hi. My name is Ann Marie christell. I'm a coach for hairstylist that wants to grow their business behind the chair without feeling overwhelmed or working longer hours behind the chair. I have over 20 years of experience working behind the chair, earning over six figures if you wish to make more money without working longer hours behind the chair and bring in spiritual and sustainable principles into your business and life when you are in the right place. In this podcast, I will mix business strategies, marketing tips, personal development, spiritual practices and sustainable ways of living and working. Welcome to the sustainable hairstylist podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. Today, I am going to open up to the idea of you start to thinking about who is the right hair client for you, because I hear this over and over and over again from hairstylist that I will take any type of client, any type of client is welcome into my salon. And if you are open into taking any type of client, you might end up struggling because you are trying too hard to be the right person for everyone, and just as in our private lives, we will not be able to be friends with everyone. We are not the right fit for everyone. We will not connect with everyone
the faster we can
really hone in on this and also be okay with and also be okay with that. Not everyone will like me. I will not be able to make everyone happy. I will not be the right person to do everyone's hair, the faster you will actually find what is important to you. You will actually faster find who is the right type of client for you, and you will eliminate all of those emotional roller coasters
that happens
when we try to be the right person for everyone, and we all have had those situations where You have a person in your chair, and you feel that this person does not understand me, and I do not understand what this person wants, and there is no way that I can make this person happy with their hair, And the faster you can actually start to find the warning signals, the warning signals of actually starting to say no to any type of client that has that big, big flashing red light, Warning, warning, warning, warning, the faster you can start to learn what those warning signs are for you, because the warning signs that are for your friends in the salon will not be the same for you, because you are not identical people. You all are unique. And if you are the person that thinks that if I start to become specialized, if I start to think that one type of client is the right type of client for me, then and you think that you will eliminate a bunch of people, and you your Business will come crashing down. This is not true, because when you actually start to learn more about who do you want to have in your chair, what what type of services do you want that to offer that person? How do you want them to feel, and what kind of transformations, both hair wise, but also within them while they're sitting in your chair, the faster you you actually have an understanding this, the easier it will become for you to create a marketing strategy that it will actually will work to attract those type of people, because the more you understand their true values, the transformations that you want to help them have from the inside and out while they are sitting in your chair, the easier it will be to actually understand what is it that is their problems? What is it that they have? Issues with what way do they want to feel when they leave your salon, and how can you actually start to talk to the problems and the transformation already in your marketing? And this is marketing one on one, learning who is the right type of client for you is the thing that will set you apart. It will eliminate all of those annoying shit, stupid clients that you I know, that you do not want to have in your chair, and the shit, annoying clients that you just have had, and they keep on messaging you, messaging you, ding you, saying they're not happy with their hair, and you are freaking out. Cannot sleep. It impacts your full day. You end up being suited towards your clients, you end up being in a bad mood when you come home after work. This eliminates all of that. And I'm not saying that you should fire every single client today, but I'm saying opening up to a new type of way of looking at your marketing strategy, and start to think of okay when I actually say no to someone that I feel is not a good fit, if it has a red flag, if it has any of your warning signs, maybe you are The person that has a feeling in your gut that, oh, this is not going to be good. Oh, this is not going to work for me. Then I want you to start to
think about,
what can I do
to actually dare to say no?
Because when you are saying no to things, the universe will respond and you open up for whatever it is that you actually want to have into your life, the more you understand your own signals within your body and listen to them, the more you are in tuned with your boundaries, and the more P you People will actually have respect for you when you actually start to listen to your inner guidance system and your inner boundaries. So it is a win and win, both for your mental health, both for having a healthy clientele that actually respects you and making your marketing become so much easier. So the real question is, who is it that you really enjoy having in your salon, you can look at who are your five favorite clients, or 10 favorite clients, the clients where you just truly enjoy being around, the clients that really fills you up, lifts you up, and the clients that you when you see them in the calendar, you actually become happy. You're looking forward to seeing them. Maybe you are looking forward to share a story that had happened in your life, something that actually lights you up. You are looking forward towards that person. Hopefully it is a person that have respect for you, and hopefully this is a person that actually understands the boundaries that you have and respect them. So who are your 10 favorite clients, and my recommendation is to list them out, and it should be easy to know that these are my 10 favorite clients, and after each and every single person of these, think about what type of person is this and how do you feel when you are with this person? So maybe it is an introverted person, maybe it's a loud person, maybe it's a extroverted person. The more you get an understanding of the personality types that. You actually click the easiest way with the easier will become for you to understand. Okay, all my favorite clients have this type of personality, and they like me because of this and this and that. And if you want to take this even a step further, next time all of these favorite clients are coming to sit in your chair, why not ask them about your relationship, and you can actually record this, so talk about the relationship that you have together, what stories maybe they are connecting with you with and the more you can dig deeper and get an understanding of this, the easier will actually become for you
to pick out.
