Salon Upselling:
How to Buy a New Car!

Salon upselling simply means to sell your client an additional service or product to increase their average sales ticket.

I want to show you first, WHY upselling is vital to your beauty career growth.

Salon upselling makes you a valuable part of the salon team.  Owners & managers need professional hair stylists that contribute to the cash register.  If you are sittin' and spinnin' or hanging out in the break room you are not bringing in money. You are dispensable!

When I was trained in management I was taught to always be looking for new hair stylists, even when we don't have a chair open.  Not only do you never know when someone will quit, but you never know when someone will prove to be costing the salon more than they are contributing.  If a professional hair stylist comes in that would obviously be an asset to the team, it is a good opportunity to cut the poor performer from the schedule.  Do you see what I mean?

As harsh as that sounds, we are running a real business.  Salon's are not playgrounds for the creative to waste our resources. Prove yourself and create your own job security by being great at your job! 

You do this through continued skill development, client building, customer service, retail sales and salon upselling.

My stylists, THAT is the secret to a successful beauty career, in case you missed it!

These elements are all pieces of a puzzle that take new professional hair stylists years to comprehend and execute.  But now that you know how the pieces fit together you can build a successful beauty career.

Besides increasing the salon's income and proving your worth to the salon team, the other reason salon upselling is important is because it increases YOUR personal income!

I've mentioned before that all franchise salons are different and have different ways of paying their stylists.  Some only pay an hourly wage no matter how many or how few clients you see. I believe most pay retail sales commission, though.  While some use a pay scale that is part hourly wage, part commission on total service sales. Then a few pay on commission of service sales like private salons.

So even if you work in a franchise salon, it is likely that learning to upsell will benefit your paycheck.

Examples of Salon Upselling
Increasing Your Paycheck

I'm going to give you an example for a franchise salon and one for a private salon.

A Franchise Sample

Check out what Sportclips has to offer a stylist. You may be surprised.

I have a friend that is a manager at SportClips, haircuts for men and boys. She told me the base pay may differ by region, but most pay $9 an hour base pay.  The total service sales per hour come into play here. During a pay period, which is 2 weeks, the average hourly sales is calculated.  However much their average hourly service sales are above a "breaking point",  they receive a percentage of it added to their hourly base pay.  Here is how salon upselling will increase a franchise stylist income.

If Break Point is $30, then a percentage of anything over that is paid to the stylists.

A stylist who ends her pay period at $30 or below for their average hourly sales receives only base pay of $9 a hour.  Working 35 hours a week for 2 weeks gives her 70 hours.

70 X $9 = $630 Gross Pay

But if the stylist has an average service sales per hour of $40, then she receives a percentage of the $10 over the Breaking Point. It sounds complicated, I know, but stick with me.

Her percentage depends on her ability to UPSELL their MVP experience.  The MVP experience upsell is calculated as a percentage per pay period and it is this number that determines her share of the $10 just mentioned. So if her upselling was at 35%, meaning 35% of her clients bought the MVP experience, she would receive 35% of the dollar amount over the breaking point.



Her service sales were $40 per hour. Her MVP upsell was 35%. She is $10 OVER the breaking point.   $10 X .35 = $3.50

This $3.50 is added to her hourly base pay. So instead of making $9 an hour she is making $12.50 an hour, for this pay period!

$12.50 X 70 hours = $875 Gross Pay

For this example, this stylist increased her paycheck $240 by knowing how to upsell her clients.  Do you know how much that adds up to in a year?  That is $6000 a year more than straight base pay!

A Private Salon Sample

Opportunity for increased paychecks is even better in a commission only situation, like in a private salon.  I will show you how enormous the difference can be by knowing how to execute salon upselling!

This could be an UPSELL!

Let's say Sally Stylist works at La Bella making a 50/50 commission split on all services.  At La Bella, all services are ala carte', meaning every service is sold separately, including shampoos, conditioning, blow outs, etc.

If Sally is a lazy stylist she does only what the client in her chair says they want.  And because of this her average sales ticket is $25.  Let's say Sally works 5 days a week and services 5 clients a day.

$25 average sales ticket X 5 clients a day X 5 days a week = $625

$625 X .50 (her commission) = $312.50 a week in gross pay    

                        $312.50 X 4 weeks =  $1250 a month gross pay                   

                             $1250 X 12 months =  $15,000 a year gross pay

BUT, if Sally would only learn to do salon upselling it would make a huge difference and maybe she could pay her rent on time this month!

Increasing her average sales ticket by just $15 would make her an extra $750 a month, while doing the same amount of clients.

That comes out to an extra $9000 a year!  That is a 60% pay increase! 

 And she has the power to give herself that raise at any time.

Are You Feeling It?

Exciting, right?  It's hard to believe how much difference a little knowledge can make to your lifestyle.

Imagine what you could do with that extra income!

• Pay bills?
• New Car?
• Better apartment?
• That boob job you've been wanting?
• A needed vacation?
• Re-pay a relative?
• Pay off your student loan?
  

And to think you have the power to increase your personal income at any time. WOW!

Having an average job for a salary couldn't give you the option to increase your income in substantial amounts in a short period of time.  But being a professional hair stylist does!

Now do yourself a favor.  Learn the techniques, practice them and live the life you were meant to have.

Take me to the Top, Please!