Every small business needs new customers/clients to grow and expand, and make up for the loss of patrons due to moving, death, or competition. This article will help you! First we'll discuss some great ways of getting new paying clients in your door.

Then we'll discuss some amazing ways to get the best clients -- the ones that have less chances of complaining about every little thing and LOVE paying the right price for your services because YOU deserve it!

Excellent ways to get new clients

1) Ask your best current clients for referrals. This is the least costly way of getting new clients because your cost can be nearly free. As an incentive you could give your current client a discount for each paying referral and give the new client a discount for their first service. This is still 'free' to you because you're getting more clients!

2) Network with others. This is the 2nd least costly way to get new clients, and it's almost as good as word of mouth. Be sure that your first motivation is to genuinely help others. If your first motivation is money, it will come through in your communications and your networking efforts will be much less successful.

Places to network include anywhere that people meet where those people would also be good potential new clients. Make conversations about THEM - when the time is right, gently steer the conversation to skin problems - but, take the hint if it's not welcomed. When you make good connections, be sure to get phone numbers AND permission to call/text them. This is about QUALITY connections; it's not about quantity.

Also, some people may not respond to your outreach after the meeting. But, the better you get at making connections the more likely your new connections will respond.

3) Look at your website through a potential client's eyes. Is your website attractive? It doesn't need to be fancy, as long as it's attractive. Are who you are, what you do, and the benefits (not features) of using your service clearly laid out on the top of the home page - benefits in 3-5 bullet-points?

Is there an easy way to contact you 24/7 on your website?

Bonus idea - when the contact form or appointment slot gets filled out, have it send a text message to your phone that you got a new contact. Also, install a good anti-spam plugin on the website.

4) Partner with a complimentary business. Here's an idea - do you have a movie theater in town? Perhaps you can partner with them and give their movie-goers a discount with their ticket stub? If so you should be able to put up flyers in the movie theater! Can you think of other businesses you could similarly partner with?

5) Find and join local Facebook support groups. The purpose should be helping others with their skin issues - do not make this about you, at all. This is all about helping people and getting your name out as an authority in your community.

6) Give back to your community. Participate in Toys for Tots or another yearly (or more often) charity event - you'll get your name out in your community and become known for what you do. We had a used car dealer in our small town that became well-known as the Make-A-Wish guy because he always donated to (and asked for donations for) that foundation.

7) It takes time to substantially increase a business - months, not weeks or days. Establish a goal and work towards it every day. Can you get 10 new clients this month, and can 6 of them become regulars? If you can do that, in 12 months you could have 70+ regular clients you don't have now.

How to Get the BEST New Clients

Let's first talk about one thing not to do, mainly because it doesn't make sense that some goodwill could translate into something bad. But in this case, it might.

The person that you give that "special" discount to just because you really want them to use your service.... it's tempting! But these are usually also the same people that might abuse you emotionally as well as abuse your service. They will complain about everything. They will ask for more discounts and freebies.

This isn't the type of person you want as a regular. Our advice is - resist the urge to give a discount just to get that one person in the door. It's so weird, but the ones we're nice to and give a discount to, just to be nice, are the ones that cause the most problems.

Now let's discuss some ways that can get you the BEST new clients:

1) People that comfortably have enough money to use your services are generally speaking also the ones that will be happiest with your services. People that really can't afford your services many times will be the ones that are more nit-picky and more discount and refund-happy. Those are the people you don't want to advertise to, if you can avoid it.

When you are networking as suggested above, try to stick with networking where people can afford your services. Those are the best places to be.

2) The best clients are the ones that appreciate you as much as you appreciate them, right? So - when you gauge that someone really loves your service, AND you really enjoyed taking care of them, tell them how appreciative you are.

Tell them you 'really' don't say that to everyone, and you truly enjoy having them as a client. If you feel it's appropriate, give them a bottle of your favorite retail product, on the house, just because.

3) It takes one to know one - those favorite clients you have - they probably have friends that are just like them. Definitely ask them to refer you to their favorite local person - explain you have a few openings in your schedule (even if your schedule is wide open!) and would love to get a referral from them, could they help you out? Remember the discount idea from above, too.

Conclusion

We sincerely hope this article has been helpful to you and that you can now go out and find TONS of new great clients to service in your spa!

Always remember that how you (and your employees) treat your clients will be a direct reflection of how your clients view your spa and whether they return, AND whether they're willing to refer you out! Losing clients is preventable! Be sure to check out our article on keeping clients.

If you have any questions about this article or anything else spa or waxing related, please feel free to email us at support@honeycombwaxco.com!!