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Have you ever thought to yourself “I can’t stand online booking because my clients never schedule the right services!” Or, “I can’t give up control of my schedule, how do I know I will make enough money?”
You're tuned into Reviving the Stylist, a business podcast for hairstylists looking to build a dream career that creates financial freedom and flexibility. I'm your host, Kristen Lumiere and as a stylist I've had my share of successes. Building a successful six plus figure business working only three days a week while being able to prioritize my family, travel and buy my dream home. I know it doesn't sound easy, but if you put in the work, I guarantee you'll see results. No matter what your goals are. I'm super stoked that you're here so I can help you crush them. Let's start today's episode.
Kristen Lumiere 0:03
You're tuned into Reviving the Stylist, a business podcast for hair stylists looking to build a dream career that creates financial freedom and flexibility. I'm your host, Kristen Lumiere. And as a stylist, I've had my share of successes. Building a successful six plus figure business working only three days a week, while being able to prioritize my family, travel and buy my dream home. I know it doesn't sound easy. But if you put in the work, I guarantee you'll see results. No matter what your goals are. I'm super stoked that you're here so I can help you crush them. Let's start today's episode.
Kristen Lumiere 0:41
Have you ever thought to yourself, I can't stand online booking because my clients never schedule the right services? Or I can't give up control of my schedule? How do I know my clients are going to schedule when I need to actually see them. So I won't have gaps throughout my day. Or even a thought like online booking is way more trouble than it's worth, I'd rather just do it for my clients. If you've had any of those thoughts, trust me, you're not alone, I actually used to have those thoughts, too. There are so many other stylists out there with the exact same notion. And it's not necessarily because those are true, it's mostly because there has never been something that's like this is exactly how you streamline your online bookings. So your clients scheduled 90 plus percent of their services correctly, and you save hours and hours of their time. away, there definitely is it's actually something that I created. And if you are a student of mine, if you have been in revive, then you know exactly what I'm going to be talking about in this episode, I'm really excited about because I love online booking. I love it so much. And there's so many styles out there who think like, online booking isn't something I need right now. But I promise if you are accepting new clients, and by the way, this is like a little secret, you have to accept new clients in order to actually thrive continuously throughout your business. Because statistically, you're losing anywhere from 10 to 20% of your clients every single year. And that means like maybe that you had a client that moved, maybe someone didn't like how you were your hair, maybe someone didn't like their hair, whatever it may be, there are people who leave and who leave for you know, reasons that are totally understandable. And reasons are like really strange, right? We definitely have that some of those clients are like, okay, that person was a little interesting. And I definitely know why they left. And I'm not mad about it either. Right? Now, if you've had any of those thoughts, all of those things are 100% true if you do not have the right system in place. So clients book the correct services every single time. And your schedule is maximized every single day that you work. And that means that your schedule has all of its gaps filled, unless you're taking a break, and you're actually sitting down and eating lunch. And when I say you're eating lunch, I do not mean you're scarfing it down in the five minutes that you have, because you got to run back and check on that toner, or whatever else it may be. No, I mean, you're actually sitting down for 30 minutes, taking a breather, and able to just zone out and relax, because that's what you need for your mental health. We cannot and I'm I mean, actually we can because I do know some stylists who have done that for decades. But it's not how I want to teach you. And it's not what I recommend at all. The truth in online booking is, no matter what your schedule is, in order to keep it maximized. You need to be able to educate your clients how to book their services online correctly, you need to make sure that every day you're actually behind the chair, your schedule is maximized. And you don't have a bunch of random guests. Because we can't work with a bunch of random gaps. Every single hour, we're actually behind the chair. That is money that is either coming in our pocket, or coming out of our pocket. And if you actually set the systems in place for online booking, you're going to automate 90% of the process. When you switch to online booking when I stopped all of the receptionist work. When I stopped calling clients to confirm appointments, or calling clients or even texting clients to book appointments. This is what I was able to do. I was able to eliminate almost all of my receptionist work. I was no longer calling clients to confirm or texting clients to book or reminding clients about their appointments. It was all automated. And because of that, the next thing I was able to do is actually free up hours of my time each week and focus that attention on other areas in my business that actually