The Meta Disconnect - Reimagining Salon Promotions & Marketing
Please note that this was a live recording and there are a few sound glitches here and there.
Today, we dive into The Meta Disconnect and how salon business owner can rethink their marketing strategies beyond social media. With a panel of industry experts including Ryan Power, Helen Ward, Theresa Foddering, and Sam Blake, we tackle the challenges posed by recent shifts in Meta's policies that could impact how we connect with clients. From the dangers of placing too much reliance on platforms we don't control, to the vital importance of building direct relationships with our clients through email lists and traditional marketing tactics, we explore a range of approaches that may bring better long term results. Each panelist brings their own perspective, emphasising the need for sustainable practices that keep our businesses thriving in a noisy marketplace. Join us as we discuss a variety of ideas and inspire you to take steps towards reimagining how you market your business on and offline.
The world of salon marketing is evolving, and in this live episode of Inspiring Salon Professionals, host Sue Davies and a panel of industry experts delve into the implications of the 'Meta Disconnect'—a phenomenon emerging from recent changes in social media platforms that could significantly affect how salons promote themselves. Featured on the panel are Ryan Power of Salonology, Helen Ward from The Hair & Beauty Directory, Theresa Foddering - The Naildresser, and Sam Blake - The Safer Salon Geek, who each bring their own individual perspectives to the conversation.
As the discussion unfolds, the panel addresses the challenges salon owners face in a landscape where social media's reliability is increasingly questioned. With recent policy shifts from Meta that have raised concerns about content moderation and the safety of marginalised voices, the experts emphasise the urgency for salons to rethink their marketing strategies. Ryan Power warns against the dangers of building a business solely on social media, likening it to walking a tightrope without a safety net. The panelists propose a multi-faceted approach to marketing that includes leveraging email communications, engaging with local communities, and exploring offline promotional avenues.
Throughout the episode, listeners are encouraged to reflect on their current marketing practices and consider how they can diversify their outreach efforts. The conversation highlights the importance of connecting authentically with clients and suggests practical steps such as collaborations with local businesses, using directories, and maximising the potential of a healthy website. By shifting the focus back to foundational marketing strategies, salon owners can ensure their businesses remain resilient and adaptable in an ever-changing digital landscape. This episode is a call to action for salon professionals to reclaim their marketing power beyond the confines of social media.
Takeaways:
- The podcast emphasises the need to diversify marketing strategies beyond social media to protect your salon's visibility and client connection.
- Panelists highlight that building a business solely on social media is risky due to potential platform changes and account issues.
- Utilising email marketing and direct communication methods can create a more secure and reliable client engagement strategy.
- The conversation stresses the importance of local networking and collaborations to enhance business visibility and client loyalty.
- Experts agree that traditional marketing methods, like leaflet drops, still hold value in attracting clients within your local area.
- The discussion touches on the need for salon professionals to understand and utilise platforms like Google Business to improve search visibility.
Links referenced in this episode:
- sue-davies.com
- jena.so
- salonology.uk
- thehairandbeauty.directory
- thenaildresser.co.uk
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Jena
- Salonology
- Hair and Beauty Directory
- Safer Salon Geek
- The Naildresser
- The Salon Inspector
Transcript
Welcome to Inspiring Salon Professionals, the podcast that allows every therapist, nail tech and stylist to level up, build their career and reach for their dreams.
Speaker A:Each episode we'll be looking at a different area of the industry and along the way I'll be chatting with salon owners, industry leaders and experts who'll be sharing their stories on how they achieved their goals, made their successes, all to inspire you in your business and career.
Speaker A:I'm Sue Davies, your host, award winning salon owner and industry professional.
Speaker A:Welcome to Inspiring Salon Professionals.
Speaker A:Okay, so a slight admission before you start listening to the podcast.
Speaker A:This was an experimental and it was the first one doing this.
Speaker A:There's been a lot of lessons learned, but there are some sound glitches in the recording, so please do stay tuned because I've tried to clip as much of it as I can to make it usable and audible.
Speaker A:Some bits weren't audible, unfortunately.
Speaker A:It only seems to have affected Helen Ward's and Sam Blake's input.
Speaker A:But a lot of what they say is there, but the sound quality isn't fantastic.
Speaker A:So please do bear with it because both of them were making great points.
Speaker A:And I really hope that this we've now learned what I've now learned what I need to do going forward.
Speaker A:As I say this, we had a bit of a play with it previously just to sort of see how it worked on Clubhouse and I hadn't envisaged some of the issues that we had with trying to record in a particular way, which I will not be doing when I do more of these.
Speaker A:So please don't adjust your headsets.
Speaker A:There are sound issues that go throughout this episode when certain members of the panel are talking, but the rest of the time everything works okay.
Speaker A:And I just want to let you know that before you start so that you don't start going, what's happening?
Speaker A:Thanks very much and I'm now going to pass over for Jenna's sponsors message.
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Speaker A:If you're ready to simplify your business and get your time back, check out Jenna Today, find the link in the show notes and see how Jenna can transform the way you work.
Speaker B:Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Inspiring Salon Professional.
Speaker B:This week is a week of firsts and I'm going to run through them because it is quite exciting.
Speaker B:And I actually woke up really early this morning because I can't decide.
Speaker B:It's a bit nerves, bit exciting.
Speaker B:Lots and lots of different things going through my head with what's going to happen today.
Speaker B:So the first first is we are going live.
Speaker C:This is going to be a live.
Speaker B:Recording with live people.
Speaker C:Obviously all the recordings I do alive.
Speaker B:At the time they're done, but this is something a bit different and this is with a live audience, which has never been done before.
Speaker B:And then we're live on Clubhouse, also not been done before as a podcast for our industry.
Speaker B:And lastly, I have a panel of wonderful experts that are going to be helping me talk about the Meta disconnect and how we can reimagine promoting and marketing our salons away from some of the social platforms.
Speaker B:And as salons and pros and salon owners, we face unique changes to promote our businesses to a busy and very noisy marketplace.
Speaker B:We know that we're always fighting for attention, fighting for engagement, fighting to get someone to click the button that takes a new client through to us.
Speaker B:So today we're going to be addressing the challenges head on with thoughts from the expert panel that I've pulled together, made up of Ryan Power from Salonology, Helen Ward from the Hair and Beauty Directory, Sam Blake, who is the safer salon geek, and Teresa Foddering, the nail dresser and currently provider of hard truths via her webinars that she's just back in the process of delivering.
Speaker B:I'll be leading the discussion as we explore strategies and thoughts on why we need to change things up a little bit and how we can do that.
Speaker B:So what we're going to talk about today is like maybe going back to some of those sort of pre socials values and basically how you can kind of market your business away from some of the more negative things that are going on in our social worlds at the moment.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So here's a few things that you may or may not realize that meta have done recently.
