Has it been weeks since you last talked to your mom? A month since you last spent quality time with your partner? Are you worried that Captain Hook might be turning your son against you?

If so, you may be suffering from out of skew work-life balance! And, in keeping with the drug commercial vibe of this intro, we’ve got the prescription to help you spend more time with your family.

*Please note: it is unlikely that more cowbell will increase time with your family.

Unlike a drug commercial, however, our cure isn’t a one-size-fits-all miracle pill. We’re going to level with you. This is going to take some effort – the payoff, though? So worth it!

There is no perfect work-life balance

Let’s get something out of the way – in the same way that there’s no magic pill to give you more time in your day, there’s no way to strike a perfect balance between time at work and time with your family.

Some days, you’ll work more. Some days, you’ll spend more time with your family. It’s about balancing those two priorities over time, rather than only over the course of a day.

#1: Set goals and priorities

Setting work goals is simple enough: you can use KPIs, individual tasks you have to complete, or a whole whack of other metrics to figure out what’s most important to accomplish and get at it.

It can be a bit more difficult to set goals regarding your family. Let’s be honest – most people don’t even schedule time with their family. Instead, family time is seen as a given. That’s why it’s so easy to lose balance – you’re setting goals and scheduling your work, but not your family time.

Change that. Decide how much time you want to spend with your family, what that quality time will look like, and when you’re going to schedule it. Put it in your calendar.

#2: Let little things go so you can make big things happen

There’s a great quote from productivity guru, Tim Ferris: “Do not work more to fix overwhelm. Prioritize. Define the single most important task for each day. Let small bad things happen to get the big important things done. Define the few things that can really fundamentally change your biz/life. If you don’t have time, the truth is – you don’t have priorities.”

Sometimes, the single most important task in your day will be finishing a work project. Other times, it will be attending your child’s baseball game or school play. Generic examples, I know, but they illustrate the point.

*Hopefully the school play is as…interesting as this one.

You might not get everything you want to get done at work done – but if you leave a little work behind in order to spend time with your family, that’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up about it – you’re only human, and you only have so much time in the day.

#3: Communicate your needs

Whether you’re talking to your partner or you’re talking to your team at work, you need to let them know what’s going on in your life. Sometimes, you need a bit of time scheduled away from work to spend with your family. Sometimes, (sadly), you’ll need a bit of time away from your family to get work done.

Again, it’s not about finding a perfect balance each day – it’s about finding the right balance for you, over time. Your friends, family, and co-workers can only accommodate your needs if they know about them. Communication is key to any relationship, and if you want to find the right balance, you’re going to need to talk about it.

#4: Automate mundane tasks

One way you can increase the amount of time you spend with your family is by decreasing the amount of time you spend at work.

That’s the dream, but how do you do it?

Automation is the key. You can outsource a number of your tasks to software, from appointment booking softwares like Bookedin, to consolidating all of your office communications on a platform like Slack.

You can even automate answering emails by hiring virtual office assistants. You want to direct all of your time and energy to the important stuff, so if you can hire virtual assistants to take care of the more mundane things while still making a profit, do it.

#5: Hire more staff

Some things, of course, can’t be done easily with virtual staff. A lot of business owners handle everything on their own – the scheduling, the accounting, the programming, the customer service – and that can leave you with basically zero time to spend with your family.

I understand this mentality – you want to put everything into your business to make it the best it can be. You’ve got to be careful, though; if you pour so much of yourself into your business that you have no time left for other people, you might end up like this guy:

Obviously, that’s not where you want to be (though it might be fun to have ghosts visit you with moralistic messaging).

#6: Prioritize your health

If you’re not healthy, you’re going to find you don’t have time to do the things you want to at work or with your family. You need to prioritize your health above all else. It’s like you’ll always hear on an airline – you’ve got to put your mask on before putting anyone else’s mask on.

You need oxygen.

Taking care of your health doesn’t just mean your physical health – you need to take care of your mental, spiritual, and emotional health too. That means that leaving work aside and spending time with your family can actually supercharge you to work better when you get back to it – you’ll be mentally and emotionally revitalized.

#7: Schedule time with your family

We’ve already touched on this, but the point is so important that it’s worth making a whole section about it.

Scheduling time with your family is, in some cases, as complex as scheduling meetings with your co-workers. You need to know their schedules and your schedule, and you all need to agree on a time when you can get together and do things. It can be helpful to get a family Google Calendar going so you know exactly when your family members are busy, and when they’re free.

You might also benefit from putting important dates like birthdays and anniversaries in your calendar. There are things in life that are more important than work – if you’re reminded of them well in advance, it’s that much easier to plan for them.

#8: Take a vacation

Taking a vacation isn’t always easy – you have to find the time to schedule it, and trust that your team will be able to manage things until you get back.

You deserve it. Your family deserves it. Put that trust in your team, and live the good life for a bit.

We’ve talked about how important it is to take care of your health – a vacation is a great way of taking care of yourself. It’s also an amazing way to have carefree, quality time with your family.

A word of advice – leave a couple days off when you’re back from your vacation so you can get back into the swing of things gradually. Going from tropical paradise to paperwork in the overly air conditioned office within a 24 hour period can be stressful.

#9: Unplug

“I’ve just got to check my email” becomes “I have to take care of this”. “I just have to check my Slack” becomes “I’m going to be late for dinner”. When you’re constantly plugged in, you’re constantly reminded of the work you have to do. Soon enough, you’re looking like this:

You need to unplug. There’s always more work to do, just like there’s always more time you could be spending with your family. When you’re too focused on how you’re not doing one, you won’t be able to fully enjoy the other. Take a break from your screen. You might even set “no screen” hours, where you’re away from your phone or computer entirely, simply enjoying quality time with your family.

#10: Set boundaries

You need time to yourself, and time with your family. You can use scheduled lunches to spend an hour with your partner, and use breaks to get on a call with your kids.

That is, if you’re firm that you need to be left to your own devices on your breaks.

There can be a lot of schedule bleed in some workplaces – you might have a scheduled break or lunch, but your work starts to bleed into your “you” time. You then have to schedule your lunch or break later, throwing off your routine, and making it more difficult to spend quality time with your family.

When you need to, be firm about your break and lunch time. Obviously, there will be some days when schedule bleed is inevitable, but these should be the exception, not the rule.

You might not be able to use all of these techniques to make family time, but even using some of them should let you find ways of being with the ones you love the most. You know what’s important to you – prioritize it, and you’ll find the time.

There are tons of good reasons to keep track of your past and future appointments.

I hope the reason to keep track of future appointments is obvious, so let’s focus on why you’d dwell on the past.

*Hopefully your past isn’t quite as painful as Simba’s.

Even if your business has done very well in the past, Rafiki’s point stands – the past has many lessons to teach us. Whether you’re aiming to get the most out of client data or run revenue projections, tracking your past and future appointments is essential.

To help you along the way, here’s a step by step guide!

Step 1: Take a good, hard look at your current approach

There are several businesses who take an ad hoc approach to appointment scheduling. We’re talking about the people who scribble down their appointments for the week on a piece of paper or the backside of a napkin, only to crumple it up and throw it in the trash when they’re done.

*You might be improving your shot, but you’re not improving your shot at repeat business.

This is not the way.

You need to digitize your appointment scheduling and tracking – we’ll explain how in Step 3.
But first…

Step 2: Find those appointments!

For those of you who are…*ahem* less organizationally inclined, this might be a challenging task. You’re going to want to find as many appointments that you’ve made in the past as possible and consolidate them all in one place.

Businesses with more than one professional booking appointments should try to consolidate all of the appointments made by every professional so they can all be digitized. Basically, ask every member of your team to help you find as many past and future appointments as possible.

Step 3: Digitize those appointments!

Like Homer, we’re in a digital world – and if you’re still using pen and paper, you need to get on board.

There are a number of ways you can digitize your appointments: putting everything into an Excel sheet, using scheduling systems like Google Calendar, or using software like Bookedin, to automate your appointments.

This step is probably the most cumbersome – it is, after all, manual data entry, a task we find pleasantly mindless, but that others often find pretty dull. Once you get through this rote work, however, you’ll find that everything will start to click into place much more easily.

