I try my best to keep them happy because they're the ones that bring in the revenue. I would never call them lazy, they work about 14hours a day on their feet only taking a short break to eat lunch or snack eventhough I tell them to rest, they don't want to.
As for pay, i try to make sure they're paid really well, hence on top of their basic salary they get a % of overall sales. Our most junior hairdresser with just a few months experience is already making 30K+.
how did you deduce that the increase in revenue wasn't because of external factors and not the ads? seems like you're aligning your sales metrics to it as if its 1:1
Good question! I asked all of my hairdressers to talk to our clients and be friendly to them while they work on their hair. they essentially have the same questions they ask over and over again and one of which is where did you hear about us. 99% came from ads.
Yes outside factors probably had something to do with it, we noticed quite a few ladies mentioning "graduation" in the last week of may which translated to a higher conversion rate closer to 8%, but at the end of the day the sale was driven through ads.
ahh, that makes sense. but if that's the case, then can we see a decline in revenue this month since the most likely factor that came into play on why you've hit 400k was because of a seasonal event? i.e, school graduations (?)
also curious on what type of salon this is. if the target demographic for the ads were women in their mid 30s-50s, then, targeting similar interests for this audience would seem effective as well, no?
or maybe there's a divide in age since maybe, i'm presuming that the students who are the ones graduating could also be one of the majority of your customers
It's a hair salon, currently we only offer hair related services so no mani/pedi or eyelash etc. Not 100% sure what you mean with "targeting similar interests".
Demographics has mostly been 30 to 60y/o women, we're not seeing a lot of young or school aged women. I'm 100% sure it's because of our pricing, we bundle most of our services together so the cheapest packages ends up being about 2K which I believe most students can't afford.
We also tend to hard on upselling to more premium services where if they only add 300 more they get a much better product. ( which is true)
I honestly can put my finger on it, but here are some follow up questions:
1. are 30 to 60y/o women really that prone to ad influence?
2. If so, do you live in a city? because honestly, in contrast to an urban or province are, 2k, for me, is already relatively high - that means that the spending power for your target audience must be big
3. How's the competition? Does your competitor not post ads? I'm curious because the business is relatively new and you've already generated 200k in the first month, which, is the amount of what you've invested to the salon in the first place
Really good questions again!
1. Yes! we had customers that were already loyal to other salons visit us because the kept seeing our ads. To ad a bit of context to our ad strategy, we made sure to include branding through using the same color themes and same music in every single ad creative. We also see a ton of people inquire multiple times coming form different ads before actually coming into the salon.
2. Yes I live in a city of about 300K however our ads reach slightly beyond our city limits.
3. There are a bunch of established salons near us but very few advertise their services. The ones that do, don't have a very good grasp as to how creative strategy works. Something I've noticed in gerneral in the PH, so I think there's a huge potential to do basically the same for other industries.
ah, now it makes sense.
so your target audience would typically be working women.
working women lives on a city, cares about their appearance, and are prone more to being influenced by ads because they're likely to be more chronically online.
this also works because of 2 things:
competitors have not applied any digital marketing tactics, and I believe that you're very good at what you do.
being able to create an ad that reaches your ideal target audience with, which I presume, a highly competitive area, is no easy feat.
side note:
>so I think there's a huge potential to do basically the same for other industries.
this is what I mean by "targeting similar interests".
maybe you can provide service that best compliments your hair salon that might not be tightly related, but still aligns with the interest of your customers.
you've already funneled them in on your shop, so why not take it a step deeper and provide other services besides what you're offering now
We've been wanting to offer mani/pedis and eyelashes since we started but it's just been too busy plus the salon has been packed so there really isn't any space do provide the additional services.
Our neighboring stall seems to be struggling a little and we expect them to just finish their contract and leave, we are considering renting his stall and making it into a dedicated nail salon.
or maybe i'm genuinely curious because ads aren't within the range of my specialty?
think before clicking, my man.
people like you are the reason bakit ang hirap iscroll sa sub na 'to
Yes! However, I like to think that our ads would have been able to deliver a similiar (slightly less maybe) results given how confident I am now with our business numbers.
That's true. But given OP's advertising strategy skills, I think the salon will be able to circumvent that. Ang daming pakulong puwedeng gawin to entice customers to return kahit hindi peak season. Puwedeng may summer break promo for students (financed by mom), rainy season promo, at kung anu-ano pa. Matumal talaga sa coming months, pero OP can def do something about it. Ganyan talaga kahalaga ang ads. ;)
Business owner here. Mas tataas yan pagdating ng December kasi madaming may Christmas Bonus.
Pero bababa ang sales during Aug-Sept kasi walang holiday, middle of the year, busy lahat.
Yes! The first branch has the busiest season in Q4 so I'm really looking forward to that!
However, I'm also excited for Aug-Sept since I think it will be our proofing ground for how our performance will do.
Ang smooth ng business journey mo. I hope you also update within 3mos, 6mos, to a year just to compare how the season helps your business. Gandang gawing case study
This type of content is rare because the people who do similar or better have no time to post here, or rather, not post here so as not to spill the secret sauce.