Speaker B:And this is what's kind of prompted had a few conversations with, with some friends and a couple of them on here today and we were quite concerned when some of these changes started happening.
Speaker B:So let's just, I'm going to run through them very briefly.
Speaker B: So in January: Speaker B:And this may have slipped past you, it may not have done.
Speaker B:You may have been directly impacted by this.
Speaker B:You may have seen that some of your audience has disappeared and this may be the reason why.
Speaker B:So there has been a relaxation of hate speech policies and Meta has revised its hateful conduct policy, allowing certain derogatory remarks about gender identities and sexual orientation and other things as well.
Speaker B:Because it can be just as a female, it can be as a trans person, it can be anything that relates to you as a person.
Speaker B:Really, it doesn't.
Speaker B:And I think that it is definitely around gender and around sexuality, but it also, I think, has other concerns as well.
Speaker B:And so this change has raised concerns about increased exposure to hate speech for the LGBTQ communities and also for women.
Speaker B:The end of fact checking Meta has discontinued its internal fact checking program, which is a problem because I don't know about you, but I know I'm starting to see an awful lot of stuff that is just you really don't know if you can trust it or not.
Speaker B:And when you don't know if you can trust the platform, it may lead people to consider whether or not they can trust who's on it.
Speaker B:So they've now opted for something called Community Notes to provide context for posts.
Speaker B:And critics argue that this could lead to a spread of misinformation.
Speaker B:And I have to say that since January, I'm starting to see a lot of stuff that you end up going down holes, that if you click those, if you click those links, you're like, where am I?
Speaker B:And there's a lot of difficult stuff that is now coming on there.
Speaker B:There is also a reduction in how they protect DEI values.
Speaker B:And so diversity, equity and inclusion is what DEI is.
Speaker B:And they have scaled back their initiatives.
Speaker B:This again, is in line with the current UK US administration and how they are dealing with many, many different things that relate to dei.
Speaker B:And that may be that, you know, there's an obliteration of history that has happened, but also it just means that some of those protections that you and your clients have always had on Meta are no longer there.
Speaker B:And it can lead people.
Speaker B:And I know in some groups that I'm in that have got a big trans or LGBTQ population and membership within those groups, there's been an evacuation of them from Facebook, and if that's happening to creators, then it's going to happen to the public as well and to potential clients.
Speaker B:So if this is new information to you, you'll perhaps see why there is a potential shift occurring.
Speaker B:And if your clients find that any of these changes are challenging to their beliefs, their lifestyles, their wellbeing, and how they feel about being on the platform, they may well be switching meta apps off now or in the future.
Speaker B:So this is another reason apart from just sort of general, sensible marketing terms.
Speaker B:This is a really big reason as why we're doing this today and why we want to give you other thoughts to consider.
Speaker B:So today, each of the panel have one goal, and that's to make you and your business sustainable and successful.
Speaker B:Each will come from a slightly different experience and a different viewpoint.
Speaker B:So buckle up while we do a deep dive on how you and your business can not only maintain, but also expand your client base, allowing growth and relevance in a competitive market.
Speaker B:So that kind of gives you a bit of a backdrop.
Speaker B:Who knows what's going to happen?
Speaker B:This, as I say, is the first time we've gone live.
Speaker B:It's on a different platform from what I'm used to recording on.
Speaker B:We are recording on Zoom so that I can make sure that I've got it.
Speaker C:And all of the panel will be.
Speaker B:With me on Zoom, but we'll be holding and hosting the event in Clubhouse.
Speaker B:So let's just see what happens.
Speaker B:And if this is successful, I've got about another four that I'm planning on doing.
Speaker B:So let's see what happens and I will see you on the other side.
Speaker C:Once I have welcomed the panel, we do need to consider that we are, as Ryan always says, we're on rented space and we see people hacked again and again and again, losing their pages in their groups again and again and again.
Speaker C:And so this really is about an opportunity to have the discussion around how we can kind of protect our businesses from that kind of major loss that can happen.
Speaker C:So the panel all have one goal today and that is to make each of you have a business that is more sustainable, more successful.
Speaker C:So all of them are going to come from a slightly different viewpoint.
Speaker C:And yeah, let's dig in.
Speaker C:So I'm going to start with Ryan because he's at the top of my list.
Speaker C:So Ryan, if you would like to unmute.
Speaker C:Just trying to find my question.
Speaker C:Where's my Ryan question?
Speaker C:Yeah, you have been a long term advocate for marketing strategies that don't involve social media.
Speaker C:And I know because I'm on your email list, but what would you say, like, what are the big things and the big factors for you around why you may want to consider other options?
Speaker D:Yeah, sure.
Speaker D:Well, first of all, thanks for inviting me on today, sue, and giving me the opportunity to throw my two pennies in.
Speaker D:Yeah, look, I mean, for me personally, as I joked in the little sound bite that I gave you ahead of the promotion of this today, was that, you know, I've been saying since the dawn of time that people shouldn't just build their businesses purely on social media.
Speaker D:It's an incredibly dangerous strategy.
Speaker D:And there's so many become more popular over the last five years or so as some of the platforms have become more all encompassing, especially Instagram.
Speaker D:And you get people with, you know, literally no web presence or any real business presence at all outside of literally just one promotion, sorry, one platform.
Speaker D:And it's literally like building your business on seriously, seriously thin ice.
Speaker D:And the reason why, just in case anyone doesn't understand, is because you don't own the platform, you don't own the space, you don't own the traffic, you don't own any of it.
Speaker D:It is all on rented space.
Speaker D:It is.
Speaker D:You're doing it all on someone else's watch.
Speaker D:And at any moment, Mr.
Speaker D:Zuckerberg and his cronies can pull that carpet from underneath you.
Speaker D:And one of the things that we've seen over the last few years is a massive spike in people having their accounts hacked.
Speaker D:Happened to me.
Speaker D:It's very easily done.
Speaker D:And if you don't have that little precious blue tip, then good luck getting that back, you know, and if you've got an entire business that you've been building for years and your livelihood depends on that, and you literally can have it taken away from you overnight, that is a ridiculously risky strategy for anyone to employ.
Speaker D:So straight away it would be madness to do that.
Speaker D:So with that in mind, and plus as well, well, you know, you also have like the social media blackouts, you know, which again are an issue.
Speaker D:So the only way you can get hold of your clients is via DMing on whatever, any of those platforms.
Speaker D:Then again, if that gets taken away from you, then you're in trouble.
Speaker D:And of course, he's now collecting these platforms like they are monopoly properties because of course, you know, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, all fall under the same category, under the same broad banner, the same set of shareholders, and I am sure they will add lots more to the meta family in due course as well.
Speaker D:So it's really important, you know, to cover your backside, basically.
Speaker D:And the best way that you can do this, especially if you have got a large social media following already, is by using your social media platform to get people off social media.
