3 Ways To Attract New Customers To Your Barber Shop

On today's episode we talk about attracting new customers to your barber shop... 

• We talk about getting to know your community. Be involved. Communicate and connect with your customers.
•  Spend some time building your reputation online. You need to have an action plan to get more reviews online. 
• Get online and build a presence. You need a website and you need to attack at least one social platform hard. 
• BONUS: Harness your relationship with the feel and atmosphere of your shop. Its all about creating an inviting, friendly environment.

Christian: [00:00:15] What'sgoing on? Welcome to another episode of the Marketing Natives. Today we'regoing to talk about three ways to attract new customers to your barbershop.We're going to be talking about community. We're going to be talking aboutreviews, building your own presence, and we also have a good bonus at the veryend. So make sure you stick around until the end of the episode.

Aaron: [00:00:36] Allright. And before we jump into this, I do want to let everyone know that if youhave listened to at least two to three episodes you may like what you'rehearing. So please go subscribe. We usually remind you to do that the end ofthe episode, but if you're sitting there right now and you're listening to itor playing around on your computer, just go subscribe so you don't miss anymore. And make sure that you leave us a review. All right. So getting into thecommunity. This is huge for a barber. Besides like your spouse a barber isprobably somebody you tell your most secrets to. You talk about likeeverything. I know Christian and I actually use the same person, and at leastfor me anyway, he talks a lot. And like we speak back and forth a lot, and he'salways asking questions because what else are you going to do besides havingsomebody cut your hair? You just sit there and stare at a wall? So.

Christian: [00:01:27] Yeah,that's kind of weird.

Aaron: [00:01:27] Soyou got to get to know the people and know your clientele, and as a barber, Ireally think that finding out who you attract and what they're interested in isreally important to build a deeper relationship.

Christian: [00:01:41] Yeah.So like he said, you know, talking is not necessarily bad especially with yourclients and getting to know them because just like you said, you know, you getthat deeper connection. And I think you- Yeah, I wrote this a long time ago,but you put an example here of a- You know, if you as a barber, you're a hugebasketball fan, and you talk to your clients about that and, you know, some ofthem do like basketball and some of them don't. That's going to, you know,you're going to build more connections with your customers, and they mightrefer to some of their friends who are also basketball fans if they had areally good experience with you. Because I mean, they just feel comfortable,and they just gravitate towards that person.

Aaron: [00:02:22] Right.So I mean, it's not that it- I don't think it would necessarily be a dealbreaker, but for example, we're in the Dallas area. And if the barber was ahuge Mavericks fan and you had a clientele that were huge Mavericks fan, youhave something to talk about. And I was actually listening to another podcast -shout out to the Art of Charm - but the topics that you talk about, like socomplimenting people and really listening to what they say, they walk awaythinking that you're taller, skinnier, and like a lot better person or moreattractive. And that's- I'm not using that as a tactic for you to use, but justrelating to your audience, they'll walk away talking about you more. They're goingto leave you more reviews. They're going to tell you to more friends. Sobuilding that on something that you already have, like that you already have incommon that you're already going to talk about, is really a benefit that youcould use.

Christian: [00:03:13] Yeah.It's very true. All right. So the next thing we have here are reviews, reviews,reviews. The reviews are probably one of the most important things that's goingto get you customers in the door especially for those people who maybe are newto town or maybe they're switching barbers, looking for something new. Probablythe first thing that they're going to go to is a Google or maybe ask a friend,but with Google one of the most important things that, you know, you want tomake sure that you're doing so that you're ranking up in there is to have morereviews. And not only do you need to have a good number of reviews but alsogood quality reviews, and not just quality reviews but you need to be gettingthose reviews, you know, biweekly. Every month you need to be updating thosereviews. All those things are going to help you sort of rank higher, you know,with the Google Map Pack which is just, you know, when you're searching forsomething, especially services, Google will show you that little map, and it'llshow you like the top three companies that are nearby. You definitely want tobe in that top three, and in order to reach that top three, you need to bedoing those things.