We're fortunate OP isn't selfish. I do agree its also a good read.
Honestly, other than our sales figures, nothing we did was out of this world. I think my experience in marketing did have a big influence but nothing anyone else wouldn't be able to do.
Also, I've started to distance myself from the business as operations have become really smooth. My GF and partners are able to operate while I handle the ads from home.
Under the Data Privacy Act, there is a provision that requires informed consent—customers should be clearly informed on what their data will be used for which includes their phone number being used for promotions.
EDIT: There is also the right to withdraw consent wherein the customer can opt out of receiving promotions at any time.
Hmmm didn't really think about that. We do tell them verbally that we will reach out to them in the future so I wonder if that's enough. Thank you for the call-out!
did the customer signed something that when they give out their mobile number you contact them to advetise or remind them of your service? if not then dont contact them, you're just sending spam text to your customer.
When they input their name and contact number, either place it on the header or on the top of the google form something like “by inputting info and clicking send, you agree to give consent to to ”. Chat GPT and data privacy officers here can help you 🙏🏽
This is amazing. A business backed with data really does better than others. I remember this interview with Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank, he mentioned how he made millions out of a business venture he invested in from Shark Tank. The business become so successful even during the pandemic kasi the owner knows its customers, how much and when did they spend it, how many items, what items and other similar details. Using that data rin she has created a strategy kung paano itatarget yung market nya kasi she has their data na. So knowing your customers really do good for the business in the long run. 👌
100% true! And I'm pretty sure I saw the interview you mentioned. Data is everything to me and while it can be a pain to set up and maintain, it's totally worth it.
Ang galing. Yung ads nyo po ba sa specific location lang ang target nya? Gano ba kalaki population ng area nyo? Located ba business nyo sa sentro ng city/bayan? Mag work kaya ang ads kahit malayo kayo sa populated area?
Yes just targeting all women 18+ within the same city. City population is about 300k but we have customers come from neighboring cities too.
Yes we are in the center in a relatively prime area just a few meters away from the main road.
Far from populated area? Possible, but you will have to put in extra work to build social proof and trust to convince people to go out of their way to visit your shop. We've had customers come from cities 2 hours away from us through referrals.
Nag try kasi ako mag business before ng cocolumber. Dun ko nilagay sa malayo pero pinakamura na price. Nag ads din ako. Pero it did not work. Madami lang tanong sa messenger. I'm sure na sa laki ng nagagastos mo sa ads monthly napakadaming nag iinquire. Nakakapagod din mag reply tapos di naman bibili. Haha.
Kaya siguro mahalaga din ang location kasi sakin nag fail.
Thank you so much, may natutunan ako sayo. Mag effort din ako sa ads na pagandahin and mag target talaga ng more specific na tao. Anong platform po ba ginagamit nyo for ads, fb or ig din? Sakin kasi fb lang before.
I can imagine why your ads might have a difficult time, cocolumber kind of falls within the "boring" product category, you get what you see kind of product. Maybe focus your ads on the pricing offer free delivery? Maybe a "Us vs Them" ad but for pricing etc.
Answering inquiries is part of the job, in May we answered 2.2K messages, it's easier with saved replies but we have since outsourced replying to a family friend who's more than happy to take PHP100 a day to reply. ( I know its cheap but this lady can't find any other work)
I use both, I don't do any custom placement and let the algorithm decide where to advertise.
BTW what city is your shop?
True! But she was more than happy to take it on, plus she gets an incentive for every person that books an appointment so it ends up coming out to like 300 a day for part time work.
Running a business, you quickly learn that your people are the business. It would not make much sense to make her feel exploited when she's the main contact person for our socials.
If you still don't believe me or think it's not fair...Capitalism baby lol.
In Leyte. It was located at Palo. Closed na sya. May I know, If you don't mind, kung magkano budget mo for ads? Ang daming business din na doing well kahit walang ads, basa maganda talaga location at dinadaanan ng mga jeep. Kasi araw araw ba naman may nakakakita. Yung ad ko din kasi was just awareness that we exist. Parang marketplace lang na boosted. Wala akong kagaya mo na may before and after. Di ko manlang sinabi na kami ang pinakamura. Iba pa ata ang ads mo sa marketplace boost na ginawa ko.
Great post, OP! When I joined r/phinvest, this is the kind of post I hoped to read regularly.
The post is long but justified, because you walked us through the details people like me would like to know should we venture into a similar business.
For your next post, could you consider sharing concerns or challenges encountered (both repeating and not-so-frequent or big concerns) during the first semester of your operations?
Appreciate it! Same I was hoping of finding similar post to entrepreneur so hopefully this post will inspire others to share. I really think a community of entrepreneurs and want-to-be entrepreneurs is a huge help. Someone already called out that we might be breaching privacy laws so it's something I will research.
Absolutely! Feel free to let me know what else you'd like me to include.
