How an Extra 30 Seconds Can Impact Your Business

We are almost through the first month of 2021 and how many of you can say that you have stuck to your New Year’s Resolutions? If you have already got off track don’t be too hard on yourself. There are a number of reasons why you could have fallen off the wagon but a big reason is that you may not have given it enough time to become a habit yet!

Habits are routine behaviors that are often repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously.

People often like to form habits around their goals. These could be financial, personal health and wellness, relationships, or even business. It’s hard to start something new, not to mention start something new with a group of people. Like setting goals, habits also need to be done in baby steps, as new habits are hard to form, but once they are it is SO worth it!

A lot of people think that it only takes 21 days to form a habit, but this is actually just a concept that the media blew up from the 1960’s book by Dr. Maxwell Maltz called “Psycho-Cybernetics”. In this book, Maltz didn’t make the claim that a habit can form in 21 days but rather referenced this number as an observable metric in his study. Habits can take anywhere from 18-254 days and on average it takes 66 days for a behavior to become automatic. Do not let this daunt you! The best way to combat habits is to create the right goals around them and to be prepared!

Say your goal for the New Year was to implement SalonScale into your salon this month. Your stylists may be hesitant to add an extra 30 seconds onto their color mixing routine but this is only because they have not done it before and they are stuck in their old routine. Once they have been using SalonScale consistently it will eventually become a new habit to them with no questions asked. Shortly after implementing SalonScale, your stylists will realize that an extra 30 seconds in their routine will benefit them in multiple ways! Such as allowing them to charge their worth, get more educational opportunities, manage formulas used on clients and keep notes from previous color sessions so if you are away, sick, or on MAT leave other stylists will always be able to give your client the results they want! When people start to see the benefits of their actions quicker, these routine behaviors do not seem so tedious and quickly occur in their subconscious.

To start the conversation with your staff on why you want to implement SalonScale you need to first explain why there is a need for it, by breaking down your expenses and how the more intricate looks impact the salons bottomline. You could do this by explaining that most industries are separating their parts vs labor and it’s time the hair industry does too as current trends are requiring more color than the past. Then you can go into explaining that SalonScale is an app with a scale that will help you track your exact color costs along with client formulas. You can also share what the additional benefits are, an example you can use is with SalonScale you are able to price your consultations more confidently. Lastly, you will go into detail on how you are going to implement this. After this, take a day or two with your team to go over everything on SalonScale, from how you will use it during a color session to how to communicate it with clients.

If your staff seems to be resistant try starting out small with implementing SalonScale. Ask one of your trusted stylists to become a master of SalonScale. This could be having a stylist start to use it with a few of his/her clients. After they have tested it they can help you to teach the rest of the team. After this, slowly introduce more stylists in using SalonScale with their clients and if they are hesitant at first they can use it with a client with who they are very comfortable. Additionally, another way to introduce SalonScale into your salon with your staff is to create a buddy system where your new and younger stylists can team up and work together to implement SalonScale. Change takes time, but the more practice your stylists have the more confident they will be!

With these guidelines you should be able to create new habits with no issues! Goodluck 🙂

All the best!