Start Selling without ending up losing money

Start Selling without ending up losing money

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I get many questions on WhatsApp of women and more and more men, about how to start selling hair. But last week I received a more specific question. On Friday from Kenya I received a very warm and open app from MBaire. At times she manged to make me even laugh while reading. She shared with me her desire to open a cosmetic shop.

Mbaire already made the right steps. Although she shared she did not know much about “beauty stuff”. The way she has prepared herself and the approach going further, convinced me Mbaire has the potential to become a great and successful entrepreneur.

Inspired by blog

After reading my blog about selling hair extensions in Kenya, she got inspired to launch her own cosmetic shop.

Research the competition before you beat them

Her first step was to do research on the market, what is the current offering from other stores and shops. This is a smart way to discover how she can be unique. After all, there are many girls selling hair, but you only want them to buy from you and not the other girls. So make sure, like Mbaire is doing, to perform your research on the competition.

Select a couple of competitors, and prepare a grid like included in the all-in-one hair extensions package. Not only check on the kind of hair they are selling, but also the way they market the hair, the location and many more items.

If you list, as the grid enables you 3 or more stores, you will be able to spot what are the opportunities for you. What are the needs from the clients the competition is not acting upon. Is their shipping time very long, think on how you can do better. Do they fail to give good after sales, beat them by investing in your client relations and keep your customers happy and loyal.

Keep an eye on the competition

You would be surprised how many stores forget to check their competitors. If you believe you know what your customers need, but forget to check what the market already is offering. Big chance you will start selling hair but end up losing money.

So Mbaire started the right way, research the market and make the steps only as big as your wallet or time schedule can handle.

Mbaire will start selling without ending up losing money

I look forward to continue the chat with Mbaire about her business. If she invests in the all-in-one Hair Extensions Package she will even have hair samples and many, many documents and templates. This will help her to start selling without ending up losing money. And if she does not want to open a store after all her research I recommend her to start a blog or write a book. I love the style she writes.

If you have questions, leave a comment below and I will answer them.

Sell Hair on Your WooCommerce store

Benefit from the strongest combination of WordPress, WooCommerce and Bluehost
Open a glossy looking hair store with Shopify

Open a glossy looking hair store with Shopify

Open Your Professional Shopify Hair Store

Now you too can open your professional hair store with Shopify. As of today, we are working close with this awesome online store brand to help our hair loving and selling clients.
We know your clients expect the highest quality, but at the lowest possible price. You can only deliver this promise, and make money, if you know how to buy low and sell reasonable. We already help you to find the best hair wholesalers for your clients. We gave you 24/7 marketing with your own website and store, and as of today, we offer you an extra outlet with your hair store designed by Shopify.

See the example Kurly Klips

Seeing is believing, right? This is especially true in the hair extension business. Like for example KurlyLips.com from Lana. This store even made it to Essence Magazine.

Lana tells about her hair store made with Shopify :
I am no stranger to sew-ins. For a decade I wore them off and on, and in June 2012, decided to transition to natural hair with kinky curly weaves. I found a wonderful stylist who provided quality sew-ins and natural hair maintenance. It was an expensive way to transition, but I wasn’t quite comfortable with my hair’s length to wear it freely.

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“My business plan helped me critically look at my competitors, not just in the afro-textured hair market, but across the hair extension industry as a whole. In doing so, I found a company that sells a similar product but in a completely different hair texture. As a fellow Shopify business, they totally inspired my brand, along with my terms and conditions. They are like my fairy Shopify godmothers and I want to thank them.”

Lana Boone

Founder, Kurly Klips

Free trial for Hair Store with Shopify

If this is not enough, you can have a free 14 days trial. 2 weeks in the end of year super sales seasons. That’s a win-win situation with no strings attached.

Learn from Lana’s success story

Lana was asked what are your top recommendations for new store owners? And she answered, aside from formulating a business plan:

Z

Weekly Action Plan

1) Make a weekly action plan of everything you need to do for the week, including sales goals.

Z

Social Media

2) Social media is cheap marketing that can yield quantifiable sales results. Identify the top influencers in your industry on various platforms and hit them up. You may get No’s, but just one Yes can expose your brand to thousands of new customers.