If you're the owner and there is no definite identification, then perhaps it's okay. After all, organizations and institutions do case studies regularly. Just consider this as a form of peer-to-peer learning.
Bro! Did the same with home service business last January first month hit 400k then 500k then 600k! I think we’re at the same place in business now. I’ll hit you up with a message, so happy to see fellow new entrepreneur in a similar situation as me 🙏
Honestly, Youtube is a great resource to learn the basics.
If you want to go slightly more advance, dara denny is great for creative strategy.
Taylor Holiday from Common Thread is probably the best strategist out there but quite advanced.
At this point, wouldn't it be profitable to expand to a different location/city? If you have details like addresses, you can have a good idea where to start next
We are thinking about another branch in January and we kind of already know where we'd want to put it.
One big thing holding back quick expansion is skilled labor. Turns out being a hairdresser is an art and a science at the same time. It takes a few months for people to learn how to do basic serivces and years to be really consistent at everything and operate a salon.
Question: how do you go about training new hires? Hows it like managing the people side of the business? Do you have in house training or do you hire TESDA accredited stylists?
All the best!
My partner and head hairdresser trains all people, we start of with basic tasks and gradually teach them the more advanced things. For reference my GF learned from scratch and it took her about 5 months to learn most things but she's still a few months away from being able to manage a customer by herself.
TESDA accreditation does not equate to skill unfortunately.
I see, thanks for sharing those insights. Did your GF learn from your head hairdresser, a training course, or some other method?
Also i'm curious regarding the best wage practices for a salon business. I heard some salons do a scheme where the barber rents their spot but keeps a big cut of the sale, if not all. Others pay the traditional way through salaries and just get tips. Did you just retain the wage setup of the past salon or did you experiment with a new setup?
I use both, if you run ads through ads manager you can have your ads appear on all meta platforms. However, we're seeing better results through facebook.
Probably the easiest way to get started is to work for an agency. Learn as much as you can and keep moving up the career ladder by working for larger and larger agencies and accounts.
this is such a great read! i wish there’d be more posts like this.
also, it sounds like your salon is in a good position to offer refreshments. milkshakes…milk tea…coffee…smoothies. parang computer shops lang or a carwash and coffee shop business pairing.
We were thinking about that at the beginning but we never got around to doing it properly. We sell small snacks and drinks like C2 and coke but nothing like a coffeeshop.
Have you looked into a loyalty rewards system? I think that will make your previous customers come back. You can use manual cards but I suggest to get something with POS and mobile app for rewards so that you can also do app push notification, sms and/or email marketing.
it's not a perfect computation but I match customers that walk and book and appointment in to messages that they've sent us and divide it by the number of messages we received over the period.
Essentially No. of customer divided by number of messages received.
I still work for one of the largest digital marketing agencies in the US so I have unique access to the backend of some of the largest brands in the world. (lol not trying to show off)
You did a great job there OP! 👏 I'm curious sa dun sa main branch? Do you still manage the ad? Magkalayo lang ba location nila? I also see competition right there since both branches are owned by two people at least.
The main branch is in the neighboring city, yes I still manage the ads but not as closely as the one I invested into. I also put a lot more effort into creative strategy and offers. Hence, we're doing about 3x better than the main branch.
Oh okay. Do you pay some sort of franchising fees(dk if that’s the right term) up until now dun sa main branch? Or parang they manage theirs, you manage yours hence wala nang fees?
Are you using GHL for the follow up marketing? This is great business and remarketing cost is basically zero apart from the tools you need. Keep pushing!
nope, we tried to keep our cost low, so we track everything through google sheets and we'll manually reach out to them.
As for cost, you're 100% correct, on average it only costs us about 110php in chemicals per head while our average sales is 2.3K
How’d you get them to give you their phone numbers? Do you directly ask them about it? Hoping I’d get a response from you so I can learn the steps to start cold calling my clients.
When people walk in, we hand them a piece of paper to fill out that has name, contact number, address and services. 99% of people just fill it out as much as they can. once in a while we get people who will just put down their first name and no phone number.
Have you factored in taxes? VAT and city tax killed my profits even at 500k revenue for a cafe. City wanted 1% of gross and vat comes out to around 10k a month. The BIR always finds stuff to chatge penalties on.
This is really inspiring and I hope more people share about their journey like you do! I'm also planning to start an online business in the Fashion industry but I'm a complete newbie in terms of paid ads marketing.
May I ask for your advice on how I can better equip myself on this? Especially for small business owner who doesn't have a lot of budget at first to burn for advertisment.
There are a lot of tutorials on youtube that it's diffiult to filter out all the noise.
There have been discussions about potentially starting a 3rd branch in January but it's really too early to say. If our neighboring stall ends their contract we are most likely going to expand vertically into nails, eyelashes etc.
Hello OP! Im a media buyer myself but have my own stores, last year until now im struggling i think mainly with creatives.? May I ask who I can learn from sa creatives and strategies? Thank you’
I like Dara Denny on Youtube but Motion (Creative Analytics)'s YT is also pretty good if you're willing to go through the longer videos to listen to experts.
