How to Fill Your Books Without Giving Discounts [EP:207]

Are discounts really the best way to grow your salon? Spoiler: they’re not. 

In this episode, Todd and Jen break down why discounting hurts your business long-term and share proven, real-world strategies to fill your books without ever lowering your prices.

From rebooking systems and referrals to solving client problems and improving your marketing, this conversation gives you practical steps to attract and retain loyal clients—while keeping your profits intact.

If you’ve ever felt pressured to run “new client specials” or endless deals, this episode will show you a better way forward.

[00:00:30] Why Discounts Don’t Work

• Discounts train clients to chase deals instead of building loyalty.
• The wrong kind of client shows up when your main value is price.
• Discounts erode profit margins.

[00:08:30] Losing Clients After Price Increases

• Why losing some clients can help growth.
• The story of a longtime client who left after a price increase—only to return later because the service was worth it.
• Why “books closed” strategies backfire long-term.

[00:12:00] The Psychology of Discounts

• Why discount-driven clients rarely stay.
• Early bird rates, grandfathered pricing, and the fairness problem.
• Clients aren’t looking for the cheapest salon—they’re looking for solutions.

[00:16:00] Positioning Your Salon Correctly

• Luxury vs. high-volume vs. best-solution salons (from The Pumpkin Plan).
• Why most salons misuse the word “luxury.”
• Building systems that create client experiences, not discounts.

[00:18:00] Marketing That Actually Works

• Why SEO and Google Ads changed everything for Hello Hair.
• The long game of marketing.
• Social media as support, not the main strategy.

[00:23:00] Creating Emotion Through Content

• Client faces matter more than hair photos.
• How captions that solve problems drive bookings.
• Building emotion into your content to spark connection.

[00:26:00] Client Retention and Rebooking Systems

• Rebooking in the chair vs. at checkout—why timing matters.
• Using iPads and conversations to make rebooking personal.
• Why retention through relationships is more powerful than any discount.

[00:31:00] Referrals Without Discounts

• How to identify your “seed clients” (best-paying + favorite people).
• The psychology of referrals: people want to be connectors.
• Incentivizing referrals with value, not dollars.

[00:36:00] Rethinking Memberships

• Why discount-driven memberships fail.
• How to package services and products at a premium instead of a discount.
• The importance of solving problems, not cutting prices.

[00:40:00] Community + Connection > Coupons

• How to network in your community.
• Why free (used strategically) builds loyalty more than discounts.
• The “3 visits rule” for long-term retention.

[00:43:30] Final Takeaways

• Stop training clients to wait for deals.
• Solve problems, build systems, and focus on the client experience.
• Discounts kill growth—relationships fuel it.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript – How to Build a Salon Clientele Without Discounts

Opening Take [00:00]

[00:00:00]

Jen: Happy Monday.

Todd: Happy Monday. Some technical difficulties here. So, all right, today, let's, let's jp into this. So today we're talking about building a clientele. Without offering discounts

Jen: Love it.

Todd: because I, I keep seeing that. How do you attract people? And people are, will be like, , we run a special, or we do this, or we do a discounted rate for new clients.

And you really don't need to do that. And we'll explain why. As we, as we go, I have some examples and some things we don't offer discounts through. Hello Hair. So this is all stuff that we've done or ideas that might help you based on. Our experiences. Before that though, it's time for our opening takes.

Opening takes. So my opening take is I was at the grocery store recently and this caught me off guard. There was a cashier in the next line over from me. I'm just standing there waiting to get cashed out. [00:01:00] And it was a young, a younger guy, he turned to the manager who was like two lanes over at the end.

So he asked a question and the manager yelled across to him. I showed you that when I trained you, and I don't know why. It just caught me off guard. It didn't, it just didn't feel right. It didn't sit right. And so the kid was like. Could you show me again or would you mind showing me again? Or whatever. And the manager just snapped at him and said, you need to turn around. You have a customer. And I just, I wanted so bad Jen to like say something, but it, I was like, I'm just gonna stand here. And I feel like my mouth probably opened. I just couldn't understand how you would talk to somebody. You are supposed to be in a leadership position, you're a manager.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: You are supposed to help people and put them in positions to succeed and you are gonna talk to somebody like that. just made, I was just like, [00:02:00] That's how I felt. I

Jen: Hmm.

Todd: this is disgusting.

Jen: And good for that kid for even rephrasing his question like

Todd: Yeah, he was.

Jen: he's asking for help.