Step 3.5: Get everything in one place

Having 10 different Excel sheets full of appointments is almost as bad (okay, not really) as having 100 Post-It Notes filled with appointments. The point of digitizing is to make everything as easy to access as possible.

For those opting to use Excel or a similar spreadsheet software (Google Sheets works fine), you can create separate sheets for every month, every member of your team, or in any other configuration that works for your business.

With Bookedin, you can easily sort through past and future appointments by client name, team member, and/or date.

Step 4: Review your data

*Hopefully you don’t experience the summer dip.

Now that you’ve got everything in one place, you can take a good, hard look at when people are booking, who they’re booking with, and how much they spend on average. You can also try to find what data you might be missing. Here’s some data you might not have thought about tracking:

• How much they spent.
• How much they tipped.
• The amount of time between bookings.
• How much time the appointment took.
• What services they purchased.
• Notes about the customer (their dog’s name, etc.).

Gathering this data can help inform a lot of your decisions.

Step 5: Form the right habits

This might be the hardest step of all – it’s also the most important.

You’ve got all of your data in one place. You’ve added important fields so you can better track how your customers interact with your business. Now you’ve got to add every single appointment to your new system – and get all of your team members to do the same.

With Bookedin, this is relatively easy – appointments are automatically tracked as your clients book with you. The do-it-yourself way takes a bit more effort – as with anything, you have to choose between spending money or spending time.

You’ll also have to habitually check your past and future appointments in order to accomplish all of the things that we laid out in the intro to this piece. Trust us – it’s worth the effort.

You all loved our piece on the 30 things your tattoo artist wishes you knew, so we’re back again – this time, with the hidden barbershop lore you need to know.

Listen, your barber’s probably a nice person. They smile every time you come in, and you leave with the freshest cut. Beneath their smile, though, they might be seething if, say, you didn’t shower before showing up.

Don’t make your barber sad. Keep the following 30 things in mind, and your relationship will be as fine as a single strand of hair:

1. Look at their work before you show up

Barbers are artists. Like any artists, they pride themselves on their work, and you’ll probably be able to find a portfolio of some of their best stuff on their website or Instagram. Find a barber who does cuts that wow you, and cuts that are similar to the style you’re looking for. Book with them.

2. Don’t make your first appointment on a weekend

Everybody’s working for the weekend – except barbers. They’re working on the weekend – that’s when people have time off, and that’s when barbers get busy. You want to get to know your barber, and during the weekend rush, they might not have any time for idle chit chat. Book your first appointment on a weekday so you can start building the relationship.

3. Shower first!

Imagine running your fingers through someone’s greasy, smelly, knotty hair.

Eww.

You brush your teeth before a dental appointment (I hope) – take a shower before an appointment with your barber. Trust me – they’ll like you a lot better if you do.

4. Don’t use product

I get it. You want to walk into the barbershop with your hair nicely styled, as if to say “This is how much I care about my hair, so I need you to care about it too”. Who doesn’t want to look almost as good walking in as they do walking out?

Don’t do this. Product makes it much harder for your barber to work with your hair. Clean hair is a clean slate – a canvas on which the barber can paint a new hairstyle. (Or something like that).

5. Don’t wear a hat

On the flip side, you might have gone without a haircut for a long time, and now you’re looking like you front a B-tier 80s hair metal band. You might want to hide your less than stellar styling with a fedora – don’t. This can mess up your hair in the same way product does, making it harder for your barber to work with.

6. Eat beforehand

You might spend 20 minutes in the chair, or you might spend 2 hours. Either way, if you’re like me, hungry=hangry, and when you’re being asked to sit still and make idle conversation while your mind is on the smell of the footlong subs you could buy next door, you’re not going to have a good time. As the old saying goes, eat first, get haircuts later.

7. Show up on time

Yes, you’re on a blog for a company that does online scheduling. No, we’re not just saying this because people showing up late is a collective pet peeve of ours.

Showing up late is rude. What’s more, you’re robbing yourself of the best possible haircut as much as you’re robbing your barber. They only have so much time in their day, and if you only give them 15 minutes out of the allotted hour to cut your hair, it could turn out like this:

8. Know what you want

*You’re not a cartoon child – you can make decisions!

Aside from people who don’t shower, a barber’s greatest bane may be people who walk in with big, naive grins on their faces – the people who say “Just do whatever you want!”.

Your barber will oblige this request if they have to, but they’d rather not. Most of the time people say “do what you want”, what they actually mean is “read my mind and if you don’t get it right I’m never coming back here again”.

Don’t be that person. Your hair is going to stay with you after the cut, so you should have at least some idea what you want done with it.

9. Bring in pictures

*Try to pick pics that aren’t crowded with dinosaurs, though.

You know the old saying – a picture is worth 1000 words. That’s especially true when you’re in a barber shop and you want a particular style, but you’re not sure how many inches of hair you have, what kind of tools you’d like the barber to use, or how to describe the hairstyle you want.

10. No two people are exactly the same

*Not even these creepy twins!

No matter how good your barber is, your cut won’t look exactly like the one in the magazine. For better or for worse (though studies show only very attractive people read our blog), you have a different face and a different build than every other person on the planet (identical twins aside).

All of this will influence the way your hairstyle looks, even if the hair itself looks exactly the same. This is also why your barber might recommend slight alterations to a style to suit your look better.

11. No two people’s hair is the same

*Oh they’re…still here…

I hate to break it to you, but there might be some hairstyles that are total nonstarters for you. People’s hair is about as different as their fingerprints. Your barber will try to accommodate any requests you have, but they’re only human – you’ve got to work with what you’ve got.

12. You only have so much hair

I’m not dissing the follically challenged, here – even someone with more hair than Cousin Itt has only so much to work with. That means you can’t keep asking your barber to change the style as the haircut keeps going – eventually, they’ll have no choice but to shave it all off. Pick a style and stick with it – don’t ask them to change things up 10 times over the course of a cut.

13. Your barber might be a miracle worker, but they’re not a magician

You’ve got to keep your expectations in check. Your barber can’t make you grow hair. They can’t make bad hair days go away forever. They will give you an incredible cut, and they’ll even give you styling tips, but they’re not alchemists.

14. Listen to your barber’s suggestions

Your barber wants you to come back again and again. They don’t give you suggestions for no reason, or to be patronizing, or anything silly like that.

They give you advice because their recommendations will make you look great. Clients who love their cuts come back, and that’s what your barber wants. Trust them. They’re artists, and they want you to look great.

15. Keep the conversation flowing

Your barber wants to get to know you. That doesn’t mean you should confess your darkest secrets to them (at least not on the first visit), but it does mean you should make an effort to be open and honest.

You can keep the conversation hair-related if you want – what style you’re interested in, barber shops you’ve been to in the past – or you can make small talk about your hobbies and interests. You’ll get to know them, they’ll get to know you – it could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

16. They love it when you know the lingo

If you don’t know a fade from a taper, you’re going to have a hard time talking to your barber about what you want. Fortunately, there are guides to barber shop lingo that can help you better express yourself to your barber.

17. You should talk about your hair’s history

*No, silly, not your hare’s history!

Does your hair start curling uncontrollably when you grow it past a certain length? Have you had someone use a straight razor on your hair, with disastrous results? Have you bleached your hair so often it would make Guy Fieri blush?

Tell your barber. This kind of information can change what tools they use and what cuts are viable.

18. Talk about your hair’s future, too

Are you growing your hair out after this cut? Do you plan on making regular visits to your barber? How do you plan on styling your hair, and what products do you plan on using? Talk about it – it can inform both your barber’s hair cutting decisions and the advice they give you.

19. Friends make the barber’s pole go round

I’m not saying your barber has to be your best buddy, but make an effort to have a friendly relationship with them. You’re going to spend a lot of time in that chair, and let’s be honest – it’s a pretty intimate situation. Be kind, be open, and be willing to engage a bit more deeply with your barber than you would, say, a cashier you’ll only see once.

You might also make friends with other barbers around the shop, or other clients. Barber shops have historically, in some communities, been a sanctuary for people to talk about the things that are happening in their lives. With an open ear and an open heart, you can learn a lot.

