Client Retention Guidebook
Everything you need to know about client retention as a salon owner.
The Smooth Upsell
According to Nufree Founder Normajean Fusco, a savvy stylist can easily upsell profit-boosting hair removal services to the average client ticket and still handle the same volume of clients each day.
June 21, 2013
2 min to read
“A grocery story wouldn’t make it, if all they sold was orange juice,” says Normajean Fusco, the founder of Equibal Labs and its Nufree hair removal system. “For the same reason, a salon needs to offer clients more than just haircuts.”
According to Fusco, hair removal services are the easiest and most profitable add-on services for salons. “Hair removal services bring in $1 or more of profit per minute,” she says. “For example, the average salon charges $12 to $16 for a brow service which can be accomplished in 15 minutes. So if a stylist charges $40 for a haircut, she can increase that to $55 a client and still manage the same volume of clients per day.”
In addition, hair removal services should be offered to both male and female guests. “For men, it’s important for addressing the uni-brow, as well as removing hair on the back and the nape of the neck—especially in warm weather seasons when that hair can promote perspiration and be irritating,” says Fusco.
Since hair removal can be a sensitive topic for some service professionals to bring up, the company taps technology to make the suggestive sell even easier. The company provides flyers, customized for both male and female clients, which the salon’s greeter can pass out, as well as looped DVDs that can be played on monitors in the salon. All Nufree education is offered for free and can be accessed through the company’s website (nufree.com) or through Smartphone applications developed for the iPhone and Android. Once salons are certified with NuFree, and as long as they maintain current education, interested potential clients will be routed to them through the company’s national ad campaigns and website through a salon locator.
“The registration is important because there are a lot of hair removal products out there, but the techniques in the services don’t transfer from one product to the next. And, today there are several inferior products that are sold through infomercials and the internet for in-home use, and many clients are harming themselves,” says Fusco. “It’s important that stylists maintain their education and stress the importance of a professional service to their clientele.”
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