Learn why I no longer consider median income when raising my prices in the salon, and you should too.
I am hosting a free training today all about How to build a luxury clientele in a small town. Visit www.caseytaylorstylist.com/free to sign up to join live on Monday October 7th, at 12:00pm Central Time, or grab the replay that will be available for the next 48 hours only!
(upbeat music) - You are listening to the Small Town Stylist podcast. Repeating pros are empowered to create the life and career of your dreams, regardless of your population count. One of the number one roadblocks I noticed Small Town Stylist face when they are trying to rework their prices in the salon is this myth that you have to keep your pricing competitive by comparing to other salons and stylists in the area. And you have to consider your local median income when determining the baseline for your prices behind the chair. And I get it. I was given a lot of the same advice from basically every mentor, salon owner, educator, and co-worker, but the flaw in that mindset is that it doesn't take into account the needs of your unique business. You don't know how anyone else set their prices initially, what they are factoring into that service price. And even if they are located in the same town, you have no idea what their specific overhead cost are as well as their actual take-home pay. The reality is the vast majority of stylists are undercharging for their services without even realizing it. They are losing money on some of the same services. They've convinced themselves are their biggest money maker. They have mistakenly confused their gross income with their profit and they are finding themselves trapped in a never-ending cycle of burnout and living paycheck to paycheck while working ridiculous hours in the salon. The only way out of that pattern is to have a clear system in place for pricing your services and raising your rates to meet the basic needs of your business. You deserve to have these same basic benefits as everyone else. Things like paid sick days, retirement, and insurance shouldn't be luxuries only reserved for corporate employees. And if you are producing the same quality of work as a stylist in the city, then there is no reason you shouldn't be able to charge equal value for those services. The truth is you can charge whatever prices your business has the demand to support. And your demand is not determined by your population count or even your local median income. It's influenced by your reputation, client experience, and retention. The best part is you have the ability to control all of those factors with strategic marketing and business planning. There is no limit to how successful you can be as a small town stylist or how much you can scale your income behind the chair as long as you understand the psychology behind communicating the true value of your services. And if you still don't believe me, here is even more proof as to why location doesn't limit your earning potential. First of all, there are clients in all income brackets within your small town, so there should be stylists in all price ranges to match. Believe it or not, there is probably a lot more money hiding in your small town than you even realize. Even when we talk about things like average household income or median income, that is only the middle of the spectrum. There are also plenty of clients who are on the high end of that spectrum as well that you would never even realize how much they make because they're wealth whispers. They may not be flashy about it, but it does exist in small towns. Also, the average median income doesn't dictate how a client chooses to prioritize their spending. I have some clients who are considered low income, single moms, but always make their hair services a priority while I have other clients who are high earners who prefer to allocate their income to other areas of their life, which is totally okay too. But it's not our job to budget our clients finances for them. They are adults who can make their own decisions for themselves and invest in the services they choose to prioritize. The sad truth is a lot of small town clients are already traveling to bigger cities for their hair services and paying the higher prices anyways. I know this because we did the same thing when I was growing up and I had several of my personal clients confirm this from their own habits and experiences. A lot of times, clients will see the marketing and higher prices of city stylists and automatically assume that the service must be better, but you and I both know that small town stylists are capable of recreating the quality of service they're searching for because your location doesn't limit your talent or your education. You would actually be saving those clients time and money by charging them the same city prices without the commute and if you could show them that they can receive the same high quality service in their hometown. So how do you actually start attracting those luxury clients to your chair instead of them going to the other stylists in the city anyways? Well, I am hosting a free online training today all about how you can build a luxury clientele in your small town salon. And even if you missed it live, I will be linking a temporary replay that is available for just 48 hours in the show notes below. Communication, client experience, branding and marketing are the reasons I was able to more thin double my prices in less than a year without losing a massive amount of clients regardless of an evolving economy. I didn't just raise my prices because I felt like I wanted to make more money. I was struggling with burnout, working way too long of hours and in desperate need of a change in my business. I had lost my identity to my career. All I wanted to do at the end of the workday was sit in silence alone in my car for hours. I was in constant pain no matter how often I booked massage appointments and none of the smaller price increases were working to actually thin out my clientele. Even though I was already the most expensive stylist in my hometown at the time, I knew that based on my business metrics, I had to go against everything I had been previously told about setting my prices as a small town stylist in order to make real progress towards my goals. I believe being transparent about my pricing is part of what helps my business attract more of my ideal clients and less of the ones that wouldn't align with my services. Because of that, my pricing is publicly available online for anyone to see. You could easily copy my packages, service names and descriptions, but if you don't understand the strategy behind why I chose my specific structure and pricing, you wouldn't benefit from trying to imitate my business. Your pricing and strategy are going to be personal to your unique business. There are ways to factor your individual retirement savings, insurance costs, paid vacation days and sick leave into your salary as an independent stylist. And I wanna help you finally streamline your career into supporting the fulfilling life you want to live outside the salon instead of staying stuck in the same never ending cycle of burnout. Visit caseytailors stylist.com/free to get a link to watch the replay or join the live training if you happen to catch this episode before class starts at noon central time today, Monday, October 7th. I hope to see you there and I can't wait to hear what you think about the class. (upbeat music)