Speaker D:So what I mean by that is you use your relationship that you've built with them online and then you can harness that offline.
Speaker D:So you get them on your email list, for example, is the most obvious place to start because no one can take that email list away from you.
Speaker D:Even if the platform you use to send emails gets taken away, you can simply upload it to a different platform and you're up and running again.
Speaker D:So by doing that, you are putting a protected area around your business also, it's giving you other avenues and ways of communicating with your clients as well.
Speaker D:So again, for example, you're going to have some clients who, for example, stop using certain social platforms.
Speaker D:And what happens?
Speaker D:The only way that you have to contact them, well, they've gone.
Speaker D:So again, the way that to get around that is by increasing the likelihood of you being able to contact people by getting their physical address, by getting their email address, by getting their telephone number and having as many different ways as possible so that you can stay in touch with people and tell them about your products and your services and you help them with all of your pain points and all of those good things that we teach and talk about all of the time.
Speaker D:So I don't really feel like any of that is anything new by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker D:I feel that any changes which the platform have made recently really have just gone to underline all of the reasons why you shouldn't be doing that from day dot anyway.
Speaker D:I also don't feel like any of us should really be that surprised that the owners of a multi billion pound company want to align in certain ways with certain governments.
Speaker D:Because again, you know, without wanting to get political, because this isn't what that's about.
Speaker D:You know, I don't think that should be of any great surprise.
Speaker D:They obviously want to have power with the powers that be.
Speaker D:And likewise, I think that we should probably all be sensible growing up enough adults to believe, or rather to not believe everything that we read in any sort of media, social or otherwise, in the first place, you know, with respect to the fact checking and so forth.
Speaker D:So I think, you know, giant pinches of salt should always be taken when we're, when we're consuming any sort of media.
Speaker C:Absolutely right, it is.
Speaker C:I think all of those are such valid points and I think, you know, I don't think any of, I wasn't particularly surprised when Mr.
Speaker C:Zuckerberg decided to align so thoroughly, but I think it's, I think it's just, it's like the implications of what happens next, isn't it?
Speaker C:And we know that those things have changed.
Speaker C:And so for some people, it's made it a complete no go zone.
Speaker C:And so if you've got clients that fall into some of the categories that may be affected, they may already have gone from Facebook and you may not even.
Speaker C:Or from Instagram and you may not even have seen them go.
Speaker C:So you may have lost that connection.
Speaker C:And I think it's, you know, we do all have to be grown up, you know, and I know my feed currently is, is just, is maybe because we just, we say the word Trump in my house quite a lot.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:And they, they do say that, like the phones aren't listening in that way.
Speaker C:But my feed is full of Trump at the moment and just full of a lot of stuff that is.
Speaker C:You do have to take the big, big pinch of salt because no matter what the affiliations of the owners of Meta are, there's going to be people that kind of back the other way kind of thing and will go in completely different directions.
Speaker C:So we've got a lot of peculiarities that are coming across.
Speaker D:Yeah, of course.
Speaker D:And I don't even think it's about the social necessarily, the political persuasion of the owners, because, you know, they're publicly traded companies, so they've got millions, millions of owners.
Speaker D:You know, it's the shareholders, they've got to appease and they're not going to appease the shareholders if they get shut down.
Speaker D:So they're going to have to do whatever, you know, and, you know, you've got to remember that one of their biggest competitors have obviously jumped straight into bed with Mr.
Speaker D:Trump.
Speaker D:You know, Elon is now like Trump fan number one, and they probably felt that if they didn't do something similar, then they could be in real trouble, you know, So I feel like they've probably made business decisions more than they have political ones, you know, and we've just got a shuffling board, you know, along with it.
Speaker D:But as you say, sue completely.
Speaker D:You're right.
Speaker D:In terms of some of the clients, you know, it's the end users who might be exiting and we don't get a warning, they just shuffle off, you know, and then if we've got no actual way of then keeping in contact with them further, then we've shut ourselves in the, in the foot.
Speaker D:Which is why, you know, we should be getting phone numbers so we can SMS people, we should be getting people's email addresses so we can have communication with.
Speaker D:That way we should even be having their addresses so we can stick them stuff in the post as well.
Speaker D:I believe all of those traditional marketing methods still absolutely work today as well as they ever have.
Speaker D:In fact, maybe even better because the spaces are way less competitive.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:And I think there's something that's much forgotten, isn't it?
Speaker C:I know Nick James from Expert Empires.
Speaker C:He with his, some of one of the elite programs that he does, he actually sent people iPads.
Speaker C:But can you imagine opening your post, not only have you got something in the post from somebody that is trying to market to you, but they then sent you an iPad.
Speaker C:I mean, obviously I don't think we're going to do that to most of our clients, but he had the biggest sign up ever by sending something in the post.
Speaker C:And yes, it was a very special gift to people that were going to be spending £10,000 plus with him.
Speaker C:But it's an example of how you can kind of shift the ground slightly and get a very different result.
Speaker D:And it's relative, isn't it?
Speaker D:He's selling something worth 10,000 and then selling something worth tens of thousands.
Speaker D:So is it worth him spending 500 quid to get a lead?
Speaker D:Yeah, he probably has done the maths and realized that it is.
Speaker D:But for a salon you don't have to send them an iPad.
Speaker D:It might just be send a little personalized chocolate bar or a bunch of flowers might, might get their attention up.
Speaker D:It's about getting attention and that, you know that that's one of the chief currencies when it comes to marketing.
Speaker D:And it's also one of the things that's getting harder and harder to get, especially on social media.
Speaker D:But no one's going to ignore you when you stick something through their letter box.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:Thank you so much, Brian.
Speaker C:Okay, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to like kind of segue.
Speaker C:I'm going to sort of come to all of you and ask you for your kind of your viewpoint.
Speaker C:So I'm going to come to Helen next and, and I want to ask you.
Speaker C:Helen.
Speaker C:Oh, sorry, my dogs are barking.
Speaker C:I can't, I can't account for that.
Speaker C:Um, so Helen, you are, um, the founder and creator.
Speaker C:Sorry I've got you all kicking off here.
Speaker C:You are founder and creator of the Hair Beauty Directory, which if people haven't come across Hair and Beauty Directory, it is a wonderful online space that is there to promote you and your services and your professionalism.
Speaker C:But I know from stuff that we've done an awful lot of together, why the Hair and beauty directory works so well.
Speaker C:So can you explain to the audience a little bit about why directories are good, why your directory is even better and how that side of, of marketing can actually help you elevate your business?
Speaker C:I will.
Speaker E:Excuse me.
Speaker F:First of all, I'm currently in bed.
Speaker E:Ill with an aurovirus so my brain is not sparking in the usual way.
Speaker E:But are you there?
Speaker E:Oh, hang on.
Speaker C:I say.
Speaker C:Right, okay.
Speaker C:So while those two try and organize their bits and pieces, I'm going to move on to Blake Safer, Salon Geek.
