I was recently looking through a research report about what types of people make the best franchisees. The answer may surprise you, although intelligence, business skill, and former experience as a business owner are highly valuable characteristics. However, the fact that you have an  MBA did not get you to the top. Neither did the fact that you may have been a CEO of  a fortune 500 company. Instead, the report listed 

• In a way Sales Executives are already small business owners. They believe in their product and have to go out everyday and sell it. In addition they understand that they are paid to produce, unlike people who have been on a salary their whole life. 
• Sales Executives don't cower when times get tough. To anyone who has lived on commission you know the sales cycle can be brutal. However, you conquer these cycles by working harder when needed - always believing that things will get better. 
• Most of all, Sales Executives relish the thought of unlimited earnings potential. It's what motivates them to get out of bed everyday. 

Customer Service is one of those things that might sound easy on paper, but can sometimes be a lot more difficult to remember or implement effectively when you're interacting with your customer in person (or over the phone). Following are five recommendations that Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids (an award winning kids hair salon franchise system) has learned over the many years that we've served thousands of customers with a smile and the help they not only deserve - but have come to expect!

1. It's important to have the right information at hand! When interacting with a customer, the right information can make a big difference in the kind of interaction you might have with them. Wrong or unclear information might cause someone to leave with a feeling of annoyance, exasperation or that they just didn't get the solution they were wanting - which could cause them to look elsewhere. So make sure that your business has a great system in place that keeps track of relevant customer data. For example, let's say a customer contacts your business wanting to know about a service they received from a couple of weeks ago. If you're unable to quickly look up this information, or the employee who assisted them, the lack of details could lead to potential confusion over what they're asking for. 

2. Treat your customers like people! We've often seen very sterile communications with customers, which is laden with in-house terminology, number or letter sequences (for products) and sentences that seem like they're spoken by a robot. Or, I'm sure we've all had that employee who acts about as bored as can be when you call them up to ask a question, or take absolutely forever to give you the answer you're looking for. This all leads to a feeling that the customer is either just another number in some machine, or isn't really that important. So make sure that you're relating to your customers in ways that help them to feel valued and intelligent, and use language that is friendly and not too technical. One trick that might help is to actually smile when speaking to someone, whether in a face-to-face discussion or on the phone. It's a lot harder to convey an attitude of boredom or annoyance when you're smiling. 

3. Acknowledge customer concerns. This can be a tough one, as no-one likes to feel like they're in the hot seat. However, make sure that when you're assisting an upset customer that you listen carefully to their concern, and promise to make it right (as much as is feasibly possible). It's also important to utilize positive language over negative language when interacting with your customers. For example, negative language might be the use of "I can't or won't do that right now", or "This is not our fault". Positive language would be, "Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention. I would be happy to help fix this issue for you!"

4. Help customers with the ability to help themselves. Sometimes it can be frustrating for customers if they're looking for an answer that they know should be easily available online, but instead have to spend the time to contact someone at your business. It's a good idea to have a website where customers can find this information, and publicize it on social media or in your advertising so that they know this is where many of their questions could be answered. For example, a business website should include store hours, locations, services provided (with helpful descriptions) and perhaps even a frequently asked questions. Another great thing about a website is that it can communicate through photographs or videos, which can be very helpful for your customer in understanding more about what your business offers!

5. Be thankful to you customers. As noted earlier, customers love to feel appreciated and valued.  One way to do this is write thank you notes after a customer makes a purchase, or have customer appreciation days with fun give aways and snacks. You might also consider utilizing the blog on your website or social media to highlight positive customer feedback, good customer questions or photographs of customers in your store (with their permission of course). A lot of people complain about faceless mega-corporations that seem to regard them as just a number. So be sure to bring a personal touch to help your business stand out!

Candidates often ask me why we pay for all their expenses when they come to Discovery Day to see our award winning children’s salons. Well, first of all that isn't quite accurate, as we do ask our best candidates to buy their own plane tickets (that way they have a little “skin in the game”). But other than that it’s pretty much on us. Now don’t get me wrong, there is some qualification that goes on and candidates that come into see us take our free no-obligation webinar, and have sent us some financial information that we check out. We don’t feel like it would be a prudent use of company funds for us to treat candidates to a  hotel on Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza district if they weren’t financially qualified to join our system. But for those that meet our qualifications, we do feel like Discovery Day is an important part of the process.

Franchising, more than any business I can think of, is a relationship driven model. The Franchisee relies heavily on the experience, knowledge, training and systems of the franchisor. In turn, as the franchisor, we are looking for people who will work hard, follow our proven systems and expand our brand. When that relationship works like it's suppose to, both sides benefit. Or putting it another way, it’s a “win-win” situation!

All this takes me back to whether you are being “sold” a franchise, or being recruited to join a brand. Franchisors that are out there only to sell franchises typically are looking to collect franchise fees and will sell a franchise to anyone who will buy. They are typically focusing on “quantity” instead of quality and turn a blind eye to marginal candidates. At Shear Madness our focus is on franchise “recruitment”. We want our candidates to match our profile, culture, and generally want them to be the type of people that have the same values as we do. We want our tag-line, Where Every Child Matters to really mean something to them. Understanding our culture is the starting point to a long happy marriage of franchise and franchisor, which is truly a ‘win-win” situation.

