Eliminating Miscommunication With Clients

Do you ever miss the mark with your clients hair cut or color? You miss the end goal that the client wanted? I go over the skills of being an active listener. How the personality code helps you decide how much much detail to go over with the clients.

I give specific verbiage I use everyday to get the conversation going with an open ended question. Opening the conversation to make them comfortable to be honest about what they want is important. 

Thank you for listening. Share this episode with a friend that you think would enjoy it.

I would love it if you took the time to leave a rating or review for the show.

Want me to go more in-depth about anything? Let me know.

Send an email with questions to skahrhoff@live.com.

Transcript

Shannon Kahrhoff: 0:00

Hello, welcome to the Decoding Clients for Stylists. I'm Shannon Kahrhoff. Today I want to go over how to help you understand how to communicate with your clients better through, the consultation through just general conversation with your client. If you can understand how to phrase your questions and open-ended questions, it'll change the whole format of how you communicate. If you ask them yes no questions, you limit what they can tell you. If you work with a personality code and figure out which personality your client is, it's amazing how much easier it is to formulate your questions a little bit better. But if they're brand new, straight in your chair and you haven't figured it out yet, you have general questions that you can work on. But it's all in how you phrase your question. If you go in and you are just very forceful and aggressive, wanting to make the communication as quick as possible, you shut down a lot of personalities because they need it phrased a certain way. You will. Speak perfectly to a direct personality. They want quick, blunt, no nonsense crap. But if you do any other personality, you're going to almost intimidate them a little bit, where you're shutting them down. I was in a drive through the other day and I wanted to order something, but the person on the speaker was very forceful, direct. You knew that she didn't want you to think about anything or the idea of wasting her time. I just did basic, and it's my fault but it was limiting my free flow of thought, and I just did my normal generic thing and that was it. I wanted ice cream, but because the person on the speaker was forceful. I didn't take that extra time to go into detail. And you have that risk of shutting down your client in your chair, and if you're not open to them discussing what they're wanting,'cause they might not know exactly what works for them with the colors, with the, with shape, with the length, if you shut'em down with very blunt questions. You are not doing either of you guys justice. There's more likely of a miscommunication with exactly what they're wanting because you're not. Phrasing it in a friendly manner. So always go in there a little bit more calm, more open, a little bit more friendly so that they feel like you are wanting to discuss that, discuss the issue, and not just, okay, tell me exactly what you want so we can get started and stop wasting time. I've been there, I've running, I'm running behind, and you don't have things put together, so you just need to, cut to the chase. Certain personalities that's intimidating. They'll just shut down and say, yeah, just do whatever we did last time. It's fine. Or a new client will just say, sure, whatever. That sounds fine. And you just totally eliminated the idea of communication there. My general thing is not the most detail friendly, but I just go in lighthearted and say, so what are we up to today? What are we doing? And most personalities are like, oh, okay, let's go. I want my hair colored, I want it highlighted. Great. What colors are you thinking? Do you like what you have now? Do you want to, try a different color? What do you think? What do you have in mind today? And it is open-ended, so they're able to verbalize exactly what they're thinking. They might pull out their phone to show pictures. They might have something exactly saved on their phone or a style they had 10 years ago that they absolutely loved, and they think that's exactly what they want. Perfect. No big deal. So you have to pay attention to how you're phrasing your questions. And if you. Get them to talk. Now, here's the trick. You have to understand how to be an active listener. An active listener means you're actually listening to them and learning. Exactly what they're going, what they're wanting to tell you. But you have to know what questions you wanna ask next so that you can get more details out of'em. So if they say, okay, I wanna highlight, great. Okay, so what are you thinking? You want blonde red? You want what? What tone of highlight are you thinking? And they might not know what the heck tone means, and that's fine, but that's your job to figure out exactly where their mind is, their skill level, which, how comfortable they are with talking about things. But you have to listen and be able to stretch the conversation on. I have seen some people that they listen. To know what they're going to say next and waiting for them to stop talking, so then you can put in your 2 cents. And it's hard sometimes with the rule maker personality because they go into a lot of detail, and if you think about it, that's perfect because they are giving you the layout of what they're thinking. It's your job to be an active listener and try to decipher what they're saying to. Verify what is in your mind back to them. So if they're not the most skilled at our phrases, our terms with toning and colors and warm and cool, it's your job to get your phone out and show them pictures of, this is a cool tone, blonde. This is a warm tone blonde. This is a strawberry blonde, so you have to go through and. I wouldn't pull out your Swatch book'cause it's confusing. Think how confused you were at the beginning of your career. And there's some people that love looking through the book and that's exactly what they want, but it's easier if you go through and try to understand exactly what they're meaning. I love it when people