One of Those Days - By Rise’ Carter
Did you ever have one of those days where you just got up on the wrong side of the bed and spent the entire day in a dither playing catch-up?
Well, I have and trust me; it’s been more than once.
I used to hate getting to the salon at the same time I was supposed to open and have clients waiting for me in their car. They would follow me in, watch me turn on the lights, waxing machine, and paraffin, get the coffee going, check the machine, and take a quick look at my day. At this point, it looked like getting a minute to grab a slice of pizza was out of the question. Did I mention I felt half dressed, because my make up was half on and half not?Are you relating? Here is how I would have handled the situation 20 years ago…
When my first client was sitting opposite me, I would begin by removing her polish and start apologizing for being late (the traffic accident that held me up, and the fact that my dog threw up just as I was leaving and I had to take the time to do a quick clean up). I would keep talking a mile a minute so they would forget that I was running behind, and just be entertained.
I would go to pour my monomer into the dappen dish and find out that my bottle was empty. Had to get to the back and fill my bottle from the gallon container. More time wasted. Ran back to the client, keep working and found I had to go fish a new file from another tech. More wasted time.
I felt doomed and I was only 15 minutes into my first client’s hour long appointment.
As I would ramble on and on, my mind would drift to thinking about how I going to get caught up, which client could I fudge a little, who was going to have those dreaded “stiff” fingers, and who would be late themselves. Heaven forbid anyone have any lifting or broken nails.
After a while, I would silently start blaming the clients. I was doing them a favor by doing their nails, right?
After my 3rd or 4th client, working at lightening speed to the point where I felt like my hand would fall off, I could see the light because I was finally getting in sync and on time.
Then, my 12:00 client looked like she was about to be a no-show and I would get a break. YES!!!! Even though I would be out of the money, it felt like a small price to pay for the free time.
Not a chance! At 12:23 she showed up for a pink and white rebalance. It was hard to greet her with a smile and be civil, let alone nice. What I wanted to do, and sometimes did, was punish her by filing aggressively with a brand new 80 grit file while using my vice death grip. She got the picture. I would somehow manage to finish her in 45 –50 minutes, I guess on sheer adrenaline. “Next time I am going to tell her that the appointment is 15 minutes earlier than it actually is,” I thought.
After she left, I would end up talking bad about her to every one of my other clients that day. After all, they were all my “friends”, and they were interested in my day.
I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I HAD A BUSINESS! I could never get away with that behavior now and wouldn’t even try it.
Can you point out all of the things that I was doing wrong, or see any similarities in how you treat your clients? Every business has their “golden rule” and a nail tech’s is VERY simple; clients are the most important people in our business. We must never forget it!
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