MIND BLOWING Statistics & Data - What Clients Prefer From A Hairstylist Today

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hairstylist Podcast. This episode is going to be super exciting for me. I've been dying to share this with you, my friend, for a while now because I have uncovered some mind-blowing statistics about what your client actually is looking for from you in today's day and age.

So here's the tea. I talked about this a fair bit, um, recently, but I feel like as an industry or just as human beings and business owners in general, we all too often just assume things, right? What will happen is, is we'll have one client or even sometimes, like, a family member tell you something about your business and how you're doing it. So for example, like, I've had family members tell me, like, "Oh, dude.

But you just raised your prices a couple of months ago. Like- like, it's, like, really m- risky to raise your prices again. Like, are you sure you wanna do that?" I'm like, "Dude, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

Like, don't talk to me like that. I already have enough imposter syndrome enough about this. Like, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Like, get that voice out of my head," right?

Which I highly recommend that you do if any of your close friends or family are telling you that. Or a client, like one client will say, like, "Oh my God. Like, you're charging too much. How dare you charge, like, this much."

Or, um, the- one client will say, like, "I do not wanna fill out digital forms," or, like, "I don't wanna book online," right? You'll have this one client or this one person tell you this thing, and then all of a sudden your brain will spiral. I know this happens to me and, I mean, hopefully you can relate to this, but, like, my brain will go into all different types of directions and dread, and I will immediately believe that that is the truth across the board for every single person in every single circumstance. I'll be like, "I'll never be able to raise my prices.

All my clients hate filling out my forms, and all my clients hate filling out my online booking," when in reality it's like I'm letting the 5%, even sometimes the 1% dictate in my brain what the rest of the 99 or 95% actually think, right, and how they actually behave. So here's my tea. As an educator who s- who teaches to a lot of this innovative technology and one that has seen a lot of success in my own behind-the-chair business with this innovative technology, these new ways of doing business, and also coaching hundreds of stylists to success with these innovative systems, I hear from other educators or talk in the industry or whatever it may be, I hear other people just saying like, "Oh, like, that's so crazy that they're having their clients do that. Like, the clients are not gonna like that.

They don't love a impersonal experience. Automation kills the client experience," et cetera, et cetera. And I'm just like, I was so sick of hearing all of this shit because nobody actually knows until you ask your clients, right? Or until you roll this out and you actually see what the majority of people actually want from you, right?

So, I was so sick of, like, the wondering and all of the skepticism and all of the shit and just us assuming things, even myself assuming things, right? So I was like, "Let me fucking just ask the people." So, what I did was I rolled out a survey to 500 women in the United States, and these are women specifically who go to a salon to get their hair done, and they're of all age ranges. And the responses to this survey asking them about modernized and innovative salon experiences is absolutely mind-blowing.

So, those statistics, those surveys, I will be sharing with you today and I'm so excited to get into it. Let's go. What's the tea, friend? My name's Hunter Donia, industry business educator for hairstylists, but my friends just call me Hunty.

Whether it'll be growing your clientele, making more money, or automating and streamlining your systems, in the next 20 minutes or so you'll be hearing realistic, actionable strategies to create a beautiful career for yourself behind the chair. So if you're ready to get into it, welcome to the Modern Hairstylist podcast. All right, my friend. So before we get into the actual questions that I asked and then sharing with you all the results and all the things, I first want to say that I used Pollfish to do this.

So Pollfish is a very reputable, uh, surveying online service that will find people who they will pay a small amount of money to fill out these surveys. And with Pollfish, you're able to set up kind of filtering questions that make it so you're only having people who you wanna fill out the form be the ones who are filling out the form and then saying no to everybody else. So, in this specific survey, I wanted to make sure that these were specifically women just because that's the majority of the demographic that I'm talking to with you. Um, however, just because these are specifically women and also because women are normally the ones who are getting color as well too or, like, higher ticket services.

