Scaling Your Revenue Without Adding More Hours or Increasing Prices

This is one of the times of the year in which I am doing onboarding calls for my Mastermind members. So for those of you who aren't familiar, I basically have two programs at the time of recording this. I have Modern Stylist Movement, which is for any motivated, business-building hairstylist who wants to grow the business and scale the business either from scratch or from an established space and is looking to streamline and automate as much as possible. But then I also have Mastermind, which is a much more small, intimate group where you're doing one-to-one coaching with me, and you're in a group of high-level entrepreneurs who are doing really, really awesome things in their businesses as beauty professionals.

And so every one of them does an onboarding call with me every six months, and we sit down literally for two hours, and we dig into every part of the business. We look at all the numbers, we look at all of the goals that we have for this upcoming year or second half of the year, first half of the year. We reflect on the past one. We try to find gaps for opportunity, and we try to fix anything that's not working.

And one of the main conversations that I've been having recently because of setting goals is, I really wanna make sure that when we set goals that it's actually mathematically possible for somebody to achieve that goal, right? And a big thing that makes it really hard to achieve a goal in a large jump at this level that of people that we're talking to is when you are capped out at the people that you can serve, right? Because when you have gaps, okay, there are so much more opportunity for you to make more money because all you gotta do is just do more clients, right? So there is more time for you to be able to fill by m- b- with making money that you're willing to work, right?

But when you're fully booked, your income potential is really slowed down, right? And so then we normally look at price increase, right? So now that's how we increase the revenue. We raise the prices, that thins out the book a little bit and then creates gaps, and then we fill up those gaps again, and then we do it all over again.

That's technically, in an ideal perfect world, that's normally how things go. But again, with this particular group of people, when you've hit that like 100K kind of ceiling around there and you are fully booked, it's a little bit difficult because a lot of the time the people in this group, they are going to already be very highly priced for their area. And so oftentimes, we still look at price increases at least on an annual basis in one way or another, but possibly they may not be as aggressive, okay? So what we need to also figure out besides just...

And what also what we get to figure out besides how are we increasing the revenue with price increases, we also get to figure out the other s- ways that we do increase that revenue, but most importantly, that we actually scale the business because it requires you making more money or sustaining the same amount of money in order for you to work less, right? But if you're working less, how are you gonna make the same amount of money? All those questions are gonna be answered basically here. Okay?

So we're gonna be talking about scaling your revenue without adding more hours or increasing prices. I'm gonna give you guys just straight up like tangible bullet point strategies here today, like the literal ways that we can make this happen, and these are the type of things that me and Mastermind members work on together to in a- on a really personal basis to come up with a custom plan for how we actually accomplish these things. And just this past year, the results have been nuts with how we've been focusing on this stuff, so it's been very exciting to see. So I'm down to share it all with you today, and I have Jodi Brown facilitating the conversation with us I love that we're getting tangible today, and these are all kind of different strategies that you can apply depending on, you know, what works best for you.

So I think the first one that we should get into is affiliate sales. So when you're at this type of space in which you've achieved a lot of success as a beauty professional and you feel like you're hitting a glass ceiling, a lot of the time the focus may become like looking for a second stream of revenue from somewhere else. And I normally look at something like that a little bit cautiously because what I don't want to end up happening is for you to start a whole other business that has its own problems and its own struggles and its whole own amount of stress. Okay?

Like, in order to truly make a second stream of revenue work, it is going to take a lot of fucking work. Okay? And you are already running a business. Now, granted, it may be a very streamlined business if you've done the work of already scaling your successful business, but even then some, in order to actually get something off of the ground, it takes so much sacrifice, and I think that it ends up being a little bit more of something.

It becomes more that somebody, somebody bites off than they can chew. Mm-hmm. That's the phrase, right? That's the saying.

And so what I really like about the option for a second stream of revenue with affiliate sales is that it's still really aligned with what you're already doing, you know? Mm-hmm. You're just... The- literally the only difference is now you are just expanding the audience that you're selling to beyond just your local audience, which is very exciting.

So if you're already gaining clients through marketing efforts from social media in some way in which you are reaching masses of people, right? What we normally are wanting to do is we are trying to only speak to people locally because those are the people who are actually gonna spend money with you- Mm-hmm. but when we're really trying to focus on getting like affiliate link sales for our products, that is basically fulfillment is completely passive. All you gotta do is just market the products and then s- give people the links and then they go ahead and buy them, and then everything else is taken care of for you, which I think is awesome and totally worth a lower commission rate, right, like the 25% versus like the 50 that you may get on the markup.

