CLAIROL PROFESSIONAL BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION
Whether You’re Looking for a Rich Color Boost or to Cover Grays Longer, it’s Now Possible to Relax and Color Clients on the Same Day

Click here for the Beautiful Collection Advanced Gray Solution Fact Sheet

CLAIROL PROFESSIONAL BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION
Whether You’re Looking for a Rich Color Boost or to Cover Grays Longer, it’s Now Possible to Relax and Color Clients on the Same Day

Go from Gray to Gorgeous with the New Beautiful Collection Advanced Gray Solution ($5.99, 3 oz.)

Advanced Gray Solution Benefits:
• Enhances natural color and provides full-scale gray coverage by depositing rich tones that last up to twice as long*
• New and revolutionary SynAIRgy technology delivers longer-lasting gray coverage that leaves hair looking and feeling moisturized with no harmful side effects. Offers the convenience and moisturizing benefits of relaxing and coloring in one salon session
• SynAIRgy formula lasts longer because of its two dye systems: Direct acting dyes; and oxidative dyes that work with the oxygen from the “Air” so color directly penetrates the hair–which allows it to last longer over time
• Provides up to 50% gray coverage (versus up to 25% for most other semi-permanent colors)
• Full range of no-peroxide, no-ammonia colors in five new shades to flatter a variety of skin tones: Midnight Black, Light Golden Chestnut, Dark Rich Brown, Mahogany Brown and Burgundy Brown
• Lasts 10-12 shampoos
• Launches in March 2009
Give the Color Relaxed Hair Thirsts for with the Beautiful Collection Moisturizing Color ($4.99, 3 oz.)

Moisturizing Color Benefits:
• Refreshes color after a chemical treatment to give hair a feeling of moisture
• Enriched formula contains Aloe Vera, Jojoba Oil, and Vitamin E to add shine and condition hair
• Full range of no-peroxide, no-ammonia colors in 15 rich shades of brunette, blonde, and red to flatter a variety of skin tones
• Adds up to 45% more shine vs. uncolored hair
• Lasts 4-8 shampoos

*Compared to Beautiful Collection Moisturizing Color

BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION BENEFITS:
• Semi-Permanent hair color developed specifically for relaxed or textured hair
• Offers the convenience and moisturizing benefits of relaxing and coloring in one session
• Leaves hair silky soft, shiny, and beautiful
• The addition of the Advanced Gray Solution to the Beautiful Collection portfolio aims to deliver against an unmet need for the African-American 35+ consumer

SALON APPLICATION – Shampoo and towel dry hair. Apply generously directly from bottle quickly and evenly from scalp to ends. Saturate hair. Process 25 minutes at room temperature. Rinse well. Do not shampoo.

IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING A RELAXER SERVICE – Follow application instructions. Process up to 25 minutes. Check every five minutes for desired color results. Rinse well. Heat is not recommended due to hair porosity.

FOR LONGER-LASTING RESULTS USING MOISTURIZING COLOR – Follow standard application instructions. Cover hair with a plastic cap. Process under a warm dryer for 10 minutes.”Cool five minutes. Rinse well. Do not shampoo.

Clairol Professional is available through local distributors and at professional beauty supply stores across the U.S. To find a store or distributor near you or for more information, visit www.clairolpro.com or call (800) 221-4900

KNOW YOUR CLIENT

She pays your bills. Learn as much about her as your own family to provide what she needs in beauty services and products.

Find your best clients and aim for more. It’s been proven that 20% of any business’ customers generate 80% of revenue.

Give her what she wants. Have what she wants, when she wants it, where and how she wants it.

Look for client commonalities. What attributes do your best clients share? Are they working women? Young mothers? Actively retired? Structure your business around their shared traits.

Ask yourself over and over—what does she want? Dig deep. Discover what your clients are looking for extraordinary service? Convenient location and selection? Value pricing? A luxurious experience?

DEFINE YOUR BRAND

Develop your salon brand around your target client, not yourself.

Be the best solution to her beauty needs—whatever they may be.