That's the other reason why I decided to do that. But I want you to, if for w- who- whatever demographic that you serve, I think that this can be pretty translatable and- and you can assume that if one person wants this, then anybody could want this, right? So, even if you are maybe like somebody who majoritively serves men, um, or people of all genders, et cetera, et cetera, I still would take these surveys and statistic answers, uh, into consideration for your own business, all right? I don't think that you should feel like you're exempt from this.

But I asked specifically for women specifically in the United States, and I asked them to be specifically people who actually get services done in a salon so that way we're not hearing any feedback from people who, like, DIY their hair at home or that don't go to a salon at all, right? Because those people's opinions do not matter at all. And going back to where I'm s- where I talked about in the beginning, it's like, if you're taking feedback from somebody, make sure it's somebody who knows what they're talking about or somebody that it directly affects. Because if you're think- if you're listening to people who, like, have no idea what they're talking about and their opinion- their opinion is irrelevant to y- what you're trying to accomplish and figure out, then that may steer you in the wrong direction as far as your decision-making goes in your business because you're not taking the relevant bill-paying person into consideration.

You're taking some rando into consideration. So500 women, United States, who get services done in a salon specifically. I wanted this to be from all, uh, all over the place, so these are from 36 plus states and multiple cities across the country, both small towns, both big cities, and also multiple age ranges. Because another thing that comes up a lot with innovative technology and implementing technology and procedures that involve it in the business, another thing that comes up a lot is, "Oh, well, my older clients aren't gonna wanna do this."

Which I understand where this comes from, but I also think that when we say things like that, it can tend to be a little bit ageist and we aren't even giving people the opportunity to try and to learn and experience. There is a lot of studies otherwise that show that people of all ages, and even maybe m- more mature demographics, are actually really enjoying figuring out things by themselves and doing things online once you actually give them the opportunity to and if you set it up and make it easy for them, right? Because it gives them a little bit of a dopamine hit that, like, they're, they're doing things more self-sufficiently and they're accomplishing something. Once that, like, form submitted check mark button confirmation screen comes up or you get the confirmation text and stuff, there is a chemical reaction that happens in somebody's brain.

And you, if you are just assuming that maybe your older clients don't want that experience, then you're not even giving them the chance to have that. You're not empowering them with the opportunity to, like, learn, right? And if you wanna run your business in a certain way and if you wanna see the industry change and if you wanna be a change maker, then you have to be the one who paves the way. You have to be the one who sets the standard for the rest of the industry because nobody else is gonna do it, right?

So stop making assumptions. That's what this entire episode is gonna be about basically. Stop making assumptions about what your clients want and just give them the opportunity and make sure that you are rolling it out strategically and giving them all the support that they need to make it happen. And let's not be ageist, because my father is 65 years old and he is a software engineer, all right?

So let's not, let's not say that people of a certain age aren't willing to work with technology, because they absolutely are. So this survey went to a plethora of different demographics as far as age goes. 20% of these people were between the age of 18 and 24, 50% of them, a whole 50% of them were 25 through 44, and then the remaining 30% were 45 years and above, all right? So with that, let's get into it.

So with section one of my survey, I wanted to ask people about online booking because online booking is the most, like, uh, the, online, online booking is the most commonly spoken about and back and forth thing in the industry right now as far as, like, innovative processes go and automation goes, right? So with online booking, I don't just teach to using online booking. I teach to using online booking as literally the only way that somebody can book an appointment with you, whether they are a new client or an existing client. And even with a new client, you can absolutely still be in control and make sure that this person books the right thing online if you have the proper systems set up.

And I'll talk about that in a little bit. But a lot of people don't trust online booking. Why? Because they're nervous that their clients are gonna mess it up or they're nervous that their clients are going to hate it.

I fully understand you and I was, wanted to hear what clients actually had to say about this. So it was interesting a- I actually ran two surveys So my, my first survey, I asked, "How do you prefer to book your appointment at the salon?" 15% e- said in person, 24% said online, and 61% said by phone. Now, I know that sounds super contradictory to everything I'm saying, but here was the interesting thing.