Todd: He was still trying.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: I was so confused and so caught off guard. I didn't know what to do, but I, I was like, somebody's gotta stand up for this kid. And I'm like, they'll figure it out. Just take your groceries and get

Jen: Or hopefully he quits.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully he quits. And then I, I have another quick opening take. I keep seeing people online and I can't help it. They just complain about their staff. My staff doesn't do this. They never listen. never wanna work their schedule. They never post on social media. They never take the trash out, whatever. Insert a million things

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: bitching about their staff. And so I'm, I'm currently reading, and this is kind of funny, so Jen, gifted me the book Unreasonable Hospitality. And I started reading it and I loved it because I love restaurants and things like that. So I start reading this book and it's going great. And then Jen takes the [00:03:00] book and. wants to read it, which is fine. I'm good at sharing,

Jen: Hmm.

Todd: I don't know where the book is now.

Jen: Neither do I.

Todd: Oh, and you don't know either. It was in one of your bags somewhere, I

Jen: Yeah, it's probably in one of those bags.

Todd: So what I did was I, I downloaded the book for myself on Audible, and I've been listening to it. I'm almost, almost finished. And there's one quote by Will Giudara, I don't know how to say his name. But he's the author of the book and he says, if you can't find more compliments to deliver than criticism, that's a failure in leadership. Either you're not coaching the person sufficiently, or you've tried and it's not working. So either one of those scenarios, whichever one is correct, still falls on the leader, and I think more people need to hear that and more people need to buy into finding compliments for you.

When's the last time you complimented your staff?

Jen: Always.

Todd: In person or on a Facebook group [00:04:00] or whatever. When, whenever we're talking about our business, it always comes back to our team and that we couldn't do this without our team.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: We talk about that with family members. We talk about that with other salon, salon, salon owners. We talk about that with everybody. Every chance we get, I feel like we're pping our staff up.

Jen: Yeah, all the time.

Todd: they're a massive part of it. And so if you have a staff that just isn't doing anything in your eyes that's on you, you have to figure it out or hire better people. That's what I told someone in one of the groups recently. They were like, well, I tried this, Todd, and this didn't work, and I'm like, look, I'm just trying to help you. I really don't care about your business. I want you to succeed, but I'm not gonna argue with some anonymous person on Facebook.

Jen: Right.

Todd: I just wrote, it's a, it's hire better people. I guess. I don't know what to tell you if, if nobody, so maybe it's true.

Maybe you have a staff of just all jerks, right? It's probably highly unlikely, but maybe you do. Maybe you have like three or four people on your team [00:05:00] and they're just all jerks. They're always salty. Fine, I get it. You're still responsible, so fire them and hire better people. don't know what the issue is. That's all I got from my opening takes Jennifer. What do you got?

Jen: Well in the prerecording, you tossed it up to me. So I got one now. My opening take was, is my gosh, is a text that I received last week that really, I'll say, made my, my day, maybe it even made my week like two years ago. I had raised my haircut prices by, by a big amount. It was time and I had waited way too long.

So here's a jp. Let's do it. I was also way overbooked, so I had room for, for clients to leave and, and all that, all that jazz that we've talked about. Anyway, one of my longtime clients, she'd been with me since my first salon, so 25 years I've been cutting her hair. And with this price jp, she's retired decided [00:06:00] the price of the haircut, it just was too much for her, wasn't worth it.

And she was gonna find someone else to cut her hair. Side note, her haircut is one of the hardest haircuts for me. It was one that I still struggled with from time to time when I was cutting it. But I wished her well and I actually even said, Hey, if you ever wanna be a model we have model pricing.

I could absolutely use you to help train my staff. And we could continue our relationship and shaped, lightly declined, like just, it was time to cut ties. Which was fine, and anyone who's ever lost clients or have clients that leave them, sometimes you celebrate that it's time for the loss, like the relationship to be done, and sometimes with price increases.

Some of the clients that decide to leave you. Kind of miss them right? Some. It's a struggle that I talk to a lot of stylists about and , they have favorite clients that they're always afraid they're gonna leave when they have a price increase. I have the same issues myself. So she was one of my clients that I really enjoyed our relationship, our conversation over the last two years or so, [00:07:00] I would think about her from time to time and I.

Woke up to a text, a very long text from her saying she's missed me. Our software sends out reminders or not reminders, but if there's openings in your schedule, she's like, I get a few from here from time to time that you have a opening for a haircut. And I just kind of put it off and then I decided you're worth the price that you're charging.

And if you'd have me back, I would like to unbreak up with you. And I was like, this is just the coolest thing. And she went on and on. I'd like a haircut here and if, if you will have me back I would like to come in around this time, so I just responded with, I would love to have you back. I have missed you so much.

Can you do this day? And I'll see her now in about three weeks and it just. Like it, it hit so many nerves and I'm sure anyone that's had a price increase, like I said, that , it's a big jp or you're at a nber that maybe it's uncomfortable for you. I stood strong behind it. I believe I'm worth it.

And it was really cool to have her come back and [00:08:00] basically for two years it's just like, I need to be sitting back in your chair and you need to cut my hair. And it was fun to celebrate it.