needed it more. The next thing I was able to stop playing phone DM or email tag with clients because how many times have you sent a text to a client and They haven't gotten back to you for hours and hours, and you've completely forgot about it. And maybe you're outside of your business hours. Now it's like eight o'clock, they send you the text. And you're thinking to yourself, do I text him back right now? Or do I keep hanging out with my significant other or my kids? Or what do I do? Because texting back and forth takes a lot longer than actually calling someone, right. But at the same time, like it's really convenient for us. And I'm a millennial, I understand. We do not like to call people I get it. And I don't know if you're the same way. But I've actually had to like, really push myself out of my comfort zone and forcibly make the phone call if I needed to, because texting for me was actually way worse, texting back and forth took so much longer than just giving someone a phone call really quick. And then the last thing I was able to do, it was I was able to get all of my business policies signed and maintained boundaries with clients. So I could eliminate those things like last minute texts late at night, or getting super late DMS. And now, there are definitely times where my clients would still DM me late. But I had boundaries set up for myself, and I no longer looked at them at that time, I would see them if I was up that late and on Instagram, or wherever else I would see them. But I wouldn't respond, I would make myself wait until the next day to actually respond or my next business day. Because if it was a weekend, and my weekend was a Sunday or a Monday, I would not respond during that time either. And I had that thought maybe you're thinking right now, oh, if I don't respond right away, that person's gonna go somewhere else. Well, if that person goes somewhere else, it wasn't meant to be and they weren't going to be a great client. So it's totally fine. You have to maintain boundaries for yourself and for your mental health. And these are all things that of course, if you are a student of mine, if you've taken revive that I teach there, there is little work you need to do in order to get that system up and running. But once you do, you are going to never need to touch it again, unless you need to make a change. Because of course, there's things that we need to do in our business where maybe we change something like our business policy for cancellations, maybe we decided to take deposits, instead of charging the last minute cancellation fee, whatever it may be, once you have the online booking set up, you're actually going to be able to really, really thrive and save so much time. So that way you can focus on things in your business that actually needs the attention. And from a client perspective, one of my clients perspective, this is how the entire process would go. When a client would like to schedule with me, they would need to fill out an online consultation form that would have questions about their hair, that would have questions about their previous color history, it would also have the ability ability for them to actually upload three pictures of their hair like their front, the back and the side. In good natural indirect light, I always made that like really clear, do not send me pictures in your bathroom light that has really yellow lighting, I don't need that. I need the good pictures out there. So that was the first thing is they filled out that online consultation form. Next, I would review the consultation form and either ask follow up questions if I had any, or email them what services they needed to schedule online, along with my booking link, the email would also contain a little step by step video of how to book the service. And that was something that was all like pre written out, I would have this email copy or script that I would have, I could either copy and paste it from a Google Doc or maybe a notes on my iPhone. And then I would literally just change the service that they would need. And I would insert the service that I would recommend for their hair based on how our conversation are based on their consultation form. Then once they click the link, they could select the service before they could go on my schedule. They needed to read and sign my business policies. This was all automated and sorted by booking system. And I didn't have to lift one finger for that to be done. Once I set it up the system it was in there, they had to fill it out before they could even schedule there was no way for them to get on the books without them actually scheduling. And once the policies were assigned, it took them to a screen to pay the deposit. And once the deposit was paid, their appointment was then requested for me to approve. So it would be sent to me through my booking system. And I would have to go in and actually accept the appointment before it was able to be put on my schedule. I could review the service make sure that they scheduled the right one, review the time make sure that it was in the best position on my schedule. And if it wasn't, I was able to move it around and send a notification email to my client if I moved it up 15 or 30 minutes or moved it down 15 or 30 minutes and 90% of the time if I made those small time changes. My clients did not find it to be a big deal. If someone scheduled let's say I worked at eight because I'm an early early riser, I'm really an early riser. If I worked at eight o'clock in the morning, and someone scheduled for 815, then I would move them up 15 minutes to eight o'clock. Or