All you gotta do is just now start talking to more people, and there's so many ways that we can do that. We can play around with ads. We can create lead magnets that actually lead directly to those affiliate link sales. We can start even brand new accounts if you would like to, but again, I think like taking what's already working and then adding like a leg to it versus starting like a whole new business basically, I think it's just so much more aligned.

I think it's so much easier. I think it, there's so much more potential there, and I think that also it can feed back into the main core of the business simultaneously so you're killing two birds with one stone. And so that's why I really love this idea of h- of how we can expand revenue beyond just the actual price of your services.... instead of creating a whole new business or something like that, on top of the one that you already have.

Am I making sense? Yes. So are there indicators that this could be a good fit for you, this particular type of increasing, or this particular revenue stream? Are there things that you look at that you're like, "Yes, this would be the perfect fit for you to expand your income?"

100%. First off, if you are al- if you are already, like I said, doing social media marketing and you already know how to get clients with social media, then you probably will know how to make content to get other results, such as an affiliate link sale. Mm-hmm. So if you're able to grab attention on social already, then we just shift the way that you're grabbing it and the type that you, type of energy that you have, and where you direct that attention to.

I think that's a big indicator. I think if somebody was getting a lot of referrals from pejoratively, and almost only I'll say, Google, by business, then nah. Now, my caveat to that is I think there's a lot that you can do with ads, right, where like you can just like skip through like the organic marketing side of things and get people right into things. But I think that it's really powerful to have that organic backing where it's like you already are used to doing this with social media in one way or another.

Now we're just gonna change some of the ways that we're doing it. And then also, I think it's gonna be really difficult for you to sell any sort of product to anybody if you're not already selling product to your own clients. Just from a, like, marketing and sales knowledge perspective, it's just you having the skillset to understand what you have to say and do in order to get somebody to buy a product, because somebody buying a product is different than somebody buying a service. There's absolutely an overlap when it comes to the marketing and sales process of it, but if you don't know how to connect, like, the pain points and the objections to your solution of a product, of a take product already behind the chair, then it, I think it's gonna be difficult for you to successfully translate that online.

Absolutely. I also think, of course, too, I mean, there's so much possibility with getting more affiliate sales with retail from your own clients in between appointments. I can't tell you guys how many times I get a random email that people are buying shit from my store and I've never even talked to them, but they're, oh, they don't, they're clients who don't see me anymore, right? Right.

It happens all the time, just because I got them in the routine of using my products and they're gonna come to me and support me in that way, and I think that that's a really good foundation to have. I think that the other thing too, and this actually brings us into our next strategy for how we can, we can scale our revenue without adding more hours or increasing prices, is raising your average ticket behind the chair. I think that this should really be first line of defense. If I'm not seeing this, then I'm like, okay, let's not jump ahead of ourselves.

Like, this, we need to figure out just raising the average ticket that you already have. That looks like add-ons that are scalable and profitable. We, can we add three minutes to a scalp massage and charge $15 for like 100% pure profit? Okay, three, three extra minutes.

Is that detrimental in exchange for that? Right. I don't think so. Or a conditioning treatment that costs you so little and especially compared to the amount that you're gonna be using, or throwing the treatment on while the person's processing on the end, so it's literally barely taking you any time.

Right. Increasing that average ticket, and then, of course, with resale sales as well behind the chair is also important. And by the way, this is, like, how any successful business operates. Mm-hmm.

Particularly once they start getting investors and, like, going public and all that stuff. This is what we look at. You look at how can we make as much profit with this ar- with this business that already has momentum? Mm-hmm.

How can we bring that profit to the next level? That's why when you go to Disney World, let's say, like, you, they are making a significant amount of money on the merch, on the drinks, on the food, on the FastPass. Like, it's all of that stuff, and that's all to raise the average ticket of the amount of money that one customer is spending with you. Mm-hmm.

So it's not just about the main services anymore, getting the entrance to the park. It's also, how can we make even more money with this person? And again, that's, this is how a successful business just scales on top of that, right? And makes more profit.

So we increase the average ticket of each customer, increase their lifetime customer value with us, and then what we also want to look at, which makes a really big difference, 'cause like I was saying, like, when you have gaps, you create a lot more opportunity to make money. Right. Because there's time that you could be making money. You're willing to work as well, too, but if there was just a person there, then you would be making more money.

But if there's no person there, you don't make any money. So what we can do to make that, because if you're at a place in which you're solidly booked and that your income potential is capped in that way, then we try to make your services more efficient. So we look at all the ways we can do that. We look and see how long is it already taking you?

How long does it take this other stylist in Mastermind? We maybe put them together and we troubleshoot and we see, like, where is this person taking a lot of extra time that they don't have to? What products are they using? Also looking and seeing, like, what are the most profitable services on your service menu per hour?