Todd: You go. So when you, when you have a price increase, you might lose clients, which is the point people I don't

Jen: Not always comfortable.

Todd: I I think people don't get that. But you're, yeah. If you're a hundred percent booked, you need to, you need to lose some clients or else you are not going to be bringing in new clients, which is what we're talking about today.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: And if you're not bringing in new clients, your business is starting to. Regress.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: You have to be constantly bringing new clients into a business. I never understood the strategy of books closed

Jen: Same.

Why Discounts Don’t Build Loyal Clients [06:00]

Todd: taking new clients.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: to me. It's, you're trying to appear exclusive, but you are turning people away.

I'll tell you a quick story about that. We worked for, by we, I mean me, I worked for a. A [00:09:00] pretty upscale restaurant, and the manager that was there before me, he would only take reservations. So he would map out the dining room and the table. They, , each table would get like one turn. So it's, , you're talking two tables for the entire night, or two seatings on a table rather for the entire night and everything is booked solid.

He would have it mapped out exactly where. This name with this phone nber is gonna sit at this table. It's six people and they're gonna be here from five to seven. And then from seven 15 to nine 15, know this table with this nber is gonna sit there. And what happened was we got books closed, right?

That's what we got known for. We got known for being a restaurant you can't get into. It wasn't very long before the phone stopped ringing because people get annoyed. If I can't get in, why would I? Why would I call you?

Jen: Right.

Todd: Why would I go to your website? Why would I sign [00:10:00] up for your newsletter? Why would I do that stuff when I can't get into Dine with you? So fast forward a few months, I took over as manager. I wasn't a hundred percent sure how to fix the problem, but I knew we needed to fix the problem. So I talked to some of our staff that had been in restaurants, they had been servers for like decades,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: were people that were experienced and one of them said. a family friend that runs a restaurant down on the coast in Massachusetts, and I forget exactly where it was. It was a seafood restaurant, she said, they are absolutely open to helping people. And I said, great. And so I went there they stuck me at the host desk with their team, and they were like, this is how we do it.

This is how. We run our books, you can still take reservations, but you can't map everything out like that. It's too rigid and it doesn't create any sort of flexibility. And if one thing goes wrong, now it's you're screwed for the whole night because you're so tight with everything. I put those systems in place and before [00:11:00] long, I mean instantly, like that weekend, I was approached by staff who were telling me, I've never made this much money in a restaurant serving tables before.

Jen: That's awesome.

Todd: were able to get more turns in the tables. We were able to be more flexible and we were able to get people in and they loved it. People wanted to come hang out. It's a way different story. If people are like, this restaurant's busy. you wait, you can get in though that's way different than you are just not coming in.

Because what happens now is people are coming in, they're sitting at the bar, they're having a couple cocktails there, they're waiting for their table. Maybe they have an appetizer, whatever. So it's good for business to bring clients in all the time. Discounts are probably either killing your business or holding you back. And I don't know why this industry does all the discounting that I see, but I think we need to talk about it. So

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: what, what's happening [00:12:00] when you are discounting your services? So first of all, if you need clients, it's probably because you need. Them to pay you for your services because you need money. How would a discount, how, how you need money.

How would bringing in less money help you?

Jen: Makes no sense.

Todd: Yeah, it's, it's, it makes no sense. A couple other things that are happening. You're training people to wait for deals.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: running a deal every other month, that's when your clients are going to want to come in. They want to come for the deal because that's the type of client that you're chasing.

Jen: Right.

Todd: wrong with this. I've talked about this in the past too, Jen, when I had my gym, made a major mistake and I offered one of those like coupon deals

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: get, , X amount of onset, a huge discounted rate. And so the whole, the whole shtick from this business was we flood your business with clients and yeah, you don't make a lot of money off of it. You have the opportunity [00:13:00] to then keep those clients?

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: the flaw in that thinking is that discount chasers tend to stay discount chasers.

Jen: Right.

Todd: like deals like finding the next deal.

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: what I did was I artificially inflated my nbers where the gym looked really busy for like two months and then all those people fell off.

I think maybe we retained one person and you might say, well that's on you. Maybe.

Jen: no, they're looking for the next deal.

Todd: 'cause I'm the leader, but also, yeah, that type of clientele wasn't my clientele.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: So I now had a gym full of people that needed all this help. 'cause they were all brand new and it was taking away time from

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: clients that were paying regular rate.

Jen: Right.

Todd: So that's kind of what you're doing when you discount your services. Also, early bird thing, I, I never understood this either. if you are the first 10 people or whatever, you get a discount on this. I understand what you're doing. You're [00:14:00] trying to dr up business, but why is that person paying less?

Just because they got there before me? Is that really a reason? It's like grandfathering rates in.

Jen: All right.

