5 Unique Ways To Utilize Your Online Booking

Hello, friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hairstylist Podcast. So you know, my friends, you know, my friends, um, I am all about teaching you about how to utilize technology, modern day strategies, all of the things to make sure that you are optimizing your business as much as possible, to make sure that you are working smarter, not harder, to make sure that you are really taking advantage of everything that is available to you so that way you can create the most successful, most joyous business possible, and life possible, right? And so today, we have a fun episode.

I'm actually really excited about this one because we're gonna be talking about five unique ways you may not be optimizing and utilizing your online booking. So I've done an episode, it's called Dos and Don'ts of Online Booking, and it really breaks down, like, all of the things that I think that you should be doing with your online booking and you should not be doing with your online booking to, like, really make the most out of it at a basic level. But in this episode, we're gonna be talking about, like, five really interesting ways, ways that we normally wouldn't talk about, ways that we normally wouldn't use it at all, that you can use it and diving deep into it. So, Caitlin, are you ready for this one?

I'm so ready. Let's go. Let's go. Let me guess, you are a hustling, bustling hairstylist 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 Hairstylist Podcast. So we are gonna be coming out with an episode and a resource all about the different booking systems that are out there and breaking down the pros and the cons and all of the good things.

So make sure to look out for that and find that if it is up by the time that we have recorded this and released this. Um, and if it's not, know that it's coming and it'll be really helpful in y- you making sense of this episode and all of my things that I talk about with dos and don'ts of online booking. But I will say that some of the things that we're gonna be talking about today are only available and only doable with certain booking software, so I'm just gonna s- I'm just gonna put that out there right now. But some of them can be good for any of them.

And what I will also say is that you don't need to be using a specific booking software to have a really successful automated, streamlined, um, process behind the chair. For example, PreVisit Pathway, like, the automated system that I teach is designed to work with any booking system as long as you have an online booking link. Like, that is really what you should be looking for and, um, optimizing with your, with your online booking software is that they have an online booking link for your clients and that the user experience is friend- is as friendly as possible, and that's my tea on period. So let's get into it.

So number one, my first u- unique way, okay, out of the five, is having a limited booking range, okay? So right now on your booking software that you might use already, you might have a setting where it's, like, you can set it so that way clients cannot book with you any sooner than, like, let's say 30 days or 60 days or 90 days from the date that you a- that it is today, right? So, like, if today was August 1st and you had your situation to say that they can't book no further than 30 days, then they would not be able to book a new appointment until Aug- August 31st, or up, up until August 31st, right? Am I right, Caitlin?

Am I making sense? Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of these booking systems have these settings, right? And those are fine.

Those are great. Those are fine. However, the way that I do my booking is a little bit different, and I do it so that I have two months of appointments open at a time, right? So we're recording this in August, so right now my August and September books are open and the next month will open on the first of the month, right?

So then o- on September 1st, October is gonna open up, okay? And a lot of people are like, "How the hell do you do that with your booking system?" And I will tell you straight up s- right now that your online booking does not offer this and it does not do this by itself. Um, however, what you can do is, is you can create, like, a big personal block that you have that maybe possibly even recurs monthly that you can then just delete on the first of the month to make it so that that next month is actually opened up.

So the reason why you might wanna have a limited booking range is because you do not want to be solidly booked past eight weeks, in my opinion. Like, you truly don't. I think being solidly booked past eight weeks is absolutely miserable. I don't think that you should be pre-booking your clients any more than two to three appointments at a time depending on the service that they get, right?

I mean, that's, that could be different. But I, I truly believe that, like, you should not be landlocking yourself into this intense schedule where you have no flexibility and where you're forcing people to figure out what their schedule is three months ahead. And so having a limited booking range is a way where you can make sure that you're not booking yourself way too far out to where you can't make sure that you set aside time to go see your children's soccer game or their theater show or you go to the concert that you wanted to go to, period. So having a limited booking range I think is a really important way or a cool way of using your online booking, right?

And also, if you are online booking only, if you make it so that way you move to online booking only and people don't book with you over the phone or in the chair, whatever it may be, then this really holds you accountable to your boundaries, right? Because that way you're not booking people, like, way into the future and all that's available is what's on your online booking site, rightSo, that is the tea on number one. Number two is actually having people book their appointment online when they are in the chair with you. So, this is something that I don't do, but I think it's actually something that is potentially really powerful for those of us who need to be held accountable to boundaries.

I think that this can be sold really easily. I think that it could be a really awesome part of the way that you run your, your checkout experience. I think it can streamline things. I think this could do a lot for somebody who still kind of wants to pre-book, right, in the chair, but wants to make sure that they stay strong and hold themselves accountable to their boundaries and shit like that, right?

