By Ollie Foster, OSMO Ambassador and owner of Number 47 Barbers in Chester
Assess your shop space costs
Are there areas within your shop that you can look to shave costs? Lighting for example, you can change your bulbs to low energy where you don’t need the brightness as much (think staff rooms, toilets etc), can you also change your lights to movement sensor ones too in areas? With your backwash, can you look to swap to a water pressure system like ECOHEADS that helps to increase the water pressure without using more water? Also, have you looked at comparison on washing your towels in the shop versus an outside company? You may be surprised!
Take a good look at your colour stock
Size and space matters! For those barber shops who’ve expanded their services into colour, have you taken time to really understand what’s needed or not in you colour stock room? Buying lots of colours when you can just invest in a colour range that enables you to create permanent or semi shades from one tube, is a great cost saving option. OSMO IKON is a demi colour range, so you just adjust the mix and timings to achieve your desired effect. Plus, all the shades are intermixable, so you get an endless colour palette, too. Also, think about how much you’re getting in your colour tube – often it’s only 50/60ml tubes, whereas brands like OSMO are 100ml tubes, so not only will you probably be paying less per tube, but you’re also getting a bigger size too. So, make sure you’re looking at your colour stock and consider sensible changes to your core colours, as you can definitely be making savings on your colour services.
Ensure your backwash is earning for you
We’re good at offering added services like shaves and maybe facial waxing, but are there treatments we can up-selling at the backwash area too? Products like the new OSMO Scalp Therapy Purifying Scrub with Sea Salt is a great pre-cut experience to help remove product build up and get the scalp healthy too. You can then finish this with the new OSMO Scalp Therapy Mask to elevate your hair cutting experience. Work the backwash costs into your hair cut, so it’s not seen as an add-on but more of a luxury service. Even if you don’t offer colour services, have you considered offering colour conditioning treatments at the backwash instead? Products like the OSMO Colour Revive Conditioning Treatment is a low investment option to give your customers a refresh of their natural hair or help mask early greys – plus may stop them heading to those dreaded Just For Men box dyes! The backwash is your shop window for retail too, so ensure you’re talking up the products you’re using, how they can be beneficial ie scalp cleansing, thickening, moisturising etc. You’ve got a captive audience in that chair, and they want to hear what you have to say to ensure their cut lasts.
Be the expert you are when it comes to retailing advice
Selling retail products, doesn’t come naturally to many of us but we need to believe in our expertise and products we use! Customers are investing their time and money to have a professional service, so ensuring they have the best products and advise to use at home, is a no-brainer. Plus, once you get your customer onto that product, he becomes a fan of it for life usually! Also, make sure you’re picking up on selling tales – is your customer concerned about his thinning hair? Then recommend them subtle volumising products like the OSMO Power Powder, it’s easy to use and gets results instantly. Retail should be second nature to us experts.
Make sure you’re encouraging regular re-visits to your shop
As barbers, we get a mix of those bi-weekly customers versus those once every few months walking in. It’s up to us to get our customers booking in more regularly. Can you look at your current booking system – does it have a text/email reminder that can be sent out? Target your social media posts to your customers so they’re aware of your availability (and any cancellations). Listen out to chats in the chair about upcoming Birthdays/Job interviews etc and encourage them to book in the day before with you. If you can, the best way is to get them booking before they leave the shop – when you have them in the chair, this is the ideal time to be talking through the haircut, home styling tips and then cutting maintenance over the coming few months. Get them into a routine of trims and reshapes.
To order OSMO for your salon visit www.osmo.uk.com for your nearest wholesaler