Well…you sell them!
Question - why are you doing a video demo instead of simply including screenshots in your site?
And what do you do after the video demo? Are you redirecting them to an “activate your account” page?
Have you considered using an e-mail course to help close the sale?
Hey Jason, out of curiosity, I just opened your website. The first impact: very slow loading! Don’t know what you do with all those scripts, maybe you should some some.
Or have multiple resolutions for multiple devices?
@Christopher Good question. Screenshots are simply one of the many things I’m planning to add, but haven’t yet. The reason I have a demo that you have to enter your email, etc. in to see is that I need some way of collecting contact info to be able to follow up, and I need something somewhat valuable that prospects will be willing to exchange their contact info for.
The steps after the demo aren’t very well-defined, which is stupid. Originally I was sending them to another, longer form, where I was expecting to collect more qualified leads. But now that I’m collecting phone number (which I wasn’t before), I just call the prospect, with the goal being to do a live demo with the prospect. At that point I’ll offer a 30-day trial, but it’s at this point that I have some trouble. Often a prospect will express interest in a demo but then never do anything with it. I’m wondering at this point if I should require credit card for the demo.
I’ve considered an email course and even put one together, but it was a dumb one. I honestly can’t think of an email course I could produce that would make any sense for my target market.
OK. I’m going to share some things I’ve learned. A lot of it consists of things that I have not yet done, but have learned about from my podcast guests & from marketer friends. Food for thought, if nothing else.
[quote=“jasonswett, post:24, topic:3171”]
The reason I have a demo that you have to enter your email, etc. in to see is that I need some way of collecting contact info to be able to follow up, and I need something somewhat valuable that prospects will be willing to exchange their contact info for.[/quote]
I can’t speak for anyone else here, but being required to provide my contact info just to see a demo is a 100% no-go. I can’t imagine anyone wants to have to “buy” their way in to a demo.
Is there anything else you can use as a lead magnet? PDF infographics with “salon marketing tips”, “hot trends for Fall 2015”, “how to sell more hair care product”, “high-profit service to add to your menu”, anything? That would get you the e-mail address you want.
Dude. It’s like you’re selling enterprise software. 
Is it possible that this process itself might be why you’re having difficulty converting? Think of it this way - what is it about your Saas product that exempts it from converting customers the same way most other Saas apps do? Why can’t you simply put up a “Tour” page?
Something to consider instead of a demo; I keep hearing people saying that webinars are a hot way to sell right now. I don’t get it - and granted, I’m not a typical buyer - but loads of people are making it work. The prospect opting in to the webinar gets you the e-mail address you want, and it lets the prospect feel less like they’re heading in to a high-pressure-sale situation.
[quote]I’ve considered an email course and even put one together, but it was a dumb one. I honestly can’t think of an email course I could produce that would make any sense for my target market.
[/quote]That does seem to be a pretty successful tactic these days; I’m in the process of putting together a video course to help sell my book. I would imagine anything that offers any kind of professional development/tips/improvements for either stylists or salon managers would do the trick. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about scheduling just because the app is. Hell, even a generic “how to get more clients” course would probably be of interest - and you could tie that in with a CTA based on using Snip to manage all the new client appointments!
Presumably, you’ve done some customer development - what kind of things were salon owners/stylists complaining about in terms of pain points? There might be some fertile ground to come up with a course from that.
And that, my friend, is all I got at the moment. You clearly have some traction. And despite all this talk about marketing, I suspect that what you’re primarily competing against is a simple paper planner. If your app can’t be more convenient than that, you’re going to have a hard time.
Capterra seems interesting. I didn’t know such directories exist for software. How did it perform in relation to Adwords?
@jay15 All I can really say confidently is that the cost per click is lower (or at least can be lower). I’m paying $2.25/click on Capterra whereas I was paying $5-10 or more on AdWords.
@Christopher You bring up some interesting and thought-provoking points.
I can’t speak for anyone else here, but being required to provide my contact info just to see a demo is a 100% no-go. I can’t imagine anyone wants to have to “buy” their way in to a demo.
I have a certain premise here that I understand to be fairly rock-solid business practice, and then inside of that premise I’m open to anything that might work. The premise is that I can offer something of value in exchange for contact information, and out of that exchange I’ve generated a lead.
I was originally just asking for first name and email in exchange for viewing a demo video. This was generating about one lead a day, which I found to be a perfectly acceptable volume, although it was a little tough to follow up. All I could do was email as opposed to call. A Capterra rep called me one day and shared that many of their other customers are requiring a phone number and suggested that I do too. I figured I’d at least give it a shot. Many of the successes I’ve had with Snip have been occasions where I admitted that I’m not some sort of singular genius and just “gave up” and followed the way of the world. (Example: I didn’t want to be like my competitors by calling my product “salon software”. This was folly because “salon software” is precisely what people search for who need a product like mine.)
Anyway, the results from that have been confusing. I got like 10 leads within the first week or so, and a couple of them were great ones. But now I haven’t gotten a single lead in 14 days. I thought my form must be broken, but it wasn’t. So today I switched back to just requiring email. If I don’t go back to getting about one lead a day, which was happening very predictably, I’ll know something weird is going on.
Is there anything else you can use as a lead magnet? PDF infographics with “salon marketing tips”, “hot trends for Fall 2015”, “how to sell more hair care product”, “high-profit service to add to your menu”, anything? That would get you the e-mail address you want.
