5 BIG Ideas for your Pre-Visit Experience

Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Modern Hair Stylist Podcast. So, today, we're gonna be talking about the pre-visit experience. Yes, ma'am.

Y'all know I'm doing a little series right now, right? This is gonna be the end of the series all about your guest experience and bringing your guest experience to the next level. We have so far gone over why it is so important to have a next-level client experience in 2022. We have gone over four ways to bring your post-h- visit experience to the next level.

We've gone over the in-the-chair experience, the five categories of a next-level client experience, and today, we're gonna be talking about everything that happens up until they walk onto the doorstep of your salon, right? We're gonna be talking about the pre-visit experience all the way from when they land onto your website all the way until they hit your door, okay? So, if you are mother effing ready, I'm ready to spill all the tea, so let's go. Okay, so as you guys may know, I literally have an entire course about the pre-visit experience, and so this is something I am super passionate about and something that I really know in and out.

Um, however, I'm not gonna be breaking down every single part of the pre-visit experience today, but I am gonna be speaking about some really important and really cool next-level ideas that do bring your pre-visit experience to the next level. Now, there are so many reasons why the pre-visit experience is so important, but I wanna name for you my number one reason why. It's because this is when you set the tone for how your clients respect you and what the standards of your business are, okay? This is where you lay out your boundaries.

This is how you lay out how your client will work with you from here on out and what that client-stylist relationship will actually be, r-right? So, you're able to set your boundaries, you're able to communicate your standards, and you're able to, um, create a really next-level experience and enjoyable experience for the client all in the same breath. And so I think that it's really important to not just get all caught up in the fact that, you know, we're bringing an amazing client experience to our clients, but also, we're bringing in a, uh, and a great life experience to ourselves, right? Because if you have a really beautiful, streamlined, automated, and boundaried, um, pre-visit experience, you're able to spend more time doing the things that you love when you're not behind the chair, right?

I cannot tell you how many times I have been, uh, out from behind the chair back before I had an amazing pre-visit experience and I was just texting back and forth with clients all the time, in my DMs all the time, rescheduling people, coming in early, staying late on my days off, et cetera, et cetera, because of having a lack of infrastructure when it came to my pre-visit experience. So, that is why having a pre-visit experience is so essential and important, okay? But without further ado, let's get into the tea, the juicy stuff, the different elements of your pre-visit experience that I wanna talk about today. So, let me guess.

You are a hustling, bustling hair stylist behind the chair, working so hard to build a beautiful career for yourself, one that gives you time, freedom, and energy to spend with yourself, your family, and your friends. But you feel like you're always working in your business, even when you're not behind the chair. My name's Hunter Donia, and I help you automate your systems and implement really beautiful strategies so you can grow your business without the overwhelm, and this is the Modern Hair Stylist Podcast. The very first step of a pre-visit experience is the website, right?

That's the very first part of their kind of pre-visit experience, and I want to dive deep specifically into your service menu. There's a lot of parts of your website that we could spend time talking about today, but I really wanna dive deep into your service menu, because I think it is absolutely crucial and essential. Number one, okay, number one is your pricing has to be transparent, clear, and it needs to speak a client's language, okay? Your clients do not know what Olaplex is, what a partial foil is, and what a toner is.

They literally don't know, okay? So, when you say all of these words, when your pricing isn't clear, when your services are not clear, and you don't frame them in a way that makes sense to your client, they are gonna keep shopping around for salons and service menus that make sense to them, that speaks the same language that they do, right? Because they're gonna be intimidated. They're gonna feel like they need to know what they're gonna book for, and they're gonna literally be going on YouTube and Google searching, like, "What's a partial foil?"

And it's like, that is such a negative experience. Like, you should not have your client looking anywhere else for information besides you, okay? You want to be the TikTok. You want to be the Google.

You want to be the YouTube. You want to be the authority of the craft. You wanna be the person that they come to when they have questions or when they are curious about something as it's related to what you do and what your niche is and, you know, just hair in general, right? So, that includes on your service menu, that includes in your entire experience, et cetera, et cetera.

So, therefore, in your service menu, if you have a bunch of words that nobody understands, then you are going to have a problem and you're not going to be able to maximize and optimize those potential new clients and get them to actually go through your booking process, because they're not gonna feel confident. They're not gonna know what they're getting themselves into. And do you wanna know the tea? You're not just attracting people.

