Developing Your Retail Fortress-By Steve Gomez

According to the Green Book, a yearly industry research magazine, retail in the salon and spa industry grew by only 1.5% from 2004 to 2005. In our industry, the average retail-to-service percentage is only 17%, attributed only to color products and conditioning treatments. Why is this?

Although there is validity in these circumstantial occurrences within our industry, it truly appears that lack of systemized retail strategies within the business is the growth-stunting culprit. Diversion, conversions and mergers are a natural facet of business, and in our ever-changing industry, we can not personally alter what is happening. We are, however, capable of controlling our reaction to these changes. In terms of retail, our relationship to it directly impacts the results produced.

Knowing now that you have the control over what occurs within your business, I invite you to walk you through what you can do to take control inside of your four walls to create a retail fortress.

Step one: Know your Numbers

Not knowing your numbers is as reckless as driving down an icy road at 100 miles per hour. Knowing your numbers means achieving full awareness of your inventory budget as well as what retail inventory is purchased based on your budget. Ideally, a solid retail budget is 50% of retail weekly sales. Additionally, retail success involves knowing your current retail-to-service percentage as well as the value of your average retail tickets. Once you learn your numbers, you can then put them in place to ensure proper education of retail sales goals for your team.

Step two: Product Knowledge

True, you may be using the best products in the universe, and it is important that you, your team and your clients know why. Product knowledge involves understanding critical ingredients of your retail line and communicating their features and benefits to your clients. Keep in mind that features separate one product from another; they involve details such as a fragrant scent, an attractive container. Similarly, benefits reflect what the product does for the customer in the end. Benefits may include softness, color maintenance, manageability, etc. Here, it would be helpful to develop a training schedule that requires every one of your employees to learn about each product and their features and benefits, line item by line item.

Step three: Tests and quizzes

Retail is important to the success of your business, and tests and quizzes are effective methods which help your team learn product knowledge information. The use of tests and quizzes illustrates that you will hold your employees accountable for product knowledge, and they are excellent tools that make certain that your team is actually learning product knowledge information.

Step four: Goal Setting and Tracking

On a regular basis, setting clear goals with your team helps your employees break their goals into manageable parts so they are aware of what needs to be produced each day, and silently declares that your team is responsible and accountable for their numbers. To boost retail sales, contests and prizes are particularly effective at maintaining goal awareness and fostering an environment of friendly competition. Additionally, checking the numbers at daily or weekly intervals allows for effective coaching from you. Lastly, share the results with everyone to keep your team aware of its progress. This inspires them to continue to grow! Reinforce goal setting and tracking with incentives to reward employees for good performance, and you will create effective momentum for your business as well as great morale for your employees.

Step five: Retail Communication Techniques

Teach your team one uniform system for consultations. Salon Training International offers the "Money Mastery" series, which supports sales growth through powerful consultations. The "Money Mastery" series helps you become aware of where retail fits during the transaction. Hint: Retailing at the end of the sale is killing your retail profits.

Step six: Language

Successful salons use the same "lingo" as the product line. This can easily be found on the inserts that accompany the products as well as the text found on the products themselves. This language identifies the products, and describes what the products are, as well as what they do and contain. Not only does the use of this language connect you with the products, in the end you and your team will speak as the savvy, professional beauty consultants you are. Your clients come to your salon because you are the professional. Use of the manufacturer's language helps to reaffirm the client's decision to come to you because yours is the best salon with the best products. Moreover, use of product language quietly confirms why your salon uses the product at all.

Step Seven: The Visual Experience!

A verbal experience is made more powerful when accompanied by a visual experience. One without the other is similar to watching television with no sound, or listening to the television without the picture. Consider this: What do your display racks look like? A solid display is clean, neat and organized with the “push products” front and center.

Consider the displays of a cosmetics department of an upscale department store. Usually, products are sectioned into groups of threes, fives or sevens, with small, boxed products in a pyramid form. Visually, this accomplishes three things: it is visually pleasing to the eye of the customer; based on this formation, it is very easy to determine what needs to be restocked, and best of all, the customer understands the display as a related series, such as shampoo, conditioner, finishing spray. Makes sense, right? Also, look at what colors you are using on the walls behind your product displays. It is recommended that you use rich, vibrant tones and hues because this adds more quality to your displays and makes them more visually pleasing. As a rule of thumb, where you have retail displays, have no white walls!

A last note: Please remember that you control the outcome, not the circumstances. You have it in you to create a powerful retail machine! The choice is yours