Speaker C:I'm sure most of you in here know Sam and what Sam does with Safer Salon Geek that relates to this quite heavily is she does a lot of work around mental health and well being as part of her day to day work.
Speaker C:And as we were talking about like the, the challenges that some people may be facing and I think it'd be an interesting conversation to have as to why people may not feel it's a safe space anymore on, on Facebook because that side of it is kind of what prompted this conversation and then it kind of developed into yeah, let's just look at the whole of promotions and marketing around how we do things with social media.
Speaker C:So Sam, if you want to come off mute if you press your mic on button at the bottom right.
Speaker C:And yeah.
Speaker C:And just sort of let us know what your take is on, on the rights and wrongs of marketing your business on social media.
Speaker G:Person connection.
Speaker G:I just feel really quite strongly, I mean I and Helen as well had lots of conversations over it sort of networking and getting out, particularly as a new business to your local community.
Speaker G:And some of the things that I, I detest, to be frank about social media is.
Speaker G:Well, there's really sort of five key pressures that I think people put on themselves and can be triggered because of how social media can kind of make you kind of work.
Speaker G:I suppose one of those things is that constant pressure to perform that.
Speaker G:Have I put anything out on social media?
Speaker G:This can come from a lack of training, social media and how it works and how you can use it in a very time bound way.
Speaker G:I'm, I'm like a little micromanager in my life.
Speaker G:I like to know what I'm doing when I'm doing it.
Speaker G:I don't think, I think that's a skill set, I suppose is what I'm saying.
Speaker G:So a lot of people might not have that thought process or that skill set.
Speaker G:So it's that I suppose that reward thing that if you're posting and you're getting likes or you're not getting engagement.
Speaker G:How does that actually work within your own mind, your own personality traits and how you would then bring that to the fore in affecting you or not affecting you?
Speaker G:You know, do you put the markers on.
Speaker G:My social media is performing really well.
Speaker G:My business is performing really well down the rabbit hole of what's the competition doing.
Speaker G:And it is a really toxic comparison trap to fall into you end of syndrome and self doubt starts coming out.
Speaker G:But I just, I find it quite a negative space from a mental health point of view if you allow it to be.
Speaker G:And I think because I'm quite a little sort of stealth little person looking at targeting areas for leaflet dropping.
Speaker G:I know that works.
Speaker G:Before I went into this I had a luxury kit company and I went to all of the big houses in our local areas when I was running salons that come from corporate marketing background like Coca Cola or say it's national.
Speaker G:So I had a bit of conversion rate with that was actually quite successful.
Speaker G:But strategy, that's my little ten worth into it.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:And I think it's that whole, you know, the perception of what we think we should be doing and the reality of how we can actually make our businesses a better place, you know, by, by maybe not putting ourselves through that is.
Speaker C:I mean I know at the moment it's.
Speaker C:I put something out onto my group yesterday and it's like oh my God, like, oh, it's like it's tumbleweed.
Speaker C:It's tumbleweed and you, you end up in this thing of like, okay, so like has anyone actually seen it?
Speaker C:Well, what's happened to it?
Speaker C:Did they just go oh that's awful.
Speaker C:And you go into all of these terrible places and I think that it just kind of pushes people to overwhelm, burnout, all of that kind of real negative mindset stuff that just makes you question your existence.
Speaker C:And if you're really having a bad day and like you say you put something out and you get a bit of a battering on local forums.
Speaker C:I mean I saw a poor girl the other day who love her, she's very recently qualified now technician and she didn't make the best choice in photos that she put out probably.
Speaker C:And, and she, and just.
Speaker C:And I didn't see what happened next but she then, but a few days later put another post out and asked for people to please not comment on her work because it was too upsetting.
Speaker C:And, and when you've got, you know, she's probably like 20 years old or something this girl.
Speaker C:Because I did go and have A bit of a look at who she was and what, what she was using and things.
Speaker C:But she's a really young girl and that can be so impacting to her mental health and to her success as a business owner.
Speaker C:Because if she already has that negative mindset and a fear of failure, then social media is going to give her that destiny.
Speaker C:Because it's a self fulfilling prophecy, isn't it really, when it comes to that social media here?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So Helen, do you recall the question I asked you?
Speaker E:I do.
Speaker E:Can you hear me?
Speaker E:First and foremost, we can hear you.
Speaker E:So first, excuse me, I'm in bed for the norovirus, so I'm, I'm a little bit slow today, but I'm, I'm standing so it's okay.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker E:So if I recall back, I'll start with I won't go into the ins and outs full of the hamburger directly because it always gets a little bit complicated.
Speaker E:But the basis of it is I like data and stats and I like things that I can control, always control as much as possible.
Speaker E:And I've never been social media particularly popular and even, I suppose even during lockdown I have quite a lot of followers and stuff.
Speaker E:It's the rate that it can change at just isn't.
Speaker E:I don't like it, it's not good for me.
Speaker E:So I like to work with things that I can control and what I can actually see to how to fix it.
Speaker E:So the hair and beauty directory works a lot around metalinks keywords and basically the things that we can actually change and work with.
Speaker E:So we're a whole platform in itself that advertises salons, business coaches, brands, pretty much anything in the, in the hair and beauty industry.
Speaker E:And I spent so much time while setting this up looking at people's websites, social media followings.
Speaker E:And what came really apparent was I think the lack of understanding people had found how all of these things work and the pressure to be social media savvy and popular.
Speaker E:You know, everybody obsesses over a like on Facebook and on Instagram.
Speaker E:Well, those likes might be coming from California or India or anywhere else and they're not relevant to where you are in your area.
Speaker E:So I don't like playing around with that.
Speaker E:And same as like all the things that Ryan said.
Speaker E:Somebody else having control over my business and can change it in, in a flip switch is not something I really want to be working with.
Speaker E:My salon, Facebook has 10,000 followers on it.
Speaker E:We barely get any direction.
Speaker E:It's just not seen.
Speaker E:And if, unless you're doing Something in particular that Facebook wants from you but doesn't tell you what they want from you.
Speaker E:It's very difficult to get any reach indeed.
Speaker C:I think it's one of the biggest things I was just writing down like, you know, number of followers versus like reality of engagement because it doesn't mean anything, does it?
Speaker C:You know, and I know from some, some of the stuff that I've been on different webinars and things over the years and picked up like little snippets of data and stats around things like, you know, Richard Branson and Virgin.
Speaker C:Virgin has got it probably, I think it is in the, it's in the millions of followers, but it's probably got something like 5% of the followers that Richard Branson has.
Speaker C:And, and the same goes for Apple.
Speaker C:All the big brands, like all these huge companies, their actual companies have hardly any following.
Speaker C:And it's the people that actually create the engagement and not, not the business itself.
