Ep 57 - The Path to Successful Client Communication

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0:00:38.3 S1: Antedotum products are multi-functional and multi-correctional made for all skin types and sensitive skin. Use them alone or combine them into your routine. 

 

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0:01:45.8 Speaker 2: You are listening to ASCP Esty Talk, where we share insider tips, industry resources, and education for estheticians at every stage of the journey. Let's talk 'cause ASCP knows, it's all about you. 

 

0:02:01.1 Maggie Staszcuk: Hello everyone, and welcome to ASCP Esty Talk. I'm your host today, Maggie Staszcuk. I have been a licensed esthetician since 2006, and I'm the Advanced Modality Specialist here at Associated Skin Care Professionals. Where no topic is off-limits. We share all kinds of great information on this podcast from ingredients and the science of the skin to business and beauty diversity. We hope you come away having learned more about your career, the industry, and maybe even life in general. Today we are joined by Tazeem Jamal. With an illustrious career spanning more than three decades, Tazeem Jamal is a highly respected spa industry coach, and an award-winning master esthetician. Tazeem is the creator of the Purple Carpet Experience, the unique framework she uses to help estheticians build their businesses with solid, proven business and marketing strategies. 

 

0:02:51.7 MS: In addition to being an Amazon bestselling co-author, Tazeem has been featured on national TV and radio, and has worked as an ambassador with TEDx. She is an international speaker and a featured educator at Face & Body Conferences. Most recently, Tazeem was invited to be a coveted ASCP Influencer. She also won the Lipgloss and Aftershave award for Best Business Education 2020 for her efforts in supporting and inspiring estheticians through the early days of the shutdown. In the spirit of being in service to the spa industry, Tazeem runs a free Facebook group where she offers weekly biz tips and periodically offers free group coaching sessions. Please welcome Tazeem Jamal to the podcast. Hello Tazeem. 

 

0:03:36.1 Tazeem Jamal: Hello, hello. So nice to be here again. Thank you, thank you, Maggie. 

 

0:03:38.8 MS: Yes. Always happy to have you on the show. 

 

0:03:42.3 TJ: That's awesome. 

 

0:03:43.5 MS: We have you on the show today to discuss with us proper communication with our clients, and that, of course, extends beyond the treatment room and includes social media and email marketing, which we're gonna get to later, but I'd like to dive in on the importance of communicating with our clients. What are ways you suggest beauty professionals communicate with their clients?  

 

0:04:04.1 TJ: Well, I think this last year has really shown us that it is absolutely critical for us to stay in touch with our clients and not from a perspective of selling or promoting our services, but truly to show our compassion as humans to make sure that our clients are doing okay. 

 

0:04:22.0 TJ: When clients come to see us, often, even prior to this craziness that we're living right now, clients were stressed. They're tired, they're exhausted, they're living busy lives, so when they carve out time to come and see us, it is really their time. And so when we can reach out to our clients, whether it's via text, which personally, I think is one of my favorites and I know that everybody in different parts of the world operates differently, and different age groups of clients will operate differently as well, but, you know, different types of communications, I think the one that will always hit home the closest and probably the fastest is definitely texting. So if you have even a core group of clients that you really feel deeply connected to, or that have been long time clients, reaching out to them, even once a month, just to say, "I hope you're doing well. I hope things are okay in your life and you're staying healthy," I think that's a really, really critical piece to do. 

 

0:05:18.6 TJ: Other things that are really great from a, like truly great from a business perspective, that I think is really important is, of course, our social media. Social media is free, it's getting harder and harder, you do have to pay to play a little bit, but I'm a big advocate. As a business coach, I love to teach my clients strategies that are free to use to optimize their business pages. So optimizing your Facebook business page, using your social media pages to really continue to share your expertise and your content consistently, not just when you've got something to sell, is really important because that creates what I call the KLT factor, which is your know, like, and trust factor. 

 

0:06:01.6 TJ: When somebody is new to you, they're getting to know you, so what are you showcasing on your Facebook pages or your Instagram pages that people can really get to know you? Are they building that trust factor with you? And are they going to like you from what you share? So I really believe that sharing consistently on social media, and yes, PS, that means almost every day, if you can help it. 

 

0:06:23.5 TJ: And I know some aestheticians get really overwhelmed by that, but really it doesn't have to be. There's so many ways, and I'll talk a little bit more about that towards the end, but there's so many ways that you can make that easier for yourself. 

 

0:06:35.1 MS: I was gonna say, oftentimes, I think in aesthetic schools, when students are first learning, they're often taught that you are the professional, you have to maintain that professionalism, you're not friends with your clients and... Can you speak to that a little bit? Do you agree with that? Or... Because to your point you're saying, reach out to your clients, how are they doing just in life in general? Are they surviving this pandemic lockdown, for instance, which kind of goes past that line of you're the professional. 

 

0:07:06.8 TJ: And I think it's a certain individual, but I do think that because we have the privilege, as I say, we have the privilege to really touch clients. We have the privilege to have this belly to belly relationship with the people, that I think it's okay. If you don't know a client very well and you're brand new to the business, then maybe reaching out via text to everybody all the time might be too much. But if you haven't seen a client in a few months and you've been shut down, you haven't seen them because they've been for whatever reason haven't come back, reaching out with a quick text, I don't think is a bad thing. 

