Would You Like Beans With That?
Does the idea of upselling to your patient or client fill you with dread? Do you fear you'll come across as pushy or fake? Well, we have a solution.
This is a topic that is so fun for me. It took me a lot of years to learn what it was all about. At first, I had the impression that it was a push to sell things, but now I see it as someone who knows their job so well, they know what goes with what or someone who can see what the person right in front of them needs!
Lets say for example, you work in a beauty salon and a friend of yours is booked in for chin hair removal, when she arrives and you see her under the bright lights that she in fact has a moustache too, would you go ahead and treat the chin as booked or would say to your best friend… “I can do your top lip while you are here today too”!?
Upselling is a skill that I learned by talking to my clients as if they were my Mum, my sister or my friend. I always remained professional but approached it with the attitude of when I am in my own lounge room and my Mum asks me a question about this, I recommend her everything I am educated about that is available and tell her all her options, so why was I holding back in the treatment room? It was because I was worried about coming across "salesly" and I wanted my clients to really enjoy their experience. Guess what? They LOVE it when you find the perfect balance between education and care about their skin journey.
Education
The more time you invest into training, the easier it is for you and your staff to upsell and recommend to clients. Never underestimate the power of refreshing knowledge. This goes for services and products. It can be monthly, quarterly, whatever works. Your suppliers will be more than happy to organise in house training with you and it can be really good for team building if you add in a combined lunch/nibbles with it too. The more intimately you know your products and services, the better you will be able to communicate them to your clients and the stronger their trust in you will grow.
Set challenges
In your daily meetings, pick a service or product to talk about to each client, make it fun. This sets up morale and focus within the clinic, showcases the education of the staff to the clients and is also a great way to review certain ingredients in products or benefits of treatments depending on what you pick for your challenge. You can set them daily, weekly, monthly, whatever works for your set up. You can always add an incentive in ther too, sometimes some healthy competition is fun.
Utilise all staff to add on
Do you have anything in your clinic under $50? A lip-gloss, a blackhead remover, eye make-up remover etc? Move it to the front counter and make sure you get your front of house staff to ask each client to purchase one. It is amazing how impulse buying works and having it at the counter where check out is happening is just another way to add on to each service!
Does your service menu have an add-on option?
If a client is already having treatment, do you have an option for add-on on the same day? For example, if a client is already doing 2 areas of IPL, why not offer a 3rd area at half price? Any combination of treatments done on the same day with an incentive for the client, think about your workplace and how you can add value for the client. Get your team together and see what ideas they have too.
Post Disclaimer
This blog post has been vigilantly researched and fact checked to ensure that it is accurate, reliable and up to date. You must keep in mind that errors and omissions may occur and that we welcome any feedback or corrections in this regard. We encourage you to do your own research to verify the accuracy and contemporary nature of the information presented.