I then asked those people who did not say online why they didn't say it and they said 59% of those people said the stylist does not offer it and they're not sure if they offer it. The other percent said that they're scared that they'll mess it up or it's too confusing. So I reworded this question in the next survey because I realized that the way that I positioned this question made a really big difference. So I said then instead, I asked this follow-up question.

"How would you prefer to book your appointment assuming your stylist offered both options and you did not do it in the salon?" Then I got 29% still preferred to book by phone and 71% preferred to book online. 71% of all ages. I then asked again, "Why don't you d- prefer to book online?

Remember, this is assuming your stylist did offer it." 54% of those people said, "I'm scared I'll mess it up," and 36% said, "It feels less convenient." And then we had a 9% other, and some of those people still didn't understand that I was saying your stylist did offer it, like assuming that, so some of them still said, "My stylist doesn't offer that. That's why I don't wanna book online."

So super interesting takeaways here. Number one, we as stylists all too often have online booking as just this cute little add-on. Like, it's something that we think of as just, like, a, "Oh, yeah. Well, we, we, we have online booking, so, like, we're cool," instead of using it as a fundamental way that you do business.

And as we can see here with these answers is 71% of people would actually prefer to book online. And when you move to online booking only, you have better boundaries because you are no longer in control of your schedule, right? So you're not going to screw yourself over and squeeze yourself in for Sally and stay later on a Friday afternoon, right? You're not gonna come in on your days off because the online booking will very fairly and cleanly lay out every single day and time for that person.

I don't know about you, but when I'm booking an appointment, I just wanna see a visual calendar and the times that are available. I don't wanna have to go back and forth with the person over the phone. It is painful. Plus, when you go on vacation or when you're on your off time, do you really wanna spend all that time going back and forth with your clients or rescheduling people manually or dealing with those cancellations manually and figuring out where people fit into the puzzle?

It is painfulSo with this data, understand, 71% of your clients right now, and probably more considering the, um, nuances of this survey, 71% of your clients would prefer to do business with you this way. So why not embrace having the best of both worlds, serving your client better and serving yourself better? And that is all the things that I teach. Leaning into modern technology so you can give your clients a better experience that they want in today's day and age, and even more increasingly so in the future, and giving yourself a career and life that you love that has a fair work/life balance.

Now, you might be sitting here saying, "Well, I don't trust online booking, that's why I don't do it. I'm nervous that my client's gonna book the wrong thing, and I'm nervous that I'm gonna have to deal with it," yada, yada, yada. Like I shared with you, your clients don't like it because they're scared that they're gonna mess it up. So the ones that don't like it don't wanna do it because they're scared that they're gonna mess it up and they're gonna book the wrong thing.

Light bulb. Your clients don't want to put in the wrong thing either, 'kay? So you and your client are on the same page. What have we done as the service provider, as the customer experience designer of our business, to take responsibilities for the procedures that we've put into our business and the customer experience that we've created to make it as simple a process as possible?

And that's why in Pre-Visit Pathway, I break down to you how to simplify your online booking, how to make it translate well to a client and make it so your clients understand it, and it's super simple, and it's in client language, and it's easy to use. So online booking can work for you. I don't care if you double book, I don't care if you have super complicated services, I don't care if you have color corrections, I don't care if you do curly hair, I don't care if you do braiding, whatever services you do, online booking only can work for you. I have had hundreds of stylists come through my program.

Hundreds, like, more than 750 at this point. And I promise you, I have not had one circumstance where I was like, "We can't make this work for online booking." I promise you. So if there's any part of you that's saying right now, "Oh my God, I would never do online booking, um, uh, but I know that it would be great for my business," or maybe you've had previous poor experiences with it, think about how have you set your client up for success and yourself up for success with that procedure?

And if you need help making that happen, I am here to help you within Pre-Visit Pathway or my programs, okay? I then asked the question, "I would be willing to book more online if..." So I kind of, like, uh, did, like, a fill-in-the-blank question, and the majority of people said, "If it was easy to use." So you also wanna consider too, is your online booking interface that you're using, the software that you're using, is it something that it is easy for your clients to use?

