How do you choose a color company?
Having the brilliant opportunity to wander around Hair Expo 2010 I was overwhelmed, overstimulated and way excited about what all the different color companies have to offer. O&M’s new color Excelarant, L’Oreal INOHA, the Matrix brilliant artistic representation of the color results, chatting to Maria Uva, color finalist with her loyalty and dedication to Wella, or the shine from the look and learn theater from the Redken Shades EQ by artists Tracy Hughes and Philip Barwick. The list of innovation and inspiration goes on and on, but what really draws us to one company over another?
Even if you are relatively happy with your color brand of choice there is no time like the present to check up on your options, revisit what is important to you and if your are getting what you want and need from your color brand of choice.
Price – How much are your tubes of color? Does price really matter? Absolutely yes, It is one very important thing to consider in your choice. Im my experience during the GFC, negotiating the best deal on price by no stretch of the truth helped us survive the last year and saved us a small fortune. Do your maths, do you know what a full head of foils really costs in color? Or how about a re-touch? How many grams of color in a tube? What is the ratio? This is something we colorists don’t usually think is important, we just want what we think is the best regardless of price. However the business must stay financially healthy or there will simple be no colour! Price does matter! Colorists must have the greatest respect of the costs relating to the color department.
Quality – Without a doubt quality is at the forefront of our choices. Quality is all about technical knowledge, consistency in result and delivery. Quality is about condition of the hair at all times and caring for the scalp. Quality is a reassurance that you are using the right product for you and your client. What quality points are important to you?
Education -This is crucial in you choice, make sure you have financially viable education available to you, meaning what is included in your deal? Will your colour supplier educate you for free or will you pay extra? Wether it is in house or in a tech center make sure it fits with what you need and want. There’s no point signing on the dotted line when the tech center is 4 hours away from you and they will not come to you either! I think in salon support topped up with tech center education is so important. If you are changing from one company to another, make sure you have immediate support and a tech at your disposal as you need. Education is exciting, blood warming and food for life! The education curriculum available to you with product companies is an important consideration!
Culture and Branding -You must identify with your color brand and have similar thoughts, ideas, concepts and brand association. Identify your client type, values and even environmental process. Your clients will identify with certain brands, this correct alignment is crucial to developing your winning business proposition to those clients.
Endorsement -So you are getting close to your choice when you think of Endorsement, find some high profile hairdressers using what you are considering, the company will certainly point you in this direction with a list of names. You will be so surprised how open and happy any hairdresser is to chat with you about their preferred color brand they use in there salon. This is a must to consider in your choice, chat with other hairdressers, call them, they will be happy to give you a endorsement!
Systems and Procedures -If you place an order, how long will it take to get to your salon? How does the billing system work? Can you email order exported out of your salon software system? What are the minimum ordering quantities? How much will the freight be? How do they let you know if they are out of stock? What is the policy on a mistake order? Can you just stock 1 line or do you have to take the whole range? Can you use the color line without the retail line? Are there any contracts? Beware of auto ordering. This is what we call the fine print, READ THE FINE PRINT, know who you are getting into bed with.
Consider all the points above and your choice will be an exciting process ending in rewarding results!
Goodluck.
by Belinda Keeley
Hair Expo Peoples Choice Award Winner 2010
Hair Expo Colourist of the Year – Finalist
AHFA Colourist of the Year – Finalist 2009 & 2010
Great article! I can’t agree more about the pricing and making recipe type lists showing how much each colour actually costs per application. Include colour wastage in your costs as well (at least 20% in my opinion).
Have good software! We use Salon Swift (www.salonswift.com) and their colour usage system is simple and works like a hair salon’s systems do. Use your software to place orders so your sales rep’s don’t convince you to order more than you need. Hand them the order when they walk in the door rather than them telling you what you need. They’re usually lining their own pockets.
Hi Robin, glad you enjoyed the read and great to have it added to with your software tip!
Cheers
Belinda Keeley
Great article. I wish I had this to read a few months ago when choosing a colour company for my new salon. I found it to be the most stressful part of opening a new salon. Getting the colour company right was my major concern. Fingers crossed I made the right choice.
Hi Sarah, good luck with the new salon! It is a very hard Choice, those guidelines can help, sorry to late for you! Next time.
Belinda
Great advice, we did that: we contacted you, lol. Thanks for putting us in touch with Stevie we are pretty close to deciding even though we absolutly love Goldwell, staff & client wellbeing are also very high on the agenda will keep you guy’s informed on which direction we go in.
Murray
A great article and very spot on. I have owned Toni & Guy salons for the past 8 years and I have being a stylist / cutting specialist for 14 years. It is very interesting to read this as it points out a lot of interesting considerations to take in. One of the negatives of being a franchise is not been able to choose which colour company you use. I think its one of the biggest decisions a salon owner will make. A product company is a business partner, they will help grow and educate you salon, they are there to support and develop your business.
Thanks Andre, glad you enjoyed.
Cheers
Also some other major things when dealing with the colour companies, and this only comes from talking to other salons is, how well does the colour company do at actually fulfilling the agree terms. Some companies will promise the world and barely deliver on the basics let alone the extra’s. Also how do they deal with backorders and out of stocks, some will still send backorders through which can be costly since most of us adapt our stock levels to counter this and then even more stock turns up. Also how do they deal with credit issues, some companies can take months to deal with credits where others are days. As well as what systems do they have in place for late payments. Some will work with you, where others will cut you off the moment you pass 30days and charge you interest.
Hey GREAT article! We wrote one a while ago located here http://www.salonswift.com/news/?p=11
Might be worth reading both for anyone looking at colour companies. Again, really nice article
great article! one of the biggest problems i am facing right now is that i am launching a new salon next month, only a small salon with just myself and my sister, but every time i try to get prices off a colour company they wont tell me anything without making an appointment and coming and meeting me in person to sell me the product. this is really frustrating for me as a very new and small business owner because i need to do a price comparisson, its just going to waste my own time and the companies time if they cant even tell me how much the tints are, if they are over the top expensive then they have just wasted all this time traveling out to my country salon!!! makes it really hard for us, but your points have definately helped in my decision.