Found your barbershop stuck in stagnation? It can feel frustrating to not see growth, and finding a fix that will make your business soar isn’t always easy.
But don’t fret, we’ve rounded up 8 ways that you can increase revenue in your barbershop to help you see steady growth.
8 Ways To Increase Revenue In Your Barbershop
Report on your business insights
Before you start implementing ways to improve revenue in your barbershop, do you know exactly how well your business is performing?
A good first step is to make sure that you are reporting on your progress. What do your cash flow and stock invoices look like? How many clients are rebooking? These are just a few examples of the kind of insights you should be tracking and monitoring.
But how can this increase your revenue?
By having thorough business data, you can clearly identify the strengths and weaknesses of your barbershop. For example, you might notice your average revenue per customer is low, which indicates that you may need to re-evaluate your prices or boost your retail upsell.
Our Reporting feature allows you to track (and celebrate) your progress, whilst our Targets feature keeps you up to date with your KPIS.
Introduce retail upselling
Speaking of retail upselling, do you sell products in your barbershop? Retail is an excellent way to have an additional revenue stream in your barbershop. But if you’re going to take it on, it has to be done right.
Firstly, the products themselves must reflect your business. If you’re a premium barbershop, then selling low-quality products could damage your reputation.
One mistake that many barbershops make when introducing retail is forgetting that their barbers are not salespeople. You can’t expect your team to start selling products to every customer without training them first. But most importantly, the key to nailing retail upsells is keeping it genuine.
We all know the joke about “being loyal to your barber”, and the reality is that 71% of men have been loyal to their barbers for an average of 7+ years. Why? Because they trust their barbers.
Trying to aimlessly push products on your loyal customers is a sure way to break this trust. When selling retail, recommendations should be made on the basis that they will genuinely help your clients.
With Shortcuts, our Cloud Upsell feature helps you make personalised product recommendations, helping you protect your client’s trust.
Improve your client retention
One critical mistake that barbershop owners make is not prioritising client retention. You might be thinking – if you’ve had their business once, why does it matter if they don’t come back again?
Not only is it more expensive to focus solely on attracting new customers to your business, but your return on investment will soar once you start gaining repeat customers. In fact, a study showed that increasing your customer retention by 5% can increase your revenue by at least 25%.
Many factors come into play when trying to gain loyal customers. From providing value and building rapport to offering loyalty schemes, once a customer walks through the door, it’s your job to “wow” them.
Get your barbershop online
Haven’t you heard? Everything’s online now, and if your barbershop is still mainly offline, then you’re missing out on a lot of business.
The best place to start with generating an online presence is a booking platform. Many consumers now expect to be able to book online, as opposed to ringing up or walking in. Not only will this alleviate work from your team, but it will also allow you to take bookings 24/7.
You should also prioritise collating online reviews. Many people use a business’ reviews as a deciding factor when booking an appointment. By having some great reviews online, more new customers are likely to book.
With Shortcuts, our Ratings and Reviews feature automatically emails your client after their appointment, asking for their feedback to ensure that you collect insightful feedback on a regular basis.
Invest in your employees
When it comes to building a clientele, poor-quality services will be a dealbreaker for your customers.
Whilst you can buy the best products or have the nicest interior, there’s no denying that good barbering comes down to the craft itself.
This is why investing in your team pays off. With training, you can upskill your barbers which will not only improve your employee turnover but also provide your clients with high-quality services that will keep them coming back again and again.
Our Employee Management feature helps you keep on top of your team’s performance, allowing you to identify areas for training and development.
Protect your revenue with cancellation fees
Let’s talk no-shows. Not only are they extremely frustrating, but they’re also very costly.
Unfortunately, preventing no-shows can be challenging. You can send SMS appointment reminders to nudge your forgetful clients, but a lot of no-shows are from clients who can’t be bothered to cancel and have no intention of attending their appointment or letting you know.
This is where cancellation fees can help you protect your revenue. With Shortcuts, you can build a cancellation policy and take your guest’s payment details ahead of their appointment, allowing you to charge a late or no-show fee.
Research your competitors
If you’re serious about increasing your revenue, it’s always worth seeing how you match up to your competitors. If a local barbershop is charging twice as much as you are for the same services, it might be time to increase your prices.
An easy way to check how you stack up against your competition is by using our Business Performance Calculator. This is an analytics tool that measures how well you’re doing compared to similar businesses in your industry.
Reach new potential customers
And last but not least, getting new customers through the door is a sure way to increase your revenue. Marketing is a powerful tool when it comes to expanding your customer base.
However, the horizons are broad, so investing in marketing strategies comes down to knowing what works for your barbershop. Your potential customers might be on Instagram or perhaps they’re searching for barbershops on Google. Maybe they like to be emailed.
Ultimately, marketing comes down to understanding where your target audience is, and creating a brand presence there.
With our Marketing feature, you can create campaigns that are uniquely suited to your clients.
Increase Your Barbershop Revenue with Shortcuts Software
Feeling motivated to implement revenue strategies in your barbershop?
Our range of expertly-designed features will help you run your business smoothly, so you can spend more time doing what you do best.
New customer? Learn more about us here.
If you are an existing customer, chat with our team here to upgrade to Shortcuts 8.1!