You are repelling people with your website, and you wanna repel the wrong people. You wanna attract the right people, okay? And so if you are repelling people, that is a good thing, but it's not a good thing when you're repelling your ideal client, right? That's a problem.

So, you can u- It doesn't matter what your pricing is, right, as long as on your service menu, your prices and your services are translated in a way that makes sense to your ideal client, all right? So, that way they know that you are in their price range, in their budget, and that you offer services that make sense for them.Period. Okay?

So, your service menu needs to speak client's language, and so I want you to literally take your service menu and show your ideal clients that service menu, maybe even ideal clients that have not come to see you yet, and ask them, w- what do you think that you would get on this menu, right? Or, do you know what all of these words mean? And if they don't, then that's an issue. If they are reading descriptions and they're like, "I still don't know what this means," then that's a problem.

So go and get real data and real feedback and see what makes sense and what doesn't make sense on your service menu as it ma- as it is right now, and then take that information and make changes in the future. I show people i- in my pre-visit pathway course how to super simplify their menu no matter what pricing structure you are so that way booking processes and that pre-visit experience can be as streamlined as possible, but the great place to start is asking for real feedback from real people and then going from there. Okay? So, make sure that your service menu makes sense to new potential clients who do not speak hairdresser.

All right? We are so used to speaking hairdresser. We're so used to understanding what a partial foil is, what a full foil is, et cetera, et cetera. But your clients do not know that.

They did not go to beauty school. Now, the next part of your pre-visit experience that I wanna talk about is having a free digital consultation. Okay? So, I want you to stop wasting your time with consultations.

All right? I understand 100%, you have to have in-person consultations for certain services, but I want you to streamline that process as much as possible, and I want you to give your clients an option and a space to non-confrontationally tell you the tea in their own words. All right? Because if you give them a space to tell you all of the tea, right?

Like on a digital form, for example, right? Um, if you give them a non-confrontational space to tell you what's going on, they are most likely, more likely to tell you more than what they would have told you in person. 'Cause I know whenever I'm in, like, a weird social anxiety situation and I'm speaking with somebody, like, face to face and I am, you know, uh, maybe not the authority in the room, right? Like, like, when I go to the auto shop and they're telling me all these different parts that they had to do and the muffler's broken.

I'm like, "I don't f- I don't know what the hell any of that is, girl. You just fix my car. Like, have fun." But if they ask me questions, if they ask me something on a form, like, "What noise is your car making?"

"What eng- what light is coming on on the dashboard?" Right? And they showed me visuals. Like, if they showed me things like that, it w- I would be able to give them answers that made sense, right?

And I would feel a little bit less intimidated and it'd be a lot more of a comfortable experience versus calling them on the phone and b- and, like, them asking me what I need and I'm just, like, feeling really anxious and I don't even know and I just say whatever I think that they want me to say. That is the same with your clients, and so having a free digital consultation such as a digital consultation form with all of the questions that you want them to answer, so that way they're actually giving you all that information right off the bat so you don't have to email back and forth for it. If you give them that space, you will have a better experience, they will have a better experience, and you will be able to know what you're getting yourself into. All right?

And then you can have an in-person consultation from there, or a video consultation from there. Whatever works for you, but that digital consultation is going to streamline and it's gonna make everything more efficient for you Okay? So, a free digital consultation is the GOAT for so many different reasons, um, but I'll k- leave it to that for now as far as the pre-visit experience goes. All right.

So, the next part of your pre-visit experience is online booking. Online booking. Okay, so when I normally ask people, like, what their thoughts are about online booking, they're like, "It's great. I use it.

Love it," but they, like, don't actually use it. Like, you maybe use it every now and then, but, like, you don't use it as a pinnacle foundation for your business, and that is why none of your clients use it, right? I actually have an episode coming out soon. It's gonna be called the Do's and Don'ts of Online Booking, and I'm gonna dive deep into online booking and maybe, um, how you're using it wrong and how you're using it right, right?

However, um, I think online booking is so intensely powerful for the pre-visit experience and that's why I'm gonna talk about it right now, and I'm gonna tell you the why online booking is so important for today's day and age. Okay? People do not want to go back and forth with you over the phone, on e- email, through text to figure out what day and time they're gonna come see you. Okay?