Aaron: [00:04:22] Right.I was going to say just to kind of prove us right, I would challenge you. Gocheck out a barber. So type in like a barber in your city and look at three orfour of them and ask yourself which one you would look at. Is it the guy withtwo reviews? Is it the guy with 50 reviews and he has a five star? Or is it theguy with 12 reviews and a four and a half star? Like I mean, we're obviouslygoing to pick the guy with 5-star or at least a high one and a ton of reviews.Because I was looking at somebody, I think it was a barber or hairstylist, the otherday, and the average for at least this area was like 8 or 9. So if you justcame in and you had 20 reviews, you already stick out, and it's not even thatmuch to get ahead of those kind of people.

Christian: [00:05:06] Yeah,exactly. Yes. So it is really not that hard. All right. And speaking ofreviews, we've actually started this new thing. We've had the service for awhile. It's called reputation management, and we want to help you. If you're abarber and you're in need of some reviews or how do you even start getting somereviews, definitely contact us. You can go to our website, bitbranding.co. Justgo to the contact page and give us a shout, and we'll definitely point you inthe right direction. I think just to start this if you contact us, we'll giveyou a free report on how your ranking online right now and how are your reviewsacross literally hundreds of websites. Because a lot of people just think ofGoogle, Yelp, and Facebook but there's hundreds of review websites out there.You don't even know the half of it. So definitely check us out abitbranding.co. If you don't want to check our website, you can definitely goto our Facebook too. Just type in on the search BitBranding altogether.

Aaron: [00:06:19] Allright. And again if you have any questions like that, probably going to be thebest place to get a hold of us is just shooting us a message on Facebook or ourwebsite, but we look forward to hearing from you. And at the very least asChristian said, just go get that free report from us. We're not going to chargeyou anything. We're not going to try to do anything with that. Just so you canget an idea of where you're standing outside online.

Christian: [00:06:42] Yep.

Aaron: [00:06:42] Allright. So the next thing here is on our list for a barber is to build your ownpresence. So what does that mean? That means you need to have a website. Youneed to have social media. At the bare minimum, a Facebook or Instagram pagebecause if somebody goes to look for you say, for example, I did some research,and I found that you had 30 reviews. I was like wow, this is a great guy.Probably going to call him there, but maybe there's like three people and theyall have like nine reviews. Well, I'm going to do a little bit more researchand find out- See if I can find out a little bit more about him to see who'sgoing to stand out because on Google with the reviews besides reading thecomments and if there's not much there, you know, you don't have much to go offof, but if you go to the website, you kind of figure out, you know, what theirplace looks like as far as cleanliness, the quality people, what they careabout, their story that you can really fall in love with or really create aconnection with. That's what's going to bring people in outside of the reviews.So those kind of complementing it and building that presence will really helpyou.

Christian: [00:07:43] Yeah,and yeah. There's a few, I would say, hipster barbershops around here that do areally good job on Instagram. So if you are looking for some ideas, definitelycheck out those new kind of hip places, and I'm not saying you have totransform your barbershop into a hipster barbershop. But you can definitely getsome ideas and see what they're doing and see where people are engaging, whatpeople are liking to get a better idea on what to do online.

Aaron: [00:08:14] Andwhen you do that- And actually do you know those places? Just want to give thema shoutout. We'll share the episode with them. Do you remember any of the topicof your head?

Christian: [00:08:21] Ido not.

Aaron: [00:08:22] Okay.

Christian: [00:08:22] Isn'tthere one in Allen?

Aaron: [00:08:23] Thereis. So the one I'm thinking of is called Beard & Bristle.

Christian: [00:08:26] Yeah,yeah.