Is it very frictionless? Is it very a, a simple user interface, right? Um, I talk a little bit about this in my Gloss Genius versus Vagaro versus, uh, Square episode of this podcast, which I want you to maybe check out after, not right now, um, in which I compare and contrast and talk to you about what a really easy user experience actually looks like. Uh, 20% said that they'd be more willing to book online if they got a confirmation or notification that, that, that their, uh, appointment was actually booked and scheduled for the correct thing.

So you can, of course, set up settings in your online booking where people request appointments online and then you approve them. It doesn't just go right onto your schedule. And you will get a notification, and as we know, they will get a notification as well with these modern-day technologies and these great booking softwares that are available to us today. The majority of what people are saying in which they would be more willing to book online, you are capable of implementing very simply and easily.

So there's no excuse anymore. Online booking is now a part of the client experience that is expected in today's day and age. If you wanna set yourself apart and if you wanna keep up with the growing responsibilities and time that you have to spend to be a successful hairstylist, especially one that is yearning for six figures or making six figures and above, to maintain that, you need time, and energy, and boundaries in your life, and this is how we do it. And we serve the client better when we do it this way.

The next section that I wanted to talk about was revolutionizing the actual booking experience and how we actually book appointments as a whole, both with how we onboard new clients and use digital forms and virtual consultations and then also how we think about pre-booking, all right? So I want you to think for just a second, what if you stopped pre-booking your clients, right? Imagine the possibilities that could unfold from breaking away from the traditional booking method of pre-booking, the one that has been burned into our brains from the very beginning of this industry that tells us that pre-booking is a really important factor and metric and will guarantee future income. In today's day and age, I promise you, that is not the case.

Without the pressure to plan three months ahead and for your clients to plan free- three months ahead, both you and your clients have the flexibility to accommodate unforeseen changes in the schedule, which reduces stress that comes with commitments made so far in advance. So this makes it so you have fewer no-shows and last minute cancellations, right? Because you're, if you make somebody, if you make Sally book an appointment three months ahead, Sally may have something come up in three months ahead, but you forced her, she felt forced to book something so far in advance, and then you force yourself to book something so far in advance, but what if something came up with your kids? What if you actually had to, um, go to a soccer practice that you didn't know that that was gonna be scheduled for that day?

Then you have to reschedule, then you have to come in on your day off, you have to stay late. If you can rethink how you're pre-booking and you are planning your schedule out in advance, you can make really beautiful flexibility for yourself and your clients and your business. I mean, God forbid, let's say that you get sick, right? Let's say you get sick and you have to reschedule a whole week of clients and you're solidly booked out for three months.

Instead of having for them to wait three months in advance, then you have at least a little bit more flexibility of you can get them in sooner and you have more empty space to move things around.So you create more convenience for yourself and your clients, right? Now, while it's true that some clients may initially be apprehensive to a change such as this, it's important to understand and communicate the benefits that come with eliminating pre-booking or rethinking how you're doing it. So I asked clients, I said, "If your hair stylist schedule was flexible, what would you prefer?"

The answers were, "Book next appointment before I leave the salon." The other answer was, "Book next appointment when I'm ready and have a better idea of my schedule." 26% of your clients want to book the next appointment before they leave the salon. 26.

So the 100% that you're forcing to pre-book right now are only doing it because they feel pressured. 74% of those people, they would prefer to book an appointment on their own time. And in Pre-Visit Pathway, we teach you how to set up a limited booking range that is super effective, that has constant reminders and communication, specific and personalized to the client, to make it so you get people back onto your books. And an excellent client experience is gonna make it so you get somebody back onto your books without pressuring them.

And you can implement this in modified ways that make sense for you and your business and the people that you're working with specifically. So, eliminating pre-booking can reduce a lot of stress on you and the client and create a cleaner slate for you as far as your boundaries go and your schedule and your life and creating white space for, like, weird emergencies or little things that come up, right? I'm all about rethinking pre-booking. Eliminating pre-booking completely isn't necessarily what I coach to unless you are absolutely in the space and doing the services to do that.