They don't want to do it. They wanna see a big nice calendar with a bunch of times and options for- that are convenient for them so that way they don't have to go back and forth with a human being and they can just choose the option that's the right, that's the right fit for them Okay? So, not only is this super convenient for you as a human being, right, because you are able to be hands off and they can just do th- that themselves, but also, it's, it's great for the client because they don't feel like speaking to a human being and waiting for you to get back to them, and if you're an independent/if you're a salon owner/if, I don't know, if you're any type of stylist or service provider, you know, number one, you should have business hours, so you should only be responding to people within certain times and days, and you can't be Superman and you can't get back to everybody at every single hour every single day, and you have enough-ish to worry about, and so online booking takes that pressure off of you. But here's the thing.

Here's the thing. You may not be using online booking correctly or have the strong fundamentals and foundations set up, right? To be able to confidently implement online booking or be able to confidently have your clients utilize it all of the time, and so that's why I'm gonna be coming out with that episode soon enough. But online booking is really super essential for having, again, a next level experience in 2022, and also for setting up boundaries for yourself.

Okay? The thing about online booking is that..Your calendar is your calendar. Like, that is it.

Like, the things on that calendar, on your online booking, those are the only days and times that are available to that client and that means that, you know, you're not coming in early or staying late or on your days off, right? That means that you don't feel the pressure to have to come in early, stay later on your days off because you don't have anybody asking you to. Slash, you don't give into yourself. You don't say, uh, you don't have the option of saying yes or no to yourself.

You're just like, "This is the calendar and that's it. Have fun, friend." And so that way it's a systematic boundary that will make sure that you hold yourself accountable to not coming in early, stay late- staying late on your days off, et cetera, et cetera. So, online booking is the goat.

It's amazing, it's iconic, and you need it for a pre-visit experience, not only for yourself but also for creating a beautiful experience for your clients. Everybody wins at the end of the day. You just have to make sure that you have it set up in an easy, beautiful way and you have systems and solutions to support it. And I'm gonna be talking a little bit more about that, like I said, in a future episode and in my workshops and in my programs as per usual.

All right, so we got, so far, a streamlined service menu that makes sense and is simplified. A free digital consultation to make sure that you get the information that you need and you create a non-confrontational, comfortable experience for your clients. Online booking to hold yourself accountable to your own boundaries and to make booking really easy and convenient and seamless for your clients. Now, let's talk about some sexy stuff.

They actually booked an appointment with you, right? So, they booked an appointment, and now they're gonna get a welcome email sequence, okay? So, this welcome email sequence is completely automated, all right? And what we're doing with the welcome email sequence is we are getting them really comfortable and excited for your appointment, for their appointment with you, right?

And in this welcome sequence, you're really gonna want to prove to your client that they made the right decision to book with you, okay? That is what you want to accomplish here and the way that you can do that is just by really explaining the value of the service and the experience, right, that you're actually going to give your client and that you give them every single time. You're gonna show them all the things that you offer, the why behind you offer them, unique parts of your experiences, and also a little bit about you and your why, right? And why you love to serve people so that way they can get really comfortable and excited to meet you, to work with you, and to be in the long haul with you, right?

You want to blow them away. This is how you set them apart. This is how you reduce cancellations and no-shows with new clients. This is how you retain them and this is how you make more money in the end of the day, is by making sure that you're creating a culture and that you are setting the expectations of that culture from the get.

Talking about, "This is how we do things here, these are the core values," and really explaining to the client that, like, hey, this is a space that is gonna be perfect for you. Your ideal client, right? You're explaining to your ideal client like, "This is a space that I've curated just for somebody like you and I'm really excited for you to come and sp- experience it with me." Because once you can do that, you build that trust right off the bat and they have such a better, more comfortable, positive experience.

And you set yourself apart, right? So, welcome email sequence could look like, number one, sending them your first welcome email. Like, "Congratulations. So excited to have you in my books."

Um, and sending them your welcome packet, giving them your salon app, right? We talked about having a salon app in the post-visit experience episode. Um, making sure that they have everything that they need to have a positive first experience and future experiences with you. Breaking down what your booking process looks like in the future.