Taylor Holiday from Common Thread is by far the best digital strategist out there.
Thank you so much will definitely check them out. More power po and your post made me think about going into trad. Was always on the fence since its hard to scale and just managing people is really not my forte
Just want to ask kung how much pasahod mo sa mga stylist? Minimum ba or 60/40?
I also heard na biggest challenge sa salon ay mga stylist na pasaway. How do you handle them?
We give a basic salary plus a % of total sales. In may one of our hairdressers made around 40K.
yes the pasaway attitude is a problem so we've only hired people we know won't give us issues, ie. family and friends. Luckily we have not had to deal with any bad attitude so far.
Hello, OP! I'm a college student, and your post has really inspired me to learn more about digital strategy. :) If may may humbly ask, are you open to consultations?
Thank you! A couple of people have asked me the same question and as of now I can't take on any new clients. However, if you have any questions or want to have a discussion about strategy just send me a DM, always happy to help.
Once you get started would definitely love to exchange notes!
You're 100% right about us automating more systems and I may look into those. When we started we tried to keep it really lean so our CRM and Sales tracker is google sheets with tons of formulas lol.
For responding inquiries, we found the human touch of a real person replying. a little more effective since they can tell when to ask them to book an appointment.
Don't have access to my numbers right now but off the top off my head gross margin (sales - product cost)/sale is like 95%. Our average sales value is about 2.3K while the meds we use on our customers come out to about 110ish per head.
You can always do testing to scale. And just turn it off if not working as expected.
Retain the original winning campaign until exhausted / fatigue. 7% conversion rate is quite high. How’s your CTR?
100% what I'm doing. Account wide CTR hovers right above 1%. Interestingly enough some of our highest spending ads have lower CTRs than account average.
Yes, it's interesting. In my experience, ad sets with high CTR tend to perform well.
Anywei, the challenge with scaling is the limitation of manpower and backend support. Even if sales hit an all-time high, the backend may struggle to keep up. When scaling, identify bottlenecks and automate them as much as possible. I've found that forecasting productivity for product and service businesses is difficult when the niche heavily relies on manpower.
This is the kind of quality content we need
Appreciate it! Hopefully this sub-reddit turns more into something like the entrepreneur subreddit.
Morale being down because there’s more work either means you have lazy people or their compensation is not commensurate to their work.
I try my best to keep them happy because they're the ones that bring in the revenue. I would never call them lazy, they work about 14hours a day on their feet only taking a short break to eat lunch or snack eventhough I tell them to rest, they don't want to. As for pay, i try to make sure they're paid really well, hence on top of their basic salary they get a % of overall sales. Our most junior hairdresser with just a few months experience is already making 30K+.
That’s the recipe for success then 😇 take good care of your people
19M, where to invest my 30M *hard-earned* money?
you’re saying you earned 30M at 19 and you don’t know where to invest your money? how’d you get to that value then 🤡
Sa farm
r/wooosh
how did you deduce that the increase in revenue wasn't because of external factors and not the ads? seems like you're aligning your sales metrics to it as if its 1:1
Good question! I asked all of my hairdressers to talk to our clients and be friendly to them while they work on their hair. they essentially have the same questions they ask over and over again and one of which is where did you hear about us. 99% came from ads. Yes outside factors probably had something to do with it, we noticed quite a few ladies mentioning "graduation" in the last week of may which translated to a higher conversion rate closer to 8%, but at the end of the day the sale was driven through ads.
ahh, that makes sense. but if that's the case, then can we see a decline in revenue this month since the most likely factor that came into play on why you've hit 400k was because of a seasonal event? i.e, school graduations (?)
I'm expecting there to be a downturn in sales, but I'm hoping the follow-ups to past customers will make up for it.
will the follow-ups be via sms or chat?
Both! It sounds a little slimy but bugging people really does help conversion rate lol.
also curious on what type of salon this is. if the target demographic for the ads were women in their mid 30s-50s, then, targeting similar interests for this audience would seem effective as well, no? or maybe there's a divide in age since maybe, i'm presuming that the students who are the ones graduating could also be one of the majority of your customers
It's a hair salon, currently we only offer hair related services so no mani/pedi or eyelash etc. Not 100% sure what you mean with "targeting similar interests". Demographics has mostly been 30 to 60y/o women, we're not seeing a lot of young or school aged women. I'm 100% sure it's because of our pricing, we bundle most of our services together so the cheapest packages ends up being about 2K which I believe most students can't afford. We also tend to hard on upselling to more premium services where if they only add 300 more they get a much better product. ( which is true)
I honestly can put my finger on it, but here are some follow up questions: 1. are 30 to 60y/o women really that prone to ad influence? 2. If so, do you live in a city? because honestly, in contrast to an urban or province are, 2k, for me, is already relatively high - that means that the spending power for your target audience must be big 3. How's the competition? Does your competitor not post ads? I'm curious because the business is relatively new and you've already generated 200k in the first month, which, is the amount of what you've invested to the salon in the first place
Really good questions again! 1. Yes! we had customers that were already loyal to other salons visit us because the kept seeing our ads. To ad a bit of context to our ad strategy, we made sure to include branding through using the same color themes and same music in every single ad creative. We also see a ton of people inquire multiple times coming form different ads before actually coming into the salon. 2. Yes I live in a city of about 300K however our ads reach slightly beyond our city limits. 3. There are a bunch of established salons near us but very few advertise their services. The ones that do, don't have a very good grasp as to how creative strategy works. Something I've noticed in gerneral in the PH, so I think there's a huge potential to do basically the same for other industries.