But rethinking pre-booking is a really brilliant thing to do and I talk about this in another episode and I break it really down deep in Pre-Visit Pathway. And in Pre-Visit Pathway, th- the way that we teach you how to do this actually increases your new client retention and your existing client retention. It gets people back on your books more often. Trust and believe.

So with that, we also... I wanted to also talk about streamline communication. I wanted to talk about digital forms because digital forms are the way that we streamline communication, okay? Digital forms are the way that we can empower our clients with everything that they need to book online by themselves without us having to be in control, um, and without them not knowing exactly what to do.

It's how we can make sure that the client books the right thing without actually having to have a back and forth DM consultation that never ends, and you don't know if it's actually gonna go anywhere, and then they ghost you after they, after they tell you the price. It is going to make sure that you can have a space where your clients can tell you all the information that you need to know for exactly what they need to book online and if they're the right fit for you or not, which is super powerful. So, a booking process where needs, services, and budget align without verbal exchange is the way of the future, all right? So, a future where every client is required to fill out a digital consultation form before they can even access you or your schedule.

So when you have somebody DM you at 3:00 AM on, on, in the middle of the week and you're exhausted and you can't keep up with all this communication, instead of going back and forth with them and, like, getting pictures and all this stuff, just send them to your form and have them fill out the form. That way you have everything that you need and you can give them a very quick automated response with backend automations that I teach you in Pre-Visit Pathway. Literally, I am teaching you how to set up a booking process for new clients where you can get somebody onboarded and they will book the right thing online and they'll have an excellent client experience with you with a click of a button. All you have to do is literally click the right button for what they need to book online and it will be done, and they will take care of it themselves and they will be confident and you will be confident that they're gonna do it right, the way that we do it in Pre-Visit Pathway with digital consultation forms.

Now, you might be sitting here thinking, "Are my clients, new clients, are they actually willing to fill out a digital consultation form before booking a first appointment? Like, am I putting somebody through too much of a process? Am I creating too much of a barrier to entry? If they can't even reach out to me or talk to me, doesn't that depersonalize the experience?"

So I asked these 500 women, "Are you willing to fill out a digital consultation form before booking your first appointment so you know what price you'll be paying and you'll be booked for the correct amount of time for the hairstylist to complete your service?" 95% of women said yes, they are willing to fill out a digital consultation form before booking the first appointment. 5% said no. People are willing to fill out your digital consultation form before you even let them touch your schedule, I promise you.

And if you set up a convenient and beautiful experience for them and if you know the fundamentals of what a good form actually looks like and how to get somebody to fill it out, then you can make really beautiful things happen for both yourself and your life and your work/life balance and for your clients as well, all right? So I highly recommend that you lean into these new ways of booking an appointment, like one funnel for how somebody gets an appointment with you. It starts with a digital consultation form and rethinking about how people are actually getting onto your books instead of pre-booking yourself to smithereens and having no flexibility for neither yourself or the client can really gridlock you and cap your income as well, because we wanna make space for new clients to be able to make more money at the end of the day, right? So I just, I just wanna share with you, with these statistics, the mind-blowing statistics that we have here, your clients are willing to get onboard, but you have to set them up for success, and you have to make sure that it's set up in a way that they're gonna want to do business with you this way, right?

Because otherwise, they're not gonna be into it. So in the next section, Section 3, we're gonna be talking about pricing and different pricing models, because...Pricing models have been a huge conversation point in the industry for a while now. And, um, I think that a lot of people are considering alternative pricing models and a lot of people are saying, like, "This is the one way that we do pricing.

And your clients are gonna love it and you're gonna love it and it is what it is." And I don't, I'm not somebody who is like, every single person should have one pricing model and this is the one I believe in. However, I do have one that I have a preference for because I've seen the beautiful benefits of it. And I truly believe it takes the pros and cons of all of the different ones that are out there and it deletes a lot of the cons, and it puts together all of the pros.

So we'll talk about that in just a moment. But I wanted to ask clients what they thought. I wanted to ask clients, like, what pricing model would you prefer? And so the three pricing models that I kind of see as the most common ones are an hourly pricing menu, an a la carte menu, or an all-inclusive package menu, otherwise known as sessions, um, or other things that you can call it.