Speaker C:And so I think, you know, we set up our Facebooks and our social media as our, you know, we have our, our business pages and profiles and we have like the stuff on Instagram and have our profiles on Instagram and it is.
Speaker C:But we kind of putting ourselves out there as a brand and people don't always connect with that, do they?
Speaker C:And even if they do follow you, if they know you already and they know like and trust you, they're not going to keep necessarily looking back at what they know like and trust already because they already come to you as a client.
Speaker C:So you need to kind of connect with those people in a different way and keep them informed of what you're doing.
Speaker E:It's also bearing in mind that not everybody wants to see it.
Speaker E:So like I don't follow very many businesses.
Speaker E:I follow a couple of friends businesses to be polite.
Speaker E:But as a general rule I don't want to follow businesses.
Speaker E:I don't expect people to want to see my, especially where the sound is concerned.
Speaker E:I don't want them to see before and after pictures every day.
Speaker E:So like if I get more than a couple of emails off somebody, I'm like, that's it, they're out.
Speaker E:I'm deleting them, I'm unsubscribing.
Speaker E:So our brains can only control, can only take so much.
Speaker E:And if you're constantly forcing your brand in that way, they can't escape it.
Speaker E:They just don't follow you.
Speaker E:Which is what I do quite often.
Speaker C:Yeah, and I think as well actually while we're talking about that like the follow ladders and stuff.
Speaker C:If anybody listening does follow that kind of stuff, it doesn't help you.
Speaker C:It really, really doesn't help you because it just swings the algorithms in the most peculiar ways.
Speaker C:And, and we don't.
Speaker C:That's not something you want to be doing, you know, you want, you.
Speaker C:If you are going to go for, you know, for volume of followers, you want followers that are local to you and followers that are actually going to buy your services.
Speaker E:I actually think as well, I think I said this a few weeks ago, I've been doing some tests on all of them because I run quite a few different platforms.
Speaker E:One of them is a flyball club.
Speaker E:So I did a lot of tests along our different social medias to see what didn't, didn't work.
Speaker E:And particularly the hair and beauty directory.
Speaker E:My Facebook seems to be very programmed to drama.
Speaker E:So if I put something controversial on, it will get hits in a heartbeat and it will turn into a whole discussion and that will happen within like a minute of the poster.
Speaker E:And I think that's because my Facebook very naughty discussions.
Speaker E:So if I try and put anything else on, it gets no engagement, no reach or nothing.
Speaker E:And the page that I run with the least followers on is the actual eyeball one.
Speaker E:We get so much reach it's crazy.
Speaker C:Is that because of the dog sign?
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker E:But if we put anything on that's linked to a sponsor, we don't get any visibility.
Speaker E:So the minute we put product placement in, we have to be very almost sneaky about how we do product placement because we've got sponsors because if it's very obvious we get literally no interaction.
Speaker C:It's so strange, isn't it?
Speaker C:And I don't think you can, you can ever.
Speaker C:And I think, and actually, you know, going back, because Ryan is like the king of this kind of stuff.
Speaker C:And Ryan is the king of hummus and also has a lovely dog called Mav.
Speaker C:And I know an awful lot.
Speaker C:And Ryan runs park runs every week.
Speaker C:And I think there's an element, you know, Ryan, I don't know if you want to jump in there and explain to us like that, you know, that kind of personable stuff that you do.
Speaker E:Humanity important.
Speaker D:Yeah, well, I mean I think also it, you know, one of the things I, I often say, you know, people often get surprised, right?
Speaker D:They say something like, I put up this before and after photo and no one liked it.
Speaker D:And then I posted a picture of my dog and everyone liked it.
Speaker D:What, why is that?
Speaker D:And it's really simple.
Speaker D:People put prefer dogs to before and after pictures.
Speaker D:I mean, that is just so blindingly obvious.
Speaker D:And it's something that everyone misses.
Speaker D:And I think one of the things that, where people often struggle and it ties in.
Speaker D:I completely agree with everything that Helen just said, by the way.
Speaker D:And, and the fact of the matter is that, you know, people buy people, and if you're talking about people and people's concerns and all those sorts of things, then other people are going to get engaged with that.
Speaker D:As soon as you start openly talking about business, people are going to be more closed off to that.
Speaker D:I mean, that's, you know, that's, that's obvious as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker D:You know, it's a social media platform.
Speaker D:You know, if we're talking in that context still, people are on there to be social.
Speaker D:They're on there to look at people's dogs.
Speaker D:They're on there to see what their exes are up to now.
Speaker D:They're on there to get the gossip on Love Island.
Speaker D:They're not on there to find out and have, you know, adverts stuff down their necks, which is part, part of the reason why, again, a lot of people are, you know, leaving the platforms because of that, because of those increases.
Speaker D:So I think that for everyone, you know, and again, playing back into what you said, sue, with regards to the, the statistics on Virgin and on Russell Branson, Richard Branson, you know, let's be honest.
Speaker D:Yeah, the, the, the whole concept of personal branding is huge.
Speaker D:Just look at Taylor Swift for another example.
Speaker D:Jay Z, Beyonce, you know, they're all massive personal brands, you know, and way more so than the businesses that they represent.
Speaker D:And it all comes down to that same reason, because people buy people and they want to know what other people are doing.
Speaker D:And kind of conversely, I guess in some ways to what Sam was concerned about early with regards to the whole, you know, people comparing.
Speaker D:It almost kind of goes the other way with this because again, people want to sort of, they're not comparing, but they want to see what other people are doing.
Speaker D:You know, and it is that whole sort of nature of, hey, we like to, we like to pair over our fences, don't we?
Speaker D:You know, and, and all, and all those sorts of human traits have existed long before social media did.
Speaker D:The only thing is that social media has done is it has amplified a lot of it and just made it a lot easier to do.
Speaker D:You can be a Peeping Tom pretty easy on Instagram if you want to, you know, and, and they make it very, very easy for you to do that.
Speaker D:So therefore, people do, do It, So yeah, I think again, you know, from, from a, from a marketing perspective, takeaway, I think for everyone.
Speaker D:You know, don't be afraid to pull back the curtain, don't be afraid to talk more about you, but don't be afraid to talk more about the person behind the business because actually you'll find that that is something that other people can't copy.
Speaker D:Which again, we live, you know, in a business society of copycats.
Speaker D:So many people like spend hours crafting a post only for someone at the road just to literally steal it word for word.
Speaker D:So they're not going to be able to steal your personal real life experiences and stories.
Speaker D:So don't be afraid to share them.
Speaker D:You'll find that people buy into that much, much more and when they buy into unlike you, then, then you'll find that your business gets a nice little uplift from, from that as well.
Speaker C:Yeah, and I think as well that you know, like one thing, like, you know, when you put your information on social media, it is generally, unless you put some kind of privacy restriction on it, you're putting it out there publicly.