Todd: found out that I was paying double or triple what somebody else was paying, I would be annoyed if I'm getting the same service.

Jen: Right. I think the key there too is if you're offering discounts, understand like what type of business you're running. You are in the discount business, which means you have to always be offering some sort of discount over and over again to attract that person or keep them engaged. It's just, I guess, being more aware of, of.

What you're creating in your, in your business. If you're like, wow, none of these people are staying, well, you're creating that because they're looking for the discount. They're looking for the next coupon, they're, they're looking for the next thing you're running as a special,

Todd: Sure. excuse me, I forget what I was gonna say there [00:15:00] so we can just kind of move on.

Jen: okay.

Todd: But Yeah, at tra like, oh, I

Jen: I.

Todd: what I was gonna say. I believe it's the Ppkin Plan, is written by Mike Mitz. Is it? You should check that book out. But anyways,

Jen: It's a good one,

Todd: Businesses down into three categories.

When you're looking for your clients, you can either be the luxury spot, which is what, like 99.9% of salons claim they are,

Jen: and they're not.

Todd: which mathematically doesn't make sense,

Better Strategies to Build a Clientele [15:00]

Jen: No.

Todd: the luxury, there's the high vole, low price, right? And then there's trying to be the best solution for your client's problems. Now, the luxury route is, mean, come on. you're really like claiming, if you're claiming that you're luxury, that's fine. I don't anything against it. I just think it's a little watered down in

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: 'cause you're not truly providing luxury. You know, you've got a Keurig and some, know, some snacks in a drawer.

That's not like [00:16:00] luxury to me. You know, luxury would be adding hospitality to it. Adding something like when your client shows up, you have their tea ready, how they like it. Because you've created a note in your system and now you have a system in place for wowing clients constantly. The other one, you're not gonna be able to compete with the quickie cuts of the world.

You're just not gonna be able to do that sort of vole. You're gonna break. And you also, I, I mean, you're gonna need a huge staff and I don't know what it looks like, but the cost to acquire those clients is. Probably not really worth it. They're always going to be, like you said, Jen, if they're more transient, that

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: is more transient. They're more last minute, they're looking for just a haircut and that's it. They don't

Jen: Right.

Todd: a relationship with somebody. They don't want to look forward to coming into their barber and getting their haircut and catching up and stuff like that. So I think where most people should aim [00:17:00] is to create a client avatar. And if you don't know what that is, look it up. We've talked about it a million times. Create a client avatar and then that will tell you what those people's problems or pain points are, and then create solutions for it.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: And then give them those solutions, tell them how you solve their problems. And that's a really easy way to market once you understand it. And so I would read that book though.

Jen: That book is great.

Todd: What other strategies could, let's talk about Hello? So at, Hello we. Three or four years ago now, I forget, but we contracted out our marketing. We had a website built and optimized, and we had Google ads built out, and we have an SEO expert that we work with. And what that's done for our business is over time. That's not a quick fix.

Jen: It's [00:18:00] a marathon pace.

Todd: It's not necessarily your cheapest solution.

Jen: No.

Todd: to throw those things out there, we spend thousands of dollars on marketing a month.

Jen: Yes. A month, guys A month to the point where our accountant was like, what are you guys doing here? And then we explained it and he is like, I gotcha. That's worth it. Okay.

Todd: Yeah, our accountant was, yeah, exactly what Jen just said. So this worth it for a business? I would say absolutely. Or you

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: out how to do it yourself, but

Jen: Which, good luck.

Todd: What'd you say? Good

Jen: I said, good luck. Yeah.

Todd: I mean, if you have the time to become an SEO marketing expert, I guess go ahead.

But you probably wanna get back to doing hair and running your business if that's

Jen: Right.

Todd: doing. So we had tried some Google ads and stuff, and it just, it wasn't really working that well. I think we saw like a little bit of a return with Hello, I don't know how many months it took a few months, but once that door opened, it was like. Exponentially

Jen: Yes.

Todd: [00:19:00] like, so as the months go, it gets better and better.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: have new clients, multiple clients daily, where before it was maybe weekly

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: to get our word out there. We also opened during COVID. So that was a hard,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: plans for like, oh, we'll do a grand opening and we'll do this and we'll do that.

And none of that happened.

Jen: Right.

Todd: it was, it was an interesting time. But anyways. I would hire somebody to do that stuff, or like I said, figure it out yourself and that, put that down first, and then that's like your base, and then you can build off of that if you want to use social media, if you want to use whatever for your marketing. But that was probably our best bang for the buck.

Jen: I would agree when Todd approached me. With this plan, the nbers to me were very high. And we were not doing well at that time. So my first question was like, how, how [00:20:00] are we going to do this? And , Todd laid it out like the long plan here, Jen, is that we're hitting markets. Where we want.

