The Most Automated Ways To Attract New Clients

So, you get new client requests, a consistent amount, on a monthly basis, and maybe they're even clients who you enjoy working with, and that is awesome. But you feel like it is a lot of work for you to be able to make that happen on a consistent basis, and you are in luck today, my friend, because we are going to be talking about how to automate more of that as much as possible. I work with a lot of stylists who do, do a pretty great job of consistently getting new clients into the door, but oftentimes, they have focused a lot of their energy into certain platforms that require a lot of their energy, and that makes it so, number one, they're only getting a lot of their requests from one place. That requires a lot of effort, and that make it so they don't have a diversified range of acquisition platforms that more do the work for you.

And so in this episode, I'm going to be sharing with you what that actually looks like and different ways to take that off of your plate as much as possible. But first, I want to say hello to Jodi Brown, 'cause sometimes I forget to say hello and you guys are like, "Who the hell is this, this, this angelic voice and this very smart person on this podcast who's joining Hunter?" And so, hello, Jodi Brown. Thank you so much for fac- facilitating our podcast episodes today and always.

What's going on? How are you? Um, I am so excited to talk about this. Client attraction, marketing, all my favorite topics, so I'm excited to get into it.

Thank you for having me. Hell yeah, it's your jam, and, uh, uh, so that's why I love having, uh, having you as part of the conversation. And of course, this is, like, one of the biggest objections that people have to marketing, is just the fact that it takes a lot of effort. So I'm really looking forward to taking some of that off of your plate today, my friend listening to this.

So the very first thing, and maybe this is something that you guys h- it's already working for you, right? Where maybe you're getting a fair bit of your new client requests from Google searches or just from SEO in general, right? Um, nowadays, we are really taking into consideration, like, AI searches as well, too. So we're not just focusing on SEO, search engine optimization, but we're also focusing on artificial intelligence optimization, where we are trying to make it so these search engines find us when people are chatting with them and looking for hairstylists or beauty pros in the area.

And so maybe you're already getting some new client requests because your Google My Business listing is up there, but there is always more optimizing to do, and I am finding increasingly so with the addition of AI that there is... we can get really targeted and do a very, very good job of adding more specifics and even smarter keywords into our website and into the backend of it all, and then also into our Google My Business listings. And so that truly is, like, my very first kind of hack here. Although it may seem a little bit obvious, it's actually something that people don't do a really good deep dive into, and they don't look at on, like, a yearly basis.

Now, you wanna be a little bit careful here, because sometimes messing with your SEO, especially if you already have SEO that's working really well for you, sometimes going in and, like, tearing it all down and rebuilding it from scratch can actually kind of put you backwards in progress, because now you have to be kind of reindexed and recatalogued and recrawled by Google and by these AI search engines. And so, it's kind of a approach with caution, but as long as you do approach with caution, you just make tweaks here and there, and you just slightly optimize instead of completely replace if you already have a lot of referrals coming in from, let's say, Google and your website. As long as you approach with caution, then you can increase your results that you're getting, and you can do it in a really beautiful way. And so the way that we do that is we look at your Google My Business listing setup and all the settings within it.

We wanna look at the descriptions, the way that you're categorizing yourself, and we wanna use AI to help us figure out what those optimizations could be based upon real market research and data. So, when you come into my programs, we have real data and market research of your own clientele, what the words they would use to search things and find a hairstylist, um, how they describe your specialty, all of that stuff, and then we mix that in with the power of AI, because we are literally asking the software that is showing people the search results how to show up in those search results, which is really smart, mixing it in with the clients that you want in your chair. And then it's spitting out back to you exactly how you can optimize your listing on your Google My Business, and then we do the same thing basically with the website. And then you make the optimizations and then it can really increase your results, on top of, of course, continuously posting on your Google My Business on a consistent basis as far as updates go, and pictures of your work, and all of that good stuff.

And replying to reviews as well, too, is a big thing that will actually make sure that you are staying on top of things as far as your Google My Business listing goes, and, uh, reranking you higher and higher and higher So when it comes to... I love this. When it comes to actually, like, staying on top of this and automating as much as possible, how often sh- should you be looking at your Google My Business listing? How often should you be responding to reviews, posting, all of those things?

