Speaker 1: Hi my friends, Sam Villa here and I'm really excited to be sitting here with Sean LaRusso today here in Phoenix, Arizona and he is the successful salon owner of three salons, Madison Avenue Salon and Day Spa. Sean, thanks for taking the time coming into the Sam Villa virtual studio and having some business conversation which I think in today's world is really, really important. You know, Sean, I used to have the attitude as a hairdresser, I'm not a sales person, I'm an artist. Retail, as the years went on in the industry, I realized how important retail was and how important it was to really help that person that was sitting in my chair. What about Mass Nav? What retail incentives do you have in place, how important, how do you get your stylist involved to like making the client understand how important product, the proper product is for them in terms of retail?

Speaker 2: I think any business, the critical, essential piece to it is client retention. And so if you go back and you start studying statistics in the salon world, the more commitment you get from a customer to purchase a product or product or retail products from you, the higher retention of that customer you have. And it actually goes from one product to two to three and in three, the client retention is off the charts. And so what we start out with is, what is our goal? Meaning that if they buy three, chance is they're going to come back. Exactly. You increase the chance of retaining them, bringing them back. So what we typically start with is, okay, what is our goal? Our goal is to obviously retain clients, to build a client base. How do we do that? Well, one of the critical pieces to that is learning how to retail to that individual client. And it all starts with education. So when that client sits in the chair, you know, our goal is to make sure that we're educating them every single step of the way, every single product that's being used on their hair. From the shampoo to the conditioner, back to the chair itself and the styling aids and styling products, everything has to be educated. They have got to make sure that they're well informed of what they're using and they can transfer that information on to the individual who's in their chair. I once had a conversation with one of my estheticians years ago. She was an unbelievable esthetician, did extremely well on the service side. Didn't really sell much product though, didn't sell much retail at all. And she came to me one day and said, you know, I'm just, just what you said earlier. I'm just not, I don't, I don't want to be pushy. I'm not a salesperson. That's not what I do. And I had a conversation with her and I said, you cannot, you have to understand, I said, when you walk into the doctor's office, do you think of the doctor as a pushy salesperson? No. When the doctor asks you or tells you, okay, I'm going to give you this prescription to heal what's going on, do you look and go, I'm not going to buy that. You go to the drugstore, you get the prescription and you're done. And so the red light went off in her head because it just hit a chord with her. And she, you know, I called her the skin doctor at that point and the red light went off in her head and to this day. How's she doing now? She is the top retailer in our company and she's been with us for over 10 years, super successful. And so I use that story quite often in telling the retail story. And so, you know, we make sure that every one of our staff from nail technicians to massage therapists to our salon side, our stylists to our estheticians are well-educated, well-trained in how they can represent the products that they're using on that particular client and make sure that they realize that this isn't about, we're not trying to sell you something. We're trying to make, you know, if it's in the stylist world, we're trying to get them to recreate that look when that client leaves. And the only way they can do that is with that particular product that they've used.

Speaker 1: It's almost like taking the attitude of tell, don't sell. Correct. You know, the whole idea of it's our professional responsibility as a stylist standing behind the chair to prescribe and recommend. And my whole attitude, Sean, is when I stood behind the chair for many, 20, over 20 years and now really focusing as an educator, I really had the attitude that it was okay if they didn't buy it. But the attitude I had was it was, I needed to inform them what was important for them to recreate this or what was important to them to manage their hair at home, so to speak. Correct. Because it is really important. And so don't go out there and think about the dollars and the sense of it. Think of it of the attitude of how you took this whole doctor approach with your esthetician. Sure. And what a great story, the fact that she is now one of your top producers. Give me one little tip, okay? Just one little tip in terms of, you gave me one already, but give me another one in terms of if a stylist said, but I don't want to sound pushy.

Speaker 2: I would go back to the whole education thing. I would remind them it's not about sounding pushy because remember what our end goal is. Our end goal is to retain the client. So we know that part of the way to retain that client is to gain their trust, gain their confidence and make sure that at the end of the day, we're recommending these products. We do have, we've created recently an RX sheet that we write down all the products that were used. Great prescription sheet. And we're not pushy in that sense. We're just passing that on and they can choose to buy from us. They can choose not to buy from us. They can choose to go somewhere else if that's what they like, but it gives that added touch. It allows them, for those that don't necessarily feel comfortable walking them up to the front, going to that retail area, not everybody's comfortable doing that. And so with the RX sheet, with the prescription sheet that we've created, this allows them to have that in their possession. They can pass it on and it's more of a soft sell as opposed to a hard sell. We don't have any hard sells, but some may classify walking a client up, showing them the product as a hard sell. We don't see it that way. The softer side of that would be to utilize the RX sheets.

Speaker 1: Awesome. I mean, the retail space is absolutely beautiful there at the salon in terms of how you have things displayed. And one thing I noticed too is your retail shelves, they always look full. It didn't seem like there was anything weak there. I mean, is that something that's important to you in terms of keeping it full?

Speaker 2: Well, I think if you're going to be successful in that area of your business, you have to be committed to it. And so there's one of the things that when you have a holiday time that's coming up, we're about to have, you have to make sure that you're fully stocked in all of what's going on as far as the holiday packs and whatnot. So for you to be successful, I mean, if you take a look at the retailers out there that are successful and have the ability to sell beauty supplies and products, you look at them, you don't walk in, they're well-stocked in what they have. And so I think often we get concerned with, well, I don't necessarily can afford this. You've got to step back and look at the big picture. The big picture is what are we trying to accomplish here? And we're trying to accomplish, that's a profit center in our business. Retail is a profit center in our business, and it can be if you commit to it and if you provide enough education to your staff, making sure that they're trained, educated in the lines to be able to speak fluently about them and train their customers as they're going

Speaker 1: through the service process. Well, congratulations on your success because it certainly shows in terms of your business mind, your mindset in terms of where it is as a salon owner, how important business is. So my friends out there, remember, it's our professional responsibility to prescribe and recommend, but more importantly is have that professional attitude, maintain that professional attitude. And remember, soft sell, like Sean said. It's okay if they don't buy the product. Sooner or later, they will.