Talking about your parking , um, and, like, little things like that that will just make things so much more comfortable for when they come to see you, right? You'll have your second email where you can talk about, you know, a little bit about yourself and, um, introduce, you know, who you are, maybe some cute little fun facts about you and then ask them to reply and tell them some fun facts about them- tell you some fun, uh, facts about themselves because you are actually interested in taking care of them and you're excited to see them, right? A third email could be something unique about your experience, right? So, you could talk about, you know, maybe how you are a green circle salon or maybe you can just talk about being in a salon suite, right?

Whatever you want. Tell something that makes- that sets you apart from other people and why your experience is next level, right? And explain that and break that down to the client. You could talk about your product line, the why behind your product line, the core values behind your product line and how you'll be explaining tho- those things to them.

And you could talk about the add-on services and the spa treatment that they're maybe gonna get when they come to see you, right? So, I'm just throwing ideas out there, but you could have this automated welcome email sequence that breaks down a lot of these things. And the reason why this is a sequence and it doesn't just do it all in one is because people do not read, okay? And I should do a whole other episode about email marketing, but, um, when it comes to email marketing, I'm a really big fan of only sticking to one topic at a time because when you talk about a bunch of different things, it can be really overwhelming, it can be a lot of copy and it can make your job harder and the reader's job harder as well.

And the harder the job for the reader, the less they're gonna read, right? And you want them to read, you want them to enjoy, you want them to consume what you're giving them and what you're sharing with them. And so when you can just stick to one topic at a time, send it over the course of a couple days, right, or weeks, whatever, then, uh, then you'll have a higher chance of actually making an impact in that person's pre-visit experience. So, it's an automated welcome email sequence and it's timed out how it needs to be timed out, et cetera, et cetera, um, with an email service writer.

Now, with that first email, you can also send a new guest onboarding packet, okay? So your new guest onboarding packet is actually going to be a digital PDF, and that is gonna be something that really does kind of put a fair bit of things in there, right, that your clients can always go back to. It can break down your booking process, it can break down the parking again, it can break down how they should, uh, show up with their hair, um, you know, like should it be washed, should it be natural, should it have no product in it, whatever it may be. Um, payment methods, uh, what else is in there?

A breakdown of what their experience looks like, et cetera, et cetera, to get them just that much more comfortable to set the expectations again. You could put your policies in there again. Um, it's just something that your clients can always go back to and read and also read upon that first email so that way tha- those expectations and that culture is set once again and once more. I mean, a digital PDF welcome packet, like dude, that is freaking badass.

Like, that is, like, setting you apart like nobody's business. So that can also be included and attached to that first email that you send in your welcome email sequence. I talk about both your welcome email sequence and your onboarding packet within my programs, and I give you templates and I break it all down for you, so if you're interested in all of that stuff, then you can head to the link in my bio and check that stuff out. But it is some powerful shit and it really does set you apart and blows your people away in the pre-visit experience.

All right, friend. So like I said, there are so many other things in the pre-visit experience that I could talk about today, but those are, like, the main five really huge ones that I feel like, um, can make a huge difference and blow your clients away and help you do your job better and make it easier behind the chair, okay? Now, if you would like some help with getting these things into action, I highly recommend that you check out my Instagram, where I share so many tips about the pre-visit experience, and check out the link in my bio, where I have plenty of resources for you to streamline, automate, and bring that experience to the next level. Like, this is literally what I do, it's what I teach, and it's what my students have in place, and that's why they're living their best MF-ing lives, okay, uh, behind the chair and in their businesses.

So go ahead, definitely check that out. If you love today's episode, if you love the Modern Hairstylist podcast, I wanna thank you f- so much for being here, um, and I want to ask you if you would not m- mind taking a moment of your time to leave a five-star review wherever you're listening to this, maybe a little blurb about what you loved about the Modern Hairstylist podcast, or just this episode in general, I would very much appreciate it. It'll help us reach more like-minded beauty professionals just like yourself trying to revolutionize this industry and make our career one that is taken seriously, okay? So, so much love to you, my friend.

I hope that you have a blessed rest of your day, and I will talk to you soon. Peace out.

End of transcript. © 2022 Hunter Donia LLC.