Hi,
I have been running a small hairdressing Business from my home now for around a year. I have converted a room in my house into a salon and have been plodding along slowly slowly building clientele.
I have a website www.coderedhair.com that i am slowly learning how to manage (it does need updating i know but im struggling to understand the software i was sold for it.)
I have also handed out some flyer’s but as i am living as a single parent at the moment (husbands in nigeria waiting on visa) don’t have any spare funds for advertising. I send emails to my clients with offers and they each have a loyalty card that gets stamped when they spend x amount or recommend a friend.
I have been in the hairdressing industry for over 14 years now and
i should by rights be running my own salon by now,unfortunately bad luck has delayed this.
So to make the best of my situation i need some ideas to pull in custom without breaking the bank. I need to get my business thriving fast, pay of my debts and work towards making success of myself.
Trouble is all my ideas are bigger than my non existent budget.
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:18 am
How about these:
post your services, location and hours on craigslist and free classifieds for your local tv station
go to some chamber of commerce meetings and pass out flyers and business cards there, you might need to pay a small fee to attend or see if you can be a guest of someone who is already a member
set up a myspace page and find friends in your local area
pass out flyers at yard sales, offer discounts if the people doing the sale will hand out the flyers for you.
see if you can find any other networking groups, there are usually at least a few in every town,
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 am
Absolutely. First of all, don’t worry about a web site. That’s not how hairdressers get business. You should ask each of your customers who are happy with your work to tell three of their friends about your services. You could give your customers a flier that offers a free haircut to 3 of their friends. A LOT of salons in my area do this: they offer a free hair cut or half price coloring so new customers only — if the new customer likes you, they’ll come back. A great hairdress is worth their weight in gold. I do wish you the best of luck.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:32 am
You have some quality answers already. Do haff of them and you will see positive results.
One other thing I would do is to make sure that you track all of your customer’s names and addresses.
Then with your list of customers, send a post card to them every month. Write something simple on it such as If you enjoyed the haircut, coloring, braiding etc. don’t your think your neighbors would too? Give your neighbor the card and they’ll get a free gift when they come in
So, offer a free gift or discount or something for new customers.
That will help get recognition for your service….as long as your service is good.