3 Ways to Simplify Your Service Menu
Here’s what I truly believe, when it comes to your service menu, overcomplication is optional.
And if you want to start detaching yourself a bit from your work at the nail table, and dipping your toe into teaching online, then you have to keep things super simple.
Hey there, I am Paola, of paolaponcenails.com, and I help current and aspiring nail techs become thriving entrepreneurs.
Now typically, I’m talking about my niche of mastering gel nail application, and I will definitely continue to do that in this channel, but I also want to help current nail techs turn some of their success into a profitable online course. Yes, just one!
And so if you’re a current nail tech or even a nail enthusiast who has mastered even one thing in nails. Like have you found success doing nails in one particular area for either yourself or a client?
For example, is your character nail art superb, are your gel extensions like no one elses? Or do you offer the most stunning pedicure transformations. Well then, I am talking to you. You have a profitable course idea under your belt that you can teach others. A digital course can offer you financial freedom and really… the independence to work from anywhere. Trust me, this has been my experience.
If you’re oh-so ready to expand your impact and income via a digital course, then pause this video RIGHT NOW, and sign up to one of the free masterclasses I will be hosting on this topic.
Alright, so now let’s dive into today’s topic.
Why is it important to streamline your service menu?
Put very simply, it helps you specialize, and become really good at something which in return can lead to making more money, and making it consistently…
Who should simplify their service menu? You should lean out your service menu in the salon if you want to just keep things simple and make your bookings super predictable, as far as how long it takes and how much you can charge per service.
But in this case, I am specifically urging my nail tech entrepreneurs to simplify their service menu, so that they can buy back some time and invest that time into building a business online by teaching nails or a topic on nails online.
Now, whether you’re thinning your service menu because you want time and income predictability or, because you want to buy back some time to invest on your new online endeavour…
Less time in the salon means less bookings, and so you should set yourself to be more premium price to offset any earnings lost.
To help you make this transition, you have to become specialized so that you can streamline your service menu.
If you’ve hung around me, long enough, you will know that I often say, the riches are in the niches.
For example, you may already know that a doctor who is a specialist is more likely to make more than one who is just a general family doctor.
Or let’s even bring it a little bit more close to home, and let me ask you this…
Who is likely to be able to charge more of a premium, a hair stylist who offers it all: cuts, blow outs, color, perms, etc, or one that does outstanding color corrections, or balayage services.
For sure the one who specializes in color corrections or other technical color treatments.
Those who are specialized typically have a more predictable income and can scale their business, by servicing more customers, and boosting their income, because they know how long that one thing they specialize in takes to perform, and what they charge for it.
Let us now look at the 3 ways to simplify your service menu, by looking at the power of specialization.
The first way to simplify your menu is to take a deeper look at your core services.
What is your most booked service. There is at least one service item in your menu that gets booked more than others. Is it your gel overlays, your gel extensions, your pedicures, your nail art services? Whichever it is, and if you truly enjoy doing it. Consider specializing in it, and make it the pillar that everything else in your business revolves around.
And again, if it is the service that makes you wake up wide-eyed every morning to service your clients, and if you do it exceptionally well and your clients will go nowhere else for it then again consider making it your specialty and also charging what you wish to profit from it, on an hourly basis. What do your clients currently pay for this service? Can you charge more for it?
So here’s what I found when I reviewed my service menu to find what my clients were gravitating towards.
Very early on thankfully, I definitely found that there was no need for me to offer acrylic services. I was not an expert at them, and new clients hardly ever booked me for these.
I kept my pedicure services because I thought I had to offer them, but frankly I could have eliminated them way early from my menu list. I was getting a lot of bookings for them, but eventually I realized that they were not the reason why I went into doing nails, and that I was quite unhappy doing them. But I kept doing them because I kind of feared clients would not book me if I didn’t offer them, and it also was not a standard practice to not offer them, so I made the mistake of holding on to this service for too long even though I didn’t love it. Eventually, I did give it up though.
Stocking pedicure supplies takes a lot of room, so make sure to offer them only if you do enjoy doing them and you have the storage area.
So my advice on this first way to simplify your service menu is to list no more than 3 core services you will be offering. We’ll get into a few examples in just a few.
The second way to simplify your service menu is by finding the average time it takes you to service a client for your most popular service.
For me, I found that time to be 90 minutes. Yes I could do a gel manicure within 60 minutes, but I usually found it to be more stress-free and satisfying, really, to give my client a beautiful set of nails, if I took an hour and 15 mins. I would still book 90 minutes whether it took me 60 or 75 minutes because I could always use that 15 minute as a break or buffer.
My gel extensions were typically taking me about 1 hour and 45mins but I figured that if I could train myself to follow a process and make them faster, than I could get them done in 90 minutes. And so that is how I was able to get all my service time to 90 minutes. Which in return meant I knew what I charged for 90 minutes of my time, which then allowed me to know what I made hourly .
So again, if you can take the average time of your top services, analyze it and see if you can improve it or increase the price to give you a sustainable hourly income as a creative solo-preneur, do so. This should be nothing less than $40 per hour.
So what does your average hourly look like? Are you happy with it, can it be improved? Take a moment at the end of this video to analyze it.
The third way to simplify your service menu is by diminishing or extinguishing your service add ons.
What are add ons?
An add-on can be nail art, removals, or a repair.
Add-ons can discourage your client from taking action on the services you want them to book.
For example, if you want to be a nail tech known for her nail art, but you offer it as an add-on your client will have to make the decision each time on whether or not is a good idea to treat herself this time to nail art.
Instead, i f you want to cultivate a clientele that consistently gets nail art, then consider charging a premium price of say $75-120 because your service includes nail art.
In this case, your nail art is your specialty, and you are charging a premium price for it.
You can offer an option to downgrade, if they don’t want nail art, but I’ve also seen successful nail techs not offer a downgrade, and still keep their clientele.
In such a case, by the way, I would not charge separately for gel removal… unless they got their nails done somewhere else.
Personally, here’s what I did. I offered 3 core services. A gel manicure, a gel overlay, and a gel extension services. I offered pedicures, but only to existing clients. Pedicures where not a public option on my service menu. I also included gel removal for all of my clients complimentary, as long as it was my service that I was removing.
I also had 2 tiers of nail art: basic and complex. I enjoyed doing nail art, but it was not necessarily my specialty. I was all about beautifully structured gel nails and helping clients achieve natural nail goals.
My services started at $60, I mastered quick efile removals, and a French Tip nail, and it was the reason I included these 2 popular add ons to the base price of my services.
So this is how things looked for me.
Gel Manicure $60
Gel Overlay $70
Gel Extensions $90
To any of these services, my client had the option of adding simple art at $20 or complex art at $30.
And while this menu already looks pretty lean, believe it or not, you could actually simplify it further by either just offering gel overlays, or by not offering gel extensions.
So again to recap this third way of simplifying your service menu diminish or extinguish your add-ons menu.
Thank you so much for joining me this week, if you’d like to watch more of my content, then do click on the next video, or do not forget to sign up to any one of our free trainings down below in the description box.