So, if you're somebody who can, who has the space in their schedule to be able to have somebody pre-book their next appointment in the chair, then hand them the iPad and say, "Hey, friend. All right, so it's time to get you booked for your next appointment in four weeks. Here is the iPad, and this has all of my available dates on it. Go ahead and check your calendar and then you can just go ahead and, like, choose whatever date that you want and then do it right on there."

And then how easy is that? And then while they're doing that, you can go and sweep up and get, and get cleaned up and ready for the next client. And so that way you save time, everybody's happy, they see all the dates. It's not like you guys are going back and forth and it's all painful and weird.

And it's fair because they see what your availability is, right? Instead of, like, thinking possibly that you're just, like, holding back dates from them or something like that, right? Caityln, what do you think? Uh, yeah, I love this.

I think it's something that a lot more people need to actually do because boundaries are really hard sometimes when you're, like, pressured and there's, like, all this confrontation and stuff. So, I do just wanna add though, like, I think it would be extremely smart, if you're doing this, to not hand them your booking calendar. Hand them the booking link that they would go to themselves because they could... If their- If you hand them your booking link, they can book themselves into next January and then all of a sudden, like, we're- we're, like, breaking boundaries anyway.

So 100% make sure you are clicking the booking link that they would see when they're at home, even if it's on your iPad. That just sent me a little bit. That was really funny because I was like, "Yes." Like, yes, no, that is...

If I was not clear, that is very much what I mean. Because then you have, like, the online booking link for them and you just pull it up and then, yeah, and then everything is good and dandy. Yes. Thank you for sharing that.

I really appreciate that. Okay, so my next, my next tip, my next unique way of using your online booking is using custom booking widgets. Yes. This is a feature that is available on some booking softwares, definitely not all.

Um, it's rare, I believe. So, custom booking widgets. What does this look like? Okay, so you have an online booking link.

It shows all the things in your service menu that you want to show on your online booking, right? It shows all the things. It might be categorized, it might not be categorized, whatever. It shows all the things.

With custom booking widgets, you're able to actually set it so that way only certain services show up on different links, right? So, the booking software will generate unique links to only include certain services that you offer. So, let's say that you have different prices for your new clients than you do your existing clients, right? And your new clients, they all need to book a new client session with you, and then once they become existing clients, then they can just go ahead and book existing sessions with you.

Or vice versa, right? Like, you obviously don't want your existing clients to be booking your new client services. So what you can do is, is you can create a custom booking widget where only your new client services show up under one link, and then whatever your booking flow looks like, you can make sure that your new client only gets the new client booking widget. So this is just an example.

Um, let's say that you removed haircut-onlys from your menu, and you wanna, you, you are gonna keep, like, a handful of haircut-only clients, but you're not accepting new ones and you don't want your existing clients to think that you still are and you don't want them to see that. This is the perfect way of making sure that your haircut-only clients only have that link and then your other clients ha- don't see that, right? So, so using custom booking widgets I think is a really powerful, simple way of making sure that you're compartmentalizing the way that you need to to make sure that people are booking the right thing online, not seeing the wrong things, getting the wrong ideas, holding your boundaries, all of the good things. So, that's my tea on that.

Period. My fourth one is integrating calendars. Your iCalendar or your Google Calendar or your Outlook or whatever calendar that you use, okay? I love me some Google Calendar, okay?

Me and my team, we live off of Google Calendar. We would not, we would not survive without Google Cal. I don't know what's happening in my life, in my day, in my hour unless my Google Cal is what it needs to be. Like, literally, I'm s- I'm not even kidding, it runs my life.

Even in my personal life. So, so Google Calendar is able to be integrated with certain booking systems, some better than others, and it'll be to the point where your calendar will be imported and exported, right? So, let's say your booki- you have a booking calendar, right, with your booking system? That calendar can be exported into your Google Calendar and continuously updated when changes happen, so that way you can see your personal calendar, anything else on your calendar alongside your booking calendar, right?

It used to drive me nuts when I was booking, when I was pre-booking people way back when in the, in the dino age.And I, and I had to, um, and I had to, like, go to my personal calendar and then I had to go back to my booking calendar, my booking software and, like, go back and forth and, like, figure out, like, what dates were which and make sure that I wasn't conflicting myself. And then I would always end up double booking myself with, like, one of my personal life things and one of my... So now that my Google Calendar is integrated with my online booking, now I can see, like, oh, okay, I have all these clients at this time, so I'm gonna make sure obviously that I can plan accordingly for my personal life or my work calendar that's not related to doing hair, right?