say they want an Auburn. Whatever tone it is, Auburn is different for every person. And if you don't understand that you are in trouble because Auburn can be a light tone to a deep tone depending on the person. It could be more of a violet tone or it could be a copper tone, Auburn. It really depends. Color, line to color line, person to person. So you have to do your due diligence and by active listening you need to be able to go into more specifics. That's where the whole active listening thing comes in. And you are verifying in the next step exactly how. They have an idea of what an auburn is. We do. Whenever people wanna mo a blonde or a caramel blonde, it's so different depending on the person. A caramel blonde is someone could be just a warm blonde, but it could be like a level seven, and it's just a little bit of a coppery tone to it, so you just have to understand. Make sure you guys are on the same page. It's the same thing as a drive through. You need to. Read off the order so that you can verify that you are on the same page with you and your client. Because if you just say, great copper, red, okay, no problem. I can do that. And they get done, you dry it, and they're like, this is not what I had in mind. Where the heck did you pull this from? I don't want orange hair. And I see this a lot because you didn't do your due diligence to verify. What they wanted was what you thought it was because we're miles apart, most time between what we think and what they think. Because a lot of it is just what they are told on social media, in magazines, on movies, and it's not always the same thing. So you have to be careful exactly what you assume. And this is where we have a lot of problems and everyone. Most clients now think that because you show'em a magazine picture or TikTok picture of some celebrity, that you're gonna be able to precisely match that hair color and you need to do your job and explain to them, this is an inspiration. This is not gonna be exactly perfect. So we will get, I will tweak it to make it precisely for you. You don't want your hair to be the Exactly same as the celebrity. We wanna make it. Precise, or we wanna make it uniquely you. And if you phrase that right to a client, they're gonna be like, oh, this is just gonna be my hair color. I'm not going to look like someone else. And you're not gonna do the same highlight or color as the next person that comes in your chair. Most people want to be unique. They want something that'll be exactly for their skin tone, for their personality, for their, however they style their hair. You need to make them feel unique and you need to specify exactly why. It's just going to be a idea or a suggestion of how they're going to turn out. Now if it's an all over blonde and they want it where there's no dark in it, it's just a platinum blonde, eh, you're gonna have to get pretty darn close to it. But if you can't, because they have black hair color on their hair, you need to be careful and make sure you limit their expectations. Under promise and overdeliver because if you do that, they won't be let down. But you have to be able to explain to them why this limit is here because they don't understand that black hair color, especially box black hair color, is very hard to remove. You have to understand that you have to get through all these orange stages, and your communication skill is a thing that saves you in this moment because if you go through the details of explaining why certain things happen, you don't have someone saying, but we agreed that we were going to this platinum blonde. Why the heck is my hair orange and streaks of my dark in there? Naturally, you have to understand. That you're explaining is getting through to your client. That extra time can save you. Having someone trying to get a refund on their hair color, which is absolutely ridiculous, but you have to make sure that you explain this. To your client in a way that they can understand with a direct personality. You can go in there direct and you can like, you can just go in there super easy, simple, say, look, your hair is black. You have to get it through the pumpkin stage to be able to get it to the snow stage. And until you understand how this all works, we have to do it through stages or else your hair is gonna fry off and we don't want the breakage. You understand that? And they're like, I don't want breakage and I don't want my hair orange. It's okay, so let's baby step it first. Let's check out, see what you have on your hair, and go from there. With a, fun loving personality. You have to say, girl, really, you have to be logical here because we gotta have some fun different hairstyles in there before we can get you to that fun, sassy blonde. You have to work through the process, so you have to understand it's gonna be a few months of getting your hair done to get it to that blonde glory of the summer that you want. They don't want the details. They wanna know the timeline. They wanna know why. You have to do more time on it, but you have to do it in a fun way because if you bore'em with details, they blanked out and they have no idea what you said and they miss the whole orange stage or fried hair stage. So you have to do it quick and in a fun like manner. Sometimes that's a challenge to keep'em focused long enough. But if you can say, look, we wanna keep all the hair on your head that we can, so unless you want extensions, and then we can just do extensions. And then it doesn't matter if you fry off half your hair because you've probably want. From blonde in the summertime to dark in the wintertime for the last five years. So we need to really be careful with this. So how about I do my best, we order you some extensions and next time you can have long flowing blonde hair with as we work through the dark. And they'd be like, okay, sounds great. Then you work through the pricing of the extensions and you do the best you can to lighten up that black hair and you go from there. Fun, fun, loving. You gotta make it entertaining and fun. Don't bore'em with the details, but you have to make them understand that basic foundation in a very quick, easy way. With the rule maker personality. The rule