20. You need to read the room

That all being said, there are times to gab, and times to keep quiet. When your barber is clearly very busy, it might not be the best time to strike up idle conversation. Try meditating or using your imagination a bit if you get bored easily – don’t ignore social cues.

21. Don’t use your phone while in the chair

I get it – when your barber is working hard and there’s not a lot of conversation to be had, it can be tempting to start scrolling through TikTok.

Don’t.

First off, loud noises coming from memes that only you can see are distracting. Second, people who are using their phones tend to move their heads – laughing randomly, craning their necks, or – worst of all – answering a phone call and putting their phones to their ears.

Hopefully, I don’t have to tell you why that’s a bad idea when there’s someone using sharp scissors right next to your ear. Just don’t do it.

22. Don’t like something? Speak up!

Even if you go to a metaphysical barber with a third eye for a logo, they’re probably not psychic (and, hopefully, they’re not just giving you a spiritual haircut). When something isn’t working for you, tell them! When they show you your haircut and say “How does it look”, they’re not looking for dishonest praise – they’re looking for feedback.

23. A little trust goes a long way

Please don’t micromanage your barber. It’s not, as they say, a cute look – and you probably won’t get too many cute looks out of it, either. Your barber is a pro – and if you’ve kept the conversation as open and honest as we’ve discussed here, they’ll be able to give you the best cut of your life without you telling them which pair of scissors they can use.

Those of you who are anxious about haircuts – take a deep breath or two. You’re in good hands.

24. Your stillness is appreciated

A barber holding your head in place is the universal sign for “PLEASE STOP TILTING YOUR HEAD IN RANDOM DIRECTIONS AT THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME”.

You see, they want to create a pleasant experience for you, so they can’t yell at you. Fortunately, I can, albeit only through text.

So please, keep your head as still as possible.

25. Rushing your barber is not okay

Do you want to hurt your relationship with your barber all while ensuring you get a worse-than-it-could-be haircut? Tell your barber to hurry it up! You’ll look as bad as you acted!

Those of you who would rather not experience a terrible haircut and a peeved off barber should let them take their time. Think about the time you’ve booked in the chair as “you time” – don’t book if you know you’re going to be in a rush. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the haircut.

26. They shouldn’t have to tell you to behave yourself

This is so obvious that I wish I didn’t have to write it, but here goes – don’t be rude to your barber. You shouldn’t be rude to anyone, but it’s a particularly bad idea around someone with very sharp implements.

Jokes aside, if you want a great haircut and a good relationship, put the negative talk on hold. Even if you can’t hold a good conversation (I get it, life is stressful), just let your barber know. Say “Hey, I’m pretty stressed right now, so I’m not going to talk too much”. They’ll appreciate that much more than dismissive comments or insults.

27. The price is right

Your barber is running a business. The money you give them doesn’t just go into their pockets – it goes to pay staff, upkeep, and other costs. What’s more, great art takes time and skill – your barber went to school and practised for years. That experience is worth the cost of a cut.

Plus, you want your barber to live a good life – a happy barber will probably give you a better cut!

28. Every tip is appreciated

When you give your barber a tip, you’re telling them that you appreciate their work, and that you want to help them grow their business and improve their life. That says a lot.

Tips are customary in the world of barber shops, so you should leave one every time. It’s okay if you leave less of a tip sometimes than others – money can get tight – but if you got a haircut you really love, consider leaving more than your standard tip amount.

29. They love it when you spread the love

Businesses are always looking for advocates – those customers that love them so much, they tell all of their friends. Whether it’s by word of mouth or through social media, if you tell people about your barber (and show off your great new hairstyle), they’ll appreciate it more than you could know.

30. You have to work for good hair days

Love feeling fresh and clean – who doesn’t? There might be nothing that leaves you feeling as fresh and clean as a brand new cut – to maintain that look, though, takes some effort.

Talk to your barber about how to style your hair. Consider buying salon-quality products. Put in the effort, and the cut your barber gave you will stay fresh – for awhile.

You’ll also need to visit your barber regularly to keep your good looks up. When they recommend coming in every 2-3 weeks, it’s because that’s how often you’ll need a cut to keep up appearances.

When things get hairy, you know where to turn

At this point, you should feel more than confident that you’ll get a great haircut at your next barber shop appointment. Your barber will be pleased as punch, too. Have any questions or barber related advice? Let us know in the comments. And, barbers, if you think this was helpful to your clients, just wait ‘til you see our barber shop appointment software.

There’s a short and sweet NYT article titled “Three Ways to Think About ‘Is It Worth It?‘” In it, Carl Richards breaks down the three fundamental features that make something “worth it” or not – utility, enjoyment, and cost.

Now, you could argue about whether or not enjoyment is a subcategory of utility, but you could also argue about whether or not cost is a subcategory of utility. In the interest of not having this spin into an article about the meaning of value, let’s pretend I never even brought this up.

Instead, let me give you a concrete example. I’m looking into buying a fight stick – a type of video game controller made specifically for playing fighting games. The one I’m looking at is called Hit Box. I want it so I can do stuff like this:

Now for most of you, the Hit Box isn’t worth it – if you don’t play fighting games, there’s no utility or enjoyment there. For me, on the other hand, the Hit Box is a pretty attractive buy. I will, however, try to find a deal – cost matters.

This weird fighting game peripheral analogy has a point – no item is worth exactly the same amount to two different people. “Is it worth it?” is a totally subjective question.

In light of that, we’re going to present a number of questions – questions you can ask yourself to figure out whether online scheduling software is worth the cost to you. We’re going to do that, whenever possible, by comparing apples to apples – a price range for online scheduling, and a price range for the things that can happen when you aren’t using online scheduling.

How much is your time worth?

To figure out whether or not online scheduling is worth the cost, you first have to figure out how much your time is worth, and how much of your time you spend managing schedules.

Appointment scheduling software can eliminate most – if not all – of the scheduling work you have to do yourself. The price of booking software can vary considerably depending on what features you want (we’ll talk about those later). Some cost less than $20 a month, while others can cost well over $100 a month.

How much of your time do you spend on scheduling?

Let’s say you make $30 an hour. If you spend an hour a month handling schedules – be that booking appointments or resolving scheduling conflicts – you’re already saving money if you can get a booking software for under $30 a month.

Obviously, if you make more than $30 an hour, or you spend more than an hour a month on scheduling, booking software becomes that much more worthwhile.

More team members whose schedules you need to coordinate typically means more time spent scheduling, so online scheduling software tends to be priced based on how many schedules you need to coordinate.

How much do double bookings cost?

In the most magical timeline, a double booking leads to a chance encounter between two of your clients burgeoning into a long, happy, and fruitful relationship.

But that’s in the movies. And even if it happens in real life, do you want people falling in love over their shared disdain for your business double booking them?

Double bookings have an obvious cost – you’ll need to rebook the client who you double booked. In order to smooth things over, you may need to give them their next appointment for free, or at a discounted rate. They may opt not to book with you again – you might lose their business outright. At a minimum, this will cost you what they would have paid you – though it could cost you much more.

How much does it cost you when clients show up late?

The cost of clients who show up late is a bit harder to calculate, but if you want to get a rough approximation, figure out how much you would charge that client for an hour, divide that amount by how late they are, and you’ve figured out how much money you’re losing.

For example, if you charge your clients $50 an hour, and they’re 15 minutes late, they’ve cost you $12.50 – a quarter of an hour. That’s 15 minutes you could have spent doing more productive things. 15 minutes that you’re, instead, spending staring at the door, sighing, waiting for your client to show up.

Appointment booking software drastically reduces the number of clients who show up late – they’re reminded of their appointment the day of, so they know exactly when to show up. A lot of people who show up late simply forgot their appointment – booking software fixes that.

How much do no-shows cost?

Calculating the cost of no-shows is easy – you lose all the money you would have made if they had shown up. If booking software can reduce the number of no-shows by even one per month, most businesses could benefit from using them.

Realistically, booking software will reduce no-shows by more than one per month. We’ve heard from our customers that Bookedin has eliminated their no-shows altogether – and many of these clients were getting 1-2 no shows per week!