Hair Suppliers

3) Only deal with honest suppliers. This is especially critical in the hair industry, where some vendors might try to sell you horsehair and call it human. If a supplier gives you any sign that he or she might lack integrity, it’s best to find someone else. Eventually, his or her actions will burn you and your bottom line.

Endless Compassion

4) Treat customer inquiries with endless compassion. Remember, at the end of the day you want to make your customer happy and hopefully persuade them to return.

What are you waiting for?

You do not need to have design skills

Establish your brand online with a custom domain name and online store. With instant access to hundreds of the best looking themes, and complete control over the look and feel, you finally have a gorgeous store of your own that reflects the personality of your business.

Everything in one place

Selling your products in many places should be every bit as simple as selling in one. With Shopify’s ecommerce software, you get one unified platform to run your business with ease.

Get straight to growing your business

When we say it’s never been easier to start a business, we mean it. Shopify handles everything from marketing and payments, to secure checkout and shipping. Now you can focus on the things you love.

14 Days Free Trial

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Are you also 5 people in one, go for time management

Are you also 5 people in one, go for time management

Time management for hair store owners

Last week I spoke a nice woman, let’s call her Sandra, and she was the proud hair store owner. We had a chat about the business opportunities in her market. She wanted to grow her business, sales have been lacking behind expectations.

We discussed how she could, next to her online store, organize some events, with local hair salons or at the home of some of her clients. The hair business is all about trust and with an online store it’s not always that easy to convince your visitors to buy your hair.

It helps to market the hair, if you wear it and show it on public events, but also if you organize special events for your existing clientele who can invite their friends.

Sandra was enthusiastic, but she hesitated also. She told me she was five people in one, since she started selling hair. She was:

  1. in charge of the inventory, looking for suppliers and checking the hair
  2. dealing with customers as sales person
  3. busy with the payments and bookkeeping
  4. very busy trying to be social on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and
  5. all the other stuff a shop owner has to do

and now she needed to organise events?

It was just too much, she admitted it was a good thing to do, but Hey she was not with 5 people, it was only her!

I gave her some advice on time management, sometimes you need to spent time to win time.

Time management is about organizing and planning the tasks you have to do, so even if you are not 5 people or more in one, you still can much more than only one person can do.

First of all, do your brains a favor

Your brains keep track of everything you have been doing, are doing and will be doing in the future. A great way to relax your precious brains is to make use of an agenda, and other filing system. This can be on paper or in the cloud, as long as you register your appointments a.s.a.p. in that calendar. Things to do for a client, do not keep it in mind, but place it in your calendar, client file or customer relations management system.

Free up space in your brains, because instead of remembering all the things to do, you only will remember to check on a regular basis your calendar or customer relations system. Do you see the benefit of time management already?

Make appointments with yourself

What you do if you have meetings with clients, or suppliers? You block time in your agenda, nobody will disturb you anymore at that time of the day. So you can focus on the meeting. Perfect and very productive. But why you do not block time in your calendar for meetings with the boss of your hair store? If you have to prepare a new marketing campaign, why should it be of less importance than a meeting with a client? Block the time in your agenda to think, research, analyse and plan your marketing campaign. This will increase the productivity of working on that campaign, and the result will be much higher than when you do it in between other important things.

Use every second if it’s your last

The world is mobile, your clients visit your website while they are stuck in a traffic jam, order the hair will they wait for their kids to leave school. What about you?  If you have to wait in the shop to buy office supplies, what do you do? If you have to travel and you have some time between two connections? What do you do? You quickly call that client who you couldn’t call earlier, right?

Wrong, your client is the most important person in your business life, sorry boss. So she or he deserves your full attention and preparation. Instead to make quick unprepared call with your client, better to use the time in between other things to prepare your campaign, to eavesdrop on people talking about hair or other stores. Make notes to use later and your marketing campaign will be much more enriched. Call your client when you are back in the office or store and read the files before you call.

If you still lack time, and you want to grow your business with a marketing campaign more social media presence or any other support to grow your business call your coach. You are not alone!