makers want the details, the nitty gritty, down to the smallest detail, the ounce of the bleach that you're going to use on them. And they want to know exactly what to expect, how much time you think it's gonna take, and how long of a process it's gonna take to get'em to this blonde or whatever color they want from the style they come in with. They wanna know. Will I walk out the door with this exact hairstyle? If not, okay, what do you think we can accomplish today? And you better pull up a picture because those people, these rule makers, they want to know exactly what to expect when they walk out the door. These are the people that can drive you crazy if you don't understand. They want every detail. They wanna know your confidence level that you can be able to achieve this, that they're gonna have all the hair on their head as they walk out the door. And they wanna know why you're choosing this color over that color.'cause this is the color I want. So what the heck do you mean? You have to have major confidence and backbone in yourself sometimes because they are gonna be the ones trying to convince you, but I want this color. I'm the one who wants to choose my color, and this is it, and you need to understand. You can tell your client, this is the color you end up with, but this is not the color I'm gonna apply to your hair because it's not gonna work. You have to use an ash tone to cut out the warmth so you get the right color, or you have to add a little bit of a warmth to the color because you're covering blonde. You have to be able to understand how to have the confidence when with a rule maker, because they can be the Karens. These Karens want things exactly their way.'cause in their mind they know they're right because they did their research. Now we are the ones who understand the chemistry behind hair color. People, we have so much knowledge that no one understands the time that we spent in school bleaching out, hair samples to get to the right shade of blonde. They don't do that. We do. We understand that. Do not let your client talk you out of doing what you know is right, because you're the one who's gonna be responsible when they walk out the door with the hair color they don't like, even though they are the one who think they know better than you. Don't do it. Stand strong and look, you came to me for a reason. With rule makers, you have to be able to hold your ground because they will push you. They might give you attitude back, but that's okay. You're showing your strength now. You steady people. You're gonna have to work hard at becoming a person that can stand your ground that understand that you really do know more than you think. And you definitely know more than this person who didn't go to cosmetology school and hasn't had the years of experience that you do. Because we all know hair color theory is hard. It is so hard to understand exactly why different things work different ways on different hair colors and different textures, and we know what we're doing just. You lovely, steady people. Step up your game. If you don't have the confidence, fake it because you're gonna have to do it, or they're gonna walk all over you and then they will shred you to pieces at the end. If the hair color is not what they expect, I. Because you're the professional, right? Why'd you listen to me if it wasn't right. Not acknowledging their faults at all. So those fun are the, so those people that have the rule maker personality, you have to be careful'cause they can steamroll you and I have. I definitely talked people down and I have had to stand my ground many times. It was like, look, that is not the right color for you. This is not going to work the way you want it. Trust me, I'm the professional. That's why I do this. I have way more experience just because that YouTube thing showed you to that they use. This doesn't make a difference. Trust me, your hair is different. I have to do it a different way, but. Yeah, these rule makers are great people, but they need all of the details. If you don't give them the details and you leave some step out, they're gonna be sitting there questioning your competency the whole time. And at the end of the service, even if it's the most precise, beautiful color ever, that they actually wanted that doubt's in there, they're gonna be the ones who are. Nitpicking at the end because it looks warm when it's wet. So as you're drying it or while you're cutting it, it looks totally different and they have that warm stage level in their head, even when it's dry. Those are the people, these rule makers are the people that say, I still see warm, I still see yellow. No, it's the self-doubt in their mind that they had forever. How long it took for you to process their color and apply it. It's already in their head. They've already decided that it's way too warm, it's not gonna work.'cause you didn't hold your ground with them. You made them feel like you weren't competent. Who knows how. But these are the people that are the Karens and the ones who are more likely to call you because something's just not right, even though it's the warm tone, light bulb in their bathroom. I've had that more than once, but you have to understand where they're coming from because they think if you're not confident to them that you don't know what you're doing. So that's where you have to up your game and sometimes a little sass to make sure that you've proved to them that you know what you're doing. Don't be rude because rudeness does not work with rule makers because then they really doubt you. They need steady confidence and then stand your ground. Because if you don't and you don't explain to them why you have to add this shade or why they're thinking of something isn't working, you have to knowledge them to death about this. And if you still can't get them to. Back down from what they think they want. Pull aside someone in your salon that can back you up.'cause sometimes that's the only way you can do it, because two minds are better than one to those rule makers. You have to prove to them sometimes that what you are saying is accurate. I don't know why, but sometimes you have to push it a little bit farther. Now, those