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Tucson salon owner Marisol knows every client's dog's name—but had no system to catch people who'd drifted. This episode breaks down the exact CRM and text-automation setup that brings lapsed clients back without feeling like marketing.
When you're behind the chair all day, the clients who drifted don't disappear from your heart—they disappear from your calendar. Marisol, owner of a three-chair salon in Tucson, shares the moment she realized she had a system problem, not a memory problem, and the simple automation setup that fixed it.
Eric: So you told me before we hit record that you can name every regular client's kid, their dog, the vacation they took in June... but you can't tell me who hasn't been in since March.
Marisol Ortega: Yeah. That's the whole thing, right there. That's the whole embarrassing thing.
Eric: I don't think it's embarrassing. I think it's really common.
Marisol Ortega: It FEELS embarrassing. Because I love these people. Like, I genuinely love my clients. And then one day I'm at the grocery store and I see somebody I haven't done in eight months and she's got a fresh cut and it is NOT from me.
Eric: Oof.
Marisol Ortega: And she's sweet about it. She's like, oh hi Marisol, and I'm smiling, and inside I'm like... when did I lose you. When did that happen.
Eric: Okay so back up for people. Tell me about the salon.
Marisol Ortega: Sure. So I've got a little three-chair spot in Tucson. I opened it eleven years ago after I got tired of renting a booth at somebody else's place. Just me, two other stylists, we do color, cuts, some extensions. Very neighborhood. Very... you know your people.
Eric: How full is your book on a normal week?
Marisol Ortega: Honestly? Depends on the week. My Tuesdays and Wednesdays have holes in them I can't explain. My weekends are packed. But those weekday holes... every one of those holes is somebody I used to see every six weeks who just... drifted.
Eric: And when they drift, what do you actually do about it?
Marisol Ortega: Nothing. That's the answer. Nothing.
Eric: Nothing at all?
Marisol Ortega: I mean, I THINK about them. I'll be folding towels and I'll go, oh man, I haven't seen Denise in forever, I should text her. And then a client walks in and I forget for another three weeks.
Eric: Right.
Marisol Ortega: And I've tried the sticky note thing. I've tried a little notebook. I had a spreadsheet for like two months.
Eric: What happened to the spreadsheet?
Marisol Ortega: What do you think happened to the spreadsheet.
Eric: I know what happened to the spreadsheet.
Marisol Ortega: It's in a folder on my desktop called "salon stuff" and I have not opened it since November.
Eric: So here's what I want to say, and I don't want it to sound harsh. You don't have a memory problem. You have a system problem.
Marisol Ortega: Okay.
Eric: You clearly remember these people. You care about them. The information is IN your head. It's just not anywhere that can act on it while you're cutting hair.
Marisol Ortega: Say that again.
Eric: The information can't act on it while you're cutting hair. You're the bottleneck because you're the only one who knows. And you're also the person whose hands are literally busy all day.
Marisol Ortega: Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I'm holding scissors. I'm not gonna stop mid-foil to text Denise.
Eric: Right. So the fix isn't "remember better." The fix is you need something running in the background that watches the calendar for you.
Marisol Ortega: Okay. What does that look like without me becoming a tech person. Because I am NOT a tech person.
Eric: You don't have to be. Can I walk you through what we did at the agency for a client almost exactly like you? Different industry, same shape of problem.
Marisol Ortega: Please.
Eric: Okay. So we run everything on this all-in-one ops platform. It's the one we use for our agency and it's the one we set up for local service businesses. Booking, texts, emails, the client list, all in one place.
Marisol Ortega: One place. Not four apps.
Eric: Not four apps. That's the whole point. Because your problem right now is that your calendar knows one thing, your phone contacts know another thing, and your brain knows the real thing, and none of them talk.
Marisol Ortega: That's exactly what it feels like.
Eric: So step one is really unsexy. It's just getting every client into one list with the last time they came in.
Marisol Ortega: Import.
Eric: Import. From wherever. From your booking app, from a spreadsheet, from a shoebox. I don't care. Just get it in.
Marisol Ortega: Okay.
Eric: Then, and this is the piece that changes your life, you set a rule. You say, if a client hasn't booked in, let's say, ten weeks... the platform sends them a text. Not from a robot address. From YOUR number.
Marisol Ortega: Wait. From my number.
Eric: From your business number. So when Denise gets it, it looks like Marisol texted her.
Marisol Ortega: Oh.
Eric: And the text isn't salesy. This is the part everybody messes up. Don't write "book now, twenty percent off." Write the thing YOU would actually text her.
Marisol Ortega: Like, hey stranger, missing your face.
Eric: Exactly like that. Hey stranger, been a minute, want me to grab you a spot next week?
Marisol Ortega: I mean, that's just what I'd say.
Eric: That IS what you'd say. And that's why it works. Because the second she gets it she doesn't feel marketed to. She feels remembered.
Marisol Ortega: Okay that's making my chest feel weird.
Eric: Good weird?
Marisol Ortega: Good weird. Because that's the whole thing. I want them to feel remembered. I DO remember them. I just can't be the one holding all of it.
Eric: You can't. Nobody can. Not at three chairs, not at thirty.
Marisol Ortega: So the platform sends the text as me. Then what.
Eric: Then when she texts back, it comes to your phone like a normal text. You reply like a normal human. And if she says yes, there's a booking link right there.
Marisol Ortega: One link. Not "call the salon between these hours."
