it's ok to take a time out

With the constant changes we have to deal with in the world, are you ever secretly relieved for a forced break — similar to what we got during the pandemic?

LET’S TAKE IT BACK TO COVID…

I want to talk about this break we were all given. So when Covid started, there were a few stores that panicked and closed early before they were ordered to, maybe it felt like an opportunity to take some time off. Others were afraid of that forced time off and remained open as long as possible. There were also stores residing in the middle and decided not to close early, but stick around by appointment only. Then, when we got to the other side of it, I feel like there were a lot of us who took a big deep breath, even for a day or two, and then were ready to get back into it.

TO BE HONEST…

I want to talk about that because I feel like that was a big wake up call moment in your business and I don't know if people recognize that it was a wake up call.

WHAT CHANGES DO YOU NEED?

So my question to the store owners everywhere is if we always lived in a time like this, would our appointments be more qualified and higher quality? I think the answer is yes. If we can take that scary little moment in time where we only wanted qualified appointments and bring it to our daily life, I think you would see an increase in not only sales, but also an increase in the quality of customers. Sometimes when we get really desperate for traffic and dollars, without the forced closure, we do things that end up hurting the business — extending hours, overworking ourselves and our stylists, we accept any appointment, we take the low budgets and allow the massive groups because we're too afraid to get the bad review. To be honest, it's such a waste of time. It teaches your customer base that you allow that kind of behavior and shopper into your store. You begin staffing for the volume of traffic that walks in your door. If you increase the volume of traffic, but don't increase the quality of your appointment, you're just spending more payroll on people that don't fit your sales process, and that isn't serious.

BREAK AND EVALUATE

Take these breaks as an opportunity to look inside your business, your appointment flows, and relate it back to your target customer. Use that time to really evaluate your pre-sale process, your customer, who you want them to be, put in place some procedures. So moving forward it's easier for you to manage who your customer is and get clear about who you want walking in your door. Let’s be very intentional about our business.

For more on this topic, listen to The Podcast. For more on working with us and doing a deep dive into your business, Click Here. If you took this self reflection time during our forced break, let us know how it worked for you. Cheers!