a Man of the Month profile.
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