We recently had a brand new nail technician join our salon and I know that I heard a lot of the same types of reasons Jill discussed from her when we talked about not asking for add-ons. She definitely had a hard time with the projection of her own finances and fear of the word “no.” We worked very hard on that and eventually we made some progress toward successfully asking for them.

We used several of these strategies to help her overcome her discomfort. The most successful strategy for her was roleplay. We had her practice on services with coworkers and ask them for the add on. Sometimes the coworker said no, but most times she said yes. She gained comfort in her wording and how she asked for the add-on as well as confidence when the coworker took her up on the offer.

The other successful strategy for her was to have her study the add-on services and learn how to explain them. I would tell her how I explained it to a guest and then give her the product information and have her write her own way of describing the service. Hearing it explained and doing the research and writing her own descriptions was very helpful as far as her having the knowledge needed to answer guests’ questions confidently and accurately.

She got very, very good at upselling manicures and pedicures in a fairly quick time period. With this she gained enough confidence to try upselling other services and was delighted with the results. So much so that in her tracking of her numbers she was at a level one, selling over 100% of the goal for additional services within six months. That means she was upgrading at least half of the services she was providing. It was great to see her succeed like that and all by just asking for add-ons.

Next time I will give you an in-depth look at how I used some of the overcoming objections techniques to blow up my success in the salon.

— Sandy