Like we were able to, to talk through what we were looking for and who we were trying to attract. But it's a long game and once you start doing it, he's like, it might take however long, but this will start getting people in the salon and reaching more people. And at my last salon. That closed. I remember like, I'd be praying every night, like, I just hope someone new finds us.

I hope the phone rings. I hope we get one new client. I would pray for that, but my actions did not support that at all. And I think this is something that when you're opening a business or running when you need to have a marketing budget. We talk to people all the time, like, that's just too expensive.

Well, the cost of doing business is expensive. If you want to be always attracting new clients, funneling into your business, these are things that will do that. And once it gets going, [00:21:00] you'll see the success of it. But in the beginning, I will say, as. The owner. I am. I, I was just kind of like, is this really gonna work?

This is like so much money to like be investing into this. And on the other side of it now I sleep better at night. I look forward to seeing what's coming in the salon. I actually, if one of our stylists really has nothing, I'm pretty certain we're gonna wake up and they'll at least have one or two bookings from online coming in.

And it, it always turns out that way. So it's a win in the long run and it's something you'll just have to budget for and you have to figure that out.

Todd: Yeah, that, that's a big one. You, I mean, a website is not cheap to build out. if you want it optimized and you

Jen: Right?

Todd: to actually perform, I'm

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: about just building a landing page, but an actual website. It, it's worth it, worth it, worth it, worth it.

Jen: I agree. And I think the days of social media being your marketing is over. You're. Lucky if you see a return on that, there's so much more that you need to do for a marketing plan than just [00:22:00] using social media. And if you have a marketing plan, social media supports that really well, but without it, you're not being seen and you're not turning any of the likes or comments you are getting into actual clients coming into your business.

Todd: Let's point that out a little bit. So you said your social media paired with your marketing strategy or something like that, what

Jen: Yes. Yeah.

Todd: what we have at Hello, is we have people find us that are searching online. I ask every new client that I talk to, how'd you find us? And 99% of them will say, I searched on Google and found you. I had a new client last week and I said, how'd you find us? And he said, I searched on Google. There you were. And I said, how'd you choose us? I took it another step because there are what, salons in our town,

Memberships Without Discounts [28:00]

Jen: Yeah, probably.

Todd: I said, how, how did you choose us? And he said, I looked at your reviews. have a lot of stars.

And I was like, thanks.

Jen: Cool.

Todd: anyways. [00:23:00] What people are doing is they're finding your website and then they're doing a little digging to that guy. He was looking for reviews to a lot of people. They're then going to go to your social media from your website. Now your social media can act as like

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: card that's constantly evolving. You can have your work on there. would sprinkle in some interactions with clients. would show people's faces.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: one. I don't know why. in this industry will post the back of somebody's head that does nothing for a potential client. They can't tell if your client is happy or not.

That person could be crying. They're facing the other direction. I'm not saying that's what ha what's happening, but obviously I'm not saying that that person's crying. Hopefully you wouldn't be taking their picture,

Jen: Right.

Todd: there's psychology. Studies and stuff that show there's a connection with a photo when you can see someone's [00:24:00] face, especially their eyes,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: eyes.

And there's something about that that sort of comforting. So you're looking at these photos and it's like back of the head, cherry Cola. Cool. Back of the head. Wow. Dimension girl, whatever. Yeah. Cool. And then you see somebody that's smiling and lighting up the room because they just got a service at your business and that's contagious. And now psychologically, as the person viewing this, you think, I want to be happy like that.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Maybe

Jen: It creates a feeling.

Todd: It creates an emotion

Jen: Right. That's what you're looking for.

Todd: writing, cappuccino latte or whatever, that doesn't create any emotion. There's no connection with client. probably like, cool, I want Starbucks now.

Jen: If you are trying to use, let's say Instagram, as you're say, you're like, I don't, I don't have any money for marketing, so I'm trying to use social media. The two things I would recommend here is, first of all, if all of your Instagram is the back of the [00:25:00] head and you're like, why are people not clicking and booking with me?

Start taking pictures of the front of their face smiling. Like Todd said, it creates an emotion. The other thing in your caption, rather than writing Cherry Cola, what problem are you trying to solve? Who are you trying to attract? So that caption is, , say somebody's like, is your red hair always fading?

Somebody with red hair will see that girl smiling and be like, yes, it is. I need to book with you. So that's how you can use that. Even at a low level, it's probably still not gonna do everything you hope for without these other marketing strategies, but you have now an action with a hope that it will. If they at least see the smile.

You create an emotion, and then in your caption, you solving a problem for me, now I wanna be sitting in your chair like yesterday. That will at least help you and move you in the right direction. If you're not doing it, at least try. Try something different.

Todd: Again,

Jen: do work.

Todd: again, people are, yeah, that works.

Jen: It works.