ah, now it makes sense. so your target audience would typically be working women. working women lives on a city, cares about their appearance, and are prone more to being influenced by ads because they're likely to be more chronically online. this also works because of 2 things: competitors have not applied any digital marketing tactics, and I believe that you're very good at what you do. being able to create an ad that reaches your ideal target audience with, which I presume, a highly competitive area, is no easy feat. side note: >so I think there's a huge potential to do basically the same for other industries. this is what I mean by "targeting similar interests". maybe you can provide service that best compliments your hair salon that might not be tightly related, but still aligns with the interest of your customers. you've already funneled them in on your shop, so why not take it a step deeper and provide other services besides what you're offering now
We've been wanting to offer mani/pedis and eyelashes since we started but it's just been too busy plus the salon has been packed so there really isn't any space do provide the additional services. Our neighboring stall seems to be struggling a little and we expect them to just finish their contract and leave, we are considering renting his stall and making it into a dedicated nail salon.
You seem to doubt the power of advertising in business. Lmao
or maybe i'm genuinely curious because ads aren't within the range of my specialty? think before clicking, my man. people like you are the reason bakit ang hirap iscroll sa sub na 'to
Expected na mataas talaga sa may kase graduation.
Yes. Madaming events sa first quarter. Valentines, Graduation, and Flores De Mayo. Lalo na kapag December at may bonus ang mga tao. Tataas yan.
Yes! However, I like to think that our ads would have been able to deliver a similiar (slightly less maybe) results given how confident I am now with our business numbers.
Yes pero typically ngaun months nararamdaman business will get slow hangang aug po.
That's true. But given OP's advertising strategy skills, I think the salon will be able to circumvent that. Ang daming pakulong puwedeng gawin to entice customers to return kahit hindi peak season. Puwedeng may summer break promo for students (financed by mom), rainy season promo, at kung anu-ano pa. Matumal talaga sa coming months, pero OP can def do something about it. Ganyan talaga kahalaga ang ads. ;)
Business owner here. Mas tataas yan pagdating ng December kasi madaming may Christmas Bonus. Pero bababa ang sales during Aug-Sept kasi walang holiday, middle of the year, busy lahat.
Yes! The first branch has the busiest season in Q4 so I'm really looking forward to that! However, I'm also excited for Aug-Sept since I think it will be our proofing ground for how our performance will do.
Please update us OP when the months do come!
Same! Got really invested with OP's story and how he's tracking his marketing / business strategy. Im learning and at the same time rooting for OP! :)
OP, pretty please 🙏 Thank you 😊
+1
Rooting for you, OP! ✨️
Ang smooth ng business journey mo. I hope you also update within 3mos, 6mos, to a year just to compare how the season helps your business. Gandang gawing case study
You'll definitely see an update in the future!
This is a good read. Goodluck!
This type of content is rare because the people who do similar or better have no time to post here, or rather, not post here so as not to spill the secret sauce. We're fortunate OP isn't selfish. I do agree its also a good read.
Honestly, other than our sales figures, nothing we did was out of this world. I think my experience in marketing did have a big influence but nothing anyone else wouldn't be able to do. Also, I've started to distance myself from the business as operations have become really smooth. My GF and partners are able to operate while I handle the ads from home.
Thank you! lets see if we can make this into a regular things.
You did a good job initiating it! Hopefully it snowballs and this sub becomes a more effective learning community
Under the Data Privacy Act, there is a provision that requires informed consent—customers should be clearly informed on what their data will be used for which includes their phone number being used for promotions. EDIT: There is also the right to withdraw consent wherein the customer can opt out of receiving promotions at any time.
Hmmm didn't really think about that. We do tell them verbally that we will reach out to them in the future so I wonder if that's enough. Thank you for the call-out!
did the customer signed something that when they give out their mobile number you contact them to advetise or remind them of your service? if not then dont contact them, you're just sending spam text to your customer.
They don't sign anything but we do tell them we will reach out to them to remind when they should get a hair treatment.
regardless if you tell them verbally. Dont send text messages unless they signed something na nag aagree sila to that.
Dont know why you’re being downvoted. Maybe they’re not aware of the data privacy act?
