Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson by Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson

June 15, 202610 min

Stop Upselling Clients In The Chair (Do This)

You’re leaving around £20 on the table with every single client booking in your salon right now. Are your upsells feeling pushy, or worse, are you simply missing the best opportunity to offer them?Discover how to boost your salon's average bill by implementing a smart pre-appointment upsell strategy that adds value for clients and profit for you, without a hint of hard-sell.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💰 THE MAGIC UPSELL WINDOW* Forget selling in the chair; clients feel rushed and pressured.* The 'magic window' is 24 to 48 hours BEFORE the client's appointment.* At this point, they're committed, excited for their visit, and not yet under time pressure.* This allows them to say 'yes' easily and even plan for the extra time (e.g., more parking).💰 HIGH-PROFIT ADD-ON EXAMPLES* **Clear Gloss Treatment:** Added £20-£30 to a colour bill, took minimal extra time and product cost. Clients loved the shine and said 'yes' easily.* **Luxury Conditioning Treatment:** Low product cost, but built into a 15-minute blissful experience with scalp massage and heat. Clients happily paid for the added relaxation.* **Vary Offers:** Tailor add-ons seasonally (e.g., UV protection in summer, deep moisture in winter) or for special occasions to keep them fresh and relevant.💰 HOW TO NAIL THE MESSAGE* **Personal:** Reference the client by name and their specific upcoming appointment.* **Sell the Outcome:** Focus on the 'sizzle' (shine, healthier hair, relaxation) not just the 'steak' (the treatment itself).* **Frictionless:** Make it incredibly easy to accept. A simple 'reply yes' should be all they need to do, and your team handles the rest.* **Close the Loop:** Acknowledge their acceptance upon arrival to make it feel seamless and integrated.💰 MEASURE FOR SUCCESS (AND AVOID PUSHINESS)* Don't just track average bill; also monitor client retention and utilisation rates.* If average bill is climbing but retention is dropping, your upsells are likely feeling like pressure, not recommendations.* A genuine recommendation is specific to the client's needs; a blanket offer to everyone can feel like a hard sell.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:10 Minute Money Fix: https://10minutemoneyfix.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Introduction to the Money Fix0:30 - The £20 Per Client Opportunity1:10 - Unlock Your Salon's Magic Upsell Window1:50 - Why Selling Before the Appointment Works Best2:40 - High-Profit Add-On Service Examples3:50 - Tailor Your Upsell Offers Seasonally4:10 - Crafting the Perfect Pre-Appointment Message4:50 - The Three Keys to Frictionless Upselling5:40 - When Upselling Goes Too Far and Kills Retention6:20 - Measure Upsell Success Beyond Just Average Bill6:50 - Recommendation Versus Pressure: The Client Test7:30 - Your Next Step to Boost Average Bill#salonpricing #salonprofit #salonbusiness #salonupsell #salongrowth━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

June 12, 202612 min

I Built Giftypoo: Here's Why And What It Taught Me

Check out Giftypoo at https://giftypoo.com Do you ever feel like your salon business is taking over your life, squeezing out all the joy and creativity you once had? Are you constantly chasing money, leaving no room for your passions or personal fulfilment?In this episode, Phil Jackson shares a powerful reminder: your business should fund a life, not become your whole life.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━THE BUILDER'S REWARD:* Phil shares his love for building systems, tools, and software, a passion that predates his coaching career. He built complex email automations for his salon when others weren't.* His salon membership software during COVID took months, but his latest project, "Gifty Poo" (a client wishlist for salons), took only three weeks thanks to AI.* The reward for Phil is in the building and the process, not solely in the financial return.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━THE TRAP OF 'ALL ABOUT THE MONEY':* While coaching pays better than software development, Phil realised constant delivery left his creative side quiet.* Salon owners often start with values and interests, but these get squeezed out by financial pressures, team challenges, and growth struggles.* He recounts how his love for reading fiction was replaced by only business books, highlighting a loss of joy.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━YOUR BUSINESS AS A LIFE FUNDER:* Phil argues that chasing profit is essential, but it should fund a rich life, not become the life itself.* Even if your salon is successful, make space for activities that nurture your soul: walking, reading, holidays, hobbies, and time with friends.* He encourages listeners to explore Gifty Poo (giftypoo.com), not necessarily to buy, but to play, offer feedback, and consider their own passion projects.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━THE POWER OF 'VIBE CODING':* The episode highlights how 'vibe coding' (building ideas with AI and patience) has drastically lowered the barrier to entry for creating custom tools or fulfilling personal projects.* This approach allows you to pursue ideas that won't leave you alone, even if the market research isn't done.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - The Lesson of a Small Software Project0:55 - My Passion for Building and Systems2:15 - Why Coaching Replaced Software Development3:25 - The Birth of the 'Gifty Poo' Idea4:25 - Building with AI: The Power of Vibe Coding6:15 - Finding Reward Beyond Sales Figures7:05 - The Salon Owner's Money Chase Trap8:35 - When Life's Joys Get Squeezed Out9:45 - How Your Business Should Fund Your Life10:55 - Try Gifty Poo and Nurture Your Soul12:05 - Sharing Your Ideas and Building Together#SalonBusinessTips #SalonOwnerLife #WorkLifeBalance #PhilJackson #BuildYourSalon━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

June 8, 20269 min

The Profit Vampire Hiding On Your Salon Menu

Is a service on your salon menu quietly costing you money every time it's booked? Many salon owners don't realise certain services are actually 'profit vampires', draining their income without them knowing. Phil Jackson, your Queen of Salons, is here to show you how to find these hidden money-losers and what to do about them.In this episode, Phil reveals how to identify unprofitable salon services and implement practical strategies to boost your bottom line.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💰 WHAT ARE PROFIT VAMPIRES?* These are services that appear profitable on the invoice but lose money once actual time, product usage, and the cost of the occupied slot are factored in.* Often, these are express services or low-priced items that take a disproportionate amount of time.* Many owners mistakenly keep them, believing they lead to higher-value services, but Phil warns this happens less often than you think.✂️ PHIL'S KIDS CUTS MISTAKE* Phil reveals his own experience with children's haircuts: booked for 30 minutes at half the adult price, but actually taking nearer 45 minutes.* A £20 kids' cut occupied a prime real estate slot (e.g., 4 PM on a Thursday) that could have been sold for a £200 colour service.* The profit per hour on a kids' cut was less than £18, compared to an adult cut which easily doubled that.💡 REFRAMING THE SALON EXPERIENCE* Instead of just raising prices, Phil repositioned the salon as a quieter retreat for adults, free from the chaos of children.* Kids' cuts were increased to full adult prices and made available only at specific, noisier times (e.g., Saturdays).* This strategy meant the salon either earned full price for the service or freed up prime slots for higher-paying clients.✅ YOUR 3 OPTIONS FOR PROFIT VAMPIRES* **Reprice:** Increase the service price to accurately reflect its true cost of delivery.* **Reframe:** Reposition the service with different availability, terms, or target audience to prevent it from eating into premium slots.* **Retire:** Bravely remove the service from your menu entirely if it attracts the wrong clients, ties up valuable resources, or doesn't align with your business goals.📈 ACTION PLAN: FIND YOUR VAMPIRES* Today, pick three services from your menu and calculate their true profit per hour and their overall impact on your business.* If the numbers don't add up, you've found a profit vampire. Decide whether to reprice, reframe, or retire it.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:Get The Full Money Fix Walkthrough: https://10minutemoneyfix.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - The Salon Service Quietly Costing You Money0:50 - How to Spot a Profit Vampire Service1:30 - My £18 Profit Kids Cut Disaster2:40 - The Hidden Cost of "Filling Quiet Slots"3:50 - Reframing Your Salon's Client Experience4:40 - How Raising Kids Cut Prices Boosted Profit5:30 - Why This Principle Applies to All Salon Services6:00 - Option 1: Reprice to Reflect True Value6:10 - Option 2: Reframe for Better Positioning6:20 - Option 3: Retire Unprofitable Services7:10 - Your Action Plan: Find Your Profit Vampires8:00 - Get The Full Money Fix Walkthrough#salonpricing #salonprofit #salonbusiness #salonstrategy #philjackson━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

June 5, 202610 min

One-Star Reviews: What To Do When You Want To Set Fire To The Salon

Got a dreaded one-star salon review? That immediate gut punch of rage and panic can make you want to unleash a defensive 'midnight reply' that could ruin your reputation. But what if a negative review could actually *make* you money?In this episode, Phil Jackson reveals his proven 3-step formula to turn one-star reviews into powerful marketing assets.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 MAIN CONTENTWHY REVIEWS MATTER FOR YOUR SALON* Reviews are more impactful than almost any other marketing you'll do.* Clients check reviews on Google, Facebook, Treatwell, or Fresha before booking.* They specifically look at one-star reviews to understand how you handle issues when things go wrong.* Negative reviews hurt because salon owners are people-pleasers and our work is personal and subjective.THE DANGER OF THE 'MIDNIGHT REPLY'* Your immediate reaction (rage, hurt, panic) will tempt you to write a defensive, point-by-point takedown.* This "midnight reply" is poison: future clients lack context and only see a business fighting with a client online.* It keeps the drama alive, making a single complaint a long-term spectacle and potentially destroying your salon's reputation.PHIL'S 3-STEP FORMULA FOR PROFESSIONAL REPLIES* **STEP 1: ACKNOWLEDGE AND APOLOGISE.** Within 15 minutes, post a bland holding reply: "Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'm going to look into this and get back to you properly." Later, follow up with: "I'm sorry to hear that you were disappointed with your experience." (Acknowledge their upset, not necessarily their version of events).* **STEP 2: REITERATE YOUR SALON STANDARDS.** State clearly: "Our goal is for every client to leave feeling fantastic and we take all feedback extremely seriously." (This is for future clients, positioning the bad review as the exception, not the norm).* **STEP 3: GET IT OFFLINE.** End with a clear invitation: "Please contact us directly on [number/email] so we can look into this properly." Or "I've reached out to you, please reply to my email." This moves the conversation out of public view and stops further public ranting from looking reasonable.THE SECRET TO TURNING BAD REVIEWS INTO MARKETING* You are writing for the *next thousand people* who are considering booking with you, not the original reviewer.* A wall of 5-star reviews looks fake; one or two well-handled bad reviews make your business look authentic and human.* Phil's own experience: 3 new clients booked because of his professional reply to a one-star review, turning it into a powerful marketing asset.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:10 Minute Money Fix: 10minutemoneyfix.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Introduction & The 10 Minute Money Fix1:05 - Why Salon Reviews Matter More Than You Think2:00 - The Emotional Impact of a One-Star Review3:00 - The Danger of the 'Midnight Reply'4:30 - The Critical 15-Minute Holding Reply5:20 - Your Goal: Win Future Clients, Not the Argument6:00 - Step 1: Acknowledge & Apologise Professionally6:45 - Step 2: Reiterate Your Salon's High Standards7:05 - Step 3: Move the Conversation Offline8:05 - The Real Audience for Your Review Reply9:05 - Turning a Negative Review into Profit10:00 - Authenticity: Why Not All 5-Star Reviews Are Good10:45 - Resources: The 10 Minute Money Fix#SalonReviews #ClientFeedback #SalonMarketing #BusinessReputation #SalonBusiness━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

June 1, 20269 min

I Spent £300 on a Billboard (Big Mistake)

Are you unknowingly bleeding profit? Salon owners often only see the invoice price, missing the true cost of expenses. Phil Jackson reveals the simple maths.In this episode, Phil Jackson reveals the simple maths that will change how you view every pound leaving your bank account, showing you how to plug those hidden profit leaks.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━THE TRUE COST OF EVERY EXPENSE* Phil explains that the cost of an expense is not just the invoice amount, but what your business had to do to earn enough to pay for it.* With a 10% profit margin, a £300 expense means your salon had to generate £3000 in revenue just to cover that one cost.* This reframe exposes why many salon owners feel like they are working flat out but not seeing the profit.PHIL'S £3000 BILLBOARD MISTAKE* Phil recounts spending £300 a month on digital billboards, believing it was 'proper marketing'.* Despite thousands of purported shoppers, trackable marketing (unique phone numbers) revealed zero new clients from these ads.* His £300 monthly expense, at a 10% profit margin, was actually costing his business £3000 in lost revenue each month.HOW TO STOP LEAKING MONEY* Every expense, from software subscriptions to over-ordered products, requires 10 times its cost in revenue to be covered (at a 10% profit margin).* If your profit margin is 5%, you need to multiply by 20!* Phil's fix: review your bank statement, multiply key expenses by 10, and honestly ask if it was worth it. Cancel those that are not.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:Get Paid Properly: getpaidproperly.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Introduction to the 10 Minute Money Fix0:47 - Uncover the Real Cost of Expenses1:36 - Calculate Your Profit Margin's Impact2:08 - Learn From Phil's £3000 Marketing Mistake3:30 - How Every Expense Costs You 10x4:10 - Stop Working Hard for No Profit4:48 - Adjusting the Multiplier for Lower Margins5:20 - Your 10-Minute Action Plan to Cut Costs6:25 - Get All Five Money Fixes for Your Salon#SalonExpenses #SalonProfitability #SalonBusiness #SalonMoney #PhilJackson━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

May 29, 202613 min

Your Salon Suppliers Are Stealing From You

Are you leaving money on the table with every salon appointment? Most salon owners are, and it's not because you're doing anything wrong – it's because nobody has shown you where to look. In an industry with too many salons chasing the same clients, waiting for a full column isn't enough; the real lever is how much you make from each client you see.Phil Jackson, your Queen of Salons, reveals four practical ways AI can help you uncover the hidden revenue in every single one of your bookings.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━STOP LOSING MONEY TO LAST-MINUTE CANCELLATIONS* Ditch desperate 'last minute availability' posts that devalue your brand.* Implement an AI-powered waitlist system that automatically messages a curated list of clients when a slot opens.* This feels like a 'VIP heads-up', not a 'fire sale', filling gaps without you making calls or discounting.* Phil suggests a low-tech alternative using WhatsApp Business labels to message specific groups of contacts.BOOST RETAIL SALES WITHOUT AWKWARD PITCHES* Avoid the discomfort of pushing products at the end of an appointment, which often leads to clients walking out without vital aftercare.* Utilise AI to send personalised follow-up notes *after* the appointment, recommending products used and providing direct purchase links.* This lands when clients are thinking about their hair/skin, feels like genuine aftercare, and converts sales surprisingly well.INCREASE AVERAGE SERVICE VALUE WITH PRE-PLANNED ADD-ONS* Don't lose out on upsells because clients can't extend their appointment last-minute ("I have to pick the kids up" or "I only put an hour on the car").* Use AI-powered booking systems or appointment reminders to present tailored add-on options *before* the client arrives.* This allows clients to plan their schedule, genuinely enhancing their experience and boosting your revenue per booking.PREVENT CLIENTS FROM DRIFTING AWAY WITH AI RETENTION* Notice regulars slowly extending their appointments from 6 weeks to 7, 8, then 10, eventually disappearing? This is lost income you'll never recover.* Build an AI retention system that tracks booking patterns.* When a client goes past their usual window, the AI sends a warm, personal nudge ("We are thinking of you. It has been a while. I have a couple of slots next week...") to bring them back.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES: AI By Your Side Program: philjackson.coach━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME: 1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Introduction: Why Every Appointment Has Hidden Money0:20 - The Uncomfortable Truth: Why Revenue Per Client Matters Most1:00 - AI Waitlist: Fill Last-Minute Cancellations Without Discounts2:50 - Effortless Retail Sales: Personalised AI Follow-Ups4:00 - Boost Bookings: Upselling Add-Ons Before They Arrive5:40 - Stop Client Drift: How AI Prevents Lost Regulars7:10 - Unlock Your Salon's Hidden Revenue7:30 - Learn More: Phil's AI By Your Side Program━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#salonrevenue #salonprofitability #salonaips #salongrowth #salonbusiness━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

May 25, 202615 min

I Walked Away For 6 Months. My Salon Survived.

What would happen to your salon business if you had to take six months off unexpectedly? Unpredictable income can plunge your business into crisis, leaving you stressed and without options.In this episode, Phil Jackson shares his personal story of near financial ruin and how salon memberships saved his business by delivering essential stability and reliable income.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📈 THE DESPERATION THAT BIRTHED A SOLUTION* Phil's successful salon faced ruin when he took six months paternity leave after adopting his son in 2011.* Without him, the business started losing money and team members, falling into a cycle of huge overdrafts.* An urgent call from his accountant warned they had only three months before bankruptcy.* Desperate for stability and predictability, Phil tore the business apart, eventually building the first salon membership.📉 WHY MOST SALON MEMBERSHIPS FAIL* **Too Complicated:** If you can't explain your membership in one sentence, it's too complicated for clients and team members to sell.* **Wrong Pricing:** Discounting too heavily cannibalises profits, while making it too expensive removes customer value.* **Launch-and-Leave:** Memberships need consistent promotion and a method to get them in front of the right clients, not just a one-off launch.* **Wrong Target Customer:** They try to convert disloyal 'number one' clients or offer them to already profitable 'number ten' clients.✅ BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL SALON MEMBERSHIP* **Keep it Simple:** Focus on one or two memberships, tightly defined around a single service or group. Piling in more services makes it less attractive.* **Right Perks, Not Discounts:** Offer genuine value through perks rather than deep discounts that eat into your profitability.* **Strategic Launch:** Create excitement and give clients a reason to join today. The best memberships often have interested clients before they even officially launch.* **Target 'Number 7s and 8s':** Focus on clients who are already loyal but could benefit from more frequent visits to maintain results or complete courses, turning good habits into great ones.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - How Predictable Income Saved My Salon1:05 - Facing a Crisis: Six Months Off & Near Bankruptcy2:55 - The Accountant's Dire Warning4:05 - Finding Stability with Salon Memberships5:00 - What Salon Memberships Actually Deliver5:45 - The Top Reasons Salon Memberships Fail6:45 - Why More Services Don't Mean More Sales7:50 - Finding Your Ideal Membership Client9:05 - The Power of Targeting 'Number 7s and 8s'9:55 - Your Next Steps to Salon Membership Success#salonmemberships #salonprofitability #salonbusiness #salonowner #predictableincome━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

May 22, 20269 min

Why You're Leaving Money on the Table With Every Appointment

Is your salon ready for summer? For some, it's a frantic rush, for others, a quiet struggle. Don't let the season catch you unprepared and impact your salon's profitability.This episode outlines Phil Jackson's practical strategies for navigating summer, whether your salon is manic or quiet.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━UNDERSTAND YOUR SALON'S RHYTHM* Every salon has a predictable seasonal rhythm – spring, summer, autumn, winter – but these don't always align with calendar months.* Your specific rhythm is influenced by factors like school holidays, payday cycles, local events, weddings, and even the weather.* Review last year's numbers and booking software data *now* to anticipate whether your summer will be manic or quiet.THRIVING IN A MANIC SUMMER* Being busy doesn't automatically mean profitable if service quality drops or your team burns out.* **Seasonal Service Menu:** Build around common summer client problems (e.g., moisturising, UV damage, holiday/event ready) to make booking easy and nudge up average bills without adding huge appointment times. It's okay to discontinue less profitable services temporarily.* **Capacity Management:** Prevent overbooking that burns out your team and annoys clients. Stagger shifts, ask part-timers for more hours, offer overtime, and build in small "white space" appointment gaps.* **Client Communication:** Ask clients to book ahead and for their patience, as it helps you plan staffing.* **Team Support:** Make sure team members take breaks. Consider providing lunches on brutal Saturdays and acknowledge their hard work.* **Retail & Gift Cards:** When clients are happy and the salon is buzzing, they're in the mood to buy. Ask about upcoming birthdays and special occasions. Gift cards bought in summer often get redeemed in autumn, smoothing cash flow.MAKING THE MOST OF A QUIET SUMMER* Reframe quiet weeks as an opportunity to work *on* your business, not a crisis.* **Targeted Marketing:** Instead of blanket discounts, create specific offers for the quietest weeks (e.g., last week of July, quiet Tuesday afternoons). Get marketing out early, as clients need time to plan around holidays/childcare.* **Client Outreach:** Focus on "lost client marketing" – reaching out to clients who came once and didn't return.* **Business Development:** Use the downtime for tasks often neglected: updating your website, reviewing prices for autumn, organising your retail area, or researching white-label products.* **Team Leave & Training:** Encourage team members to take annual leave during quiet periods. Invest in team training, as many academies offer summer promotions (e.g., "buy one, get one free") during their own quiet times.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES: 10 Minute Money Fix: https://10minutemoneyfix.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME: 1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Introduction: Are You Ready for Summer?0:30 - Understanding Your Salon's Unique Seasonal Rhythm1:40 - Two Approaches to Summer: Go With It or Rage Against It2:40 - How to Survive and Thrive During a Manic Summer3:10 - Curating Your Salon's Seasonal Service Menu4:05 - Solving Capacity Issues and Preventing Team Burnout5:25 - Maximising Retail Sales and Gift Card Opportunities5:55 - How to Reframe and Utilise a Quiet Summer6:35 - Targeted Marketing Strategies for Slow Periods7:35 - Improving Your Business During Downtime8:15 - Why You Need to Plan Your Summer Strategy Now9:05 - Keep More Profit with the 10 Minute Money Fix━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#SalonBusiness#SalonStrategy#SalonPlanning#SummerSalon#PhilJackson━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

May 18, 202612 min

The biggest summer booking mistake salons make

Is your salon ready for summer? For some, it's a frantic rush, for others, a quiet struggle. Don't let the season catch you unprepared and impact your salon's profitability.This episode outlines Phil Jackson's practical strategies for navigating summer, whether your salon is manic or quiet.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━UNDERSTAND YOUR SALON'S RHYTHM* Every salon has a predictable seasonal rhythm – spring, summer, autumn, winter – but these don't always align with calendar months.* Your specific rhythm is influenced by factors like school holidays, payday cycles, local events, weddings, and even the weather.* Review last year's numbers and booking software data *now* to anticipate whether your summer will be manic or quiet.THRIVING IN A MANIC SUMMER* Being busy doesn't automatically mean profitable if service quality drops or your team burns out.* **Seasonal Service Menu:** Build around common summer client problems (e.g., moisturising, UV damage, holiday/event ready) to make booking easy and nudge up average bills without adding huge appointment times. It's okay to discontinue less profitable services temporarily.* **Capacity Management:** Prevent overbooking that burns out your team and annoys clients. Stagger shifts, ask part-timers for more hours, offer overtime, and build in small "white space" appointment gaps.* **Client Communication:** Ask clients to book ahead and for their patience, as it helps you plan staffing.* **Team Support:** Make sure team members take breaks. Consider providing lunches on brutal Saturdays and acknowledge their hard work.* **Retail & Gift Cards:** When clients are happy and the salon is buzzing, they're in the mood to buy. Ask about upcoming birthdays and special occasions. Gift cards bought in summer often get redeemed in autumn, smoothing cash flow.MAKING THE MOST OF A QUIET SUMMER* Reframe quiet weeks as an opportunity to work *on* your business, not a crisis.* **Targeted Marketing:** Instead of blanket discounts, create specific offers for the quietest weeks (e.g., last week of July, quiet Tuesday afternoons). Get marketing out early, as clients need time to plan around holidays/childcare.* **Client Outreach:** Focus on "lost client marketing" – reaching out to clients who came once and didn't return.* **Business Development:** Use the downtime for tasks often neglected: updating your website, reviewing prices for autumn, organising your retail area, or researching white-label products.* **Team Leave & Training:** Encourage team members to take annual leave during quiet periods. Invest in team training, as many academies offer summer promotions (e.g., "buy one, get one free") during their own quiet times.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES: 10 Minute Money Fix: https://10minutemoneyfix.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME: 1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Introduction: Are You Ready for Summer?0:30 - Understanding Your Salon's Unique Seasonal Rhythm1:40 - Two Approaches to Summer: Go With It or Rage Against It2:40 - How to Survive and Thrive During a Manic Summer3:10 - Curating Your Salon's Seasonal Service Menu4:05 - Solving Capacity Issues and Preventing Team Burnout5:25 - Maximising Retail Sales and Gift Card Opportunities5:55 - How to Reframe and Utilise a Quiet Summer6:35 - Targeted Marketing Strategies for Slow Periods7:35 - Improving Your Business During Downtime8:15 - Why You Need to Plan Your Summer Strategy Now9:05 - Keep More Profit with the 10 Minute Money Fix━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#SalonBusiness#SalonStrategy#SalonPlanning#SummerSalon#PhilJackson━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

May 15, 202614 min

I Built My Own Salon Tool (And I Can't Code)

Are clunky spreadsheets and manual tasks sucking hours out of your salon business each week? Does the thought of building a custom tool to streamline your operations sound impossible without coding skills or expensive developers?This episode reveals how salon owners can use "vibe coding" — describing what you want in plain English to AI — to build simple, bespoke web applications that save time and solve specific problems, all without writing a single line of code.WHAT IS VIBE CODING?* "Vibe coding" means using AI to build software applications by simply describing what you want in plain English.* You don't need any coding knowledge; if you can write a text message, you can do this.* It's about creating small, tailored tools for *your* business, not building products to sell.REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES FROM PHIL* **Invoice Generator**: Phil reduced the time to create client invoices from 10-15 minutes down to 90 seconds. He described his needs (client name, service, amounts, logo, PDF output) to AI, saving him hours each month.* **Dynamic Retreat Schedule**: Solved the problem of constantly changing event schedules. Attendees access a live web link on their phones, seeing immediate updates without needing Google accounts, app downloads, or out-of-date PDFs.WHAT YOU CAN BUILD IN YOUR SALON* **Client Intake Forms**: Capture specific information for new clients beyond your main booking software.* **Staff Holiday Rota**: A simple, central place for your team to check holiday availability on their phones without another subscription.* **Pricing Calculator**: A small app to work out product costs for services and determine appropriate charges.* **Any task that takes too long or uses an inadequate tool (e.g., a spreadsheet that doesn't quite fit).**THE PROCESS: HOW TO GET STARTED* **Identify Friction**: Pinpoint one specific, frustrating problem in your salon that takes too long or uses a clunky tool.* **Refine Your Prompt**: Use AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude to help you create a very detailed, clear description of what you want the app to do.* **Build & Deploy**: Use "vibe coding" platforms like Base 44 or Lovable. These platforms handle the technical "deployment" (making the app accessible via a link) for you.* **Patience is Key**: The first version might not be perfect. Treat it like a conversation, asking the AI to make changes and refine the app until it meets your needs.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Intro: Build Simple Apps Without Code0:50 - What is Vibe Coding?2:20 - Case Study 1: The Invoice Generator App3:50 - How Phil Built the Invoice App with AI5:50 - Case Study 2: Dynamic Retreat Schedule8:20 - What Annoying Problems Can You Solve with AI?9:50 - What Vibe Coding Won't Replace (and Why)11:10 - Your Step-by-Step Vibe Coding Process13:00 - Apps for Deployment: Base 44, Lovable, Codex14:10 - AI by Your Side: Phil's Programme#salonai #salonsolutions #businesstech #salonautomation #philjackson━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

Build Your Salon with Phil Jackson

About the show

Listen to episodes

Stop Upselling Clients In The Chair (Do This)

I Built Giftypoo: Here's Why And What It Taught Me

The Profit Vampire Hiding On Your Salon Menu

One-Star Reviews: What To Do When You Want To Set Fire To The Salon

I Spent £300 on a Billboard (Big Mistake)

Your Salon Suppliers Are Stealing From You

I Walked Away For 6 Months. My Salon Survived.

Why You're Leaving Money on the Table With Every Appointment

The biggest summer booking mistake salons make

I Built My Own Salon Tool (And I Can't Code)

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