And trying to figure out how can we get more of those services? Mm-hmm. And then, and we can do that with pricing. We can do that with the way that we change marketing.

We can figure out, like, how can we strategically make more room for the more profitable per hour services not? For example, extensions versus classic color services. For example, we have somebody in our program in Mastermind who's actually does sugaring as well as a full service hair salon. And like the sugaring services are just ridiculously profitable.

Mm-hmm. And so it's like, it, we, we found out if you're just doing three more of these a day or something like that, your income, it, it increases significantly. It's like the amount of time that's taken on your calendar is just as booked, but it's booked with the, quote-unquote, "right services" or the more profitable services. You'll end up being more profitable at the end of the day.

But then going back to shaving down time, obviously if you can shave down enough time in which you're able to fit in more services into the day, you're obviously gonna make money, right? Right. And you can do that, of course, with your own efficiency, your products that you're using. But we can also do that not just from your own efforts.

We can also do that with an assistant, right? We get some help from somebody else to help you be able to either just shorten down the times per client and just book back to back or start double booking, right? Right. I have a salon owner mastermind and-She's really trying to scale back from behind the chair, but she still wants to take care of the clients that she has and still rely on the revenue that she's making from each of these clients that she has for her own bills at home, right?

As she's really growing the salon to a profitable space, which shout-out to you, my friend, because she has had such a successful year, and it's just been so fucking cool to see. But she's, "I am so sick of working behind the chair because I could be using my time so much more valuably growing everybody else's business, all the stylists in the salon." And we are, she's never double-booked before. She has no idea what that even looks like, but we're absolutely exploring the idea of getting an assistant, being able to take double the clients in a day and being able to take care of all of those people, not having to work as much and make the same amount of money, right?

Nice. I think that is absolutely, hiring somebody to help you shorten those times is a great idea to think of as long as it makes sense from a profit perspective, and it'll actually make sense from, like, an hour perspective. And so are there any markers that you look at for readiness when it comes to hiring an assistant? Yeah, so I, I would like you to exhaust the options of how can we figure out how we shave this down yourself.

I wanna see these services and the way that you're approaching them being as systematized as possible. For example, like, the Great Clips or the Supercuts, whatever chain salon you're looking at, like, they wanna make sure that every single stylist can do a root touch-up within less than 30 minutes, period, right? Yeah. For example.

And the reason why is 'cause they're a smart business, and if you can systematize business, you can now predict revenue, and you can now make smart business decisions. So, go ahead. I may be dating myself, but that was every salon when I got into the industry. Like, I worked at, like, high-end, experience-based salons from the jump, and there was, like, an allotted period of time that you were, uh, like, allotted to perform the service.

And so if you don't have that, like, super predictable timing, and if you haven't averaged it out to the majority, because of course you're gonna have your anomalies, but, like, if you, but I'm absolutely sure that you could systematize things more to make things more average more often, to make things more predictable more often. Right. And again, that allows you, systems that allow you to make a responsible decision to hire an assistant, to expect how something like that would go and if it would end up being profitable for you, if you'd be able to actually get in more clients into the day, how it would all work as far as the double-booking and the timing and everything like that. Mm-hmm.

So, I think you should exhaust the option already scaling down your own services with what you can do by yourself 'cause that'll just make the assistant stuff even more successful, but then making sure that you're systematizing it, and you do have predictable understanding of your timing per those services. Okay. I love that. All right, our- Also, sorry.

Also, anytime you want to make more money, okay, it's always gonna require work. It just is what it is. But when we're at this level, the things that will make you more money or scale your revenue without working more, I guess, in the long run, right, it always takes a different type of work. Mm-hmm.

Hiring an assistant, training an assistant, dealing with the turnover of that is absolutely something you're signing up for with a different type of work. I actually have a whole episode, I, I think I have two episodes about assistants on my podcast, and I recommend that you guys search them up and look for them. But I talk about a whole thing of whether or not you're ready to hire an assistant and then also the things that you should consider with it as well. So, I'd recommend that maybe you guys check that out as well too.

Okay. Mm-hmm. Go ahead. Okay, so getting into the last one, then, and that is, like, adding someone to your team, essentially, that is generating revenue for your business.

Yeah. So, that's the obvious other one, right? Maybe you're at a place where you are capped with your, your client requests or your book and you can't really fit in new clients, right? But you have this interest, and you have these existing clients that you have right now, and you've worked really hard to gain their attention, their trust, their money, their willingness to wanna spend with you.