Shear Madness Franchising franchises Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids salons. We have worked with franchise stores in providing franchisee support (in order to encourage continual growth), and have sometimes seen the unexpected happen!  When it does, we help by identifying and helping with challenges that might arise for franchisees. Additionally, we work to present options that can help prevent these events as well. As many franchise owners may not have opened a business before, having someone who can advise them is a significant advantage of franchise ownership!

Are you interested in learning how YOU can join the Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids family and run your own  small business? We are one of the fastest growing kids hair salons and franchise systems in the industry today! If you would like to learn more about small business marketing, great marketing strategies, resources for small businesses, business tips, how to grow your small business, or how to become a owner of your own kids hair salon franchise business, please click below or call 1-888-98 GONE MAD!

Creating an exciting email newsletter can be an affordable and easy way to communicate with your customers on a regular basis. And if done right, it's also a great way to build trust, generate excitement, and potentially encourage customers to frequently utilize the services your business provides. However, if an email newsletter isn't done properly, it might end up being an annoyance to your customer. So what do you do? Before you begin creating that Newsletter make sure you have included the following 4 "Musts" in your process!

1.  Understanding Your Newsletter: Before you spend a lot of time creating an email newsletter, it's a good idea to develop a strategy on what you'd like to accomplish with a newsletter. For example: Is it to grow sales? Are you wanting to let people know about upcoming events? Would you like to build brand awareness through the marketing content you'd like to use? You'll also want to figure out how often you'd like to send out a newsletter. Once every two weeks? Once a month? Four times a year? For example, at Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids, we've developed our newsletter to communicate the fun energy surrounding our brand, as well as share about upcoming events being held at their local Shear Madness. We also have chosen to send out our newsletter once a month, so that we don't inundate our customers with too much marketing.

2.  Utilizing Creative Email Subject Lines: Try to give your customers an incentive to immediately open the e-mail, and see what they might be missing out on. If you need a little help, try to look at what influences you to open emails. Sometimes asking a question in an email subject line might prompt curiosity, such as, "What's Our Big Secret? See our Newsletter!". Other times, using exciting language might be a good option. Something like, "Wow! Our Newsletter is RED-HOT!"   Make sure that your subject line isn't too long that it all can't be seen when scanning through email subjects.

3.  Delivering Educational Content: It's important when writing a newsletter to utilize a little creative marketing when coming up with fun and educational content. This will give your subscribers a reason to come back to your newsletter each time you send it out. While you'll certainly want to share about what your business is doing in regards to upcoming sales and special events, don't overwhelm with too much sales-related information. As for the fun or educational content that you'll want to include in your newsletter, some ideas might include a funny joke, an inspiring personal testimony from a customer, a silly photograph of something going on in your store, a link to a children's color page, or a fun craft and nice recipe. Be creative!

4.  Utilize Great Design: If you're really wanting to develop a newsletter that engages your customers, you'll also want to be sure to utilize some great graphic design. Develop a nice looking newsletter header that possibly includes your logo, the name of the newsletter featured prominently, and an attractive header background that could change with holidays or different seasons. Within the newsletter itself, use graphics and photos (sized for web usage) to draw attention to the various sections within a newsletter. And lastly, be sure to stick with standard fonts in your newsletter - don't use anything too crazy. And if you must use different colored fonts, go with a theme for each newsletter and stick with around two easy to see colors that are used for standout text. 

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Are you interested in learning how YOU can join the Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids family and run your own successful small business? We are one of the fastest growing kids hair salon franchise systems in the industry today! If you would like to learn more about small business marketing, great marketing strategies, resources for small businesses, how to grow a small business, or how to become a successful owner of your own kids hair salon franchise business, please click below or call 1-888-98 GONE MAD!

Collecting customer feedback is an important way to gauge whether the efforts you are putting into growing your small business are really meeting the needs and expectations of your customers. Following are some different ways that customer feedback might be gained, as well as some helpful tips and useful questions you might want to ask.

Direct Communication with a Customer: One way to collect great feedback from a customer is to speak with them directly either through a phone call, or face-to-face dialogue. However, be sensitive as to when might be the best time to talk with a customer about their experience. For example, at Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids, we will often call parents after hosting one of our birthday party experiences in order to hear their thoughts and suggestions in regards to the event. We'll also seek to communicate with customers directly who might have a complaint, as we want to assure them that their concern is not only heard - but extremely important in helping us become better!  

EMail: Do you email your customers?  If you have a newsletter or other email campaign you will get people who unsubscribe.  Use this as an opportunity to get feedback.  Your email system may allow you to customize your unsubscribe email response - use that to ask questions, or if you have phone information on that customer give them a call.  Never mention the unsubscribe in the phone call, you don't want to make them feel singled out.  But, if you are always calling customers for feedback anyway just include these people in the list of those to reach out to.  You may find that those who unsubscribe still love your business, they are just moving, or clearing out email as they get too much!  Or you may find that something has happened that you need to deal with as an owner.