Speaker C:And that does mean that any of your competitors, anybody that is, you know, even if they're not like a local competitor, they may just be like in the same business, they can just come along and steal your words.
Speaker C:If you're putting that in an email to your client base and to your email list, it's private between you and the people that care about your business because they've really showed a commitment to you by being on your email list.
Speaker C:So we're going to come now to Teresa.
Speaker C:Teresa is the nail dresser and I don't know if I'm sure, very much more nail industry than beauty.
Speaker C:But she's amazing and she is also, at the moment, she's kind of rocking the boat a little bit, need to be watching.
Speaker C:But Trees and I, we've had Trees have been very, very big on Instagram for a long time.
Speaker C:Conversations when all these changes started happening was that you sent me a message that shared with me, tell what it was.
Speaker H:It was sexual, it was sexually explicit.
Speaker H:Is it that one?
Speaker H:Yeah, it was a nail account that I, I, and I know many of my peers and associates all follow and it obviously got hacked, which I wouldn't have realized.
Speaker H:And then all of a sudden from that flick of the switch from Meta changing its terms all of a sudden, I, I, I think from someone who's frequenting social media reluctantly, but all the damn time that I, I started to see a lot of things that was not appropriate.
Speaker H:And.
Speaker H:And we could laugh and say it's all about my algorithm, but it genuinely was like a switch had gone off and I've ended up unfollowing all of these accounts going, what on earth am I seeing here?
Speaker H:I even made a funny joke to my other half and said, obviously we share the same IP address.
Speaker H:I'm like, what have you been watching when I've been away?
Speaker H:But it's.
Speaker C:It.
Speaker H:Yeah, it was.
Speaker H:Was.
Speaker H:It was X accounts I knew I'd seen because if you scroll back far enough, you found now content, but I couldn't pinpoint who they were.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker H:And then my social media, you said earlier that you see a lot of Trump.
Speaker H:I see a lot of Danny Jones and Maura as a massive McFly fan.
Speaker H:So.
Speaker H:And that's.
Speaker H:But that has been my feed now for the last couple of weeks.
Speaker H:Has just been celebrity news.
Speaker C:Yeah, I get a bit of that.
Speaker C:I'm getting a lot of weird film things as well.
Speaker C:And I go to the cinema a lot, so I'm getting lots of like, film recommendations that you then click on them and they're like.
Speaker C:And then they just want to hack you.
Speaker C:And it's like, let's not go down that.
Speaker C:But I too, in one of our NOW groups and whether.
Speaker C:And I don't know if I haven't seen it.
Speaker C:I've had twice now that I've been in a group and I've.
Speaker C:I've gone in there for something and as I scroll through and it is hardcore punk then.
Speaker H:Yeah.
Speaker C:Nothing to the imagination, kind of.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And that is a consequence of these relaxations of the.
Speaker C:Well, I don't even know what it is.
Speaker C:I mean, what is it?
Speaker C:Because, I mean that.
Speaker C:I don't know what that even comes under, but it's obviously relaxation of how things were on Facebook that.
Speaker C:That stuff probably.
Speaker C:I mean, you know, I've been on Facebook 16 years, I think, and I've never seen that ever.
Speaker C:And it is quite.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:I mean, I'm.
Speaker C:I don't want to see porn on my Facebook feed, really.
Speaker C:And in some of those groups, there could be under 18s because, you know, they're groups where there's like beginners and stuff and students and so it could be under 18s in there.
Speaker C:And it is, it's.
Speaker C:For me, it's a massive, massive worry.
Speaker H:I think even pre.
Speaker H:Pre regulation changes of their terms.
Speaker H:Three pre changes of their terms, you were already seeing a lot of things that really you shouldn't have been seeing.
Speaker H:And like, how Everyone has pointed out today your, your algorithm is being controlled, that you are being fed information that may not be true or known or you know, or even relevant to you.
Speaker H:And then now it just seems to be really heightened.
Speaker H:And like I say for someone who is on social media all the time because of one thing or another and you know, and I'm in full agreement, I want to, I've, I've dropped using it personally.
Speaker H:So whoever said that earlier was it Sam stopped using it personally.
Speaker H:It's now a business domain.
Speaker H:I share personal things much like Ryan has said that like, because people buy from people.
Speaker H:So I have a lovely audience that want to see my mad little life and, and it helps bolster everything that I do and who I am as a person.
Speaker H:And much like you said about my hard truths stuff, I've flicked a switch, haven't I recently?
Speaker H:And yeah, gone.
Speaker H:Do you know what?
Speaker H:Enough is enough.
Speaker H:Now I'm, if I sit here quietly, I'm just adding to this misinformation that's going out.
Speaker H:But I am also recognizing that I need to get it out on these social media platforms because that's where the audience does live.
Speaker H:Being fed the misinformation.
Speaker H:And then the irony that I'm posting it and it's being controlled.
Speaker H:I can already see the change in the difference of webinars of what I've put out into the engagement that's coming back from it and the knock on effect of other people choosing to, who may have seen it, choosing to react to it.
Speaker H:So it's, it's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker C:It's been a challenge.
Speaker C:I do think though that the irony that you know, so that we can build our world away from the socials, we still kind of have to market that world away from it on socials.
Speaker C:It's like a real oxymoron.
Speaker C:So let's just get, so let's all just take a moment and just for me, I know that I, I am very aware of the benefits of having a website.
Speaker C:The benefits having Google business profile, the benefits of having Apple business connect and all the other stuff that's on there being on the hair and beauty directory.
Speaker C:But and for me I think it's, it's a really important thing.
Speaker C: f business going Back to like: Speaker C:I always built my own websites and I've always done my optimization.
Speaker C:I've always Done my meta tags.
Speaker C:I've always done all of the stuff that was part of building a website back then.
Speaker C:So I've kind of always known this stuff.
Speaker C:And Helen and I quite often have sad conversations about SEO and meta titles and SEO descriptions and what meta tags we're using.
Speaker C:But for a lot of people, they don't always understand what the other things are.
Speaker C:So just trying to think like what, what other areas are there if anyone wants to jump in and just sort of.
Speaker C:Yeah, just express their thoughts on where else people can market their businesses and how they can do that street seamlessly.
Speaker C:Go Helen.
Speaker C:Go Helen.
Speaker F:I'm very pro websites but when I was setting up everybody's profile in the directory, I discovered that a lot people had very unhealthy websites and I discovered about a month ago that my own website when it was rebuilt unexpected and that's because the person who redid it didn't my metal properly.
Speaker F:I spoke to you Dana about it.
Speaker F:Oh my God.
Speaker F:If you're going to have a website, you need to make sure that website's healthy or it's going to drag everything else down with it.
Speaker F:So if you're on Google Maps and you're investing all this time into that and your website isn't working efficiently and isn't programmed correctly, it won't drive your group Google Profiles down.
Speaker F:So yeah, my main one is Google Profiles.