Todd: People are looking for solutions to their problems, create solutions to their problems. Don't discount. That's [00:26:00] not how you're gonna get clients. People aren't looking for the best or the cheapest salon in town,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: they are, hopefully they can find one that's not your business. Like I said before, if you're going to be the cheapest, you're gonna have to do the most vole,

Jen: Right.

Todd: and we've already gone over why that's not good. I think the best strategy. You. So you have a business, you have at least a few clients. I think client retention and rebooking those are two underrated strategies. You should be rebooking everybody. I'm gonna be real. a barber. Most guys are last minute. Oh wow. My hair's long or I get this a lot. My wife said it's time for a haircut. So I texted you. Call the salon or whatever. rebooking is probably the easiest way to build your clientele. [00:27:00] The easiest person to sell something to, whether it's a service or a product, is somebody that's already purchasing for you.

They've already bought in.

Jen: Right.

Todd: already voted with their dollar, saying, I trust you.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: So take advantage or leverage that trust into rebooking them. What does that look like? I don't know. You might have to tweak it. Do you have a front desk? We don't have a front desk. some solutions we have at Hello.

We'll talk about that. What we do, so we have iPads that we can use. This is not a perfect system. But it works when it, when it's used.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: iPads at the stations and you can rebook your client while they're processing. Why would you wanna do that? I'll give you a reason. That's when they're thinking about their hair. They're in the salon, they're in your chair. That's when they're thinking about their hair. When they get up to the front desk, they're thinking, where are my car keys? have to pick up the kids today?

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Is my husband getting them? Or wife, what's for dinner?

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: I have to still [00:28:00] stop at the bank. I have to do that Amazon return. They are not thinking about you anymore. It's over. In fact, they're just waiting to pay. So rebooking there throw people off because they're not thinking about what's going on. I will some people, sure, I get it. Some people will always fall into any category, but the bulk of people are going to have a higher likelihood of rebooking when they're in your chair. That's just psychology. That's just the way the world works.

Jen: It also creates, again, depending on your brand, like just a different way of doing it where it feels like it's more personal. We have these stools we can pull up. Like I love and I have clients that book out like a couple appointments. I'm like, hold up, lemme grab the iPad, let grab a stool.

I can even do it on my phone. Whatever is comfortable, it doesn't matter. And let me go through and let's book a few of these, but now we're kind of like sitting down. So it's, it, it has just a nice personal interaction to it. And part of [00:29:00] retention is a relationship. If you can build a relationship, that's way more important, even than doing the hair.

If your hair's half decent, but this client feels that there's a relationship there, they can't wait to see you. They can't wait to catch up with you. That's gonna get them coming back way longer, way more frequent than anything else. So that's sitting down and kind of pulling up a chair means you're not rushing.

They even feel a little bit more relaxed. And you're creating this personal interaction of rescheduling your hair appointment. It, it really goes beyond just doing hair and that relationship's so important. That's why I have clients for 25 years, I couldn't do good hair in the beginning.

Todd: You could say something like, Hey, know, if you like this look that we're creating for you, I would recommend booking. I, I would like to see you back here in 10 weeks or whatever, so that we can maintain this look. Something like that because now you're making it about them.

Jen: Yep.

Todd: I would not, what I would avoid doing is sitting down with your clients and talking about you [00:30:00] telling your clients things like, I'm booking up really fast for the holidays, so don't, if you don't get in, you don't get in. I'd book if you want that appointment. Now, that's like off-putting to

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: especially because people are doing that in salons that are saying they're luxury, but you're not luxury,

Community & Visibility [35:00]

Jen: No.

Todd: anything about the client. This is all about you, you,

Jen: Right,

Todd: And go ahead.

Jen: there's another way to just put that about the client. Hey, holidays are coming. What do you have going on for parties? Do we need to get a couple things in? I wanna make sure you're all set. I wanna make sure you get whatever day and time I wanna make sure your hair's done for that party.

You're looking for the same end result, but you're making it about them, right? Like we wanna make sure they're all set. That's that, that tone even I see the Instagram posts, like to what Todd just said you could change that. Hey, I wanna make sure I like that you are all set for whatever you have coming up for whatever that event is.

And then they're like, oh, wow, they really care about me,

Todd: And then actually care. That's the

Jen: [00:31:00] right?

Todd: thing, actually wanna help people.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: another strategy that you can leverage without discounting would be referrals. I know we've done this. I've done this when I had my gym again, I think this comes from ppkin. What you can do is you could look for your, yeah, your he calls it the best ppkin seeds.

Right.

Jen: Yes. Yeah.

Todd: the book in a while, but I,

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: Audible. Maybe I'll rip through it soon. But what, what you would do is you identify your, I actually, I remember the, the process and I did this with the gym, so I'll just, I'll just tell it and if I miss anything. I'm saying go read the book anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Jen: So go read it.