Yeah, so posting on, like, a weekly basis is probably, like, a good minimum, in my opinion, and then replying to reviews as much as you possibly can as soon as you can, in my opinion. And then if you can make an, any, like, other random updates, like, the more that you just are active on the listing, the more that Google enjoys that you are actually, like, updating it, because Google wants to prioritize, like, optimized listings as much as possible, because they want the user to enjoy the experience that they're having with the business, and they don't want these, like, anonymous, weird, elusive businesses showing up because it creates a poor user experience. Like, if they don't have a phone number or if they don't, aren't updating their hours for holiday, and of course, for some of you guys listening, that may be different for you. You may not have your phone number out there.

You may not have your hours out there, but at least updating with posts, right? Or adding different specials that you may have for the season or something like that. Um, any type of updates you can make is a really, really good idea. And so again, on a weekly basis, we should at least be adding a post or an update or whatever you wanna call it.

Um, and then, like, maybe on a yearly basis, we should be evaluating our SEO and, like, the actual backend and how we've set things up, and also if Google's changed anything or added anything in there that you can now take advantage of that you didn't take care of last year.I love that. And then can you just give an example when it comes to, like, SEO versus AIO of, like, what you can get more specific on to, to appear in more relevant search results? Yeah.

I mean, I honestly think that there's, like, a lot of overlap and there's not a crazy amount of difference. I just think that with AI, it's kind of like, like, AI by itself is gonna use its own algorithm for how it finds you, versus Google has its own very, like, uh, bonafide, very solidified, historic way of, you know, indexing websites and for ranking people, you know? And that's very well-known. It's very, like, it's very obvious almost, or very well-documented how to raise your listing with Google and how it goes and crawls websites.

Of course, they are adding AI now, so that does change up the game a little bit. But then AI by itself, it has its own algorithm. I mean, even depending on the language of the actual AI model that you're using. And so again, like, asking, like, even the most popular ones, such as, of course, ChatGPT, like, literally asking it, like, "How can I show up in the, in these search results?

Why did I not show up in these search results?" And then using your market research, uploading that into it, and then saying, asking it like, "What are the optimizations I can make?" I think is a really beautiful way of, uh, getting it all optimized and, and making sure that you're kind of covering both, uh, both ways. And I would even say to the AI, like, "How do I make sure that I show up in Google searches that are just organic without AI, but then also with AI?

And how do I show up in chatbot, you know, searches and things like that?" I love that. I feel like this is, like, the most automated essentially. 'Cause if you're only having to update this once a year, like, that's pretty amazing.

Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I mean, it's, I, I would say that with myself, I really, as a bus- uh, f- with my business Behind the Chair, being as super booked out as I was, right, like, three to three and a half months booked solid, five new client requests a week, all ideal services, right? I did not focus on my SEO or my Google My Business listing at all.

Like, that was very much not a part of my strategy. Instagram and my client ex- and my clients and my client experience, they, that all did all the work for me. Um, and so that required a fair bit of my effort on social, but not as much because of the two things I just alluded to, which was my clients doing the work for me, and then also my client experience fueling the conversation of my clients talking about me and organically referring me. And so I'll talk about those two things in just a moment, because those are the two other hacks that we have here, and I'll dive deeper into them and why they're important.

But one thing that I do think is worth mentioning. My friend Gloria, she is actually gonna be doing a guest speaker class in our, uh, in our programs very soon, and she is all about teaching small businesses how to get, uh, featured in PR. And so, um, something fascinating about this that I think is important and underrated is AI, and even Google, but a lot of AI is going to look for the most credible, most notable, and most talked about sources out there, right? And so you getting mentioned in your local newspaper articles or even on a national level recognition, you know, whatever may be that type of recognition from, like, publications and things like that, or blogs even, um, that is huge and very underrated opportunity for a lot of stylists, or any small business, to be able to show up more in these searches organically.

And so also looking into that as well too I think is great. And luckily, MSM and Mastermind members, you guys are gonna get that masterclass very soon, um, at the time of recording this. So I'm really looking forward to having Gloria come in and share with us, uh, all of her tea. I think it's Gloria Chou, and I really hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.

I've known Gloria for so long and I've always just referenced her as Gloria Yeah. I think it's C-H-O-U, uh, if you guys wanna Google her. She's my homie and she's really cool and she's very smart when it comes to what she does for a living and how she teaches small businesses how to do so. Yeah.

I love that. I think that's so true. Like, that used to be the old school way to get verified on Instagram, and I think it's so important, especially now that it's so easy to, like, create that content at scale, th- they are looking at things like PR and mentions and, you know, back links and all that kind of stuff. Um- Yeah.

Absolutely. which has historically been important anyway. Okay. So the next one, which is all about client experience.