And then if you don't take them, they completely go to waste unless you can sell them some product or something like that. But if you're not able to do services on them, they totally go to waste, and that's really a shame. And so that's why having another stylist who you maybe take commission from, who you can pass it on to is such a valuable and beautiful thing for you to be able to do. Now, of course, deciding to hire an employee such as that is a huge decision.

Like, you're taking on a lot of responsibility. But maybe it doesn't have to be. Maybe you have a friend who is down to do that with you, who you wouldn't really have to train up too much, or you can really rely on, there's a good mutual agreement. You also don't have to do it on a massive scale.

We have somebody in our program who's doing, like, a micro-salon situation. So, they're staying in their salon suite. They're actually opening up another salon suite next to them, and they're gonna be able to actually have two employees that are money, money-generating operators. So, they're people who are making money for you while you are not actually the one doing the labor.

Mm-hmm. But there's a lot of different types of labor that require, that are required for you to hire, systematize, employ, make space for that, and then maybe even possibly keep that person's book filled. And you have to be ready and be willing, being willing to, be willing to take on that responsibility. We have somebody in our program who, like, this employee just fell right into her lap, and it was a really by-chance ha- thing that happened.

She is currently starting a whole new business within her business, basically. She's moving into a, like, trichology scalp treatment shit thing, okay? Mm-hmm. That's like her number one focus.

She do- the previous business is fully scaled, it's- and she's willing to sacrifice that success of that in pursuit... Right. of this new th- situation. But this person moved to her city to rebuild a clientele there and start from scratch.

Mm-hmm. And she li-, she, like, reached out to this person and was like, "Hey, like, I don't think you have a team of people, but, like, I would love to work for you."And it's... And now, like, this person who has so many requests for the original hair business- Mm-hmm.

now does not have to sacrifice that revenue and now can have somebody picking that up while this person is going and starting this new endeavor and doesn't have time for the old one. And I just think that's really powerful. Again, it comes with the logistics, the legal stuff. It comes with the becoming a leader, and being a leader is hard.

It is very hard, and there's so many things that go into it, right? But it's the type of stuff that I support my people through with Mastermind, and we have about five people in there who have employees and it's really gratifying to see how they grow as leaders and how, how much, how much it's worth it for them to be able to make an impact in these people's lives in the ways that they do, and how much everybody grows and benefits at the end of the day. So it's possible, and I think that I wrote off my... In, in my own Behind the Chair business, very much wrote this strategy of having another person who makes revenue for me.

I wrote it off as something I would never do. Mm-hmm. But, you know, now I'm seeing these guys and how they're doing it and I'm like, "Wow. Like, I'd probably, I'd probably be down to do this."

Yeah, I think it's definitely a cool way to spread, especially like you said, if you have a ton of demand and you have... And you're enjoying that marketing side and building your business, I think that could totally make sense for a lot of stylists, for sure. So these are the kind of conversations that you are having inside of Mastermind, like scaling in this way? Yeah, 100%.

And again, the price increases are absolutely still a part of the conversation, but when you are so highly priced, right? Yeah, every price increase you make from there does get riskier and riskier, and I think that the majority of people at your level... I'm speaking to you listening to this, my friend. I think the majority of people at your level, I think, are unnecessarily wanting to make more money.

I think that- Mm-hmm. you're, a lot of the time, okay with the money. Of course, we all wanna make more money, right? Think you're okay with the amount of money that you're making, but we just don't want to exchange as much labor to make it happen.

We just wanna sustain it. We don't wanna feel like we're gonna lose it tomorrow or have some scarcity that, like, it's gonna go away at some point, and we wanna sustain it in an easy-to-maintain way. And so I think that, that all of this stuff together, or just one of the things that, like, will make the biggest difference and working on it together with somebody who knows what they're talking about and other beauty professionals who are working on it at the same time and who get it, right? Because when you're in this position, the way that you grow and the way that you move forward is very different.

There's nobody else out there who's really teaching it or can help you make it happen in the best way that's unique to you, and that's why I love Mastermind so much. Because you get to come in, it's such a personalized plan for you, and I'm there with you every step of the way to make it happen. From a hands-on perspective, like literally going into your accounts and setting up automations for you, and also just being your, your person to bounce these ideas off of and solidify and put into an actionable plan. Mm-hmm.

So if you're in that position, if you're, let's say, at the 100K around there mark or above and hitting that ceiling and not sure how to scale beyond it, and you're looking for something different, then Mastermind is here for you, my friend. You can go to hunterdonia.com/mm and you can learn more about the program and you can join our wait list for the next time that we open up if you would like to get more info, and I would love to work with you. So thank you so much for tuning in to the Modern Hairstylist podcast.

Peace out, girl scout. Bye-bye.

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