Aaron: [00:08:27] Yeah.They do a great job on Instagram. So shout out to you guys. Go check them out.They are Oliver off of McDermott in Allen if you are listening to this andyou're near Allen, Texas, but what people want to see on social media istelling a little bit more of your story, showcasing like some of your work. Soif you do a great job of giving somebody a fade, take a picture of his hair.Like I mean, that's your work right there that you're putting out there, andthat's what people are searching for. So create that unique content, and thenthe most important thing which we been really hitting hard on is engaging withyour audience. So instead of just posting and expecting people to go over andlike your stuff because you're amazing, that may be true, but they're not goingto engage with you nearly as much as if you go engage with them first. Leavelegitimate comments. Leave messages. Something that's going to make them have areal conversation with you instead of saying like oh, that's a cool post. That'sa really cool dog you have, you know.

Christian: [00:09:29] Right.Yeah. Foster engagement and conversation with other people for sure, and ourlast little tidbit at the end, this bonus that we're going to give you, is tomake sure that you create a friendly and accommodating environment inside yourshop. That's definitely going to bring in new customers and new people. They'redefinitely going to, you know, feel at home kind of, and then, you know, onceyou start getting these people, you know, in your shop regularly, the onesthat, you know, you see every month, then go ahead and give them a little cardwith a free haircut or maybe a free beard trim.

Aaron: [00:10:11] That'dbe nice. I like that.

Christian: [00:10:11] Oryou could given them the free haircut, and then this is for a friend, you know.So they have to give this card to a friend so they can come in and get theirfree haircut, and if they do that, then maybe you can offer them something forbringing you a customer. Maybe 50 percent off on their next haircut or, like Isaid, maybe a beard trim next time they come in.

Aaron: [00:10:34] Oh,something to add to that since we talked about reviews would be to request thathey, the person who came in for free, give an honest review that way. But yeah,that's a great way to grow organically is to continue to give away the freehaircuts, and you know, if you do a great job, they're going to continue tocome back. So I wouldn't- I guess the way to do that, to not get technical, isif they come in for free, don't give them another free card until they've comeat least two or three times.

Christian: [00:11:02] Right.

Aaron: [00:11:02] Andthen give it away again because at that point you know that they're going to bea lifetime customer, and if you do great work, they're going to continue tocome back. And they'll find more friends, but that's a why you can really blowit up. And I think that barbers who are successful are the ones who do a greatjob cutting hair, and they get it out there. And they run the businesscorrectly, and then obviously we're talking to all those who need to get thosereviews online and really tell people how good they are because they just can'tfind them online.

Christian: [00:11:30] Yep.All right. So just to recap here. Number one thing is get to know yourcommunity, get to know your customers, make sure that you relate to them.Reviews. Make sure that you get reviews, make sure that you have some kind ofreputation management service in there. Definitely contact us if you have anyquestions with that, and build your own presence on line. And the last tidbitwas that bonus where you can do the free haircut with your return customers.

Aaron: [00:11:56] Allright. And the most important part of this episode is to not be forgetting us.Which episodes come out every Monday. Every Monday. So no matter what you willhear a new episode, and we want to make sure that you don't miss out on that.So make sure you subscribe and share this with a friend. It's very easy for youto do that at least on an iPhone. We're all iPhone users so don't hold thatagainst us if you're an android person, but if you click those three dots inthe podcast app, you can actually click share episode. You can actually post iton Facebook or Twitter. If you do that, we will probably send you somethingspecial. We have some cool stuff to send you if you share it that way and tagus and let us know, but just make sure you share this with a friend if you'regetting some value. The last thing you want is to really hold this inside, andjust a reminder, don't try to subscribe while you're driving. That would bebad. Oh, and since we have a couple, ten seconds here, I have found thatthere's a ton of stuff on Netflix. So just as a side note, if you are listeningor watching a really cool episode or show on Netflix, please leave us a commenton- Send us a comment on Twitter. That'll be probably the easiest way. Justshoot us a message on Twitter. Everything is @bitbranding by the way.

Christian: [00:13:16] Yep.

Aaron: [00:13:17] Allright. We will talk to you guys next week.