Surveys: Utilizing a survey to collect customer feedback is a great way to reach out to a much larger base of customers than you might be able to do through direct communication. Some of the ways surveys might be done is through a short questionaire that a customer can fill out at your business and drop into a box, or through an online survey sent to your customer mailing list. Some of the advantages of utilizing surveys is that some of your customers might prefer giving feedback in this manner. However, it can also be a challenge to actually convince customers that filling out a survey is worth their time. As such, offering a small incentive for their help can be a great way to encourage this customer feedback.

Survey Questions: Following are some sample questions that a business owner might want to ask their customers. As with any customer interaction, make sure that you do everything you can to help them feel great about their experience with your business. Thank them for their time in talking with you or filling out the survey, and possibly offer them a coupon for their helpful assistance.

• What was your primary goal in visiting my business today?
• Did my business meet your objectives?
• What could my business have done differently in regards to your experience?
• Compared to similar services you may have received elsewhere, how does my business compare?

Responding to Feedback: Of course we all love when we receive positive feedback. But what about when we get negative feedback? As a business owner, it's inevitable that you'll receive negative feedback and criticisms leveraged against your business. And while it might be easy to become offended and disheartened by such feedback, consider looking at criticisms as a way to help make your business even better. Most customers just want to be heard!  So when you reach out to someone with negative feedback make sure and really LISTEN to what they have to say!  Thank them for sharing with you!  If they didn't share, you wouldn't know - many times your system may need some tweaking and this can be jump started by this negative feedback.  There will be some negative feedback that may be totally unjustified, but if you evaluate the entire situation there WILL be something there that you can learn from to make improvements in your system.  Whatever the case, be sure to treat customers who provide negative feedback with as much care as you would a positive customer. Assure those customers who are critical that their thoughts matter and that you want to do what you can (within your power) to help make it right. 

The Best Feedback is a Referral:  If you can track your referrals this is a very nice thing to do!  Kindly reward those who refer you.  Most refer you with no expectation of any kind of reward.  But if they get one - a thank you note, a phone call, or an email - they will love you even more!

Are you looking for a franchising opportunity with someone who has your back and works hard to encourage your success? If so, why not check out Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids Franchising? Not only do we love to have FUN, but we also love sharing our many great business tips, free business tools and resources for small businesses so that our franchisees will have the tools to succeed! If you're interested in learning how to become a successful owner of your own franchise business, please click below!

Like any relationship, the relationship between franchisees and franchisors depends a lot on trust and goodwill. Following are some of the key areas that Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids has focused on in building trust and nourishing success for our valued franchisees!

Encouraging Communication: Anyone who feels as if they don't have someone to easily turn to when problems or quesitons arise, will often attempt to find their own solutions. Amongst franchisees, this could not only lead to less brand cohesiveness, but also division and discouragement between the franchisor and franchisee. This is why reaching out to franchisees on a continual basis is so important. Some of the ways the franchisor can do this is through newsletters, e-mail, phone and in-person visits. Handwritten notes congratulating franchisees on recent successes are also always appreciated! However, it's also important to understand that difficult situations may arise, and it's that consistent, open communication that will not only help ease potentially frustrating situations, but also save time and money too!

Encouraging Innovation: Every year, it's important to try to assess the effectiveness of your products and services. If it's discovered that a particular product or service isn't providing the desired results, the careful research and development of new products and services may help stimulate business growth in a new direction! And don't forget that innovating in communication methods can also be helpful. For example, while technology may be intimidating or costly to implement, it's also a great way to communicate through newsletters, e-mail and blogs. Website and company portals can also be helpful in allowing franchisees to quickly access important information or provide feedback.

Meetings: Monthly conference calls and yearly conferences can be a fun and helpful way to foster good relationships between franchisees and the franchisor. These meetings are also a great way to inform everyone on changes within the system, as well as helping stimulate innovation and education. Conferences can be especially effective, as it's a great way for face-to-face interaction with other franchisees, the franchisors, vendors, and more. Conferences can also help build exciting momentum with the offering of new products and innovative plans for the year to come!

Focus on the Franchisee! While growth and developing new products and services is always important, the culture of any franchising system should ultimately be franchisee-focused. Not only is respect for your franchisee critical, but positive communication with them can lead to great franchise relationships and a highly effective team. Let franchisees know that their thoughts are needed and valued by encouraging feedback on new services, products, programs, etc. Maintaining effective communication and providing support for your franchisees can be a full time job, but it helps franchisees know that someone always has their back and cares about their success!

Are you looking for a franchising opportunity with someone who has your back and works hard to encourage your success? If so, why not check out Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids Franchising? Not only do we love to have FUN, but we also love sharing our many great business tips and resources for small businesses so that our franchisees will have the tools to succeed! If you're interested in learning how to become a successful owner of your own franchise business, please click below!