Okay, I attract this type of people. So this is the type personality type that is the right type of client for me, another question that you should start to think about is, what kind of values does your favorite 10 clients have? What is it that is important for them? What is it that is important in their life? What because when you can actually find connections between what is, what your values are, and the values of your clients, and you can start to talk about the values that you have that you know your clients will really like. You can also use that in your marketing when you're actually talking about yourself and remember the fastest way to actually have clients to become happy in your chair and become comfortable in your chair, even the first time they met, meet you, is the type of client that has already had the feeling that they know you, that they actually understand. What is it that my my hairstylist of valuing what kind of stories are you talking about, and these things is things that you can both use on your website, you can use it on social media
and and build a client experience
up already before they come to your chair. So what values does this person have? And then you can question, what kind of services does your favorite 10 clients come to you for, and if they have problems with their hair, what problems is it? And what kind of unique solutions do you have that you share with them? Again, these are things that you can talk about in your marketing. And maybe you see a red thread in the services that you're doing for these clients. In this way, you can start to think about, okay, if I become specialized in maybe three different types of services, service areas, and the more you become specialized, the easier again, it will become in your marketing strategy. And you know what area that you need to become super, super, super, super talented in so maximum three service areas of the service areas that you are offering. And the next question you can ask is, what do you have in common with
your favorite
clients?
It can be values. It can be stories. It can be where you have gone to school. It can be what type of food you like, what kind of things did you like to do after work, what kind of TV you watch, or what websites you both visit, or. Anything you can find in common,
write that out as well,
and then you can ask yourself, what type of conversations are you having together? What is it that you talk about, what is it that is important for your clients, and what is it that in what way do you do they want to be seen by you in the conversations that you're having? And as hair stylists, we don't do only hair we really, really help our clients transform from the inside and out, and it is important that the more we can get our clients to feel seen and heard, the easier it will become to
make them happy.
And again, using this in your marketing strategy, marketing strategy, what stories can you share about yourself that are connected to the conversations that they already are having with your favorite clients, and my next question to you is, is there any other type of connections that you have with this client? Maybe your kids go to the same school, maybe they have the same practice, maybe you go to the same resort on holiday. What kind of connections do you have with your favorite clients? And we can even go one step deeper and you task yourself. How do you feel around these persons?
These persons, your 10 favorite clients?
How do you feel about yourself?
How what do you believe is possible for you when you are
in this person around this person,
when we have amazing people around us. It tends to lift us up. It tends us to want to show up in a bigger, brighter way. In what way is this? And maybe you even want to push yourself to become a better version of yourself when you're around this person?
What is that?
And I know these are a lot of questions, it is a lot of questions to sit down and actually write out, because this will the answers that you get down on paper.
Will create
one type of I call it dream client avatar, one type of person, and you will see a lot of common things between all of these 10 clients, and the more you can get into detail of every Single of this person, the clear the vision of your dream client will become with these answers. So anytime you create a social media post, anytime that you create maybe a new YouTube video, or anytime you update your website, or you write a newsletter to your the clients that you already have. You you want to speak not to many people. You want to speak to one person, and the dream client avatar is this one person, because you will understand the values that they have. You will understand the import what's important to them, their problems with their hair, how they want to feel when they're sitting your chair, how you want to feel when they are sitting in your chair. And this will be a baseline to actually, you can even take out the photo
and have put up
where you know that
this is the person that I want to attract. These are the values
and.
The clear you are on your dream client avatar, the easier will actually be
to
brainstorm ideas of actually attracting these people
into your chair.
And it helps you to become more bold, it helps you to actually share more of who you are, and the more clear you are on speaking towards this one person, the easier it actually is to repel all of those red flag clients, because usually they are triggered by the things that you're posting, that they actually go like, Ah, I don't like this. About that person. Oh, I don't like this. I don't like that. And they actually will not book an appointment with you. They will not
reach out.
And you see also, anytime anyone is doing a consultation with you or sending you a message and blah, blah, blah, blah blah, and you will start to see, okay, this is a warning sign. No. This service is something that I don't offer anymore, or I don't do this anymore. I don't do that,
and I know
you might feel but Ann Marie, hey, I want you to just create this amazing, simple, three step thing for me to understand who is the right type of client for you.
The thing is,
if you do this work and you actually sit down and do this, you will start to see you shift because you will shift from within by doing this work, and your marketing and social media strategy will shift because you actually know who is the right client for You.
And
I've even had my hair extension students do this exercise before they even come to class.
And while
they have been doing this, one of their first hair models have actually been their dream client. So this is something that is the foundation of your marketing strategy. It is something that works, and it actually helps you to stand by what type of business that it is that you're building that actually lines with who you are and the type of life that you want to live. And I'm all about inviting a more holistic, simplistic way
of working and living,
and I know this demands a bit work and mental effort from you, but this is really what will set you apart? Because I promise you not every single hairstylist in your town are willing to do this work. And just as much as we practice hair, doing all of this, the more we're actually practicing our marketing strategy, showing up, doing this work,
the the faster
we actually will be able to do this with ease, and as long as you have your business, you will need to produce marketing material that actually consistently attracts new people in because your clientele is ever evolving. If you think that your hair clientele will be the same clientele five years from now, they won't, because you will change. They will change. The world would change, and everything is ever evolving. So always be open to shifting. And if you do this work and start to use your dream client avatar as a foundation in your marketing strategy, I will promise you these people will start to show up in your chair. And when that happens, I would love to hear from you
that it has actually worked.
It so I won't go through all the questions again. You can listen to this episode again, write them all down and start to use this and build out the answers. And you will start to see a huge shift in your business, sending you lots of love. Bye for today.
