Welcome to All About Hair with Danise...where beautiful hair is just the beginning.
I'm Danise, a hairstylist, educator, and salon owner with more than 30 years in the beauty industry. After owning four award-winning salons, I never imagined I'd build another one...until now.
Join me as I document the real journey of creating Panache & Company from the ground up. From finding the perfect location and designing the salon to hiring a team, mentoring stylists, serving clients, and navigating the unexpected, you'll hear the honest conversations that happen behind every milestone.
Whether you're a client looking for trusted hair advice, a stylist building your career, or a salon owner growing your business, you'll find practical education, inspiring stories, and real-life lessons from behind the chair and beyond.
New episodes feature: • Behind-the-scenes salon building • Hair education and healthy hair tips • Business and leadership insights • Stylist career development • Client transformations • Honest conversations about entrepreneurship and life
Today's episode is a throwback of one of our most popular episodes...it will help kickstart your new year and new goals!
I know we coach on the client consultation a lot! But the consultation is truly the most important part for setting you and your client up for a successful service. Let me share with you five easy steps to remember to cover all your bases. I like to call it the 5 C's of the Consultation: Cut, Color, Condition, Cost & Convenience. Remember these five and watch your career take off!
Well, hey there. This is Danise. And this is the salon ownership Made Easy podcast for salon owners who are searching for simple solutions to their everyday challenges. I've owned several six and seven figure award winning salons in my 30 year career. With so many changes happening in our industry these days, it seems like salon owners need a shoulder a hug and a big dose of reality. Think about it. We didn't learn how to be successful salon owners in beauty school. So why don't you let me share what has worked and what hasn't worked for me over the years, you do have what it takes to be amazingly successful. So let's do this. I'm excited you're here. Thanks again for joining us on the little things. This week, we are going to be talking about a very, very simple way to give a consultation and to cover all of your bases. Yes, I know we talk a lot about consultations on this podcast. But it is so important and right out of school, you got to learn how to nail a consultation. That's why it's so important. Today, I want to just break down five simple things to remember that will get you through, okay, and I call it the five C's of a consultation. We've got your cut, color, condition, cost, and convenience. Those are the five C's to remember. So let's talk about that. Let's break those down. Say you have a client and they're they are scheduled for a haircut. Great, fabulous you walk you introduce yourself, you know how to do that. Shake their hand, bring them to your chair, and you're going to talk to them about their cut. Absolutely. You're going to talk about hey, where do you want it to hit? Where's your trouble spots? Tell me what you love about your hair. Tell me what you know, a bad experience. Tell me about your best experience with a haircut. Make sure if they say hey, I want layers that you truly understand what that means in their eyes. It might be just some face framing, or it might be long layers. Or it might be round short layers, you don't know you really do have to talk about their hair cut. That is the first see. And even if they're just scheduled for a haircut, you actually want to talk about the other four C's, you want to talk about their color. Maybe that maybe they're not scheduled for color. That's okay. Ask them. How do you like the color of your hair? They're probably gonna say, I'm not here for a color appointment. Yeah, no, I'm just asking how do you like the color of your hair? If they say they love it, hey, I've been thinking about, I don't know, what do you think, you know, you open that conversation, and you plant the seeds for their next visit. That's when you get to say, Hey, have you ever thought about some face framing highlights or a money piece or lighten up your the top of your hair with some spark, you know sparkle or blend the grays or just add a toner, add some shine, things like that. You do want to talk about color, even if they've never had their hair colored before. Because you want to pique their interest you want to you want them to start thinking in those terms of Oh, never thought about that before. So we've touched base on cut number one, color number two. Number three is the condition of their hair. Ask them. How do you feel the condition of your hair is? They're probably going to say I don't know. I haven't really thought about it. Do you feel like it's dry? If it's the end of a season like right now we were just coming off the summertime. Did you spend a lot of time at the beach? Did you spend a lot of time in the pool? Are your ends a little bit parched? Are they dry? Do they need some moisture, that's your opportunity to upsell a conditioning treatment of some sort. Your salon will have the treatments available, whether it's a basic add on mask at the bowl, or maybe it's a deep treatment that you do but you want to open that conversation for that upsell of a conditioner. So we've covered cut, color condition. Now you want to talk about cost. That's number four cost is their budget. So maybe they sit down in your chair and they're there for a cut in color and they show you this Pinterest picture of this beautiful I don't know barley algae in your mind you're you're sitting there going holy cow, this is going to take like six hours or maybe they have colored their hair in the past with box dye. And you know that it's probably not going to be possible to to get what they're after in just one visit. So you really want to break down the cost of the service because maybe they're not thinking that it's truly going to take you for Five hours, maybe you're going to have to do a color removal, maybe you're going to have to do a filler, maybe this visit is going to be on five $600. But their touch up their maintenance visits will cost probably a third of that. You want to break that down and make sure that's okay with them moving forward, not just for today's visit, but moving forward to maintain their look. And if it's outside of their budget, they might think, Oh, my goodness, I didn't know it cost that much. That's okay, find something that you can do for them in their budget, there is always something so say they were coming in, they brought you a beautiful picture of barley asure the whole thing and, and they're scheduled for full barley asure and your budget is, or your your cost of the service. I'm making this up, say before, and I'm $50, for full barley ash depends on your location. And they've got $150 to spend. Now, granted, they probably should have known the prices before they came in. But that's a whole other conversation. What can you do for their $150? Can you do money piece? Can you do some face framing? Can you do