Great Lengths Coffee Talk

Great Lengths recently hosted their second Coffee Talk session – a series of free, inspirational business seminars to help salons grow, learn, and be inspired by one another.

The guest expert for April was Jennifer Swain, whose eponymous salon is in the small seaside town of Whitehaven in Cumbria. Swain Hairdressing is in Great Lengths’ top five performing salons in the UK and Ireland. During the hour-long Coffee Talk, Jennifer shared the story of her business and its growth and how other salon owners can achieve the same level of success, no matter where they are located.

I opened my salon in May 2006 and didn’t have enough clients to fill the week – although I’d always make out that I was fully booked and really busy to build demand! I knew I needed something to fill the gaps in my schedule and to help me grow my business and having seen Great Lengths at Salon International, I knew the quality was fantastic. It was around the time that Victoria Beckham was wearing lots of extensions and there was huge demand for them… although she then got the ‘Pob’ and suddenly everyone wanted short hair again! That ended up not being a problem in the end, as lots of people got the cut but they decided they didn’t like it or wanted long hair again – so there was a demand for people who could apply really natural extensions to help them grow it out!

Jennifer explained that she chose Great Lengths because she wanted to use the best quality extensions available:

I was marketing myself as a salon that took time, care and attention, so I wanted to offer the best extensions too – Great Lengths is a premium brand, which fits with the high-quality service I wanted to offer.

Today, Jennifer manages a team of eight, continues to grow her extensions business year on year and is now in the process of opening her own academy to bring premium education to the area:

I never wanted to just be defined by being a small-town salon. It doesn’t matter where you are in the country – you just need to be great at what you do.

Here, we share some of the most insightful advice from her Coffee Talk session:

Set yourself goals, and track them

Set yourself monthly and yearly goals and targets, then keep checking in on your progress. This helps you progress and grow a successful extensions business – which in turn, helps the rest of your salon services. It was a very conscious decision to become a Platinum level salon and setting myself goals helped me achieve that. Within a year, we grew by 60% by focussing on our targets. It kept us in work, kept us interested and kept us passionate about what we do.

I set goals by looking at the current year’s performance figures – what we are currently spending, how many extensions we are doing, how much repeat business we are achieving, as well as our operating costs. You can work in figures or heads of hair, then break it down into months and weeks. If you currently do no extensions, you might set yourself a goal of doing one client per week. If you are already doing some, maybe you want to gain an extra five sets a month. Your goals and targets need to be specific to your business, and you need to measure them regularly.

Be transparent about your pricing - and proud

Look at your pricing and don’t be afraid to charge accordingly for a good quality service. People choose through reputation, not price, so do not sell yourself short. As an industry, our pricing needs to be better, and we need to be confident about charging our worth. We have never had objections about our prices and people obviously think they are worth it. We have a clear price list available for anyone to view, so there are no surprises, and we do not make it up as we go along. When people ask your prices, they should roll off your tongue with confidence – we are not apologetic about what it costs. Just because someone down the road is £100 cheaper, that does not mean you need to be. If you are delivering a quality service with premium hair extensions, you should be proud to set your prices to match.

Promote what you do on social media

We get a lot of business through social media. We are proud to do different and diverse types of hair, and we showcase that online. We do clients with medical hair loss, people who are looking for extensions after chemo – it is really rewarding, and it is helpful to show people you offer these kinds of extensions too. With that said, it is important to be sensitive. It might be good marketing, but if someone does not want a picture of their hair sharing online, remember that the discretion, care, and level of service that you demonstrate will enhance your reputation – and that leads to recommendations and new business too. We do have clients with hair loss who are very keen for us to share their transformations online to encourage other women and let them know what is available, which is great.

When it comes to taking photos of your work for social media, make sure they are nice and clear with a clean background and a great finish on the hair. We have a wall in the salon with plants which we use. There are no rules set in stone, but as a close-knit team we know what works well on social media and what does not. We love showing our client’s faces and have found that with mask-wearing in the salon, people are now much happier to have their photo taken from the front, which is great and hopefully continues even when masks are a thing of the past.

Provide a consistent, premium service

We have a good reputation in the area, so people expect a certain standard. This quality and consistency of service and level of work and care means clients feel we are good value – and if you do one client well, they will tell their friends. I firmly believe that if you are good at something, people will come to you. We have clients that travel from London, Manchester, and across the North West because of our quality of service. A great service starts with a great consultation, so take time to ask questions. We ask what clients want to achieve, or what happened after their last appointment – what they were happy with and what did they not like as much? It is about clear communication, listening, and having an honest conversation. I recommend every salon owner has a look at their existing consultation process and considers why people might not be getting extensions after the consultation.