Todd: you do is you make two lists and on one list you have your highest paying clients. So these are the clients that pay you the largest amount of money for your services, whatever that may be. Whatever that looks like. Write down the clients. Maybe it's a list of five to 10. On your second list, you're gonna write down the names of all your clients in your book that make you light up when you see their [00:32:00] name your schedule. Those are the people that you. Like really look forward to seeing you, really look forward to catching up with. And then what you're gonna do is you're gonna compare the list and then the people that are on both lists, those are your seed clients. want more of those clients. How do you get more a Well, we ask them. People likely hang out with similar people.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: I remember doing this at the gym and I pulled one client aside and I said, do you have a few minutes after class or before class? One day we'll grab a coffee or something. They said, sure. I did this with like three or four people. I said, I really wanna build this business and I really enjoy being around you. Do  anybody that could use my services? you have anybody that I could help? And just having those conversations because everybody wants to be a connector.

Jen: Mm-hmm.[00:33:00]

Todd: Everybody wants to be like, you gotta go you. If you don't believe me, just go on any your town Facebook group and look through. And there will almost always be somebody that's like, Hey, I'm looking for a barber, or, Hey, I'm looking for a hairstylist. And then you'll see 900 comments with the best everybody you have to go to Susie, she's the best. You have to go to Tom. He's the best. No one could beat. Kelly, better than this. And it's, it's insane. People want other people to go where they go. They wanna feel like they're going to the best, so that's, they'll promote you. So that's another way that you could get clients discounts. You could do something like maybe you work with your distributor and you bring on a new product. Maybe they have samples, or maybe it's like, maybe it's like a treatment, so maybe it's like a scalp treatment and instead of doing like, Hey, bring a [00:34:00] friend, and you get, you each get $10 off, it's, Hey, bring a friend and I'll give you this new scalp treatment.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Maybe you'll like it enough to leave us a rating on Google.

Jen: Maybe you'll like it enough that you're adding that service on every time you come in.

Todd: Right. So again, it goes back to solving problems for people and just like connecting people,

Jen: Yes.

Todd: , people love to connect. So you could create value, perceived value for people. that goes back to, well, everything goes back to. Goes back to solving problems. Sorry, my brain wasn't working and then messages started popping up on my phone. say for example, you are trying to solve someone's problem and they come in and they're like, I have a really dry scalp. likely have some sort of retail product for them. So you could say, Hey, check out this product [00:35:00] whether they wanna buy it or not. Put a little bit in a to-go cup and give

Jen: Right

Todd: have,

Jen: sample. Mm-hmm.

Todd: little plastic sample cups and I'll just give products away all the time. To people because why? Because now

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: bit of a more like a reminder, they're gonna be reminded of me. So now I'm building that trust because I'm solving their problems and they're probably higher likelihood of coming back.

I don't know what the math looks like on sampling people, but I do know that if people buy retail products from you, they have a much higher percentage

Jen: Correct. Returning. Yep.

Todd: Returning. And so if you focus on stuff like that and it doesn't need to be spending a ton of money, these are all little things you can do to increase client's perceived value.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: I wanna talk about something I saw this morning and I've seen it a few times. Somebody asked about memberships to increase client retention. Their [00:36:00] question was like, , when you guys build your memberships, do you find that it actually increases retention? Or do you just or do the discounts just hurt the business? First of all, I don't know why anybody would be building discounts into memberships. That makes zero sense to me.

Jen: We used to do that at my last salon.

Todd: Oh, you did?

Jen: Yeah. We had like a blow dry package. So if you like bought them ahead of time, you got a deal off each one, and then you got like the fifth one free.

Todd: Yeah.

Jen: you all it, it didn't attract really new clients. It just attracted clients that were already ours, that now were wanted the discount.

And everybody became salty about it. 'cause it was the people that had the most amount of hair and it took you way longer and it was like an epic fail from a business standpoint.

Todd: I don't understand if you're building memberships, why the first order of business is to figure out a discount. That's once again, I've already said this, and this doesn't come from me. [00:37:00] This is from reading tons of business books. Books on psychology and stuff, but people aren't looking for a discount. looking for a solution to their problem. So

Jen: the best person to deliver that.

Todd: Yeah. So what could you do with memberships? I wanted to touch on this. What, most people probably stop thinking at that. like, if you pay for membership A, you get these perks, which is generally what do we see? We see like a percentage off of retail

Jen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Todd: For free. If you do this level, you get all sorts of deep discounts and whatever, so maybe you're retaining clients. The approach I would take is, again, I would look for solutions to people's problems and I would package those and I would sell them at a premi. Why would you go the other direction when

Jen: Right.

Todd: needs to make money?

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Nothing.