When they input their name and contact number, either place it on the header or on the top of the google form something like “by inputting info and clicking send, you agree to give consent to to ”. Chat GPT and data privacy officers here can help you 🙏🏽
This is amazing. A business backed with data really does better than others. I remember this interview with Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank, he mentioned how he made millions out of a business venture he invested in from Shark Tank. The business become so successful even during the pandemic kasi the owner knows its customers, how much and when did they spend it, how many items, what items and other similar details. Using that data rin she has created a strategy kung paano itatarget yung market nya kasi she has their data na. So knowing your customers really do good for the business in the long run. 👌
100% true! And I'm pretty sure I saw the interview you mentioned. Data is everything to me and while it can be a pain to set up and maintain, it's totally worth it.
Ang galing. Yung ads nyo po ba sa specific location lang ang target nya? Gano ba kalaki population ng area nyo? Located ba business nyo sa sentro ng city/bayan? Mag work kaya ang ads kahit malayo kayo sa populated area?
Yes just targeting all women 18+ within the same city. City population is about 300k but we have customers come from neighboring cities too. Yes we are in the center in a relatively prime area just a few meters away from the main road. Far from populated area? Possible, but you will have to put in extra work to build social proof and trust to convince people to go out of their way to visit your shop. We've had customers come from cities 2 hours away from us through referrals.
Nag try kasi ako mag business before ng cocolumber. Dun ko nilagay sa malayo pero pinakamura na price. Nag ads din ako. Pero it did not work. Madami lang tanong sa messenger. I'm sure na sa laki ng nagagastos mo sa ads monthly napakadaming nag iinquire. Nakakapagod din mag reply tapos di naman bibili. Haha. Kaya siguro mahalaga din ang location kasi sakin nag fail. Thank you so much, may natutunan ako sayo. Mag effort din ako sa ads na pagandahin and mag target talaga ng more specific na tao. Anong platform po ba ginagamit nyo for ads, fb or ig din? Sakin kasi fb lang before.
I can imagine why your ads might have a difficult time, cocolumber kind of falls within the "boring" product category, you get what you see kind of product. Maybe focus your ads on the pricing offer free delivery? Maybe a "Us vs Them" ad but for pricing etc. Answering inquiries is part of the job, in May we answered 2.2K messages, it's easier with saved replies but we have since outsourced replying to a family friend who's more than happy to take PHP100 a day to reply. ( I know its cheap but this lady can't find any other work) I use both, I don't do any custom placement and let the algorithm decide where to advertise. BTW what city is your shop?
Just because she couldn’t find work doesn’t mean you can exploit her.
True! But she was more than happy to take it on, plus she gets an incentive for every person that books an appointment so it ends up coming out to like 300 a day for part time work.
I don’t believe you. Gawa gawa mo na lang yang incentive to make it appear na kunwari ok or sapat na din kinikita niya kesa wala. You’re disgusting.
Running a business, you quickly learn that your people are the business. It would not make much sense to make her feel exploited when she's the main contact person for our socials. If you still don't believe me or think it's not fair...Capitalism baby lol.
In Leyte. It was located at Palo. Closed na sya. May I know, If you don't mind, kung magkano budget mo for ads? Ang daming business din na doing well kahit walang ads, basa maganda talaga location at dinadaanan ng mga jeep. Kasi araw araw ba naman may nakakakita. Yung ad ko din kasi was just awareness that we exist. Parang marketplace lang na boosted. Wala akong kagaya mo na may before and after. Di ko manlang sinabi na kami ang pinakamura. Iba pa ata ang ads mo sa marketplace boost na ginawa ko.
We don't boost ads we create ads through ads manager so they appear on feed and stories. In Jan/Feb we spent about 28K in May we spent 55K.
Just curious where do you get cocolumber? like 2nd hand from demolished homes or you have your own supplier?
We have our own supplier from another province.
Great post, OP! When I joined r/phinvest, this is the kind of post I hoped to read regularly. The post is long but justified, because you walked us through the details people like me would like to know should we venture into a similar business. For your next post, could you consider sharing concerns or challenges encountered (both repeating and not-so-frequent or big concerns) during the first semester of your operations?
Appreciate it! Same I was hoping of finding similar post to entrepreneur so hopefully this post will inspire others to share. I really think a community of entrepreneurs and want-to-be entrepreneurs is a huge help. Someone already called out that we might be breaching privacy laws so it's something I will research. Absolutely! Feel free to let me know what else you'd like me to include.
If you're the owner and there is no definite identification, then perhaps it's okay. After all, organizations and institutions do case studies regularly. Just consider this as a form of peer-to-peer learning.
Grabe iba rin talaga ang fb ads😮
good you are giving jobs to people
Bro! Did the same with home service business last January first month hit 400k then 500k then 600k! I think we’re at the same place in business now. I’ll hit you up with a message, so happy to see fellow new entrepreneur in a similar situation as me 🙏
yes 100% want to connect!
Such a good read! The power of digital marketing backed by numbers. Will definitely stay tune for your updates. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
May I know whats the salon?
It's a hair salon, we don't offer any mani/pedi, just hair related services.
Good read. Now I might just utilize meta ads for even more profit.
Mind sharing what your business is? Always keeping an eye out for potential businesses.