Hybrid. And then one thing that I did not include on here, which I wish that I could have, but I don't think it would've made much of a difference with the survey, is, like, parts and labor. So a lot of people will use something like salon scale and then specifically charge the client for specifically how much, uh, product actually was. And I don't, I mean, I personally don't really love that, um, but I did not include that in here.

So just take that in consideration. But I asked people, "When reviewing a hairstylist pricing, what would you prefer? Plus, believe makes the most sense to you." I also gave each of them a short description of what each of these actually meant.

So the this is gonna piss some people off, okay? But I'm just the messenger, all right? I'm just telling you what these people said. And I wanted to know this too.

So 29% said that they prefer an a la carte menu. 5% said they prefer an hourly pricing menu. 5%. 66% said that they would prefer an all-inclusive package menu.

All right? So the key takeaways here are clients would prefer an all-inclusive package menu over hourly or a la carte, and clients highly disfavor hourly pricing. Now, I asked them why they said those answers. And for a la carte pricing, the majority of people, 32%, said that they liked to have more control and flexibility over what's going on.

So they don't always want a package deal and they like to pick and choose what they want. For me as a stylist, when I hear that, I'm like, "That's not the client that I want in my chair, and that's not the way that I wanna do business." I want you to sit down, tell me what you want, and I'm gonna tell you what you need for me to do my job, right? So specifically for this purpose is why I prefer all-inclusive package pricing over this, but this is why people would choose a la carte pricing over it.

So the 29% who preferred a la carte, that's what they majoritively said. The people who enjoyed all-inclusive package pricing is they liked the price transparency. So, um, many respondents value the ability to know upfront the cost of the service that they're purchasing. This helps them avoid unexpected expenses and enables better budgeting, which I think is completely fair.

And then also they said convenience. So the respondent appreciates the convenience and simplicity of all-inclusive packages. They find it easier to select a package that meets their needs rather than choosing individual services. This is what the majority of people want.

They don't want a long, confusing a la carte menu that has all these hairstylist terms on it, because it's confusing and they don't know and they get intimidated and they're just like, "I'm gonna go on TikTok and figure out how to do my own hair at home because I don't know what the hell I'll be paying or what I'm gonna be doing when I get there or what to ask for." All-inclusive packaging also supports you in being able to do online booking as well too, right? So that's why I think all-inclusive packaging pricing is great, and your clients think it's great as well too. So with this, my friend, I, at the end of the day, as an educator, believe that every single person has a unique circumstance, a unique location, and a unique clientele that they're working with.

And I don't think that all of these innovative strategies necessarily work for everybody. What I do think is, is that if you wanna run your business in a more sustainable way, if you wanna embrace the future and what is available to you now, and if you wanna set yourself up for true scalability as a business owner, that is possible for you now with these innovative strategies, with technology. But you have to make sure that you're setting it up for success to make sense for the clients. And I teach you how to set this all up, customize it to your specific circumstance, and take in consideration all of your nuances and make it so your clients actually enjoy doing business with you in these ways within my program.

So if you're not on the wait list for my program or if you haven't checked out PreVisa Pathway yet, I highly recommend that you do on my website, hunterdoniach.com. And I just want you to take away from this also to not just assume. Do not assume what your clients want and what they don't want.

Don't let the people from the cheap seats tell you what you should be doing and what you shouldn't be doing with your business. Because those people, those voices do not matter. Your voice matters, and your clients who are paying you money, the people who pay your bills, those voices do matter. But at the end of the day, you also have to think too, are you running your business or is your client running your business?

And if you wanna take control and if you wanna do your business in a specific way, you absolutely can. And you can still have a thriving business as long as, like I said, you set your clients up for success and you get them on board with it. All right? So I hope that you enjoyed this episode of the Modern Hairstylist Podcast.

I hope that it was maybe as mind blowing for you as it was for me, and I will catch you in the next episode. So much love to you. Peace out, girl scout. Bye bye.

End of transcript. © 2023 Hunter Donia LLC.