Final Thoughts [42:00]

Jen: I, you just said it perfect. I It should be at [00:38:00] a premi. No, I, I'm just gonna repeat what you're saying, so no one needs to hear me repeating, although.

Todd: I saw that this morning and I was like, I don't understand why discount is your first order of business. So if.

Jen: And I would also say on that is if you are discounted or you're making these memberships or packages or whatever you're doing are you making sure that you're making enough after you're paying out on it using product? Like what is your return on investment in this? And I would imagine, if not all, most you're actually losing money.

I would imagine, I like where you're coming from on if you're gonna offer these memberships or packages, why not offer them at a premi? Because you're probably giving more advice, you're solving problems in a different way. You're packaging it all up so someone's not like, oh, I need this, this, and this, but you've already solved it.

Say, we'll go back to scalps. That's just a popular one, right? So maybe one of your packages is this whole scalp care. And with it you're taking home the products that would support that, [00:39:00] and the price would not be less than what it would be if they. Purchased it and got that service a la carte. So if anything, there's something more on it because you've now got everything all set for them.

All they have to do is click on it. You're making their life easier.

Todd: What I wrote here, I just looked for, my comment is if I were to build out membership first of all, I was like, I wouldn't offer discounts. That's always what I lead with. If I were to build out a membership program, I'd focus on increasing value, not decreasing,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: like priority booking, exclusive perks, et cetera.

I don't know what you could come up with, blah, blah, blah. I'd look at what my top clients actually wanted, what challenges they needed solved, and then I'd build solutions to those problems and package them together

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: because all discounts do is bring less money into your business. With more people that are choosing solely on price and they tend to complain more

Jen: Yep.

Todd: and they tend to be, like we said in the beginning, if if you're a coupon chaser, you're gonna continue to chase coupons. There's nothing wrong with that

Jen: [00:40:00] No.

Todd: all. But if you wanna build your business around that, you're gonna struggle

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: for sure. What else can people do besides offer discounts? Jen? If you want to build a clientele one of the things that you can do is get out in your community, go

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: business

Jen: Which we do.

Todd: That's always a good thing. Love talking to other business owners. Just tell people that you exist. I don't think that cards are really much value in 2025, but

Jen: I would agree.

Todd: what they represent could be, it's a conversation starter.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: to go around in your coffee shop and just stick your business card on their corkboard and think that you're gonna build a clientele that way because there's no connection.

You're just

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: drowned out by the other 700 cards on that page.

Jen: You'd be better off to ask the owner if you can do their hair and then put it on there and like, Hey, would you refer me? Right? So like, let me actually like use you as a model or something like that. That's gonna get you a lot further.[00:41:00]

Todd: Yeah, and that's a great point too, because somebody out there, I guarantee you, was just like, oh, so you're gonna do their hair for free. I thought you said you didn't do discounts. We don't. We would do their hair for free because people don't get used to free. People get used to discounts. I think I heard that on one of the, restaurant shows that used to be on. But what they did was they offered, so they understood it's, it was, I think it was John Taffer, but they understood the power of three visits. And so what they did at the end of person's first visit, they would say, the manager would come over and say they, now they know this is a first time guest already. The manager would come over and say, how was everything, blah, blah, blah. Great. Next time you come back, you gotta try the chicken here. It's on me. They would write out a little note for the person. Now that person's gonna come back. They gotta try the chicken,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: So then the person would put a red napkin or something.

I forget how they signaled it on the table. Now the manager knows that's a, that's the [00:42:00] second visit for this person. And three is the magic nber, at least for this example in what they were saying. I don't know if this applies to salons, but I would imagine the psychology is the same.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: So now that person comes over and they'll say. Hey, how was the chicken? they know that they

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: for the chicken. 'cause it's on the house, right? Great. I'm stuffed. Perfect. time you come in, is on me. Here it is. They write out a note. Thank you so much for giving us a second. Look, blah, blah, blah. Dessert's on me next time. So now this person comes in for their third time, 'cause they're gonna have a free dessert. So at that point, that person I think is like 80 something percent

Jen: Hmm.

Todd: to book a fourth at your restaurant. So if you start to look at that for the price of the chicken and a dessert, you've just gained a loyal customer.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: for years. And if you start to look at customers in terms of years and [00:43:00] lifetime value of clients and all those things we don't

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: we're running a little long, but starts to change

Jen: Yes.

Todd: perception and you start to look at, if I can have a client that comes in for 10 years and is loyal, what does that look like?

Jen: Right?

Todd: thousands and thousands of

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: So stop discounting and focus on making it about the client. Do you have anything else to add? I feel like I,

Jen: No, that's great.

Todd: okay, so I

Jen: I hope it helps. How about that?

Todd: Yeah. I hope, I hope these all, I hope all these podcasts, the one about raising your prices published today.

Jen: Oh, okay. Great.