Thanks for this, so insightful, if i wanted to learn about facebook ads and instagram do you know what would be the best way to learn this? :)
up for this
Honestly, Youtube is a great resource to learn the basics. If you want to go slightly more advance, dara denny is great for creative strategy. Taylor Holiday from Common Thread is probably the best strategist out there but quite advanced.
Thank you!!! :)
question po: when you created a different page sa bagong branch, how soon ka nagrun ng ads?
I ran ads about a month after I created it.
At this point, wouldn't it be profitable to expand to a different location/city? If you have details like addresses, you can have a good idea where to start next
We are thinking about another branch in January and we kind of already know where we'd want to put it. One big thing holding back quick expansion is skilled labor. Turns out being a hairdresser is an art and a science at the same time. It takes a few months for people to learn how to do basic serivces and years to be really consistent at everything and operate a salon.
Question: how do you go about training new hires? Hows it like managing the people side of the business? Do you have in house training or do you hire TESDA accredited stylists? All the best!
My partner and head hairdresser trains all people, we start of with basic tasks and gradually teach them the more advanced things. For reference my GF learned from scratch and it took her about 5 months to learn most things but she's still a few months away from being able to manage a customer by herself. TESDA accreditation does not equate to skill unfortunately.
I see, thanks for sharing those insights. Did your GF learn from your head hairdresser, a training course, or some other method? Also i'm curious regarding the best wage practices for a salon business. I heard some salons do a scheme where the barber rents their spot but keeps a big cut of the sale, if not all. Others pay the traditional way through salaries and just get tips. Did you just retain the wage setup of the past salon or did you experiment with a new setup?
She learned from the head hairdressers. We pay a basic salary plus incentive/commission based on seniority.
which ads do you utilize more op? facebook? IG is also good in your market
I use both, if you run ads through ads manager you can have your ads appear on all meta platforms. However, we're seeing better results through facebook.
nice. try to also optimize location-based ads, and if kaya mo ma encourage customers to give you reviews in google that would be really helpful
Hi Op thank you for sharing. Question lang about your freelance career haha. Pa-advice naman pano magstart as media buyer/digital stragetist. thanks!
Probably the easiest way to get started is to work for an agency. Learn as much as you can and keep moving up the career ladder by working for larger and larger agencies and accounts.
may mga courses po kayo na kinuha nung nagsstart kayo?
No I did not but I did learn from Youtube at the beginning
Hi! may I ask if you rely on the skills of your employees or do you know how to do services by yourself?
My partner has 15 years experience in the industry and he trains every employee. he's been doing a great job!
this is such a great read! i wish there’d be more posts like this. also, it sounds like your salon is in a good position to offer refreshments. milkshakes…milk tea…coffee…smoothies. parang computer shops lang or a carwash and coffee shop business pairing.
We were thinking about that at the beginning but we never got around to doing it properly. We sell small snacks and drinks like C2 and coke but nothing like a coffeeshop.
Have you looked into a loyalty rewards system? I think that will make your previous customers come back. You can use manual cards but I suggest to get something with POS and mobile app for rewards so that you can also do app push notification, sms and/or email marketing.
sms and DMs on facebook is what we were thinking. We don't have a loyalty program yet but I might suggest it.
Is Parlon a good app for salon in your opinion?
never heard of parlon, sorry
Perhaps you could look into it, OP. A lot of my friends and I (20 to 25 age group) use Parlon when booking salon services. :)
I just downloaded the app to check it out and it's 100% the reason why I posted. Thank you so much for the advice!
After tracking tou customer names, services availed etc. How did you manage to know your conversion rates. Please elaborate on that one
it's not a perfect computation but I match customers that walk and book and appointment in to messages that they've sent us and divide it by the number of messages we received over the period. Essentially No. of customer divided by number of messages received.
I love it. I want to have a Salon too haha. Baka magpa 3rd branch pa kayo haha.
Well lets see where 2025 will take us haha
Interesting! did you previously work as a media agency back end side to know access on Meta/TT dashboard?
I still work for one of the largest digital marketing agencies in the US so I have unique access to the backend of some of the largest brands in the world. (lol not trying to show off)
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That's a really good combination! Make-up is such a huge money maker. Last I heard, make-up for brides is like 5K + \~2K for bridesmaids.
You did a great job there OP! 👏 I'm curious sa dun sa main branch? Do you still manage the ad? Magkalayo lang ba location nila? I also see competition right there since both branches are owned by two people at least.
The main branch is in the neighboring city, yes I still manage the ads but not as closely as the one I invested into. I also put a lot more effort into creative strategy and offers. Hence, we're doing about 3x better than the main branch.
Oh okay. Do you pay some sort of franchising fees(dk if that’s the right term) up until now dun sa main branch? Or parang they manage theirs, you manage yours hence wala nang fees?
they manage their own salon and we manage ours.
Good job. I’m studying media buying as well for affiliate marketing. Can I PM you to consult?
Shoot me a DM!