Entice her visually. Make sure your visual identity (ads, etc.) matches your client’s preferences, to draw her to you.

Refine your portfolio to offer everything clients want, not everything you can do.

Speak sincerely. Speak consistently. Your client will hear you twice as loud and feel your message absolutely.

CREATE HER EXPERIENCE

Take a good, hard look around your salon, as if you were a client. Like what you see? If not, change it.

Take the Client Tour. Start at the door and work your way through the salon. A client’s experience of your salon goes way beyond the chair.

Set the right tone. Your décor helps create an atmosphere; but it’s not all that’s needed to create the right experience.

Make her first impression stand out. Is your reception area what she expects? Some may want to relax, others want to feel they’re in the hippest place in town. It’s up to them how you create the experience.

Team up to win. Match your team to your target client’s needs and train them to support those needs.

BECOME THE AUTHORITY

Educate, educate, educate—yourself and your team.

Know what clients need, not just what they want, and share your expertise.

Pay strict attention. Focus the conversation solely on her beauty needs.

Help her look good between salon visits—show her, teach her, make suggestions.

Make a product recommendation…every time you see her. It’s part of the service. She knows what she wants and looks to you for what she needs.

EXECUTE WITH EXCELLENCE

Do it right, every time. Repetition is a key to success.

Change your world one action at a time rather than trying to do everything at once.

Stay focused. Maximize your salon’s potential by executing one strategy at a time.

Create a system for every action—don’t depend on your own feelings of the moment—whether it’s for your team, your décor or your client service rules.

Build in accountability for staff actions. Can you guarantee your services? Offer a discount if stylist doesn’t recommend best product for her? What would your clients want? Do it!

Five-by-five is a radio communications expression meaning “loud and clear.” It means signal strength and clarity of message are at their best.

This month I interview Jeremy Schwartz, director of marketing & media at Resource Interactive, Columbus, OH, a P&G partner agency specializing in digital and i-media that shares our belief in making long-lasting and meaningful brand-to-consumer relationships.

John: Jeremy, conventional wisdom says that if you’re in business you must have a website. Is that still true?

Jeremy: Absolutely. Every company must give customers basic information needed to find it. The Internet is where consumers prefer to get their information today, so having a website is essential. But consumers may never come to your site so look into newer technology too. Not maintaining current information on your website is worse than not having one at all!

John: At P&G, we research what our customers want and need to guide us in developing innovative products. We always include a way to measure success. I understand your process is similar. But what does a smaller business like a salon need to have a best-in-class web presence?

Jeremy: It starts with clear, basic information. That’s the bottom layer of the pyramid, if you will. Having your services, staff, pricing, location, phone numbers, etc., is basic to every website. Then add promotions, gift cards, and special offers. Another layer might be a seasonal or how-to tip to visually sell your stylists and services. Online booking is the pinnacle of the pyramid, along with links to social media sites. It’s all about providing information to make customers’ lives easier.

John: Word-of-mouth is the classic marketing tool for salons. It sounds like social media is an extension of that. Social marketing can extend the stylist’s relationship with clients beyond their time in the chair and keep the conversation going. But has it replaced traditional advertising?

Jeremy: Social marketing is another marketing tool—whether it’s for P&G or a neighborhood salon. The first step—know your customer. Find out how they chose your salon, what they want, what media they use—whether it’s print, TV or digital—and then be in that space.

John: I’ve heard that 60% of all time online is now spent in social media.

Amazing how quickly it has grown. How should a salon get involved? How can they know which one and how much to be involved in social media?

Jeremy: Tough question, John. Again, it all starts with your customers. Be where they are. Facebook has 500 million “friends” worldwide. Engagement needs to be real. Value is important. Providing consistent updates—promotions, photos, and salon events—is essential. You need to “test & learn” what reaches and makes your clientele react.

Flickr and YouTube are great for contests because people there want to vote and share. Plus, everyone wants to get a peek into other people’s lives. Show before-and-after shots or video asking people to vote on their favorite look. Twitter is simply 140 characters of information that tells a story. Make Tweets spontaneous and frequent, like a special offer.

