How to Charge $200 for a Haircut
Does it sound impossible? It's not. I was doing it with success for a few years. For a while, it was the ONLY option for a new client to get an appointment with me.
Here are some things this higher price point did for me:
1. Clients who cant afford the service or who are looking for a"deal"
self selected right out of my world. Awesome. Bye. It was the ultimate pre-screening. I only want to work with people who value my skillset, time and energy.
2. The perceived value from the price tag did more than realized it would. I wanted to thin the heard and attract clients who valued the
time and energy I put into their first visit "expierence". I was amazed
at how many people said they were sold by the pricetag alone, or that they had looked at other stylists but assumed I was the best because I charged the highest price. This was aside from the tons of pictures and reviews I had out there, they said the price was what ultimately helped them make their decision.
3. It allowed me to give the time, energy, and expierence I really wanted my new clients to have and feel like I was getting paid fairly for the extra time and effort involved. New client visits do and should take longer (especially in my niche), it's smart to take your time and give them a FULL consultation, clean your canvas with a detox treatment, and add some extra love with a deep treatment - I was using an Olaplex treatment most of the time, depending on their specific needs. I also would FULLY go over every single product I used, why I used it, and how to use it on their hair at home while I was styling them. It was SO MUCH MORE THAN A HAIRCUT, and that styling lesson was no joke, it took more time than a style where I wasn't making words out of my mouth and just getting it done.
More about how this makes sense ........
The higher end/higher pricepoint haircut service lends itsself to the Suite/Studio business model. You can offer a relaxing, quiet, one on one VIP enviornment, dim the lights during the shampoo, offer a glass of wine, serve snacks - you're free to create the ultimate expierence any which way you choose.
I was spending the same amount of time on this New Client service that I would spend on a Color/Cut service which had a similar price point.
The value was justified very clearly in the service description. It not only included the haircut but also a:
Full, In depth consultation
Detox/Clarifying treatment for hair and scalp $30 value as a stand alone service.
Luxury Scalp Massage $20 value as a stand alone service.
My Custom Scuplted Cut $150 value as a stand alone service.
Customized Deep Treatment (I would usually do Olaplex and potentially add protein and or moisture, whatever they needed)
$50 value as a stand alone service.
Styling Lesson and Product Prescription that will show you how
to realistically recreate salon quality results at home. $90 value as a stand alone service.
Add all of those up and the total is $340, so, technically they were getting a deal.
Clients will pay $200 for a root touch up with highlight and blowout service that's 2 hours and not bat an eyelash, right?
$200, $150, $100 - price point can be relative to your geography - it's reasonable to make a high end cut service the same price (and amount of time) you would charge for a higher end color service. It doesn't mean that it has to be the only cut option you offer, it can even be presented as a luxury "bundle". Regardless of how you present it, it WILL get attention.
Obviously, you want to make sure your cutting skills are on point if you're going to charge 2-4 times the going rate for your city.
Read this next sentences outloud:
"Get quality education to set yourself apart from competition and you will be unstoppable. For real.
"Combine the quality service with the education to give the client the knowledge and tools to actually recreate salon-like results at home and you'll be next level unstoppable."
There is access to education now like NEVER BEFORE. I would have been so grateful to have the kind of access to online education that there is now when I first started my career. There are online tutorials for every budget and learning style, and I have my own personal picks as well. I highly recommend attending hands on classes as well, but the on demand type of access can empower so many people who might not be able to get to every hands-on they want to for various reasons.
The only reason I don't still offer this service is the fact that I have scaled back my time behind the chair exponentially and reworked my business model to dry cuts only so I can focus my time and energy on SuiteLittleEmpire.com
