We recently introduced a payment scheme to help facilitate cash flow for freelance hairdressers wanting to switch to Colourstart. Cashflow can be one of the biggest challenges for any small business, so our latest offer for FHA members endeavours to offer a solution to this. One Sheffield hairdresser who capitalised on this is Liz Bell. We chatted to Liz about her Colourstart journey and how she overcame what she believed was her biggest hurdle… asking clients to pay £15 for a single-use test.
“I’ve been freelancing for nearly 20 years and have a very loyal and wide client base. My business is divided between hairdressing in my home salon, and visiting clients who can’t get to me.
Before I introduced Colourstart, I was carrying out the normal Allergy Alert Test, but keeping on top of all the paperwork became challenging. I have a large client base and every client has a file with their skin records. I am very thorough, and each record card has every piece of information that I need on each client, including their skin test history. It’s a lot of red tape and something I take seriously,
Wella is the main colour, but as the range extended, it became very hard to test against every colour that my clients might want to have. It definitely hindered my creativity and being able to adapt colour work on the day if a client changes their mind is so liberating.
I am a member of the FHA and that’s how I heard about Colourstart. I was very interested in adopting it into my business, but the only issue was the £15. I am not a salesperson and I wrongly assumed that my clients would be negative about the one-off cost. I just thought ‘how on earth am I going to approach the conversation about the cost?’
The team at Colourstart were asked about this and they provided me with an email to send to clients, which basically explained everything that I needed to tell them, in a really clear way. It was perfect, and in actual fact I have not had one client question the cost.
I have explained that this is the way forward and the future, and explained that it’s a one-off test, and once it’s done it’s done. I recently had a new client who came in for a consultation, and I explained that before I do anything, she must have Colourstart. She was so impressed, and said she’d never had anything like this before and thought it was amazing. It gave me such a buzz; I felt so professional, and it definitely gave her complete confidence in my ability. This client even messaged me saying she had done the test and it was brilliant.
For me everything has to be structured in my business and now I don’t have to do the paperwork, it’s given me a whole new level of freedom and takes a massive weight off my shoulders. Life is so busy, and thanks to Colourstart I can just concentrate on my work now.”