if someone's scheduled for 830, and I don't have any 30 minutes services that I could do, then I would move them up 30 minutes, because I want to optimize my schedule. So I can make the maximum amount of profit as possible throughout my day. And if for some reason a small shift didn't actually work for them, then I would suggest that they reschedule to a different day, which they could also do online. And that was also created in that little video that I did. The part that really worked for me, and so many of my revive students is that their appointments were requested and pending, once I looked over their appointment, make sure that everything was good to go, then I would accept it onto my schedule, there was not just a book and then put on the schedule, I would have to accept the appointment for it to be scheduled. And that is why I was able to make sure that 90 plus percent of my clients scheduled the correct services doesn't matter if they're new or returning. And that was how I eliminated so much of my receptions work, no more phone tag, no more back and forth. No more of that mess. It was simple, it was easy. My clients didn't have to worry about the back and forth with me. Because that's a really big thing to clients don't like having to go back and forth. And if your clientele is anywhere in the millennial age, like for me, my target market is anywhere from 24 to 35. And that doesn't mean I don't see people that are younger. And that doesn't mean that I don't see people that are older, but the base of my clientele is in that age range. And that age range does not like to call, wait for a call back texts back and forth, or have to deal with phone tag, they prefer to do it themselves. And that is one thing that I wanted my clientele is I wanted them to be self starters self sufficient, and be able to take charge of stuff like that. And in an episode coming up, I'm actually going to talk a little bit more about the booking app I used and why I could not live without it. And I am not paid by them to talk about the app. I've literally used it since it started. And it was in credible and so so helpful for me. So I can't wait to talk a little bit more about that one. And I know that online booking may seem like a super scary thing to a lot of stylists, but it doesn't have to be. And I teach exactly how to set up online booking. Of course, if you are a revived student of mine, you know how to do all of this incredibly well. And if you skipped that module and revive, make sure you go back to it, because it's a really, really good one. But before I go, I just want to remind you again, online booking isn't the future is happening right now. And if you aren't opening up online booking then you are losing clients, money, and your time. And that is all a recipe for disaster. And I don't want that for you, we want to future proof your business as much as possible, and continue to change as the industry changes. Because as you know, the beauty industry does change fairly often, you know, and that's okay, we have to kind of evolve with the times. And I am here to help you with that. There's something that really helped me, when I decided to shift control and change certain things in my business, your time is worth something, if you are worth $50 an hour, you shouldn't be spending your time on $11 An hour task. And I'm not saying that being a receptionist is an $11 an hour task at some places. It's more some places less. But what is your time worth? That is what you need to figure out. You're wasting not just your time, but money also every second you spend on a task, that is not a $50 an hour task. What is your number, that is something that you should put down. And I want you to I want you to really think about it, what is my hourly number, and it doesn't mean that you're taking services and that you are doing an hourly service based business. And if you are great if you're not not a problem, but I just want you to put a number to what your time is worth. If your time is worth $50 an hour, if it's worth 20 If it's worth 200, whatever it is, put a number to it. And then when you do certain tasks that you don't love, think about it. Okay, this is something I don't love doing, how much an hour is that worth? And how can I automate that to where I can spend my time on doing a $50 an hour task that's actually going to bring money back into my chair. That is why you need to automate the parts of your business that can be with really, really solid systems. That way you free yourself up can focus on the 20% of your business that makes 80% of the profit That's it for today's episode. Bye. I'll be back here soon to challenge you to jump in and out of that comfort zone and open yourself up to work less, make more money and live your dream life. Bye for now.
Kristen Lumiere 15:13
Thank you so much for joining me today on Reviving the Stylist. If something really resonated with you during this episode, take a screenshot share it to your Instagram story and let me know what you love most don't forget to also send it to a friend so that way they can reap the incredible things from this episode too and leave me a rating and review. I'd also absolutely just love to connect with you outside of the show too. So you can find me on Instagram at Kristen Lumiere that's L u m ay er E or my website, Kristen Lumiere calm. And before I go, I just want to leave you with one reminder. It isn't about living to work. It's about working to live. And that is my goal for you, friend, because you deserve it. I'll see you on the next one.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai