One of the aspects of building a large strong clientele is the loyalty factor, Christmas provide a good opportunity to not only stabilise your clientele, but set you apart from your competitors.

For many years now, I have given something back to my business at Christmas, by choosing my best and most regular clients, and giving them a Christmas present.

I normal base the cost of the gift at two thirds of a blow dry service, this way I give something back and hopefully ensure the next years regular appointments, while also making a little on the service we give.

The other effect of regularly giving Christmas gifts is having a full house throughout the Christmas period.

If I was to give you the best advice I could possibly give to you in how to make and sustain a good clientele, it would be to share a little story of how I tried to do just this.

My first venture working in a partnership and leasing premises was with a female business partner.  We spent a lot of money on advertising campaigns and made ourselves available at every function we could think of, we had Friday nights at local haunts in our town and Saturday night’s frequenting a few of the local clubs.

This way we gave ourselves a high profile and grew a large friend base, I remember putting on a show and having people queue down the street to get into the venue, we had put ourselves out to maintain the highest of profiles, and we were the talk of the town.

We sustained this relentless effort for around 18 months, and at times it did wear thin. Although we have a good business this strain on the partnership became too much and we eventually went our separate ways.  I knew I had to rethink my approach, I did not want to go alone and go through all this upheaval and effort.

It came to me in a eureka moment, I had spent money, time and effort trying to make my friends my clientele, why did I not try to make my clientele my friends.  It is simple when you think of it this way, and I have never looked back ever since, I take a genuine interest in my clients and find out what they have been doing, it makes my life a lot more interesting, and that’s why I try to give a little thought at Christmas to my best clients.

I now have many good clients and friends, one of my clients has been coming to me every week for 31 years and has followed me to at least 9 different location, I think this is remarkable.  I have other clients who come from far and wide, some coming from abroad.

So remember the Christmas gift idea, it may help you to build a strong and large clientele.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Hairdressing Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.