If you’re still worried about no-shows, you can charge clients before their appointment – they pay through the software. That means you can charge no-show or late fees at your convenience.

Some costs (and benefits) aren’t so easy to calculate

*Think of this scary backseat clown as all the scheduling conflict costs you hadn’t considered.

There are some costs that are harder to evaluate than the ones we’ve presented here. Double bookings, for example, can lead to 1-star reviews and hard-to-resolve customer complaints. Late appointments can lead to fewer satisfied customers, as you rush around to recover the time you’ve lost.

Booking software helps alleviate all of those hard-to-calculate costs. It also adds some hard-to-calculate benefits – benefits like customer satisfaction. In our experience, customers like being reminded of their appointments – they don’t want to be late or forget about their appointment any more than you do.

Is online scheduling worth the cost? In our (admittedly biased) estimation, it is, for the vast majority of businesses. There’s a lot of utility there, and when directly comparing costs, having online scheduling software usually saves you money.

On the fun front, our software is easy to use. Would we call it fun? Maybe not in the same way as a fighting video game. We still think you’ll like it quite a bit, though. Want to give it a try? Check out our free trial!

There was a recurring bit in Animaniacs (the ‘90s version, not the 2020 reboot) that almost never failed to make me laugh. It was called Good Idea, Bad Idea. Examples include “Good idea: getting breakfast served to you in bed. Bad idea: getting tennis balls served to you in bed”.

I think about that bit a lot when I think about automation. Good idea: automated appointment reminders from your barber. Bad idea: automated barbers.

Automation is good when you’re getting computers to do rote, error-prone tasks that humans find dull.

A lot of businesses don’t even send appointment reminders – that’s a big miss, and it can lead to a lot of cancellations and no-shows. You’d be better off training carrier pigeons to send your reminders than to not send any at all.

Fortunately, there are easier ways.

In this article, we’re going to show you how you can send semi-automated text reminders and email reminders absolutely free – and in most cases, without even needing to download any software you don’t already have.

After that, we’re going to show you how Bookedin makes the process even more simple and effective – complete automation and lots of other features.

Sounds good? Let’s begin.

How to streamline email reminders (for free!)

Emails are a useful way to remind your clients about appointments they’ve booked with you. They’re probably not as useful as text messages – emails might fall into a junk folder, and they tend to be more readily ignored. There are, however, some advantages to email reminders. It can be easier to incorporate branding, graphics, and important attachments in your message.

What we’re proposing here isn’t complete automation, but a streamlining of processes that should drastically improve your client service and cut down the time you need to spend.

Step 1: Create a script. This can be something as simple as:

Hi [First Name], This is an appointment reminder from [Business Name]. Your appointment is scheduled on [Day] at [Time]. We look forward to seeing you then!

Step 2: Create an email template for your appointment reminder – the subject line can be as simple as “Appointment Reminder”, or you can brand it as you like. The body will contain your script. You can create templates in Gmail and in Outlook (the links explain how).

Step 3: When a client books an appointment with you, open your preferred email client list. Use the template, filling in the relevant details (their first name, etc.).

Step 4: Instead of sending the message immediately, schedule the message to be sent at a later date. You can do this in Gmail and in Outlook (again, the links will give you a complete guide).

Once your template is created, this method will save you a lot of time – you’ll only have to complete steps 3 and 4.

While a 2-step process isn’t complete automation, it will still save you a lot of effort compared to doing everything manually.

How to (mostly) automate text reminders

AKA: how I learned to stop worrying and love free third-party apps.

Automating text reminders might be more useful than automating emails. Unfortunately, it’s also trickier, since most SMS apps don’t have a template function.

Things get trickier still. While most of the Western world uses Gmail and Outlook for email, there is a lot more diversity in the SMS app field. That means that some of you will have options to schedule messages already built in, while others won’t.

That means we’re going to have to look to free apps if we want to keep our automation costs at a minimum. For our purposes, we’ll use an app that can automatically schedule text messages. There are fewer good template options, so we’ll simply use Apple/Samsung Notes, Google Keeps, or your preferred note-taking app.

Step 1: Create a script in your note-taking app. It can be as simple as:

Hi [First Name], This is an appointment reminder from [Business Name]. Your appointment is scheduled on [Day] at [Time]. We look forward to seeing you then!

Step 2: Save your script.

Step 3: Find an SMS app that can send scheduled messages for you. For Samsung users, the default SMS app should work. For non-Samsung Android users, you can get an app like Do It Later or Pulse SMS. For iOS, try AutoSender. These apps are all free to use, though there are additional features you can purchase in each of them.

Step 4: When your client books a new appointment, paste your script from the note-taking app to the message, replacing all relevant fields with the appropriate information (their first name, etc.)

Step 5: Schedule the message to send for the date and time you want it to be received.

How to FULLY automate text & email reminders with Bookedin

Bookedin is an all-in-one appointment app: we’ve automated both appointment booking and appointment reminders. We send both text and email reminders to your clients automatically. It takes much less effort than the two options we just went over above.

How much less effort? Well let’s go over the steps and see:

Step 1: Get Bookedin (you can start with our 14-day free trial).

Step 2: Customize your reminders (text & email) or just skip this step and rely on the default settings.

Step 3: Add the appointment booking link to your social media profiles and/or website.

That’s literally all you have to do. From there, when a client books an appointment with you, we’ll automatically send them an email and/or text message before their appointment – you get to choose in what time-frame those reminders are sent out.

Sending reminders a day before the appointment is common, but Bookedin can do a whole lot more. Clients are immediately sent a confirmation message when they book.

You can also decide whether a reminder text is sent out days in advance, or even hours in advance – the same goes for emails. Check out:

• Our guide to customizing text message reminders.
• Our guide to customizing email reminders.

Automatically replying to clients (for fun and profit)

This how-to has been about automating the sending of appointment reminders – we haven’t, however, addressed how to automatically reply to those reminders. Bookedin handles that for you, too – clients can reply “Yes” to confirm or “No” to reschedule.

The other options we presented don’t have that capacity.

Nonetheless, something is absolutely better than nothing when it comes to appointment reminders. They’re useful for your business and for your clients – well worth the effort.

When you started your business, you were probably thrilled the moment your first client walked in the door. For most, that’s when all of the groundwork you painstakingly laid out over months or even years starts to feel like it’s paying off.

Flash forward, and you find yourself inundated with clients. You’re booked months or even years in advance, and you’re not sure if you should start to raise prices through the roof just to scare some people off.

Don’t go there just yet. We have a lot of suggestions to help you remember your roots and keep your balance when business is suddenly booming. Don’t worry – we’ve got you.

Remember your roots

When you’re growing at a rapid pace, you’re inevitably going to come across bottlenecks. The rest of this article will help you address those bottlenecks, but you won’t be able to implement all of the suggestions we bring up at once.

So, how do you decide what to focus on?

Go back to your mission statement. Think about why you started your business. For many people reading this, that answer is service. You wanted to find ways to make your clients’ lives better – you love people, and you want to make them happy.

Keep your mission in mind, whatever it is. Whenever you’re automating a process, or finding new suppliers, or hiring new staff, ask yourself, “is doing this the best way to serve my mission?” From there, it should be easy to prioritize spending.

Create a framework for scaling

The end goal for most service-oriented businesses is simple – you want to be able to take on more clients while maintaining the same level of service you had when you were smaller.

That’s trickier than it might seem at first blush. Take, for example, a tattoo parlor. As a sole practitioner, you have complete control over the quality of tattoos your clients get. As you start adding more artists to your parlor, you need to:

• Purchase more equipment.
• Find the right artists.
• Ensure they’re meeting your standards.
• Add them to your accounting/payroll system.
• Adjust your insurance.
• Promote your new artists.
• Coordinate your schedules.

That’s just off the top of my head – and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. While your end goal is to take on more clients with the same level of care, getting there looks a bit like this:

That’s why it’s essential to plan everything out before making a move. Any lever you pull in a business is going to create cascading effects. Plan out best, average, and worst-case scenarios. Determine all the steps you’ll need to take to implement a decision well in advance of actually making the decision – sometimes, the Goldberg machine is too complex, and you’ll need to take a simpler route.

