What Glinda the Good Witch says about swapping out for that new product line

Do you think a new product line will mean more sales? It might, or might not, depending on what else you change.

The Bait-and-Switch of the Profit Promise Lure:

In an industry driven by innovation, trends, style, fashion and forecasts, small wonder that salon and spa professionals are constantly on the lookout for “what’s next,” and you enjoy the new product side of the equation almost as much as you do the artistry, don’t you?

There’s a practical side to that as well; because products that bring innovation and higher quality-performance results to clients can mean less work and higher profits for you and better outcomes for your customers.

There definitely are times that it makes fiscal sense and brings renewal and increased enthusiasm to your business when you expand or change up your retail mix, and sometimes this involves full-scale swaps and requires you to invest thousands of dollars in new retail products, in training for employees, in educating your customers on the benefits of the new products, and in overall marketing. In fact, since they involve the expenditure of considerable, time, resources, and money, you probably don’t make these decisions lightly. And, rightly so, you expect that your investment will pay off in additional retail product and service revenue dollars.

But there are other times when you’re tempted to make a significant change due to the economics of the promise – the manufacturer’s or the distributor’s promise – that this product change will result in bigger profits for your salon or spa. Couple this promise with the excitement of new products, and you have a recipe for change that may be irresistibly exciting to you in the short run, but which may result in an even larger return in ‘buyer’s remorse’ than you had bargained on when projected new revenue, profits and retail sales fail to occur.

Increasing the number of clients that you serve and the number of services that you provide to each of them is not dependent upon the product lines that you carry. Regardless of salesmen’s promises, switching to more concentrated, efficient, shorter-process, higher-performing (or other benefit) product lines is only going to change your bottom line in small amounts and will rarely, if ever, justify the time, energy, resources and expense involved in switching product lines. To make matters worse, all too often, the salesperson disappears after the sale and promised support with collateral, leads, marketing and education sometimes fails to materialize.

Despite what may have been the best of intentions of all parties involved, sometimes you find yourself lured into a purchase, only to find that you did not receive all that was promised. You may find yourself right back where you started, only with additional debt for products and education and further depleted of time and energy as well as resources.

The truth is, whether you stick with the products that you have carried for years or completely renovate your product mix for retail, backbar and services, profit and increased sales are only going to follow due to changes in the way that you do business completely outside of the products that you use or carry. For that matter, in a world where distributors and manufacturers are being acquired, merging, going under, and new ones are popping up left and right – don’t you want to increase your sales and grow your business regardless of what lines you choose to carry? (Of course you do!)

As Glinda the Good Witch said to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, the answer lies within you, you have had the power all along! You have the power to effect growth and profit in your salon or spa. It lies in your ability to correctly identify your own core strengths and capitalize on them. It lies in your ability to accurately identify your target client base, to understand what they want and how best to serve them. It lies in your ability to construct an extraordinary experience for your clients. It lies in your ability and willingness to tell your own story on the internet, in your marketing materials, and in your ability to actually tell your clients (and prospective clients) about the benefits of the products that you carry and the services you provide. It lies in your ability to work with other businesses in your community in order to reach out to more prospective clients in joint efforts.

The next time you are tempted to buy in the latest and greatest something in order to improve your bottom line and grow toward the future, be sure that you have first called upon the powers that you already have in order to analyze whether the expense and effort can truly pay off.

Elizabeth Kraus
12 Months of Marketing for Salon and Spa

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