My Experience: My Thoughts On Others Doing Extreme Special Offers

Even when I was training, I've read discussions / rants on very public forums about other therapists offering extremely low prices.  We have all passed salons that have a sandwich board or something similar with "Shellac £10" or another unusually cheap offer and I can understand the frustration to a certain extent.

If this is a service that you provide then I can imagine that it does unnerve you as you know you could never afford to offer such a low rate.  Afterall, you know that the cost of service and the tax you will have to pay to the tax man, means it would leave you working for probably something potentially close to a single pound.

Of course there are many other factors that the general public may have not considered, the main one being if they're actually using the genuine CND Shellac or some cheap imitation.  Also the potential other factors like the lack of hygiene and other cost saving techniques that mean that they can afford to offer these treatments at an unbelievably low price.  If you've read my 'setting your prices' post, you'll realise that price gives off more of an impression than you've ever realised.

In the UK we can buy Fair Trade products which in a nutshell means that we can buy products that have been sourced and produced overseas at a fair price to the farmers and suppliers.    Here we have a national minimum wage for the over 16's and so on, yet some clients will happily allow therapists to work for as much as half the UK minimum wage, or even less than that.  When I was a new nail technician I will admit that I used to get borderline offended that acquaintances could be overhead to say about an amazing deal on Groupon (or somewhere else) and I would always be incredibly polite but ask how they felt having someone work for them for less than the minimum wage.  I probably made them a little uncomfortable but it genuinely intrigued me.

Unfortunately, keeping the prices very low in the long run will only devalue the general price of the service.  There will always be someone whos willing to undercut you, even by 50p to get the appointment.  It's for those reasons that I encourage everyone that I speak to to charge what they're worth.  Once your reputation is built, clients will not factor in that 'up the road' does Shellac two pounds cheaper as their main priority is the quality of the results, not the minimal saving they will get from elsewhere.  I do believe that this knowledge comes around once you have built your reputation but is difficult to see when you're new to the industry.

I think when it comes to other salon's special offers, it's worth being aware of them but to keep focused on what you're doing.  Offer the best service possible using the best products and your client base will grow.

I'll leave you with this thought, I have had a therapist tell me that a neighbouring salon has a nail tech who works 10 - 12 hour days as her prices are so low.  The interesting point that she made to me is that she can earn the same amount in half of time as this therapist, still pick her children up from school and be at home with them by keeping her prices to the recommended industry standard.

I hope you enjoyed this post!  If you did there are many more on different topics directly below the banner under the 'advice for therapists & hairdressers' tab.  

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