Speaker F:I don't think people realize how effectively they work.
Speaker G:Now.
Speaker F:Training providers, I do believe that Google Profile is the big, big one to.
Speaker C:Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker C:And also as we discovered, or I discovered last year and I then shared with you is that we also now have, and I had only recently seen it is Apple Business Connect.
Speaker C:It's a little bit glitchy.
Speaker C:It doesn't, it's not, it's not as easy to deal with as Google Business Profile.
Speaker C:But when you've got something like 44% of the UK population using an Apple Phone or an iPhone, Apple Phone, iPhone, you know, probably 60, 70 of them are going to be using Apple Maps and if you aren't on an Apple Map.
Speaker C:Yeah, just do as much as you can.
Speaker C:And I think as well is that, you know, the, some of the other things that we can look at to market our businesses is, you know, things like, you know, where, where else can you list your business?
Speaker C:You know, I mean obviously like Hair and Beauty Directory is a paid for all directory and it does its job really, really well, but there's also a shed load of free directories out there.
Speaker C:You know, this is about local profile because your clients in, in the industry we're in, we don't want people coming to us from 400 miles away or 200 miles away or 60 miles away.
Speaker C:They're probably going to be within a, probably a minimum of like 5 to 10 mile radius from us.
Speaker C:Probably even less than that.
Speaker C:And if, and you need to be focusing on local profiles, not on getting your mate's mates, auntie who lives you know, 300 miles away from you to like you on Facebook because that isn't going to help you.
Speaker C:When I sent out all of my planners at the beginning of the year, I went to post them with Royal Mail and you know what I did with every because they were nearly a pound cheaper.
Speaker C:Just.
Speaker C:It's madness.
Speaker C:I can't believe I sent mail through every just that blew my mind.
Speaker C:But, but I do think we've got to kind of reimagine how we do this and there are so many ways that we can kind of impact our clients.
Speaker C:I'm still doing leaflet drops.
Speaker C:Up until Covid I was still doing leaflet drops with my business and we still used to get pickup from it and like yeah it is, it's, it's good, it's good for your step count.
Speaker G:What'S on our doorstep to access when we haven't got the beam and a conquer, you know, to invest in a brilliant membership like Salonology for example.
Speaker G:So yeah, I tend to be a bit of an advocate of what did you know?
Speaker G:Did you know about this?
Speaker G:And this exists?
Speaker G:Yeah, so yeah, so I can get in to website and be with party business.
Speaker G:Oil Star Beauties.
Speaker G:95 of my client base came from my website and the Google my business and the fact that I was on every directory that I could possibly do for free to help my website.
Speaker G:95 of my business over a seven year period.
Speaker G:Yeah, because that is where the people buy my services behind now social media.
Speaker G:If I put something on social media that was an absolute, I'll take and a half because they wanted cheap, they wanted fast, they wanted everything.
Speaker G:So it's that going back to your basics again of knowing where your clients hang out and what demographic you're marketing to with your branding and everything.
Speaker G:So yeah, I just wanted to throw that in as a real world experience.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:And the thing is in the world hasn't changed with regard to that kind of marketing.
Speaker C:People are still open to it.
Speaker C:It's just that we seem to think that the only way now is through social media when there's still all of those other things out there and Whether it is, you know, the more modern version of yellow pages as Yelp.com or Yelp or Bing places.
Speaker C:There's so many different directories out there.
Speaker C:118 directories still out there.
Speaker C:You've also got all of your local business directories and local business groups.
Speaker C:Anyway, Louise wanted to come up.
Speaker C:I've invited you up on stage, Louise, if you want to accept the invitation because you had a question for Ryan Kirsten, did you want to come up?
Speaker C:I can invite you up and see if you.
Speaker C:Because I know you've put something into the.
Speaker C:That might be interesting for people to hear because I know you've had a very real world experience.
Speaker C:Experience of losing your face.
Speaker C:Welcome to the stage.
Speaker C:We can hear you.
Speaker I:Two years ago, didn't even manage to get hold of Facebook do anything about it.
Speaker I:Lost 7,000 followers.
Speaker I:And in the last two years, my new account has got all of like 320 followers.
Speaker I:So I literally get no engagement unless it's from fellow industry people.
Speaker I:But it's very rare that I get any comments from.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And it's so hard, isn't it, when it's.
Speaker C:When you've had such a.
Speaker C:A big.
Speaker C:A big following and previously was that a fairly engaged audience?
Speaker I:Very engaged.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker I:Yeah.
Speaker I:And I don't know who was saying earlier, somebody was saying, if it is, you know, when you're reposting stuff, I use the Cadio.
Speaker I:If I repost any photo stuff, it's actually not even reposting if I'm.
Speaker I:If I'm doing a post from scratch.
Speaker I:But using their photographs again, I get absolutely no better.
Speaker F:So.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker C:I think it's just so difficult, isn't it?
Speaker C:And I think, like, I know with my page, I've changed my page.
Speaker C:It's funny now when I go on my.
Speaker C:My business page because it's been many things over the years and I've still got old events on left when I was an educator for the who.
Speaker C:Louella Bell.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:And I really always probably go off and clear them, but I still quite nostalgic when I go on there.
Speaker C:But I think, you know, we have to kind of recognize that things do change and we aren't.
Speaker C:We have no security of position on Facebook, I think is the hardest thing.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And we just.
Speaker C:It's totally devastating.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, I know how stressed you were.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's difficult.
Speaker C:So has anyone else got anything else they want to add?
Speaker C:And Ryan is.
Speaker C:I have to say, Ryan is a prolific emailer.
Speaker C:And as Ryan will know, sometimes people read that well, he'll know because he'll be looking at his back end of his email, of his email provider.
Speaker C:So he'll know that sometimes I open them and sometimes I don't.
Speaker A:I don't know if he's actually looking.
Speaker C:In that much detail about my stats, but he will know that, that, you know, they don't always get open by everybody, but they have enough of a hit rate that you still get good business from them.
Speaker B:We had a question here about what.
Speaker A:A good open rate would be if you're sending emails out.
Speaker D:Yeah, well, in industry wide, typically anything over 20% and you're doing all right.
Speaker D:With regards to open rates, however, that the caveat to that is it very much depends on the size of your list.
Speaker D:If you've got like less, you know, if you've only got a couple of hundred people, then you should probably be getting at least 50.
Speaker D:I can see Louise's question and she says about, about lists and, and gdpr.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So Louise, would I advocate downloading the list?
Speaker D:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker D:However, to get to respond to the GDPR side of things, assuming you're using a proper email software to collect the data in the first place, which you should be doing, then they're going to be having to tick a box before they can even join your list to say that they agree to you contacting them for gdpr.
Speaker D:And furthermore, you should also, again, to comply with gdpr, every time you send an email, you should have the little link that allows people to unsubscribe from your lists.