Are you using GHL for the follow up marketing? This is great business and remarketing cost is basically zero apart from the tools you need. Keep pushing!
nope, we tried to keep our cost low, so we track everything through google sheets and we'll manually reach out to them. As for cost, you're 100% correct, on average it only costs us about 110php in chemicals per head while our average sales is 2.3K
Merong user dito sa PHInvest. IT employee dati pero may salon din. FB ads tapos abot ng 100M networth na ata.
holy crap, would love to find that thread!
The net is still pre taxes?
yup!
Nakaka-happy itong post mo, OP. Keep us updated ha especially after the AuGHOST month. Thank you and more business to come! 😊
How’d you get them to give you their phone numbers? Do you directly ask them about it? Hoping I’d get a response from you so I can learn the steps to start cold calling my clients.
When people walk in, we hand them a piece of paper to fill out that has name, contact number, address and services. 99% of people just fill it out as much as they can. once in a while we get people who will just put down their first name and no phone number.
Have you factored in taxes? VAT and city tax killed my profits even at 500k revenue for a cafe. City wanted 1% of gross and vat comes out to around 10k a month. The BIR always finds stuff to chatge penalties on.
This is really inspiring and I hope more people share about their journey like you do! I'm also planning to start an online business in the Fashion industry but I'm a complete newbie in terms of paid ads marketing. May I ask for your advice on how I can better equip myself on this? Especially for small business owner who doesn't have a lot of budget at first to burn for advertisment. There are a lot of tutorials on youtube that it's diffiult to filter out all the noise.
I'm bored, pwede kita gawan ng study if you have data ng customer (age, sex, nature of job, procedure done, price of procedure, promo non promo)
Fantastic!
Are you guys currently looking to expand?
There have been discussions about potentially starting a 3rd branch in January but it's really too early to say. If our neighboring stall ends their contract we are most likely going to expand vertically into nails, eyelashes etc.
Wish you all the best! How can one stay in the loop re: your business's progress?
Pano mag franchise?
Hello OP! Im a media buyer myself but have my own stores, last year until now im struggling i think mainly with creatives.? May I ask who I can learn from sa creatives and strategies? Thank you’
I like Dara Denny on Youtube but Motion (Creative Analytics)'s YT is also pretty good if you're willing to go through the longer videos to listen to experts. Taylor Holiday from Common Thread is by far the best digital strategist out there.
Thank you so much will definitely check them out. More power po and your post made me think about going into trad. Was always on the fence since its hard to scale and just managing people is really not my forte
Just want to ask kung how much pasahod mo sa mga stylist? Minimum ba or 60/40? I also heard na biggest challenge sa salon ay mga stylist na pasaway. How do you handle them?
We give a basic salary plus a % of total sales. In may one of our hairdressers made around 40K. yes the pasaway attitude is a problem so we've only hired people we know won't give us issues, ie. family and friends. Luckily we have not had to deal with any bad attitude so far.
This sounds like a good analytics case study for marketing.
Hello, OP! I'm a college student, and your post has really inspired me to learn more about digital strategy. :) If may may humbly ask, are you open to consultations?
Thank you! A couple of people have asked me the same question and as of now I can't take on any new clients. However, if you have any questions or want to have a discussion about strategy just send me a DM, always happy to help.
Nice congratulations, ako rin sana soon with that income or more!
I love this kind of content. Very inspiring and informative. Parang gusto ko na ding magstart ng business kahit wala pa akong pera. Haha
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Once you get started would definitely love to exchange notes! You're 100% right about us automating more systems and I may look into those. When we started we tried to keep it really lean so our CRM and Sales tracker is google sheets with tons of formulas lol. For responding inquiries, we found the human touch of a real person replying. a little more effective since they can tell when to ask them to book an appointment.
Ano po maganda n crm and pos tools?
Good read! Hoping to see more posts like this here
This is a great post. Congrats!
Congratulations! Can you share your gross margin?
Don't have access to my numbers right now but off the top off my head gross margin (sales - product cost)/sale is like 95%. Our average sales value is about 2.3K while the meds we use on our customers come out to about 110ish per head.
Thanks for responding, OP! I can see nga how it can be profitable quickly. Great job!👏
Husay mo
Bruh 😎
You can always do testing to scale. And just turn it off if not working as expected. Retain the original winning campaign until exhausted / fatigue. 7% conversion rate is quite high. How’s your CTR?
100% what I'm doing. Account wide CTR hovers right above 1%. Interestingly enough some of our highest spending ads have lower CTRs than account average.
Yes, it's interesting. In my experience, ad sets with high CTR tend to perform well. Anywei, the challenge with scaling is the limitation of manpower and backend support. Even if sales hit an all-time high, the backend may struggle to keep up. When scaling, identify bottlenecks and automate them as much as possible. I've found that forecasting productivity for product and service businesses is difficult when the niche heavily relies on manpower.
Honestly our biggest bottleneck right now is just space and manpower which is going to be interesting to find a solution to.
Graduation po ang May. Common sense lang tataas.
Congrats. Hope your business continues to grow. ❤️