 

0:07:40.1 MS: For any student who's listening in or a new aesthetician who's listening in, as you said, we're coming from a place of humanity, we're all people, not seeing our clients just as dollar signs, and that will help you to build your business and grow your client base. 

 

0:07:55.8 TJ: And I was... I had a quote that I used to share with my staff, "Clients have a choice, we always need to be the better choice." And what makes us not better choice, a lot of times it's the relationship, it's the experience that clients have. And that's where my purple carpet philosophy comes in. It's how we create that client experience. People are always so worried about like, "Oh my God, if I raise my prices, people are gonna leave me." If you raise your price $50, possibly. But if you raise your price $5 to $10. I mean, honestly, I believe people will... They're not looking at the price person from us, they're thinking, "What value do I get? How do I feel when I leave the spa? And how much does this person care like?" Do you follow up with your clients after their treatment? All of those pieces add to the purple carpet experience and allows the client to feel so cared for. You might have 50 clients, but in that moment, they feel like they're the only client that you have. 

 

0:09:01.1 MS: Hey guys, stop. Let's take a quick break. 

 

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0:09:47.6 MS: Let's get back to the conversation. You were talking a little bit earlier about social media. So let's go back to that for a second. How can a esthetician use social media and all the platforms available to them to continue to establish that relationship, maintain a connection and communicate with their clients?  

 

0:10:08.8 TJ: If you've been in business for any length of time, I'd like to think that you would have some type of testimonials. Testimonials are huge. I know in the US, Yelp and Google reviews are really, really big, bigger than the Yahoo. Yelp isn't so big here, but you have Google reviews, you have Yelp reviews. I'm big fan of inviting my clients to go to my Facebook page and write a review. If somebody sent you a text message, this is why following up with the client after their appointment is so important, when a client sends you a message back and you ask the question, "How was your facial? How did your skin feel today Mrs Jones? Promises Jones  ____ done. But when the client says, "Oh my God, my skin feels amazing." Screenshot that, get rid of their name, or type it out again and create a beautiful piece that you can put a really nice box that's branded with your colors and your imagery and your style, and put that into like a post and create a post and say, "It's been a really long time I haven't seen my clients, but I'm so grateful for clients like this that have sent me amazing messages." Why? Because that continues to show social proof. It's one thing for us to say, "Oh my god, how great we are." But a whole other story and a whole other psychological impact when a client reads a testimonial from a client that they don't know. 

 

0:11:33.8 MS: How do you feel about sending out emails to your client base or even just newsletters? You talked about a little text message, checking in, does email fall into that category as well?  

 

0:11:46.0 TJ: Oh my goodness, yes, yes, yes. I love email marketing. And as a business coach, I think that people don't realize and this is something I'm working on right now, which I'll share at the end of our podcast. But I did like an email challenge for us aestheticians back in February this year, and it was mind-boggling, so many aestheticians were like, "I had no idea." No idea on how to do these things. I had no idea this was what was really important in creating an email. And I think people said to me, "Oh, you know what? Clients won't open my emails. They're overwhelmed." And I'll say to you, yes, people might be overwhelmed, but the statistics that show about email marketing are phenomenal. So I'll say to you, Maggie, if I was to say to you, "Give me $1 and I'll give you $38 back." Would you be willing to do that?  

 

0:12:37.5 MS: Absolutely, yeah. 

 

0:12:39.0 S1: Well, that's basically when you work on email marketing properly, that is the power that it has to create for your business. And I'm gonna give you two really important reasons why email marketing is so important. Social media is amazing, I love it, I teach it, I support it. I'm an advocate of it. All of them, whichever one you're on. They're all free, which is fantastic. You can have a business account, a business page on all of the platforms for free and not pay a penny. However, what happens if all of a sudden tomorrow, your entire social media platforms go down? How do you stay in touch with your clients? So I'm a big believer is... Even if you don't have an email list right now as you're listening to this podcast, don't worry about what's done. Start today and build your email list. If you're not ready to send emails, that's okay too. Build your email list. Every opportunity you get, build your email list. And there's even a way... This is what I teach in one of my master classes. There's even a way for you to collect email addresses from your Facebook page. 

 

0:13:53.9 MS: So when we're talking about social media and educating our clients, are you proposing taking that same kind of content and putting it into email communications for our clients, or would it be different information depending on the channel?  

 

0:14:09.6 TJ: I think that on social media you need to keep things concise. I don't think people are reading a thousand words like a blog, unless you direct them to a blog from your social media site, that's okay to do. But I find there's too many distractions. So that's the other thing with email marketing. The difference between the two platforms is social media is too many distractions. There's other things going on, there's other notifications going on. They might be on your page and all of a sudden they get a notification, boom, you've lost them. But the other piece is that their algorithms often, because aestheticians are not setting up even their social media page as properly, their algorithms are very, very low, which means 90% of your audience is not seeing your posts on social media. 

