Secrets to Selling More Retail

One of the most common complaints I hear from salon owners, is that their team members fail to upsell. They seem to have no trouble selling treatments to their clients, but add-on sales of products seem to be a different matter altogether. So why is this so?

Well, talk to most beauticians and they will tell you that they are beauticians, not sales people. They don’t like ’selling’ to their. Many feel that if their clients wanted to purchase products they would ask for them. This unwillingness to ’sell’ to clients often stems from the belief systems of the person asked to do the sales. If they believe that sales people are sleezy, untrustworth or unprofessional, then of course they themselves are not going to want to be seen as a sales person in the eyes of their clients.

If you suspect that this is the challenge with the team members you employ in your salon, there is a simple test to prove your theory. Sit your team down with a pen a paper and ask them ‘Ok in the next 2 minutes I want you to write down every word that you can think of that describes a salesperson’. They might need a bit of encouragement, so offer a suggestion like ‘Helpful, good listener etc’ to get them started. After 2 minutes get them to stop writing and ask them to call out everything they have written down. Chances are more than 80% of the comments will be negative, such as ‘untrustworthy, rip off, liar’ etc. If this is the case, then it’s easy to see why your team are not ’selling’ products to your salons clients.

So how do you overcome this? Simply by explaining to your team that they are not ’sales people’. They are in fact professional therapists, and as professionals, they need to offer their clients the best possible after salon care products. Give the example of going to the doctor. You’re feeling sick so you go to the doctor. Your doctor is a health care professional who gives you advice on what your suffering from, and the best way to treat it. He or she will then give you a script for medicine that will hopefully correct the problem. Now ask yourself this ‘Is this doctor a salesperson?’ The answer is of course NO. Similiarly when a client goes to a salon, they are expecting professional advice. Not only on what treatment will give them the best, most beautiful outcome, but also what products they should be purchasing to help them maintain their beautiful appearance in between treatments.

Get your team to view product sales as a beauty ‘perscription’ rather than a sale, and you’re well on the way to increasing your profits through professional advice.