Hair stylists who sell hair care products
Is your hair stylist selling hair care products too hard?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I look forward to the relative peace and quiet that I experience while while I’m sitting in the chair during my visits to my favorite hair style salon. No television, no telephones, no radio advertisements, what a great place to escape from all of the thousands of marketing messages that we are bombarded with everyday. But it sounds like those days might be over. Hair care product manufacturers all are falling all over themselves trying to teach your hair stylist how to become hard sell. Of course it is hoped that while you are a captive audience while they’ve got your head in my shampoo bowl that you are more likely to buy hair care products by the carload (kinda like the subliminal ads of the 1960’s). Overly ambitious hair stylists who use these hard sell tactics I think are likely to see a backlash . . . I for one would be looking for a new hair stylist. Here from the St. Paul Pioneer Press is an article about one such experience:
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Nice cut = hairdo/Product hard-sell = hair don’t ALLISON KAPLAN I should have bolted the moment the eager young stylist zeroed in on my “natural waves.” Mine are not Sarah Jessica Parker’s silky waves or even Debra Messing’s. Mine are uneven, unflattering and frizzy, with a lost-my-hairbrush-a-week-ago quality. But I had come to this strange new salon to pull myself out of a hair rut — to once and for all break my straightening-iron dependency after many, many faiAre salons grooming new hires to be more salesperson than stylist?led attempts. So I let the stylist convince me that she could give me a new look. One that — and this is the key — I’d be able to easily replicate at home. “So let’s see,” the stylist said with glee, “what products shall I use?” I tend to believe the appearance of one’s hair has more to do with cut than product. I’ve tried smoothing serums, conditioning treatments, pomades, grit, creams and lotions of all brands and at all price points with similarly unremarkable results. Sure, some products smell nicer than others. But no matter what I use, my hair ends up looking the same. This new stylist, however, was pushing the products, and hard. So hard that I finally asked if she was actually going to cut my hair or just load it with glop. She absently snipped, all the while sounding like an Aveda infomercial. When she had finished making me look like a poodle crossed with Nicole Richie, she met me at the counter with a pile of bottles and tubes. She didn’t ask if I wanted to buy them; she simply thrust the stuff toward the cashier. I told her I wasn’t sure if the $30 — $30! — diffuser would fit on my hair dryer. She told me to take it home and try it. I pointed out that the Elements Smoothing Fluid looked a lot like the Brilliant Emollient Finishing Gloss I had at home. She insisted one was much thicker than the other. I said I already owned Aveda’s Brilliant Universal Styling Cream, which must be similar to the Be Curly Enhancing Lotion she wanted me to buy. Miraculously, she didn’t argue. Eager to get out of there and never return, I paid $20 for the Smoothing Fluid. That overpriced product glares at me every time I open the medicine cabinet, symbolizing yet another bad hair day. The unpleasant experience has left me wondering: Are salons grooming new hires to be more salesperson than stylist? |
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As a stylist I know there are people out there who push WAY WAY too hard for sales and yes the manufactuers and salons do tran you PUSH SALES!
Believe it or not….at the higher end salons there are even limits on how much product you HAVE to sell alot of times.
It averages usually about 25% so if your hair cut and color costs $200 they want you to sell an extra $50 in product to that customer.
You dont sell you qouta in products you loose your job.
Stylist are forced to force you to buy things.I say dont support a salon who treats their highly trained and creative staff to this kind of treatment!!!!
I didnt get into the business to be a car salesman…
Comment by Erryns Health And Beauty — February 8, 2009 @ 4:26 pm