Marketing gets clients through your doors. Sales keeps those doors open.

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Why not have both?

Whether you believe marketing includes a mix of “The Four Ps” (product, price, promotion and place) or that marketing and selling are two different areas, let’s talk about which aspects you may be incorporating in your business right now and considering options.

Getting a balance between promotion and sales frees up your time to focus on what you love to do, which is critical to your salon’s success and your spa’s long-term viability.

For this discussion, let’s say that marketing is any activity that helps you advertise and promote your business.

To do this effectively, consider going beyond:

• placing ads in the local newspaper
• handing out snazzy business cards
• adding a copy of your brochure to a web page

Any of these steps will not harm your marketing but it will make it harder for you to stand out from other spas and salons.

Why not consider putting a system in place to collect the names and contact information of potential clients as you meet them not only at work but outside, too? The idea is to build one-on-one relationships while creating a community. Once you do that, it is important to follow up with specialized information.

With advertising and promotion done well, you will see more interest and foot traffic in your salon or spa and this is the perfect opportunity for sales. Selling is any activity that adds money to your cash register after you’ve completed a quality service or offered a product.

Selling is not just for salespeople so have a great time going beyond:

• discounts
• displays
• pushing product at the end of a session

Not sure how? Building a relationship will help lead the way so that you’re able to better customize your approach to each client’s needs while maintaining your mission.

To get more clients coming through your door, you will need to get the right people to notice the unique services that you offer. Once there, it gets easier since salon and spa professionals are natural relationship builders! More sales opportunities present themselves here as you learn more about your clients and are able to offer them the products that they want as well as the ones you suggest.