Get help

When you find your business is growing too quickly, it’s possible you’ll need professional help.

*Though hopefully not this kind of help.

Fortunately, business growth usually means you’ll have some cash to spend – re-investing in your own business is the best way to keep your growth sustainable. There are two kinds of help you might look at: day-to-day help and strategic help.

Day-to-day help

Day-to-day help is the type we described when the tattoo parlor hired a second artist – in a similar vein, a barbershop could hire a second barber, a mental health clinic could hire a second therapist – you get the idea.

This type of help can also include people who can assist you with administrative tasks – secretaries, receptionists, and the like. For places that aren’t quite big enough to hire a full-time administrative assistant, virtual assistants can be a boon – they’re less expensive to hire, and can fulfill many daily tasks, from scheduling to sorting through your emails.

You can “hire” software, too – it’s often much cheaper than hiring a person. Better yet, it can free up time for you and your staff. What you do with that time is up to you – work, play, whatever makes you happy. Bookedin can save you hours – we have a great quote from tattoo artist Russell McCabe that makes our hearts warm

“This software has given me peace of mind by allowing me to spend more time where the work is truly needed instead of behind the keyboard manually entering each and every appointment… so wonderful! This booking software gave me almost ¹/3 of my time back and it also made scheduling for my client’s way easier! It’s exceeded my expectations ten fold!”

Comments like that are why we got in this business – helping people is what we love to do.

Strategic help

Rapid business growth can feel a bit like this:

As excited as you might be to “feed the beast”, so to speak, it can also be pretty scary. Having experts on your team who have already dealt with giant carnivorous plants – I mean, rapid business growth – can be a huge asset.

Hiring consultants with proven track records will help you navigate the mystifying quagmire of legal, economic, and social ramifications of increasing your capacity to take on new clients. Accounting firms can help you get the most out of tax incentives. A legal team can help you avoid lawsuits. You won’t need to pay these professionals 40 hours a week, but creating those connections and meeting with them regularly can help you chart a course for your business.

Automate the repetitive stuff

We’re way past the days when Luddites would destroy textile factories because of automation – we’re nearing the stage of meta-automation, where automations automate automating (say that three times fast).

Every business has automated to a certain extent, even if it’s just an automated voice messaging system or Google automatically sorting through your emails.

What to automate

When looking for automations to help smooth out business growth, it’s important to keep certain principles in mind:

You can’t automate everything. Creativity, face-to-face interaction, things that require a lot of manual dexterity, and a whole host of other human-centric activities can’t be automated. Perhaps they will be one day, but not today.

There are no robots that account for fashion trends and your personal style and comfort when helping you choose a hairstyle. A computer with Microsoft Sam’s voice will never replace face-to-face interaction with a therapist. Some things are meant to be done by humans.

What you can automate are repetitive activities that are prone to human error:

Factory work is a great example of this type of automation. For service-based businesses, automation usually happens on the digital side of things – you can automate appointment scheduling, accounting, bill payments, and a bunch of other activities that basically come down to number crunching and data management.

Basically, automation is great for everything that happens before and after an appointment. Use it to manage all the things that would take time away from the most important thing – building a relationship between you and your clients.

Work-life balance

We’ve talked a lot about how to keep business growth sustainable so far, but there’s something important we’ve yet to discuss – how to keep business growth sustainable for you.

When you’re growing faster than dust grows on a Blu-Ray player, you might find you have less time. Less time to yourself, less time for your family, less time to do all the things you love. Your work-life balance might be getting out of whack.

That’s where automation comes in.

Chances are, you’re doing a lot of things manually that you don’t have to. Are you looking through messages clients sent you at 3 in the morning? Get a chatbot to answer frequently asked questions. Are you manually typing expenditures into spreadsheets? Get bookkeeping software. Are you trying to schedule your hundreds of new clients, and find yourself unable to keep up with all the appointments you have booked? Get an automated appointment scheduling software like Bookedin.

Remember, you have business goals, and you have personal goals. Reaching your business goals is a personal goal, though it’s one that’s shared with other members of your team. Shirking all of your other personal goals to achieve business goals, though? That can hurt. A lot. Always remember to leave time for yourself. Encourage your team to do the same.

Focus on customer retention

There are a few reasons you should focus on customer retention. You may have heard that it costs 5 times as much to acquire a new client than it does to retain a client you already have.

Our focus on retention goes deeper than that, though!

Think about it like this: do you really want to lose the people who made your business boom in the first place? These are the people who had faith in your business. They came back again and again. They told their friends about you! When you lose these people, it’s likely you’ve lost sight of your initial mission.

Create customer personas

You can use customer lists and data to create customer personas – idealized versions of the clients you want the most. Focus your energy on those clients. Try to make room for them.

Obviously, when you’re booked up 2 years in advance and constantly getting notices on Instagram from new clients who want to book with you (Bookedin can help with this), you might not have room for all of your old clients. Try to send them something personal – let them know you still care. Focus, in particular, on personalizing messages to the people who fall into the customer personas you’ve created – you want them to come back! They’re probably your most loyal clients, and they probably net you the best ROI.

Be flexible

This is the last piece of advice, and – bonus – it works really well on a metaphorical basis. In yoga, you learn that balance and flexibility are intimately linked.

You need stability – you’ll find that by keeping your mission statement at your core. From that stability, you need flexibility – the ability to adapt and change to different poses. That’s balance – the ability to stay grounded while moving.

In business, that means being ready to roll with the punches. It means accepting negative experiences as opportunities for growth, and viewing positive experiences in the same light. It means having an abundance mindset.

Most industries change rapidly as new technologies and new trends arise. As long as those technologies and trends don’t run contrary to your mission, incorporate them. Adapt. Growth is change, and to flow with change, you need mental flexibility.

In practical terms, that means constantly tweaking your business plans. It means talking with your clients and your team, and collecting new ideas. It means not holding onto anything too tightly if it’s not a matter of absolute moral conviction. It means being excited to try new things.

Business growth doesn’t just mean more money. Your team will grow with your business – so will your clients. So will you. By keeping all of this in mind, and implementing some of the tactics we’ve just gone over, your business will grow in ways you never expected. Get excited!

You’ve decided you want to use appointment scheduling software to make your business more efficient and customer-friendly.

Even though you’re enthusiastic about the change, your team might not be as onboard as you are. You might have one member who hates change, preferring to follow “the old ways”.

Like our rotary phone dialling friend here, they might stick with the old ways because new technology intimidates them. They might simply be comfortable with the way they’ve scheduled clients since forever, and not be keen on changing things now. They might even be worried about how new technology could affect their jobs.

We’re going to go over a lot of good stuff in this article, from how to get buy-in from reluctant employees to how to implement your new software and train your team. We’ve geared it toward appointment scheduling software, but honestly, these tips can help you get your employees excited about all kinds of new technologies.

Tip #1: Get buy-in from your team

When it comes to any big procedural change, the first and most important step is getting employee buy-in. You could have magic money printing machines, but if your employees aren’t willing to press the button, money isn’t going to come out.

That might seem like a fantasy scenario, but it’s really not – automating appointment scheduling reduces double bookings, cancellations, no-shows and mix-ups. And it frees up time. When implemented properly, that means money.

To get your team on board, it’s important to address the reasons that they might be hesitant to start using appointment scheduling software. The three main barriers?

1. People are unwilling to change,
2. averse to technology, and
3. worried about job security.

How to handle change aversion

Change can be pretty scary. We’re hardwired to be stressed about uncertainty, and change, by definition, brings us into uncharted territory.

Your team members are pretty unlikely to walk up and yell “I’m afraid of change!”, however, so it’s important to listen for subtle cues that show that change aversion is what’s at play.

You might hear statements like “I’ve never had a problem with our old way of scheduling” (unlikely), “What’s wrong with the old way of doing things?” (a lot), or “I’m comfortable with things as they are” (fair enough).

Tackling this type of aversion is actually pretty straightforward. First, explain (in great detail) exactly why you’re implementing appointment scheduling software, and how it’s going to improve their lives (and their bottom line). Then, make sure you have ample time to train your team to use the equipment properly.