 

0:15:01.3 TJ: When somebody's email comes into their inbox, whether they choose to delete it, whether they choose to not open it for three days or even come back to it a week later, the fact is, you have their captive attention. And when they open it, they might skim it, they may get excited, and honestly, the other thing is, on social media, you cannot track how long somebody stays on your post, who stays on your post. In email marketing, I can tell you exactly who opened my email, how many times they opened and closed it, and what links they clicked, which you can't do on social media. So those are more reasons to collect email addresses and begin your email journey with your clients. 

 

0:15:51.8 MS: So I think you may have mentioned this a little bit, but if someone has not started their email list or email marketing list, is it too late for them or how do they begin?  

 

0:16:01.0 TJ: Absolutely not too late at all. I would say, don't get overwhelmed. There's a lot of components and a lot of moving parts. But what I would do is literally create a sign-up sheet when clients arrive to the spa as they're filling in their health form about all of the things that they need to mention. You could put in there, "We are super excited. We've just started an email as we'd love to add you". And some people are like, "Oh my God, my clients are like they're not gonna wanna be on it." Then that's a choice. But if you don't ever ask a client, they'll never gonna say yes, and sometimes I'll say to clients, "You know, just to let you know, we often will do an email exclusive for people that are on our list. We would hate for you to miss out." 

 

0:16:49.5 TJ: It's all about the way you're saying it. [laughter] I'm like, "I don't wanna miss out. Of course I don't wanna miss out. God, no." I mean, you could even go to a spa and I'm not a big... I hate discounting. I was on Clubhouse yesterday for two and a half hours talking about not discounting your services. But I will say that there is always a way that you can entice a client. So could you say to them, "When you sign up, what we do is we will extend a $10 gift card to you, not a coupon." I hate for a coupon. [chuckle] "We will extend a $10 gift card for you to put towards a service that you've never experienced before in our spa." Really, is a client gonna say no to that? If they do, oh well, that's okay. [laughter] That's okay. 

 

0:17:34.1 MS: Yeah, and then you're hooking them on something else too that they haven't experience before and get them coming in for additional services and products. 

 

0:17:43.2 TJ: And remember, in email marketing, people have always got the option to unsubscribe if they don't like your content or they don't wanna be or if it's too much. It's okay. But invite them to join, and don't forget, another thing I was just writing an article the other day, don't forget to remind people on your email marketing to click on the link to visit your social media pages. And when you write an email, share on your social media and say to your clients, "We're so excited. We just sent out our main newsletter. If you're not on our list and would like to get our exclusives, please link here to join our email list." So cross-pollinating is also really important, right?  

 

0:18:27.4 MS: As all such good, good information communicating for success. I think you touched on all the key points there, Tazeem, and it has been such a pleasure chatting with you today. Thank you for sharing your expertise. Tell us where we can find you. Tell us everything you're doing. 

 

0:18:43.5 TJ: Yeah, for sure. So I have an amazing free group called Spa Marketing Forum. So if you're listening to this podcast and you're not a member, I did invite you to join. I just request that you answer the questions so I can confirm that you are in our industry. The other way you can find me is, Tazeemjamal.com is my website. I have a Tazeem Jamal Retail Sales Catalyst is my business page on Facebook. On Instagram, I am Spa Biz Coach, B-I-Z. And if you're in Clubhouse, I'm Spa Biz Coach there as well. And I'm really excited, having taken the cue from doing my challenge a couple of months ago, I am actually in the process of actually creating an email marketing superstars course for spa professionals. So I'm really excited about that and that will be launching probably towards middle to the end of June. So it's coming up pretty fast and furious. I'm really excited about that. So if anybody is interested in finding out more about the course, I've also got a couple of different memberships that people can join if they're looking for content driven memberships like Done-for-You Content. I have the Spa Marketing LAB, which is LAB stands for Learning About Business. So I teach all kinds of business strategies to spa and beauty professionals, and then I've also got a small private coaching group that I also have as well. 

 

0:20:03.7 TJ: So lots of different ways that people can look for me and find me. And of course, every once in a while, I definitely do the free coaching sessions that I did last year through the pandemic year called Get Sparked. That was really, really fun to do and just a great way to be able to give back to people. And every single week inside the Spa Marketing Forum, I do a weekly live inside that group where I'm teaching and training on a topic that I've either heard people ask about or that I'm seeing that people really need support around. So really, really, really excited to be here. Thank you so much. This has been really a lot of fun. 

 

0:20:36.7 MS: Thank you, Tazeem. 

 

0:20:37.2 TJ: And I appreciate your time and excited to hear from all of the people that are privy to have the opportunity to listen to the podcast and can't wait to hear the release. 

 

0:20:49.6 MS: Thank you so much for joining us, Tazeem. Thank you for everyone listening in and we'll catch you all next time. 

 

0:20:55.8 TJ: Take care. 

 

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0:20:57.7 S1: Thanks for joining us today. If you like what you hear and you want more, subscribe. If you wanna belong to the only all-inclusive association for aestheticians that includes professional Liability insurance, education, industry insights, and an opportunity to spotlight your six skills, join at ascpskincare.com. Only $259 per year for all this goodness. ASCP knows it's all about you