John: Wow! How does a small business keep up?

Jeremy: Turn your staff into social marketers or find a company with a good track record to help you. Find someone who listens to you and understands your customer.

John: What’s ahead? And how does a salon compete without a huge budget?

Jeremy: There’s so much happening quickly…mobile marketing is the next big thing. Then there’s location-based advertising…customized content enabling a mobile user to get an offer or coupon when they (and their phone) pass your salon! Social shopping is an awesome concept that lets consumers buy directly from a Facebook posting.

The future is about providing whatever a customer wants, whenever she wants it and however she wants to get it. If your salon focuses on providing great service and exceeding client expectations, they—your customers—will do the social marketing for you!

Experience = Value

By looking at the numbers the salon’s business software (Millenium) provides, Reg noticed that while new guests were coming in all the time, there was a serious drop-off after the third appointment.

“At first we couldn’t figure out why,” says Laws, “so we observed how these guests were being treated during their follow-up appointments.

“We have a rigorous training program for our staff on how to treat a new guest on her first visit that translates into a wonderful first-time experience. The problem we discovered by talking with clients was that the second, and then the third visit, just did not match up with that first-time experience. The result was guests leaving for another salon…searching for that wonderful “first-time” experience.”

Hi-Touch Solution

Reg and his leadership team quickly instituted a training element for staff in communicating with the returning client…teaching them how to make every visit feel like a first-time experience. “We knew that it wasn’t the money, but the experience, that caused guests to move on from our salons. “Now our pros talk with every client during each visit about their hair, how they liked the last cut, color or style and how the Sebastian products they took home worked for them. We listen and they know we care about them each time they visit PR at Partners.

“We already had a new-guest call-back program in-place where they heard from us about week after their first appointment,” notes Reg. “We added an email program for guests returning to the salon for second and third visits. Our goal is to duplicate that first-time experience on every guest visit.”

Retention, rebooking and referral are three of the seven most important elements of a successful salon business, according to Reg. “By checking our retention numbers regularly we know that our training is paying off. We still don’t keep every new guest, but our numbers are improving. And we did it by training our people, not discounting our prices.

“Our website (www.PRatPartners.com) includes a listing by location of each of our stylists. There’s a photo and short bio of each, plus photos of their work. Consumers come to our site to get information on which salon is most convenient and which stylist might be the best for them and their hair. We emphasize to our stylists to include what makes them unique so that guests can identify with them.”

“ Technology is essential to track the numbers and be aware of how your business is doing. We use technology to identify any problems…and then use people-skills to solve them.”

- Reg Laws

She chose to aim her business at women with the resources and the desire to spend their beauty dollars in a luxurious salon atmosphere. The spa came later but is now an integral part of the total Mitchell’s experience. And experience is the key to catching and keeping your target client.

“I learned everything I could about my target clients—staying at hotels where they stayed, eating at their favorite restaurants, looking at ads in magazines aimed at them—everything that helped me create the salon experience they preferred.”

Then she and her team created Mitchell’s for these luxury-loving clients—and it’s still the same today, no matter which salon a client visits—relaxing, private, luxurious. Creating the right experience, she cautions, is not just about the physical look of the salon, although keeping the design fresh, clean and in keeping with what the client likes is essential. It’s also about your marketing, your staff, and your services, including retailing the right product mix for them.

About 10 years ago, the Mitchell’s team began to notice a client group who didn’t seem comfortable in these luxurious salons. This client was age 15-25 and most likely came to the salon because her mother did. But it didn’t excite them, didn’t feel right for them or make them eager to come back.

Time again for research as they had done years before, to learn all about this younger client. Once they felt they knew her, Pump was created. Everything about the two Pump salons is diff erent from Mitchell’s—from the services, to the ads, window displays and even a separate and very diff erent website.

“One thing I’ve learned from working with P&G Salon Professional,” says Schmidt, “is that we don’t have to offer everything—whether in services or retail products—we just have to have exactly what our target client wants, when she wants it and in an environment in which she feels comfortable. She is really the captain of our salon team!”