a mini highlight? Can you put a toner on their hair, find something to say yes to and then discuss the reason that a full barley ash or the look there after cost so much, you can break it down, they can get that look, they might have to do it over three or four appointments to spread their budget out. So that is just a huge, huge factor to talk about the cost. And a lot of times when you're fresh out of school, you're afraid to talk about the cost. But I could tell you, I can guarantee you if you do not talk about the cost up front, when they get to check out. I knew didn't tell them how much it is. And they are checking out and they're like, Whoa, I didn't expect that. Number one, it's embarrassing and uncomfortable for everybody involved. Number two, they might not ever come back to you. So just give them a price quote at the beginning. Before you start anything, ask them if that's okay, to proceed. Some people might say hey, I don't need a price quote, just I just want you to do it. Great. Don't give them a price quote. But most people want to know what's going on and always quoted a little higher, say, hey, if we need to add some extra color, it might be this, you know, things like that. So that way, if you didn't have to add extra color, and they get up and they are checking out, then they're pleasantly surprised it didn't cost that much. And everybody's set up to succeed. And they'll gladly pay your prices. So that's the fourth one cost and so important. At our salons, we always price quote beforehand. We've been doing this for years. And it really really has set us up for success. And I do know aren't just a side note, I do know when you're fresh out of school, and you're trying to find your your, your foundation and your confidence. Sometimes you really don't know, you don't have the confidence to give them a price quote, you're scared, you're scared of what they're how they're going to react, what you're gonna have to just do it, do it scared. That's the only way around it because the more you do it and you work those muscles and you get over it, it'll, it'll come to you. And so that way, when you work yourself up into your career and your tickets start getting higher and higher, you know your worth, and you won't be afraid to say those high numbers. Okay, so that's number four costs. So number one, cut. Number two, color number three, condition. Number four cost. Number five is convenience. How often do they want to be coming into the salon? Maybe they've not thought about it. If they're asking for like platinum blonde hair, and they're like a level six, they're going to have to be coming into the salon probably every three weeks. Because any more than that. It's you're gonna get banding. So maybe they don't know that. Well, they probably don't know that because they're not a hairstylist. So if they're asking for a major change, that's that is any more than I would say two shades off their natural color. They're going to have to be coming into the salon every three to four weeks to maintain that look, even if it's just a great touch up sometimes. I mean, I know myself, I have to touch up my hair. If I want to look presentable, at least every three weeks, sometimes it's just the the part line and around my face because I don't have the time. And that is something you could suggest to them. If they don't have the time or the money, maybe provide a service that's just we call it a T zone, which is just the part line. Maybe one inch on either side of the park. And then around their face that just gets them through to the next full touch up. It's just a suggestion that's we offer that sometimes, because we do have clients who are, you know, 90 to 100% Gray, and the minute their hair starts growing out, you can see it. And so it at our prices, if they came in every four to six weeks for their touchup, first of all, maybe their budget doesn't allow it. And so they're gonna get in their mind that, oh, I could just go to the drugstore and buy some home color and do it myself for a lot cheaper, of course they could, it's gonna be a mess, and they can't guarantee it and it's not gonna be as shiny and, and they're not going to get you, you know, and your personality and your care. So you want to make it so they are loyal to you that they want to come back to you more often than not, so how about cutting them a little bit of a deal. I mean, that's your bread and butter. So, but on the flip side, if they're coming in, and they you know, like I said, if they are level six, and they're wanting platinum blonde hair, you've got to tell them what the maintenance is about, you know, a toner, the touch up, I mean, pulling off a platinum blonde is not for the weak at heart. And it's not for the people who don't make money. I mean, it's not for your college student, it really truly is not. So let's talk about let's just review this the five C's of a consultation, cut, color, condition, cost, and convenience. We used to write these down on we used to have travelers right now we're paperless. So we don't have our travelers or our work tickets for each guests we used to carry around a clipboard. And when we were first starting this, I would actually write down cut, color, condition cost convenience on every single ticket to remind myself to touch those points. Because I kid you not this will be a game changer for you. You can touch all those not only will you upsell with conditioning, maybe color, maybe their next appointment, they weren't thinking of color, but since you've told them their next appointment, they're going to make it for color. The fact that you brought up the cost and gave and pre quoted their service, or told that broke it down what each appointment would cost. They're going to trust you, you know, think higher of you. And then just talking about the convenience up front saying hey, even on a Bali, asure highlights or, or even just a haircut, if they're going to a pixie guess and they came from waist length, maybe waist length, they were coming in every three to six months for a haircut. We all have those clients, but they're going to a shorter haircut, they need to know they can't wait three to six months, they need to go four to six weeks to maintain the look of the haircut. People don't know this. And we just assume that, that they know this. They don't they don't know what they don't know. And it is our job, our responsibility to tell them and just be the professional that we are. Anyway, I hope these pointers have helped in some way. Maybe a challenge yourself. And even if you're still in school, and you have tickets, write down these five C's cut, color, condition, cost and convenience. I guarantee this will be a game changer. Hey there thanks so much for listening to the salon ownership Made Easy podcast today. Would you do us a favor? If you got value out of this week's episode? Will you share it with your friends? And while you're at it, go ahead and leave us a review. That way more business owners like yourself will find us and we can help them with the challenges they may be facing too. Thanks again. And we'll see you next week. Take care
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