Yeah. So I talk about a lot how, I mean, of course the client experience is important for so many different reasons. But just simply creating an experience that is worth talking about. Mm-hmm.

Like, you cannot expect anybody to want to talk to somebody a- about something that they believe or assume the other person is not interested in, or is not new to the person, right? Like, if you go out to dinner with your friend, if you're talking to your best friend about anything, whatever it may be, you're not just gonna bring up something of conversation that is not going to be of value to the other person unless you just like to hear yourself talk, right? And so if you want people to start to naturally bring you up, naturally want to share you places, naturally want to talk about you to other people, which is a very automatic, completely hands-off way of you growing your clientele, is word of mouth, which is very much a strong referral source that we should not forget about, right? If you want people to do that, then they need something to talk about.

They need something interesting to talk about. Why would Suzy talk to y- talk to Suzy about you if Suzy has a hairdresser who does the exact same things that you do? Yeah. 'Cause a scalp massage, Suzy's hairstylist does a scalp massage too.

The sexy drinks and cocktails and wine, Suzy's salon gives her all that stuff too, right? So what makes you unique? And in my programs, we focus a lot on, how can we set ourselves apart with the client experience? How can we give these people something that they can confidently, that we can confidently say they do not get anywhere else, to where it's going to encourage the person to naturally want to tell their friends about this insane experience that they got, right, that they've never experienced before?

And not only is that gonna get you more natural referr- referrals, it's also going to increase your retention and make people more likely to want to spend more money with you, because they can't get it anywhere else, right? Yeah. So create a service and an experience that somebody can't get anywhere else, and you will automatically get a ton more new client requests just because you give somebody something to talk about.Yeah, absolutely, and we've talked about this before, but I think, like, the number one thing here is the novel experience, right?

Like, any time you have an experience, like, you know, in any business that you think is just, like, "Wow, I can't believe this is what I got in this hair appointment," you're gonna tell as many people as you possibly can. Absolutely. And not to mention, it- it- with the client experience, we don't just talk about, like, the sexy things that you offer as far as amenities go, although there's so many beautiful things that you can do there, right? We also talk about the actual service that you're offering the person and whether or not you're keeping that fresh and interesting and new, right?

Like, are you making the person who's sitting in your chair excited about getting their hair done? Are you offering them something new and fresh that they're excited to show off to other people? Are they always going to work and always going to dinner with their hair in a bun and wrapped up and away and out of their face, right? Because they just don't care or there's nothing to show off.

But somebody's going to be much more motivated to do their hair, talk about their hair, show off their hair if they're excited about their hair. So are we doing a diligent job of being a creative expert for our people and offering them something that they're excited about, every client every time? Are we saying, "Oh my god, we haven't done fresh highlights in a while. We should do them."

Um, "Oh, it's fall time. We should add some warm lowlights in there." How are we making it exciting for the people, right? And that will, by itself, also create a lot of natural referrals.

The last hack here is kinda similar but different, okay? It's same thing with mobilizing your clients to do the work for you, okay? Mobilizing your clients to do the work for you is so powerful for so many different aspects of the business, and this is no exception to that, which is how can you get your clients to share you with their network? And what's super important to realize here, in my experience, and what from- what from- from what I have observed is that the good old referral program no longer works.

And even the good old advice of just asking your clients to refer you does not work anymore, and the reason being is because nobody is just gonna randomly solicit all their friends to go and see you. It's just a weird thing to do, you know? Like, you're not just gonna randomly text five of your friends and then be like, "Hey, go check out Hunter, and I get 20% off if you go check out Hunter." It's only going to come up if it's relevant to the conversation- Yeah.

because nobody likes to be sold to or feel salesy in today's day and age, right? Everybody's so sick of being influenced and probably feels a little bit cringey in influencing, and I believe that it's just a little bit of a barbaric, outdated, and not really helpful thing to encourage anymore or try to prioritize anymore, okay? So, we want to create the natural willingness to do that, like I said in the last hack that I went over, right? But what we could also do is still create incentives for your clients to maybe post on their own platforms and on their own social medias, because that is a lot less commitment a lot of the time, or it feels a little bit more organic, right?

And so these people are connected to hundreds, a web of hundreds of other people outside of your network that you can't tap into or haven't tapped into yet. How powerful is that? Imagine tomorrow, you all- you all the sudden added, like, 5,000 people to your follower list, right? That's basically what you can do when you have your clients posting on their own platforms, on their own profiles for you, because they are getting their stuff seen by everybody else.

