Work less, Earn More? How?
Lately we seem to be hearing from our industry friends, in both hair and beauty that they are working more than ever.
I’ve disected that sentence over and over and I can only hear negatives.
Working more than ever.
In the majority of cases it hasn’t turned into earning more than ever.
Nope! In the majority of cases it has meant feeling overwhelmed, under pressure and burnt out.
So what the hell is happening?
We have all priced ourselves correctly, yes?
(if you haven’t then check out our previous blog posts about pricing correctly!)
So why are we working more than ever?
The answer is simple.
The industry has changed massively!
There have been huge shifts
in the way we work,
what our clients expect
and how accessible we now are.
As we are in an age of instant gratification, our customers expect that our business is available at all times (Ok, not for face to face services) but for enquiries and information.
Add in the fact that a lot of us have taken a leap into self employed life: so we now manage our own bookings, social media, enquiries, complaints, payments, insurance etc
Before we know it we have got to the end of a busy week and
We have an inbox FULL of enquiries to respond to.
We are responding to customers via social media on our days off.
We are cancelling on our friends and family because we are so tired
We are rowing with our loved ones for being ‘on your phone’ all of the time
You go to bed “working”
and wake up “working”
Before we have said Good Morning to our husband/boyfriend/wife/girlfriend/kids we have reached for the phone and responded to a customer or checked our inbox
I mean…what’s the other option? You can’t ignore the clients right?
My challenge is this: Take a minute to look at your phone analytics. (if your on Apple its Settings > Screen Time > See All Activity)
Calculate your last month worth of Admin time on your phone. Consider which apps you use in your business
Instagram
Booking system
Facebook
Business banking app
What’s app
Email
Pinterest
Planoly
Canva
Then add the number of client facing hours you did.
Now look at how much your earned last month and work out the pay per hour.
For example:
If you work 20 hours per week (client facing)
PLUS 4 hours average per day on “Admin”
You have worked 206.40hrs that month
If you took home £1000 (after tax, stock and rent etc)
You worked for £4.84 per hour. Which is equivalent or less to an apprentice wage.
Would you take a job for less than National Minimum Wage? Even if it was your passion?
So what are we to do about this?
I get it, most people don’t want to double or triple their prices to include admin time.
Customers won’t always wait for business hours for a response.
So how about reducing admin time?
To reduce your working hours, whilst still giving professional, bespoke and fast responses to your enquiries, which actually convert into bookings.
Spend your “work time” with paying customers and have a bullet proof system in place to give your new customers and customer enquiries consistent responses, even on your day off.
Sounds to good to be true? I promise you it isn’t. I also promise you that I’m not trying to sell you a computer/booking system.
I have created and used a customer journey map in our salon business for a while now.
I created this to be able to identify and remove pain points and barriers for our customers and team, but what I have realised is
Since making some small tweaks and changes in our customer journey, the difference in the Work/Life balance of both myself and my team has been incredible!
I realised that my customer journey map could make massive changes to other freelance hairdressers, who currently spend too much time dealing with customer enquiries and are getting burnt out! So I shared my knowledge, experience and resources with other industry professionals and they have seen the same results:
Working less
Earning more
Having more “free time”
Enjoying quality time with their family and friends
Even going on holiday without either A) responding to customers whilst on the beach or B) coming home to 100’s of messages and having g to work extra to get back on top of the appointments and admin missed.
Having a high converting customer journey which attracts the ideal customer into their business without having to deal with hours of “admin time”
I have proven methods and systems which really work, even if you don’t have an online booking system, and I want to reach more and more people to help them to remove these problems.
That’s why I am taking HEIR Educations best selling, high impact challenge to Earn More and Work less and including it in our Marketing Membership for Salon Owners who want to grow their business
I want to share our strategies with more and more industry professionals, so more and more passionate, professional hairdressers finally get the work/life balance they deserve!
If you have read this far, then on some level I have resonated with you.
Want to know more about the membership which will drastically improve your work/life balance?
Here are a few of the top questions about the newest Salon Specific Marketing Education:
Time Commitment?
Yes there is a time commitment, but I want our membership to be super accessible and easy to digest so I am delivering the content via pre recorded videos so you can watch and rewatch as many times as you need to! We also hold weekly live zoom sessions where we literally hold your hand and guide you through the problems you may face whilst trying to implement your new marketing strategy.
2. Final Result?
If you implement all of the strategies, you will be able to work less and earn more. You will have a business that works for you, by drastically reducing your admin time and create a high converting customer journey.
3. Is the membership suitable for me? It’s suited to: Salon Owners and Freelance hairdressers (or beauty professionals) who are overwhelmed with enquiries and admin time and are ready for the business to start working for you to give you more time and the opportunity to earn more!
If you are ready to join the community of industry professionals who are enjoying their free time whilst hey are still generating sales and revenue in their business, then now is the time to reserve your place in our membership!