Eric: One link. She taps it, picks a Tuesday at eleven, done. It's on your calendar. You get a little ping.
Marisol Ortega: And what about the ones who don't reply?
Eric: Great question. That's actually where most people give up and it's where the money is. You set a second nudge. Two weeks later, softer. "No pressure, just wanted to say hi, here's the link if you want it."
Marisol Ortega: And if she still doesn't reply?
Eric: You let her go. For now. You don't hound. Because the goal isn't to squeeze her. The goal is to be the salon she thinks of when she's ready.
Marisol Ortega: Okay. That feels right. I was worried you were gonna tell me to send five texts.
Eric: No. Two, tops. Anything more and you're the salon she's blocking.
Marisol Ortega: Yeah.
Eric: The other piece I'd add for you specifically. Birthdays.
Marisol Ortega: Birthdays?
Eric: You said you know these people. You know their kids' names. I bet you know a lot of birthdays.
Marisol Ortega: I know almost all of them. I write them on a little card at the front.
Eric: Get them off the card. Get them in the platform. Because a birthday text from your salon, from you, three days before... that's a rebook. Almost every time.
Marisol Ortega: Huh.
Eric: Not "happy birthday, twenty percent off." Just "happy birthday week, want your color fresh for it?"
Marisol Ortega: Yeah, they'd say yes to that.
Eric: They'd say yes to that.
Marisol Ortega: Okay so how do I keep track of what I'm actually doing without losing my mind. Because I've heard about, like, Notion and all that.
Eric: Yeah, so Notion's great for the behind-the-scenes stuff. Your standard operating procedures, your color formulas per client, notes on what didn't work last time. That kind of thing lives really nicely there.
Marisol Ortega: Okay.
Eric: But the CLIENT-facing stuff, the texts and the booking and the reminders, that all lives in the ops platform. You don't want your client data in five places.
Marisol Ortega: One place for me. One place for them.
Eric: One place for you, one place for them. And honestly, once it's set up, you barely touch the client side. It just runs.
Marisol Ortega: That's the part I keep tripping on. The setup. Because every time I try to set something up I quit halfway.
Eric: I know. And that's why I want you to hear this next part. You do not set up everything at once.
Marisol Ortega: Okay.
Eric: You set up ONE thing this week. Just the lapsed-client text. That's it. Don't touch birthdays yet. Don't touch email. Don't touch the review requests. Just the one.
Marisol Ortega: One thing.
Eric: One thing. Because if you try to launch the whole system Sunday night, you'll burn out by Tuesday and none of it'll be on.
Marisol Ortega: That is EXACTLY what I do. That is my whole pattern.
Eric: I know. It's everybody's pattern. So we don't do that.
Marisol Ortega: Okay so walk me through the one thing. Realistically. What does my Sunday look like.
Eric: Sunday. You sit down with a coffee. You export your client list from wherever it lives. You upload it. You write ONE text in your own voice. You set the rule, ten weeks no visit, send the text. You turn it on. Done. Ninety minutes, tops.
Marisol Ortega: Ninety minutes.
Eric: Ninety minutes. And then Monday morning, a handful of texts go out. Not a blast. A trickle. Because you're only catching the ones who just crossed the ten-week line.
Marisol Ortega: Oh, that's smart. So it's not like a hundred people getting a weird text from me on Monday.
Eric: Right. It's like six. And then next week, another handful. It's a trickle, forever. And that trickle IS the drift you're losing to the salon down the street.
Marisol Ortega: Yeah.
Eric: The client we did this for, similar size shop, different service. First month they rebooked people they had genuinely written off. People they thought were gone.
Marisol Ortega: Really.
Eric: Really. And the reason wasn't the discount, because there wasn't one. The reason was that the client had also been meaning to come back and just... life. And a text at the right moment gave them permission.
Marisol Ortega: Permission. Yeah.
Eric: People WANT to come back to you, Marisol. You said it yourself. You love these people, they love you. They just need the door held open one more time.
Marisol Ortega: Okay. I'm gonna do the one thing.
Eric: The one thing.
Marisol Ortega: The one thing.
Eric: And I want you to tell me in a month what your Tuesdays look like.
Marisol Ortega: Deal.
Eric: If anybody listening is nodding along, running a small shop, you know the drift I'm talking about... that's your one thing this week too. Don't rebuild your whole business. Just the lapsed-client nudge. In your own voice. From your own number. Ten weeks out.
Marisol Ortega: And don't write it like an ad.
Eric: Please don't write it like an ad. Write it like you'd text a friend you haven't seen in a while. Because that's what they are.
Marisol Ortega: Yeah. That's what they are.
Eric: Marisol, thank you for being honest about the sticky notes and the spreadsheet, by the way. That took guts.
Marisol Ortega: The spreadsheet is still there. It's still in the folder.
Eric: Leave it there. It's a monument.
Marisol Ortega: A monument to my old system.
Eric: If you liked this one, do us a favor and hit subscribe so the next operator like Marisol finds us. That's how these episodes get to the people who need them.
Marisol Ortega: Come get a haircut in Tucson.
Eric: And come get a haircut in Tucson. We'll see you next week.
A daily 10-minute show for service business owners. AI tools, automated workflows, and the boring-on-purpose tactics that save you 5 hours a week. Each episode picks one niche, one workflow, and one tool — and walks you through it like a friend at a coffee shop.