With Bookedin, links to book appointments online can be used across team members’ social media pages, allowing them to convert their online presence into cold hard cash. Money is a great incentive to embrace change, and the promise of more clients can really help move the needle.

How to handle tech aversion

There are people who think that trying to find what appointments have been scheduled for the day looks like this:

…and is easier than doing it like this:

Fair enough! Not everyone is super tech literate, and some people feel uncomfortable – even embarrassed – when learning new technology.

As the implementer of this new technology, you have two main goals. The first is to ensure your appointment booking software is really easy to use – no filling in complex forms, no accessing multiple files, just a few button presses.

Your second goal is to understand the technology inside and out, yourself, before trying to get your team onboard. It’s so much easier to get buy-in when you understand all of the ups and downs of implementing a particular change – and by testing the software yourself first, you’ll know exactly how user-friendly it is.

Talk about job security

This third challenge is less common when integrating automated appointment booking, but it does come up: whoever is currently in charge of booking starts worrying about how it might affect their career.

You’ve got to nip this fear in the bud as soon as possible, so make it abundantly clear that this change won’t affect anyone’s job. After all, whoever is in charge of appointment booking is probably handling a lot more than just the schedule – reception and secretarial work is multi-faceted.

Let team members who are worried know that this is a tool to help them, not to replace them. Offer them training and, if applicable, help them develop new skills to suit their new work environment. They might use the appointment scheduling tool to collect and analyze data about your clients. They might use their free time to improve client outreach. There’s still plenty for every member of your team to do.

Be enthusiastic!

It’s really hard to get buy-in for something you don’t believe in yourself. That’s why you should show your exuberance for change. After all, appointment software is great! You’ll free up time, you’ll create a better client experience, and you’ll make coordinating between team members that much easier.

Extend this enthusiasm to your team members. Let them know how important it is for them to accept fully. Get their input, hear their worries, and try to get them as hyped up about the change as you are. After all, enthusiasm is contagious.

Tip #2: Find the best ways to implement the software

Now that you’ve talked to your team members about their concerns, it’s time for the exciting part: setting up your new software.

Take advantage of free trials

The best things in life are free, and for businesses looking to automate processes, there’s nothing quite as sweet as a free trial.

*While we’re not sure Aladdin’s 4th wish would have been for efficient booking software, it’s nice to dream.

There are a few advantages to going the free trial route. No money down means that if things don’t work out, either because the software isn’t to your liking or because your team won’t get behind it, you’ve lost relatively little.

The second advantage to free trials is that they give you the opportunity to test a few different booking softwares out before you decide on which one you like best.

Finally, the free-to-paid model gives you a timeframe in which to get your whole team skilled up and all of your clients integrated into the appointment software. That brings us to our next point:

Establish a transition timeframe

Eventually, you’re going to want everyone using the same appointment booking software. It makes things a lot easier, because you can synchronize calendars, which makes scheduling anything and everything much easier.

Talk to your team and establish a date by which all appointments should be scheduled through the appointment booking software. In some circumstances, you’ll have team members who are not on board – in spaces like tattoo parlors, where artists are responsible for their own clients, this isn’t the end of the world.

During this transitional time frame, import client lists into the booking software. Team members can, if they choose, record appointments manually and through the booking software (though honestly, that’s wasted effort in most cases).

Tip #3 Focus on training your team

With proper training, appointment scheduling for your team can go from this:

…to this:

When your team has bought into your appointment scheduling vision, training becomes that much easier – people who are resistant to the change to begin with can often be much harder to train.

Find software with in-house support

One of the easiest ways to train your team is to find appointment booking software that offers in-house support. Combining this support with a software that’s easy to use means training will take very little time.

We’re really proud of how easy Bookedin is to use, and we offer in-house support to help you train your team. If you’ll permit us a humblebrag – and a chance to highlight one of our awesome clients – check out this quote from Eddie Barber of Uptown Barbershop:

“…It’s been really smooth. And my team too, just to highlight that side of it, because I had to go back and train my team. There was really not much to be done, because it was so straightforward. They were all like, “Okay, cool.” I had a Zoom meeting with them, and we talked about it for about 4 minutes, and they were like, “Oh okay, I see how it works.” That was that.”

Check out our full interview with Eddie, and if you’re in Naples, Florida, looking for a slick cut, check out his shop!

Schedule training time

People are (for good reason) pretty mindful of how much time there is in a day. They might feel like the White Rabbit:

*This is, after all, why appointment scheduling software is so useful.

When your team is already busy doing this, that, and the other thing, they’re not going to be keen on adding training to their already full workload. To remedy this, schedule time specifically for training. In the case of Eddie, that training only took 4 minutes, but allowing for at least an hour gives you a better window in case of hiccups. Should certain team members need more time, schedule it for them!

Choose the right training method

There are several different training methods you can implement, and to go over them all here would be an exercise in futility.

We’re going to be a bit more clever than the warrior in this GIF, and just climb the proverbial wall. Your main bottleneck is going to be the number of team members you have. For many businesses, the best option is simply to have a quick meeting with all of your team members. You might also engage one-on-one with team members if the system is particularly complex, if they’re reluctant to learn, or if you want to personalize the training.

Hands-on training is usually best for appointment booking software – it’s important they know how to use the technology, and it’s easy enough to run scenarios and experiments. All you have to do is create a fake client who books through the software, and your team members will easily see how the booking software works, and how to navigate through it.

Incentivize training

Training employees on new software is useful. It can increase productivity! It can help your bottom line!

But is it fun?

It can be. You can make it fun – you have the power! You might do a training session followed by a lunch for your team. You can give out gift cards to team members who complete the training. Heck, you could throw a party when everyone is done! Whatever you can do to make what can feel a bit dry into something to look forward to is a very useful approach. The more excited your team is about the training, the better it’s liable to go.

By following all of the above tips, you’ll be much more likely to find success when training your team to use this software. One last tip – if ever you’re struggling with training, focus on the end goal. Once everything is said and done, life will be much easier – both for your team and your customers.

Better Call Saul – the prequel to Breaking Bad – is my favorite show on television right now (hot take: I think it’s better than the series it was spun off from). Warning: mild spoilers ahead.

(Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you to take professional advice from a criminal lawyer).

In the show, Bob Odenkirk plays Jimmy McGill, better known as Saul Goodman. In the early seasons, his “law office” is located in the back of a nail salon. His life and business are in absolute chaos, but Jimmy is a salesman, first and foremost, and he’s selling professionalism. He’s a sole practitioner – no money to hire staff – so what does he do? He puts on a fake British accent every time he answers the phone in order to make it seem like he’s got a receptionist.

You’ve gotta respect that gumption.

That’s what we’re talking about in this article: how to assure your clients that you have a professional, well-organized, decently staffed operation, even when you feel like you’re flying by the seat of your pants.

The absolute essentials

Let’s look at the bare minimum you should do to lend your business some legitimacy. You’ve got skills, and you’ve got a dream – but to most, that does little to legitimize your business. Being some person with a dream is perfectly fine, of course – that’s how almost all businesses start – but it’s all about perception.

Your contact information

You could be operating a hair salon out of your garage or operating a mobile massage clinic. In these cases, you won’t have a physical office. Nonetheless, to preserve an appearance of professionalism, you should get:

• A business address via a P.O. Box (you can forward mail from that PO Box to your home)
• A business phone number (with a business voicemail)
• A business website and email (more on that in the “Online presence” section)

Having these things lends an air of legitimacy to your whole operation. After all, if people phone your house and your 5-year-old picks up, they might grow skeptical about your business.
And if you’re using magicalunicornx0x0@hotmail.com as your email address – well, that might have played well in the mid-2000s, when ripped black jeans and jet black hair were all the rage, but your prospective clients might not appreciate it as much.

What’s in a name?

There’s an old saying about roses that I’ve got a bit of a vendetta against. You know the one:

While that’s true, if we called them “Stinkbuds”, I’d wager they wouldn’t be nearly as popular on Valentine’s day. What I mean is that your business name matters. Your branding and your logo – they matter. A lot.
Take the time to really think about the kinds of customers you want to attract, and the goals of your business. Use that to guide your branding – after all, it’s the first thing your prospective clients will see.