steady clients that you have in your chair. These are the ones you have to make sure you don't go into strong because you'll intimidate them too much and then they won't open their mouth about anything. So you have to be able to walk up to them and you be calm, Sally, how did your hair work last time? Did you like it? Is there anything we need to tweak? And they're gonna look at you since you asked, yes, this side just wasn't laying right, or it was just a little too long, or a little too short, and we just need to. Work on something, I don't know what's going on. But by going in gently and calmly, they feel like they're able to acknowledge that something wasn't quite right. And believe me, if it's perfect, they're gonna tell you say, oh honey, no, it's exactly right. Do the exact same thing. And then you sit there oh crap, what did I do? But it is one of those that you just go in calm. And if sometimes, if you know these clients and you know that they don't like to speak up about anything. You can just say, so anything we need to tweak, we doing the same thing. How do, what do you think today? Just ask. And they're like, they're probably gonna tell you. It's Hey, is there any way we can get rid of this tone on the hair? It's just a little too much. Or we need to change it up just a little bit. Can we? That's what a study says. Can we, do you mind? That's a dead giveaway of a study, but they're not going to say, Hey, this is what I want. Here's your pictures. Study doesn't always bring in pictures. They just wanna be the least amount of problem. Keep it as easy as possible and not try to burden you with anything that they want. And sometimes you have to convince them for change if it's needed because. You have to wait until they're really ready for a change for them to be able to understand exactly why a change is needed. So whenever you have a client, sit in your chair, start out with something simple. I have the same phrase for everyone. I would you like your hair done today? Or, how would you like your haircut today? Or, how would you like your hair colored today? Or do we need to adjust anything with your haircut today? These are all open-ended sentences. So they're, I'm o I'm inviting them to tell me what they think. I'm not saying, Hey, we doing the same thing today, because that cuts so many of the personalities down. And for the rule makers, you might make'em mad because you're like, oh, I'm not allowed to change anything. So open-ended without anything expecta, without any expectations, you do much better and you will learn the personalities by you say, so what are we doing today? The rule makers will say, you're coloring and cutting my hair today. Right? Absolutely. So how did it work for you last time? And they're going to tell you. Because you asked an open-ended question, and then they feel free to tell you because this is the hardest lesson I had to learn. Because we want perfection, we wanna make them happy, we wanna get it right the first time. Guess what? We're not perfect. We have to get precisely step by step to where they're wanting it. And by tweaking it every hair appointment you're getting to understand their perfect styles and cuts. And for those lovely clients that love to change their hair colors every time, oh, chef Kiss, because it's amazing being able to create and plan and have fun with it every time. Because it might be a small tweak, it might be a huge change out, and you get to have fun creating a whole new style for'em, and you get to see the excitement in their face. Nerves do, but that excitement at the end whenever you really get to see the inspiration picture turned to magic in their hair and those people, a lot of time it's the fun loving people. That love the change. They like the versatility of having different things for different seasons, different emotions. You can tell when you have clients long enough of if they're going through a hard time,'cause all of a sudden they're wanting blah hair colors. They're wanting just normal, natural, basic. But those people that want the dramatic changes. And the bright colors, they're in a good place. And it gives you a little hint into how the conversation's gonna go through that appointment just by the colors that they choose. And a lot of it is just the little details that you notice over time. Once you, you realize how much they tell you just through how they phrase different things. Each personality is different and over. The time of learning these personalities. I'm hoping you're starting to understand that a little bit more. While you're learning the personalities and learning your clients a little bit more, your customers might actually understand that you're trying to get to know them a little bit more, and whenever you hit that moment where you can almost pinpoint how to phrase something to them, you can see a little. Light in their eyes of, oh my gosh. She's actually understanding me. She's making sure that it's exactly what I want. And that is the sweet spot. As a stylist and maybe as a client, because that is what makes you unique. You're taking the time to get to know this client. Exactly the way they need to be getting to known with exactly the way they need to be spoken to or understood. Because whenever you make someone feel seen and heard, that doesn't happen a lot in people's lives. A lot of people are just expected to be the same person they are through their whole life. And overlooked you think about how we treat our family members, our close friends. We just assume everyone's good. We just assume that everyone is the same person they were when we first got to know them. Do we actually listen to people? Do we actually take the time to ask questions of different things? Everyone's different, but. It's that unique treatment for each person that will make you have loyal clients and you'll become friendly with them and understanding them. And you'll have so many special moments with these people, with these clients because you've taken that extra time to get to know them. You've been an active listener for someone who is going through a rough time or, they're losing a family member. By taking the time and understanding