Speaker D:So that is one of the main reasons why you absolutely must use an actual proper in inverted commas.
Speaker D:And by proper I typically mean paid for piece of software to send your emails.
Speaker D:And you shouldn't be just sending them from like your Hotmail account or something like that, which some people still do because that is in breach of gdpr.
Speaker D:So, and yes, you can download them off one and then send from another.
Speaker D:Yes, that's, that's absolutely fine.
Speaker D:However, the reality is is that the chances of you being hooked off a email software platform are really, really slim.
Speaker D:Unless you are sending the email content that has been appearing in these Facebook groups that sue was so appalled by earlier.
Speaker D:So as long as you're not sending that sort of content in your emails, I see no reason in the world why you would be thrown off a platform.
Speaker D:It's never happened to me in 20 odd years of sending emails for business.
Speaker D:So I, I think you'll probably be fine.
Speaker D:I hope that answered your question, Louise.
Speaker C:Yeah, and I would say as well, with regards to gdpr, I refer you to my earlier podcast episode about.
Speaker C:Well, must be about a month ago now with Robin Banks.
Speaker C:I love her name.
Speaker C:Can you imagine being real name Robin Banks.
Speaker D:Oh, my God, that is the greatest.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And she always follows up with.
Speaker C:But I don't do that for a living.
Speaker C:She's a GDR specialist, GDPR specialist, and she actually worked alongside the guy that wrote the original Data Protection Act.
Speaker C:And so she's been very involved with this at government level since its inception.
Speaker C:And so she.
Speaker C:It's a long episode, but I tell you what, it's worth listening to, fast forwarding the bits that you find boring, but because there's a lot of.
Speaker C:There's a lot of detail in there.
Speaker C:But have a notebook and a pen review, because I'm telling you now, there's stuff in there that I never knew existed and I didn't know we had a responsibility to deal with.
Speaker C:And I'd really recommend connecting with Robin because, I mean, I know she's just been having a look at my website and she's just gone, yeah, sue.
Speaker C:And you need to look at this and this and this and this, and give me this massive long list.
Speaker C:And it's like, okay, maybe I'll just pay you the £175 and you can make it all right for me.
Speaker C:Because it's just.
Speaker C:It's so complex.
Speaker C:And I think that as salon industry peeps, we just.
Speaker C: uld have been doing since May: Speaker C:But anyway, that's another whole episode to go and listen to it.
Speaker C:So I think unless anybody has anything else they want to.
Speaker C:They want to add, then I think I just like to say thank you so much to the panel.
Speaker C:Thank you so much for all of you coming along and joining us today.
Speaker C:Sorry for the technical issues at the beginning.
Speaker C:And, yeah, I think it'd be nice.
Speaker C:I've got a few others that I'd quite like to do a few other panels and maybe we'll just see if we can do it in an alternative.
Speaker C:I thought Clubhouse was going to be like the amazing way to do it, and I do think it's been good, but it's the recording issue.
Speaker C:Maybe next time I'll just do replays on it because it's time.
Speaker C:I said no replays, and maybe that's not the way to do it.
Speaker C:So thank you so much to Teresa, thank you to Ryan, to Helen, to Sam, for Sharing your time with us and thank you to everybody in the audience and yeah, go have nice days and I hope you found it useful.
Speaker A:So thanks for bearing with it.
Speaker A:I know that might have been a bit hard to listen to in places and I apologize for that.
Speaker A:But I do hope that you got a lot of takeaways from it.
Speaker A:We did cover an awful lot of stuff about email, about maybe even using the good old Royal Mail, about maybe doing some leaflet drops, because that can still work for certain things.
Speaker A:Some of the things we didn't get time to cover are things like collaboration with other local businesses.
Speaker A:That's a really key point that you can kind of harness onto, you know, look at your local golf clubs.
Speaker A:Do they have a ladies team?
Speaker A:Do they have a gents?
Speaker A:You know, I mean, well, every golf club has a gents team.
Speaker A:Let's face it, not every golf club has a ladies team.
Speaker A:But if there's a ladies team, have a chat with the team captain.
Speaker A:They also have the vice captain and sometimes they even have a vice versa vice captain.
Speaker A:They have them all lined up ready to go.
Speaker A:From my experience with golf clubs.
Speaker A:So chat with people like that, chat with local florists, with other, with Hollywood hairdressers.
Speaker A:If you're in beauty, chat with a hairdresser.
Speaker A:If you're in hair, chat with a beauty therapist.
Speaker A:See if you can do cross referrals, look at local boutiques and local cake shops.
Speaker A:Anywhere where your ideal client might hang out.
Speaker A:Go and start collaborating.
Speaker A:If you don't have a local networking group near you, maybe start one.
Speaker A:Just look for local businesses that have possibly the same ideal client as you.
Speaker A:They're a really, really great place to start.
Speaker A:One of the other things that we spoke about was about websites and how important they are.
Speaker A:And you will find I'm just in the process of launching at the moment a new project for me, Business Visibility boosters.
Speaker A:Try saying that without your teeth improperly.
Speaker C:But it's.
Speaker A:That's looking at, at building your local profile and helping you.
Speaker A:If you have a website helping you make the most of all the backend stuff that you probably don't even know you need to do things like alt text, things like SEO descriptions that actually speak to the people that are doing the search on Google.
Speaker A:And one of the other stats I didn't put on that we didn't get to talk about is that there are now estimated to be between.
Speaker A:It depends on which research you look at.
Speaker A:Between 65 and 80, 84, 85% of people's first port of call when they're looking for local services is Google.
Speaker A:So make sure that you have your Google profile, your Apple Business Connect and your Bing places.
Speaker A:We did kind of touch on this a little bit on the podcast, but just make sure that you have that in place and if you don't know how to do it, reach out.
Speaker A:I'm now offering a service as part of Sun Inspector where I can do that for you because I realize I have that skill, I have that ability.
Speaker A:I've always done my own websites and this is something that I can actually do for you.
Speaker A:We I can also create a do it yourself version but done for you with this kind of stuff is often easier.
Speaker A:Takes the procrastination out of it and it takes away trying to make it a priority when your priority generally is trying to serve your clients and trying to wow them to come back to you every time.
Speaker A:So let someone else do the legwork.
Speaker A:And I think that probably is about it today.
Speaker A:But again thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker A:Watch out for the next panels because there will be more.
Speaker A:There's one I have that's going to be looking at DEI and how we can be more inclusive in our businesses and more accessible.
Speaker A:There's also going to be one all about AI, how we can incorporate AI into our world and there's also going to be one where I'm going to have HR and finance and we're going to discuss how disguised employment and self employed model can work for some businesses when it's done properly and can be a nightmare for others when it's done incorrectly.
Speaker A:So I'm just in the process of getting dates set for those and I will look forward to seeing you next time.
Speaker A:Bye for now.
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