Your online presence

Before we dive into this, I want to make something clear:

You might not need a website.

That’s not advice you’ll hear from everyone, since having a website is very in vogue.

What you do need, however, is a web presence.

Instagram, Facebook, and other social media sites allow us to maintain an online presence without actually purchasing a website. That’s good news, because designing a website can be costly. You can, of course, create something with WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or the myriad other website builders. You don’t, however, necessarily need to, especially if you’ve already got a lot of followers on social media.

I will say, however, that you still need a URL for your business. There are a couple of reasons for this:

The first is that you want to have a business email address, and to do that (through Google Workspace, your web hosting provider, or another service), you need to own a domain name.

The second reason relates to growth and, sadly, Internet trolls.

*Disclaimer: Internet trolls are not this cute.

Domain names are very affordable. You might, at some point, decide you want a website for your business. Even if you don’t think you’re going to build a website right away, it’s better to grab a domain name before your brand name gets famous. Otherwise, people who want to make a quick buck can grab yourcompanyname.com, and hold it over your head until you offer them a bunch of money.

Worse yet, if you don’t do what they ask, they can use the domain to redirect to your competitors or actively disparage your company.

You might be asking what the chances of this happening are – fortunately, they’re relatively slim. Realistically, though, it’s worth spending the 20 bucks it will cost you to buy the domain and redirect traffic to your social media page – a small cost for a good deal of insurance.

Keep it tasteful

Not every business is going to want to follow this rule – in some industries, shock value sells – but for the most part, you’ll want to be very careful about the content that you post online. Ask yourself how someone’s parents or grandparents might react to seeing the images you post.

Take the time to check through everything you post to ensure there are no spelling/grammatical errors. Get photos taken by professionals. Your online presence is often the first thing that someone will see, so make sure your branding is front and center and that your content is enticing, not cringe-worthy.

Your physical presence

How you and your business look in the flesh is as important as your online presence.

Back in the day, everyone had to look like this to be professional:

Fortunately, those days are long since behind us. Nonetheless, your physical appearance should still fit your occupation.

Some examples might help. When I go to a hair salon, I check out the hairstyles of the people working there. When they’re totally unkempt, I’m reluctant to let them cut my hair. In the same vein, if you go to a chiropractor with terrible posture, “find a new chiropractor” will probably hit the top of your to-do list.

In other words, you don’t have to switch your whole style and demeanor in order to look professional – you just need to look like you care about the things that are valuable to someone seeking your services.

Keep it clean

The way you take care of your space can tell people a lot about the way you take care of your business. People pick up on how conscientious you are, and many folks feel like if you can’t keep your space clean, there’s no way you’ll be able to give them the focus and care they need.
This is an easy win. Be mindful of your space. Take care in how you select your furniture, your color palette, and all the rest. If you can’t afford a total makeover of the area you work in, that’s okay – keeping your space tidy is the best first step.

Service with a smile

When you’re trying to do everything yourself, customer service can suffer. Trying to answer the phone with one hand while tattooing someone with your other hand is going to leave everyone unhappy.

What’s a business owner to do? Take a page out of Saul Goodman’s book – kind of. Instead of impersonating someone who works for you, consider hiring a virtual assistant (VA) to answer phone calls, emails, and chat messages for you.

Automation is another great, inexpensive step you can take. You can automate customer service through chatbots that answer frequently asked questions. You can automate appointment booking through a platform like Bookedin. You can even create automated email responses for when you’re out of the office.

Professional & predictable – not pedestrian

Professionalism and predictability go hand-in-hand – clients want to know that if they call you, you’ll answer, and that you’ll never double-book them. You can provide this level of certainty without being boring.

Remember, professionalism is about whether or not you can consistently give people what they want. You can still let your personality shine through. You can still be innovative and creative, and run your business in imaginative ways. Consistency doesn’t mean a lack of creativity, as the tips we just went over show. Just because things are chaotic below the surface doesn’t mean your clients can’t sail on calm waters!

You may have heard the Henry Thoreau quote “Simplify, simplify”. While most of us aren’t spending our time in log cabins on the lake trying to “go back to nature”, we can all use a little simplification now and then. 

Some people have an appointment booking strategy that looks something like this: 

Don’t be like Charlie. He’s obviously very stressed. There are better ways of booking appointments.

We can do better. We can go entirely digital. We ditch pen and paper, save trees, reduce plastic waste, and create more efficient scheduling. Let’s get started! 

Go digital

Whether you’re sticking Post-it notes all over the wall with lines of string running between them, or you’re taking all of your appointments down in a book, you can improve your booking strategy by going digital.

The simplest way of going about this is to put all of your appointments into a Google Calendar. While there are a number of online calendars available, Google Calendar is the one I recommend for anyone who is using Gmail, Android, or other Google-based services.

The advantages of Google Calendar

One of the main advantages of using Google Calendar is that it can automatically schedule appointments that you’ve made via Gmail into your calendar. This feature works best for appointments you’ve booked with other people, so while it doesn’t handle your booking for you, it does help you make sure you don’t book someone when you’re supposed to be off running errands.

A second advantage of Calendar is that you can manage multiple calendars together. This is really useful for businesses who have more than one person clients can book with – salons, tattoo parlors, clinics, and many other businesses have multiple practitioners in the same space. It’s nice for everyone to know who is booked up when, so your business doesn’t end up looking like this:

“But Paul”, I hear you say, “Are there any other advantages to Google Calendar for appointment booking?” Why yes, my hypothetical over-eager friend, there are! You can use Google’s world clock mode to handle people in different time zones, great if you’re dealing with appointments hundreds of miles away via video conferencing!

If you think I’ve shilled for Google Calendar enough – you’re wrong. A small business with staff members who are all taking appointments can find it hard to coordinate meeting times. With Google Calendar, you can use the “find a time” feature, plug in all of the participants, and Google will find times that work for everyone. No more “Does 5 o’clock Thursday work for you?” “No, does 7 o’clock Friday work for you?” “No”.

That’s everyone’s least favorite game.

Here’s the TL;DR:

• Google keeps your appointments all in one place
• You can share your calendar with others in your business
• Your calendar automatically updates with information from Gmail
• It makes scheduling appointments easier
• It can handle different time zones

It also sends you reminders directly to your phone and/or your computer. Oh, and it’s totally free. That’s a good deal.

Get appointment booking software

If you thought the shilling for *Google* was bad, you’re in for a treat.

I kid, I kid.

Here’s the thing. Google Calendar is a wonderful start if you’ve been doing all of your appointment scheduling by pen and paper. It does, however, leave a lot to be desired when it comes to actually booking appointments. And reminding clients about their appointments. And confirming appointments. (Like I said, a lot to be desired).

The disadvantages of Google Calendar

You still have to answer the phone (and I’m sure you like playing phone tag about as much as I do). You still have to check your Instagram DMs, and your email inbox, and your Facebook messages, and your website’s chat support log, and your answering machine, and your LinkedIn messages, and…

That’s exhausting to read, and even more exhausting to experience. Online appointment scheduling software handles all of that for you. Any appointment booking platform worth its salt will automatically sync with your Google Calendar (and other scheduling programs), so clients will automatically know when you’re available.

Save time and money

The best feature of appointment software is that you can use one link for all of your appointment booking. No more looking through DMs from every single social media platform you use. You can just stick the link to your booking page in your profile with a big “BOOK HERE” call-to-action.

You want your clients to be able to book at 3 AM on New Year’s Eve. You don’t want your clients to call you at 3 AM on New Year’s Eve. Booking software manages all of that for you. Clients can book whenever they want, and it won’t interrupt the special dinner you just cooked. Online booking reduces stress!

Okay, so your clients can book appointments anytime, and your booking software will automatically schedule appointments into your calendar. Obviously that’s reaaaaaally handy. You can also find software that texts your clients appointment reminders (depending on which booking system you get). That cuts way down on no-call no-show cancellations, which are the bane of any business:

Another TL;DR

• Online scheduling software makes booking and scheduling easy
• Text reminders drastically reduce cancelled appointments and no-shows
• Your calendars are automatically synced with the software (which prevents double-booking)
• Clients can book appointments any time of day or night
• You can easily link to your booking page from all of your social media (and your website)
• You can get your clients to pay when they book, so no-shows don’t mean no money

Now I know new tech can seem like a bit of pain to get installed, but trust me – any hiccups you might experience are far outweighed by the efficiencies you’ll find.

