How To: Survive (Or Even Thrive) During Slow Periods

I know a handful of stylists who don’t really have slow periods. Yes, they do get cancellations and sometimes multiple in a day or week. But when that happens, it doesn’t really affect their money. Why? Because these stylists all have something in common: they are consistent about 3 things that keep them going when times get tough.

Want to know their secrets? Well the good news is, I can tell you exactly how they do it. Because these are my systems & strategies that they adopted to their own!

And I’ll share everything about it below.

To start, let’s do a reality check. When it comes to having consistent clients and income from doing services, It's not what you do in the slow period, but what you do the rest of the year.

Its like taking care of your teeth: If you only brush and floss once your tooth starts to ache, that does little to stop it. It’s the regular brushing and flossing that helps prevent the toothache in the first place.

The same goes for your beauty business. Doing things consistently and using techniques that work helps prevent problems from getting out of hand; and also improves outcomes when those problems present themselves.

So let’s look at how to apply this to clients and slower periods.

We must recognize that cyclical trends are a natural part of business. There will be periods of both high and low demand. If you’re running your chair correctly, there will be times you have more than what you know what to do with, and others with less so. While newer stylists may not yet experience these cycles, those who have been in the industry for several years can understand them. The key to navigating this successfully is about having tools and techniques that help to keep flow of clients and income more consistent, so that the slower times are not only less of a negative impact, but less frequent. Here are the TOP THREE things to increase consistency:

1. Price accordingly

2. Waiting lists

3. Be a part of your clients regular maintenance routine

1. Price accordingly.

Savvy small businesses do what bigger ones have been doing all along: hedging against the natural cycles of business. What is hedging? It is a risk management strategy that helps to reduce financial loss. How do they do this? One of top ways is through pricing.

Their pricing takes into consideration not only costs and profit, but loss and slow periods. How does this translate into hair service pricing? Loss in our world equates to no shows/ cancellations/ downgrades, etc. Of course a solid and legally valid cancellation/ no show policy will help mitigate loss, but only so much. Working in some of that anticipated loss into pricing can help bring you closer to income needs and goals as you would had the cancellation not taken place.

Additionally, knowing the natural cycles of peaks and valleys in business, and pricing so that you can bring in enough revenue during the peak to cover the valley periods is key to having enough income for financial stability. Factor in a 'cushion' into service prices by looking ahead and being realistic about both cancellations and cycles. This is one of the best ways successful stylists can hedge against the inevitable cancellations, now shows, and slower periods that comes with the work you do.

2. Waiting lists.

This is so important and not talked about enough. The stylists I mentioned- who are booked and busy, who can come out of a wave of cancellations without losing money, all have robust waiting list systems. Almost all of them use an automated process that comes with their salon booking program. They keep it updated and active. They never close their books to new clients even when they are booked 8-10 weeks out. Instead, they put clients they cannot get in on the waiting list (they also book a future "place holder" so the client has something on the schedule, even if it is farther out then they wanted. This works in conjunction with the waiting list and communicating the benefits of doing so to the client). When cancellations & reschedules come through, the list is activated and clients are offered the option to book that opening. Most of the stylists who use this system say that they have a 70% + success filling the booking. The key is that they keep their waiting list functional by adding to it and cleaning it up regularly.

3. Make your services part of your client's regular maintenance routine.

This is perhaps the most important aspect. When you have a solid, loyal client base of people who view your services as part of their regular maintenance, you have more consistency in client visits. The more consistent clients are with their visits, the more consistent your income will be.

Let’s lay the groundwork for this with a few facts:

• Client loyalty means that they come back to you again and again for their services. The more clients who are loyal, the easier it is for you. Why? Because we know that consumer behaviors dictate that it takes at least 6x as much time, money and energy to bring a new client in, than it does to keep an existing one.

• A client who considers your services integral to their lives- in terms of maintaining their baseline self maintenance, is going to be more loyal than someone who is not seeing their baseline maintenance in the services you provide. They are the most likely to keep their appointments throughout the changes in their work, family, the economy, etc.

• During an economic downturn, many people are going to be deciding where they need to cut back on their budget - this happens across a wide spectrum of income levels. What we see is that people tend to cut spending on extraneous items- luxuries- and keep expenses that they deem as required maintenance. So when your clients see the services they receive from you as 'outside of the scope' of their required maintenance, the budget will be cut for those services. This results in people cancelling, pushing out, or even deciding to no longer receive services.

This is exactly why it’s so important for the services you offer to be considered regular maintenance. Clients who depend on those services are far less likely to de-prioritize them out of the budget.

While on the subject, let's do a little Myth busting:

In discussions about maintaining a busy schedule during economic downturns, the conversation often shifts to the importance of providing high-frequency visit services (such as root touch-ups, short haircuts, barbering services, and root lightening). These “maintenance” services are typically viewed as the foundation of a successful business model. While high-frequency visit (high FOV) services are indeed relevant and can lead to success, they are not the sole avenue for achieving this. Historically, this may have been the case, but as the world evolves, so too does our industry.

Today, there are various successful business models that stylists can adopt. Therefore, if you specialize in lower-frequency visit services—such as lived-in color or easy-maintenance cuts—you still have good opportunities to cultivate a thriving, loyal client base that appreciates your offerings as essential to their self-care routine. Important to note: The business strategies are different depending on the types of services offered. Building a high FOV service based business is different than building one based on low FOV services.

Another common misconception is that stylists who have business models that are focused solely on high-ticket services will not attract clients... presumably because clients perceive high ticket services as non-essential. During economic downturns, it is often assumed that only lower-priced hair services will remain popular. However, this perspective doesn’t hold true for everyone, as we see many high ticket stylists thriving through various economic climates. While we may observe trends of decreased spending on a broader industry level, stylists who have cultivated a client base that perceives their services as integral to regular maintenance will be well-positioned for ongoing success. These clients are likely to prioritize their resources for what they consider essential to their personal well-being.

In any of the various business models that hair stylists work within today, success is achievable when the client base is loyal and uses their resources to pay for your services.

This is because no matter what type of hair business you are trying to build, it is the loyalty of the client base and their perception of your services - as regular maintenance - that is the key to building a business that offers consistent income and financial security.

So what do YOU do to ensure that clients are loyal and consider your services part of their self maintenance? This is a great question! And the topic of the next blog. Stay tuned -- it is coming soon!