Do a Great Salon Client Consultation
& Win a Client for Life

A salon client consultation is just about the most important element when meeting a new client.

The consultation sets the tone for the client's entire experience. They are determining trust level of you within the first few minutes.   So those first few minutes may determine if you will retain the client or lose them forever.

Remember our motto?  Every client counts, every dollar counts!

Why do we need to remember that now?  Because every client that sits in your chair has the opportunity to grow your beauty career. EVERY one!

If you will always think that way you can grow your beauty career at a much faster rate than the average newbie.

Strive to give EVERY client in your chair an exceptional hair experience!

Make them want YOU and only YOU to do their hair. Win a client's loyalty and they will aid you growing your career and bank account.

Make a commitment to yourself that no client misses your exceptional hair experience.  Give them your best.

How to do a Fan-tabulous
Salon Client Consultation
& Salon Experience

1.  Greet them with a firm, friendly handshake:  Not everyone is comfortable with the handshake, but if you are, allow me to tell you why it's a good idea.  Because it establishes a professional relationship. Especially with men.  You are not there to be hit on. The handshake suggests equal and professional. It gives you the image of a professional hair stylist.

2.  Meet them in the lobby and walk with them to your station:  Never call someone from across the room.  Bad etiquette.

3.  Once they sit down, turn their chair at a slight angle away from the mirror and start your salon client consultation by talking to them face to face:  You want eye contact because eye contact instills trust.  Ask your client what she had in mind today.  Let her talk and you listen. Then, go behind the chair, drape her, and repeat back what she told you.  Run your hands through her hair while you talk to establish your position and help with the trust issue.  It's all perception, of course. If she BELIEVES you are good by the way your body language is speaking, she will look upon the results through more favorable eyes!  This is one of our DAZZLE moves.

4.  Assess their hairs' condition, needs, and look:  Ask open ended questions to help meet their needs and determine best upselling and retailing opportunities. Your salon client consultation sets you up for the rest of your time with them.

For example:  How do you style your hair in the mornings?

What type of products do you use?

Is there any issue with your hair I can help you with?

What is your lifestyle? Do you work out or spend time outdoors?

In a perfect world, what kind of hair style would you like?

5.  Make recommendations:  They are looking to you for guidance.  Based on the information she has provided and what you have seen, what is it you would like to see that would give her the best look?

6.  Come to an agreement:  Repeat back everything you have decided on doing.  This is where a lot of professional hair stylists make big mistakes, by not confirming and misunderstanding.  I did it my first week and haven't done it since!  Once was enough.

7.  Do your thing:  In other words, deliver the services you agreed on in your salon client consultation.  Remember to keep upselling in mind because every client counts, every dollar counts.  So while you are at the shampoo bowl, now would be a good time to recommend a deep conditioning treatment to repair damage.

8. Sidebar:  Always communicate fully.  Don't assume that clients know it's time to go to the shampoo bowl or that it takes 10 minutes under the lamps.  Keep them in the know.  The better you communicate with them the deeper the trust.  And in our business trust equals money. 

9.  Finish the service:  Totally finish the service so that your client leaves your salon always looking and feeling better than they did when they came in.  Make sure they leave with a hair style, not just a hair cut.  Ask if they are happy with the way it turned out.  If not, do what you can to insure they leave happy.  If it is beyond your ability to make them happy, and it happens from time to time, involve your manager.

10.  Make sure they have what they need for home maintenance:  this is your retailing part.  Please read up on selling retail in a salon!  It is part of your exceptional hair experience.  If you did a wonderful job, she was very happy, then can't make it happen tomorrow, you didn't fully service her.

Is This All There Is To It?

Newbies, there is so, so much to salon life!  But the basics are always the same.

How you apply the basics determines your success.  You are a unique individual with your own unique gifts.  Find a way to make the basics of hairdressing your own.

I could write an entire book on every detail of client interaction.

Just so you have another resource, feel free to read more salon client consultation tips at http://thescissorboy.hubpages.com/hub/15-Tips-to-Perform-a-Successful-Salon-Client-Consultation. 

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