So like I said earlier, I grew my clientele with Instagram without a doubt. That's where most of my referrals came from. But then my clients would then go ahead and post my work and them feeling themselves and their hair on their Instagrams because they were like, "Holy shit, look at how awesome this client experience is. Uh, I've never got- gotten this before."

Or they would just show off their hair that they're really excited about. But we can incentivize this, right? We can actually make this more purposeful instead of just something that we hope our clients do from giving them an excellent service, right? So we can amplify that and more- a- and guarantee that that happens on a more consistent basis with a more modern-day version of a referral program.

We like to call it a brand ambassador program- Mm-hmm. where they are kind of showing off the brand for us, right? So we're not necessarily rewarding them for direct referrals. We're re- we're rewarding them in whatever way you wanna reward them or just posting about you and their work and your work on them to their own platforms and reaching all their own people.

I think that's so cool too to be able to get your clients excited about the idea of sharing. And I think, like you said, it's, like, the three ways to get eyes on your work is to build an audience, buy visibility, or borrow someone else's audience. And, like, when your clients are not official influencers, there's even more of that trust with their, like, connections and the people that follow them, so I love that.Absolutely, yeah.

I mean, there's a lot of marketers who will use the term that we're in a trust recession nowadays. And I mean, even just, like, as a Gen Z, Zillennial individual, I mean, we just are increasingly so, all really just getting sick of being influenced, and we also are becoming so much less trusting of companies and brands and businesses. And so, if a trusted loved one is riding for you and sharing their own experience, that is cutting through so much of the work that you would normally have to do in your marketing to get someone to finally trust you enough to want to work with you. But the, the fast track, the fast lane path is, if you have one of their friends or loved ones or family members who already trusts you, then that automatically takes away so much of the apprehension to trusting actually paying you to do their service, right?

So, mobilizing your clients is a big part of this. Making it so you're most likely to show up in search results and in AI, uh, responses is a big part of this. And then a little bit more advanced, and this is more, like, tangible, actual, like, getting the work off of your plate, some things that we've done recently in our Mastermind group, because they are super advanced, and I would honestly say, like, I don't know anybody who's doing this for people right now, nor I don't know how I'd be able to set up a tutorial like this or anything like that. I literally, with my Mastermind students, like, I come up with these ideas, I log into their accounts for them, we set them up together, and then it's automated and taken care of for them.

But first thing is, if you have Wix or if you have a website that has a blog and it has specific, like, um, integratability with other things, then we can actually automate blog posts going out for you on your behalf using your knowledge and the topics that your ideal clients normally want to hear about. And the beautiful thing about a blog is that, because there's even more content that's relevant to you, your business, the topic, your city, whatever it may be, because there's even more content on your website about those things, you're gonna be more likely to show up in searches. So, it really helps you with your SEO and your AIO, and it also o- obviously, automating it takes it really off of your plate, and you can give the AI the prompts that you need it to have to be able to produce high-quality content, but also create search engine optimized blog posts as well, too. So, we will have these guys set up for having an automated blog post go out every other week for them, and it really helps to boost them in the algorithm without having to manually do a blog post every other week.

And then we also automate the, uh, GMB updates. So, using the same kind of theory as the, uh, blog posts, we apply that to their GMB updates. They just have to put in a little amount of eff- very little amount of effort upfront, and then on, then it'll post to GMB for them, uh, automatically, without them barely having to do anything. And they still have the ability to review and edit the draft before all of this stuff goes out if they want th- if they want to.

But after the AI is trained enough to do a good job and they can just trust it going out and they can edit it retroactively, then normally they can just take their hands off and let the, let the automation do their thing. So, it is possible for you, using, like, super advanced automation and technology, to actually get, like, the literal content creation off of your plate, which I don't think would have been available to us up until this, like, crazy AI revolution that we've seen. Um, but it does take some advanced work, which is why I don't recommend necessarily that... Or I don't have, like, a tutorial for you per se, but if you are a little bit more in the advanced category, if you are a high-performing hairstylist who's ready to take a lot of this stuff off of your plate, in Mastermind, this is the type of setups that I am doing for our people in there, and you might be a great fit for that So, if you want to learn more about that, you can shoot me a DM and we can talk about it.

But other than that, I hope that this episode was helpful for you today, my friend. Hope that this gave you some ideas of places where you can maybe focus more of your effort, so that way you don't have to focus a ton of effort on growing the clientele so much in the future. Thank you so much, Jodi Brown, for being a part of this conversation. Thank you for tuning in to the Modern Hairstylist podcast.

Peace out, girl scout.

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