So integrating your calendar. Also, also, your personal events can go into your booking software, so if somebody goes online to book, it'll make sure that those certain dates don't show up and that they get blocked off automatically. And furthermore, you can go even more advanced with it and you can make it so certain events that are in your Google Calendar don't block off your booking calendar or you can make it so that they do. And so on and so forth.

So highly recommend finding a software that integrates with Google Calendar well. Square definitely 100% does, and actually Gloss Genius did as well too. And also, you can have multiple Google Calendars. This was a, th- this was a strife with one amazing booking software that I really wanted to like but I couldn't get onto it because it didn't do this.

Like, it only lets you integrate, like, one of your Google, Google Calendars. I literally have, like, 10+ Google Calendars . And so you can integrate different ones and, like, I don't know. It's really cool.

When you, when you really lean into this way of organizing your behind-the-chair, um, schedule, I, it can bring shit to the next level and make things so much easier. Period. Number five, using Zapier to connect your booking system to your email marketing software. Okay, here's the tea.

Only Square can do this at the time of recording this. Like, it's only Square, bitch. Or Timely. But that's it.

So Zapier is a online platform that allows you to basically connect one software to another, right? So it helps Square, for example, speak to another software that you may use. The reason why you'd wanna do this is because booking software email marketing sucks. Sorry, guys.

It really sucks. It's not good. Do not pay for it. Oh my God, please do not pay extra for it.

Like, do not pay extra for your booking software's email marketing. Is it like $30? Like, sometimes it's, like, a literally, like, a $10, $15, $20 add-on. Do not, like, please do not pay for that shit, okay?

And also, don't use it. Just, like, don't fucking use it. Use a specific specialized software that is built for email marketing. Please, okay?

And what I want you to do is think about how you can make it so when you, let's say, get a new appointment booked on Square that it'll speak to your email marketing software and then trigger an email sequence to go through, or just one email to be broadcasted. Or when you have a new customer join on your Square, right? When you have a new client book their appointment for the first time, then it'll automatically send them over into your new client segment in your email marketing software. So using Zapier to connect your appointments book to your, your other softwares that you have going on, um, I think is a cool way of utilizing your online booking.

What do you think, Caitlin? What was your takeaway? What's something cool that you liked? I mean, all of it, really.

I, when I was still behind-the-chair, I was using Gloss Genius, so, like, Zapier wouldn't have been an option for me then. Honestly, the calendar part is what, like, was really my saving grace back in the day is, like, being able to see all of my calendars in one place is, like, that's where it's at , for real. Like, actual game changer. No, like, it will change your life.

Like, okay, so there was another booking software that came about that c- came to my attention, like, all my students were like, "Oh my God, you need to check this out 'cause it's really cool and has really cool, um, has really cool, uh, capabilities." And it even had a Zapier integration, which I love. And this was the game, this was the deal breaker for me. Like, I will, I, I cannot not have my Google Calendar integrated.

Like, it will drive me up the wall. So thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. So my friends, I hope this has got your brain kind of, like, rattling a little bit.

Listen, I think people th- need to think about what makes the most sense for them and their business based upon the features that these booking systems offer, and that's exactly why we are gonna be coming up with a resource for you to be able to pick and choose and see the different softwares and the pros and cons and all of the good things, so make sure to look out for that. But I do recommend Square because, and I use Square because I think that Square encompasses everything that you really need to be successful. Yes, it has certain things that we wish that it did, right? But I'm sure that those things are gonna come out, but in the meantime, right now, there aren't a lot of booking softwares that have everything that it does, and so, um, I highly recommend it.

And so if you wanna get free processing for up to a month with Square, I'm gonna be leaving my, um, my link in the show notes of this episode for you to go ahead and check it out and sign up with your, um, with your situation. Okay? So I hope this episode was helpful for you. I hope that this got your mind rattling.

I hope that you're excited to use your online booking site in new ways. Um, if you're looking to really learn how to optimize your booking flow and all that good stuff, I teach all about that in my programs in Pre Visit Pathway and Modern Stylist Movement. So if you're not on the wait list for Pre Visit Pathway already, trust and believe, friend, you're gonna be, wanna be on that by the time that this is gonna be airing, okay? So make sure to check that out with the link in my bio on my Instagram.

If you enjoyed this episode, then I recommend that you leave a five star testimonial, you share this to your story, you share this with your friends, and you live your best motherfucking life. So have a great rest of your day. Thank you so much for tuning in. I love you so much.

Peace out girl, scout. Bye bye.

End of transcript. © 2022 Hunter Donia LLC.