The end of last year must have felt like a race to the finish line for your business. Between squeezing in every last-minute client who insisted “it won’t take long, I promise!” and an excessive number of silly-season parties (and glasses of bubbles to go with them), we bet you wish you could have spent most of January curled up in a ball on the couch recovering.
Now you (hopefully) feel a little more refreshed, it’s time to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and ask “what’s next?!”
We have a feeling the year ahead is going to be a goodie, and while you have some down time in, it’s time to get your salon straightened up after hurricane December.
1. Check your prices
Inflation is the buzzword from 2022 that’s also taking over 2023 (and can it not?!). Prices are going up everywhereeee. Stock, product, rent and wages are all shooting for the sky – which means you might need to re-evaluate your pricing to combat that and keep turning a profit ♥
Set aside a day to go over your salon’s pricing and make any necessary adjustments. (Don’t forget to notify your clients of any price increases!)
2. Restock your shelves
Did Christmas completely clear your shelves of stock and you’re not exactly sure what you have left and what you need to replace? Then it’s stocktake time! During any downtime your employees may have during the day, have them perform a stocktake so you know what you need to reorder, and what products can stay where they belong… back in 2022.
Click here to watch a quick video on how to perform a stocktake 🧴
3. Plan out your salon marketing calendar
Salon marketing is so much more than recording a TikTok and hoping goes viral. Effective marketing needs a strategy and planning to get bang for your buck.
Carve out a day to sit down and set your salon marketing plan for the year. Map out your busy periods and your slower periods, so you know when you need to run campaigns to fill your appointment book and drive extra revenue. Brainstorm offers, new client campaigns, referral campaigns, and loyalty campaigns so you have a game plan to stick to throughout the year.
4. Customise your online booking
Last year, Shortcuts’ Online Booking had a glow up 💅 If you were flat-strap busy when it launched and didn’t have a chance to get customised and branded to suit your salon – now is the time! It’s super easy to do and will save you so much time in the future. Not to mention make a killer first impression when client’s make online bookings.
Click here to customise your Online Booking 👈
5. Spruce up your employees’ profiles
You’d be surprised at how much of the employee info in your appointment book is also client facing, in places like your online booking. So, it’s so important that you make sure their photos, bios and capabilities are ready for customers’ eyes!
For the best first impression possible, update your staff photos to new, professional images. Write their bios so it tells the client a bit about them, make sure their capabilities are accurate, and rosters are nailed down.
6. Deep clean your client data
Accurate client data could be the difference between your clients’ showing up for their appointments, and not. Within Shortcuts, there is a super useful client card accuracy report that you can use to spruce up your client data. The report shows you what data you have from client profile cards. You can then drill down into the fields – for example, if you drill down on the mobile number field, you will see which clients don’t have a mobile number recorded. Meaning they’ll never get an appointment reminder text!
Once you have lists of clients with incomplete client cards, you set yourself a business target to increase the percentage of clients with complete client cards. The best way to achieve this is to have better data on client profile the best way to do that is to hand the online client profile card to the customer to update themselves.
Check out these quick videos to learn more about tidying up online client information cards.
On the other hand, if you’re overwhelmed by a sea of duplicate clients in your database, Shortcuts has a nifty little merge feature to tidy up those duplicates ASAP.
Watch this video to learn how to merge clients.
7. Reward your top spenders
Want to know who your most valuable clients are? Shortcuts has a top spenders report – so you can drill down and find the clients that love your salon and the gorgeous work you do!
Once you know who they are, you can target them with a special rewards program. To find out who your top spenders are, and for a tried-and-true rewards program that will earn your salon $$ instantly, check out this blog 👈
8. Review your reports
Your data is business decision GOLD! It should form the foundation of any decisions you make for the year.
On top of the client card accuracy report and the top spenders report, here are some of our favourite reports you can access in Shortcuts:
- The client retention report shows you the retention rates for new and existing clients.
- The non-returning client report to see which clients’ haven’t returned within an expected timeframe.
- The value of future appointments report to help forecast future revenue
- The top selling services and products report to help find your best sellers
- The business sales summary to see where you stand with sales
- The employee ranking report to see how your employees are performing next to each other.
Shortcuts is jam-packed full of valuable reports that will tell you so much about your business! Log in to Shortcuts and have a browse today.
9. Set employee targets
The start of a new year means reviewing and/or resetting your employees’ goals and targets for the year.
With Shortcuts Targets feature, you can set and view employee targets from any device, anywhere. As a salon manager, you have your own dashboard to see where your team are sitting with their KPI’s. Likewise, individual employees have their own dashboard they can access to see how they’re tracking with their KPI’s for the week, month, year or any time frame they choose.
Click here to learn more about Targets!
10. Invest in yourself!
We know how busy you are doing what you do best – servicing your amazing clients! But what kinds of things are you doing to invest in yourself?
Shortcuts can act as a super affordable PA for the time-consuming admin tasks and freeing up your time to do what you do best! Shortcuts will be your best-business partner, if you have the know-how to get the most out of it. Invest in yourself by having one-on-one education with a Shortcuts Coach to ensure you are getting the most out of Shortcuts.
You can book in training with an experienced Shortcuts Coach who came straight from the industry and truly gets how your business works!
Visit the Shortcuts Shop to explore our training options today. 🥰