Remember Charlie at the top? You don’t need to lose your mind like him. Go digital with your appointment booking. It’s definitely worth it. Click here to start for free.

You’re not a mind reader, and you shouldn’t want to be. There are waaaaay too many ethical concerns with mind reading. I can understand wanting to be a mind reader, though – that way, you’d always know what the people around you really wanted. 

*Reading Lorelai’s mind would give you enough of a second-hand caffeine high to last a week

Now, most people are very honest, and they’ll tell you what they want if you ask them. We’re going to look at the ways you can ask your clients what they want, and the ways you can find out what they want even if they’re not sure themselves. 

Before we get into all of that good stuff, though, I want to remind you that there are some people whose minds you would never want to read (and I’ll leave it to your imagination to fill in those blanks).

With that in mind, we come to our first exciting topic of the day…

Find out what clients YOU really want

Imagine this: a customer walks into your business, late for their appointment. Then during their appointment, they complain constantly, ask you to re-do work once you’ve done it, take up far more than their allotted time, then use coupons they’ve saved over years to reduce their bill by 60%. They go home, leave a 1-star review on Google, and go about their lives.

Do you care what this customer really wants? Is this the kind of customer you’re trying to attract to your business? Obviously not. We’re not going to focus on this person – we’re going to find the clients you actually want.

To do this, you’re going to create customer personas. The simplest way of going about this is to go through your customer list. Sort customers by demographic data, average spend, frequency of visits, and other relevant factors. 

Once you’ve got your data sorted, try to align it in meaningful ways that make sense to you. A hair salon, for example, might have a customer persona they call Terri Trendsetter. They’re a millennial professional who comes into the salon on a monthly(ish) basis. They’re willing to spend more than your average person on trying new styles and extras like coloring. They love the salon, and tell all of their friends about it. They’re an ideal customer because they’re:

• Loyal to the salon
• A frequent visitor
• Willing to spend extra for the best look
• Growing your business through word of mouth

Personas like Terri are the kind of people you want to serve best. You can (and should) take the time to find out what other customers want, and you should have multiple customer personas. Focus your efforts on your best customers, though, and you might find your efforts bear more fruits.

Talk to Them

The easiest way to find out what your clients want is…well, to ask them! They’ll tell you what they want (what they really, really want).

Now, I know that can be difficult for a lot of people. For some reason, we can talk to our clients about their day, and, in many cases, their relationships, careers, ambitions, goals, and dreams – but not about how we can serve them better. Maybe it seems too sales pitchy. Maybe you don’t want to make it all about you. Sound familiar?

If it does, don’t worry. We’ve all been there. Here’s the most important thing to remember: your clients want the best service from you. They want to help you serve them better. The best way to start is with regulars – people you already know and trust, people who probably fall under the category of your “best” persona. 

Want to do something a bit wild to learn from your customers and celebrate them? Pick some of your best/favorite customers from your list and throw them a party. Seriously – who doesn’t like parties (even if they have to happen over Zoom)? Tell them the purpose of the party is to learn from them about how you can improve your business. Get cake. Go wild. You and your customers will enjoy it and benefit immensely.

Survey Says…

Another great way of learning what your customers want is by sending them surveys. There are several survey creation products available online; SurveyMonkey gives a nice free trial, but like most survey software, you’ll have to pay to get all the best benefits. Nonetheless, it can be very worth the cost.

Taking a survey is all about keeping things neutral. Obviously, you might want your customers to say “Your business is the best! No changes needed!” – but that’s actually not very helpful. Realistically, you want feedback about what you could improve, so you need your survey to have:

• Neutral options (Extremely good to extremely bad, and everything in between, as options)
• A variety of different questions
• Questions that don’t need to be answered
• A feedback section
• Multiple choice/yes or no questions

One of the main advantages to surveys is that people can be a bit more honest in them – they might be willing to say things in the survey that they wouldn’t say to you in person. That’s why it’s very important to keep your survey anonymous – you can get demographic information, but don’t gather information that would allow you to identify the customer.

Something to keep in mind: surveys are dryyyyyyyy for most people (I love taking them, but hey), so you might want to spice things up. Think about running a contest – by submitting a survey, you’re entered to win some kind of prize! You can still keep things anonymous by simply recording the names of the people who complete the survey, without associating their names with survey data.

Do Market Research

We’re not going to go too deeply into how to do market research – you’ve probably already done some (at the onset of your business), and, to be frank, it’s a bit on the dry side. Basically, Google and public libraries are your friends.

What kind of research should you do? Look up trends in your business, trends in your target demographic – whatever springs to mind. This can help you identify things that your customers might want in the future – it’s like having psychic powers!

Basically, with good market research, you can know what your customer wants before they do. You’ll be able to predict trends and hop on them, so you’ll be ready for what your customer needs. It’s like magic, and you’ll be like magic to them. 

Now, market research is not a one-and-done affair. You care about your clients and you’re passionate about your business, so you’re probably doing market research every day! Holistic health practitioners will be in the know about CBD trends. It’s not surprising to see a tattoo artist scrolling through Instagram, looking at cool tattoos. And barbers? They, like the rest of us, are wondering whether or not Guy Fieri’s resurgence in popularity is going to bring frosted tips back.

*Note: Most barbers are probably NOT, in fact, looking to Guy for styling tips

All of these things are market research.

Encourage Reviews and Feedback

Okay, obviously we all want 5-star reviews. Those reviews don’t leave a lot of room for growth, though, do they?

Now, I’m not saying you should go out of your way to get worse reviews – that would be a very bad idea. Instead, encourage everyone to give reviews. By doing so, you open the door to all kinds of useful feedback – you’ll know what your customers love about your business, and what you can improve. 

You can get automated review software if you want, but you can also just ask people to leave reviews when they leave your business. The software tends to do better in terms of volume (and some other features), but it also costs money, so it depends on how much you want to spend.

You should also encourage feedback, even if it’s not in review form. Have a feedback section on your Contact Us page! People loooove giving their opinions (solicited or not). You can even encourage your clients to give you feedback over social media – not in post form, but through direct messages. 

Testing New Services

Variety of the spice of life, and as anyone who loves to cook knows, experimenting with spices can bring bold new twists to your cooking.

That’s a philosophy you can take to your business. There are always new trends and ideas coming to the fore. You don’t have to revamp all of your services every time something interesting comes along. Instead, opt to integrate new offerings with your existing services, and engage in trial runs.

A massage clinic might offer CBD oil massages for a limited time, or to it’s best customers. A spa might offer a combo deal that includes a new aqua-therapy service they’re trying out at a discounted rate.

You can test all kinds of things – memberships, bundle deals, discounted pricing for certain groups, 2-for-1 deals, and a whole lot more. Couple that with all the different products and services you can experiment with, and you’ll see there are a lot of ways to test what your customers are looking for. 

Bringing it All Together

We’ve gone over a lot of information here, and it has all been about gathering information. You might think that putting this together is a no-brainer – you figure out what your clients want, and you implement it! Obviously, though, it’s going to be a little bit more work than that.

We can’t give our clients everything they want. Sometimes they think they want a certain thing, but they’ll change their minds almost immediately, riding the wave of trends. Sometimes you really would like to give your clients what they want, but the cost of it outweighs the benefits.

I’m going over all of this information right now because people can have a tendency to get, well, a bit of tunnel vision. We want to serve our customers – give them the best possible experience. Not just to grow our business, but to delight them – if you don’t love people, you’re probably not in the business of client service, and you won’t care about what they want. That all said, it’s still very important to trust your instincts.

So once you’ve gathered all of this data, take an honest look at your business, your customers, and yourself. If something doesn’t feel right, don’t implement it, or do it in teeny-tiny baby steps – almost like you’re multivariate testing your own feelings on the thing you’re implementing. Make sure you’re as on board for any changes as your customers are.