that they're telling you something that they might not have told anyone and they can't tell their family because they don't wanna add a burden to them. Those are the skills that we have in our hands right now if we take the time. Because if you take your two hours of time with this client and you actually take the time to listen to them, get to know them more, you'll. One, you will feel amazing because you actually had a legitimate connection with that client. It wasn't just surface information. You'll actually be able to relate to them a little bit more. They will talk to you a little bit more and they will talk to the your, they will talk to you about their concerns more accurately with their hair, with their life. A lot of people just need someone to. Really hear them and by understanding their personalities and how to actively listen, you'd be amazed because it's just not a skill that most people take the time to understand. It took me a long time to really understand that there's a difference.'cause I was a one upper constantly because if someone I was talking to had a story, I was like, oh yeah, I've been there before. I know that. Yeah, I've done that before. Yeah. Do you wanna hear my story? That's not active listening. You need to listen and ask a question from whatever their response was because there's always something that you can add more information to by asking them the right question. So just listen and figure out. There's always something that you can add One more question to, to. Encourage them to go into more detail because I like it because I don't have to think of things to talk about. I'm a little bit more private about my own personal life behind the chair because. One, I'm boring. I don't do a lot of stuff, but I don't feel like my clients really care that I'm cleaning my house on the weekends or working on different projects or reading different books. It is one of those things that I try to limit what I talk about so I don't waste their time. And there's clients that are very close to me and I tell them a little bit more, but I don't go into a lot of my own stuff because I don't wanna take up their time and. There's, yeah, it's, I keep mine short and sweet most time. I've probably told more private details of my life on this podcast than I have to most the multitude of my clients because it's not something I feel that I need to burden them with my problems, with wasting the time that I could actively listen to them and let them. Enjoy their time a lot. So it's just something I try to keep focused on that I am spending their time be in the chair. Their time in the chair is the focus is on them, on their life, what they're tr, what they're doing or the struggles that they have. I let them talk it out and to me it's amazing, but. I know it, it can be a burden at times. It's if it goes dark, but I have learned how to release some of the negativity and the the sorrow that I hear from my clients to try to not bring it home. There are some that, it touches me too much and it is. It is hard sometimes when you care for someone in your chair, but overall, it's a great blessing to have these people in my chair and understand them a little bit more so the. The one thing I want you to take from this episode is I want you to really understand and think about how you start your consultation, how you welcome them into your space, and how you start it. I shampoo everyone that comes in. I shampoo before my colors because of my hair color, and they have that time to relax a little bit in the shampoo bowl. And then I get to my chair and I'm combing out the hair, and that's when I start the consultation most of the time. So how did your hair work for you this time? Is there any complications, anything we need to work on? Okay. And it's so what are we doing for your color today? Did you like it last time? So focus on the words you say. Now, if you're anything like me, it's like asking a client, where do they part their hair? You ask the question and everyone blanks. You have to actually encourage them to just do the action of parting their hair so they know which way it is. So listen to yourself when you're working. Understand how you phrase things. What's your tone? Because each tone is different for each personality. But start out neutral. Try not to be too intense, too loud, too crazy. Unless your personality's crazy, then you can just roll with it. But listen to yourself on how you do consultations. If you could focus on it for one day in the salon with each person that comes into your space. You might get a hint of how you do things and you might understand how to tweak it a little bit, and it'll be fun to see how many different personalities you have sitting in your chair one day to the next and understand why you're more drained one day to the next. Because those strong personalities, the direct, the fun loving, those are the ones that have the capability of exhausting you a little bit more. Because they're more intense. The direct is very, as it says, direct, they want things done. Short, simple, and there's more pressure on you. The fun loving, it's keeping your patience and trying to follow the conversation sometimes. So understand what your expectation is, how you handle different things, and work on pinpointing what personality that client is. And sometimes you can understand it just by your past experiences with them in your space, and ask them the questions that you think might work better for them. A way to calm them down if you feel like it's going to go off the rail a little bit, but by phrasing your consultation questions the right way. You'll actually get more accomplished. You'll understand how to get the details out of'em, their thoughts out of them, and you'll be able to have even better results from your clients by the CO, by getting the expectations that they want and you telling'em yourself how you plan on doing things, if that's the personality that needs it. So have some fun. Figure out your clients and figure out the right phrases for yourself on how to talk to your clients about what they're, what they want outta your service for that day. Go have fun. Have a great week. I'll see you next week.