Oh boy. So you would think so. There are two problems with that: First, most salon owners don’t give a fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck about improving their businesses. I can’t emphasize that enough. It’s crazy and stupid and frustrating but very true. It’s a well-known fact among the few business-savvy people in the beauty industry that the vast majority of salon owners see themselves as technicians, not business owners. (Hey, maybe that sounds familiar here!) Second, I don’t believe there’s usually a sufficiently strong relationship between being interested salon software and being interested in how to sell more retail or whatever it might be. So that’s why I chose the demo video as the lead magnet, if you can call it that. I couldn’t think of any other valuable thing that a) salon owners would be interested in and b) was sufficiently related to the thing they were looking for. I’m open to anything that meets those criteria but I think it has to meet those criteria.
Dude. It’s like you’re selling enterprise software. smile Is it possible that this process itself might be why you’re having difficulty converting? Think of it this way - what is it about your Saas product that exempts it from converting customers the same way most other Saas apps do? Why can’t you simply put up a “Tour” page?
I think it actually is more toward the enterprise software end of the spectrum. The reason I say that is because if I want to try, e.g., HitTail to see if I like it, I can just spin up an account and try it out for a few days. If it doesn’t do anything for me, I can just cancel my account and I’m not out much of an investment at all. With Snip it’s not quite as easy to just kick the tires. You have to make the non-trivial time investment of entering your salon’s services, stylists, appointments, etc. These steps can be made as easy as possible (e.g. you can dictate the info to me over the phone and I’ll enter it in) but they can’t really be skipped. In my experience so far, prospects want to talk to someone and ask a bunch of questions before they invest any time in trying out the product. Almost no one has ever ultimately become a customer who started out self-serve. They all required some objection-addressing and hand-holding in order to get started. A reasonable reaction to what I’m saying here might be that that’s a lot of song and dance to win a $29-$69/mo customer, but the flip side to the high barrier to entry is that once they’re on board, they’re fucking on board forever. My churn is almost nonexistent.
Something to consider instead of a demo; I keep hearing people saying that webinars are a hot way to sell right now. I don’t get it - and granted, I’m not a typical buyer - but loads of people are making it work. The prospect opting in to the webinar gets you the e-mail address you want, and it lets the prospect feel less like they’re heading in to a high-pressure-sale situation.
You could be right about that. My suspicion so far has been that salon owners are well below the tech-savviness threshold for webinars to work for them, even if I don’t call it a webinar. It’s been amazing for me to discover how bewildered these people can be by the simplest technology-related concepts. One salon owner called me for tech support because her computer wouldn’t turn on and she didn’t get that that wasn’t a Snip-related thing. So I’m not saying I refuse to ever try a webinar, that’s just why I’ve kind of prioritized it low so far.
Presumably, you’ve done some customer development - what kind of things were salon owners/stylists complaining about in terms of pain points? There might be some fertile ground to come up with a course from that.
Let me address that along with
And despite all this talk about marketing, I suspect that what you’re primarily competing against is a simple paper planner.
When I first started Snip, I was doing door-to-door sales with unqualified suspects and it was definitely true at that time that I was competing with a paper appointment book. With my online prospects (and it took me a long time to realize this), that’s not the case. Here are what I currently understand the reasons to be why a prospect who finds me is interested in my product:
In all these cases they’re usually already sold on the idea of going online with their appointments. The only segment of the three that really seems to have complaints is the third one, and their complaints are usually around pricing. There’s an upgrade fee, or the product charges extra for text reminders, or the product is just to expensive for them overall.
I wish I could see a way that any of that stuff could translate into anything educational. The desires and pains of salon owners looking for scheduling software always seem to be so mechanical and mundane. You need something cheaper? Okay, you need the price to be a lower number. You need text reminders? Okay, you need a product that offers text reminders. Not a lot of nuance and mystery there. So that’s why it’s been challenging for me to think of a way to get educational about it. Although I also totally realize that I might just be too close to the situation to be able to see a solution.
So that’s a lot of stuff. I’m not trying to shoot down your ideas, I just wanted to explain why I haven’t done certain things, or why I have and they haven’t worked. I appreciate you making me think. If there’s any bullshit to my answers I hope somebody calls me out.
Now that I’ve determined that requiring a phone number in the demo form is apparently not an improvement over just requiring name and email, I think I’ll let that go for another month and see what I get. I got two new customers in June for $500, which in my book is acceptable. If I can repeat that result, I’d be happy to pay $1000/mo for four new customers, etc.
First, most salon owners don’t give a fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck about improving their businesses.
I think you just discovered the root of every business problem you will ever have in this market.
I’ve been married to a stylist for almost 20 years now, and she agrees with everything you said about the way the places are run, and how the owners identify. It’s one hell of a industry.
Second, I don’t believe there’s usually a sufficiently strong relationship between being interested salon software and being interested in how to sell more retail or whatever it might be.
It sure SOUNDS like a decent proxy for giving a fuck about improving their business. Do you have any data on this?
They all required some objection-addressing and hand-holding in order to get started. A reasonable reaction to what I’m saying here might be that that’s a lot of song and dance to win a $29-$69/mo customer, but the flip side to the high barrier to entry is that once they’re on board, they’re fucking on board forever. My churn is almost nonexistent.
That IS a lot of song and dance, but if you can earn out in under a year and have almost zero churn, that’s a viable long-haul play.
You’ve clearly thought this out well. And yet you’re still having trouble. Hmmm. That’s a tight situation, man.
I’ve been married to a stylist for almost 20 years now, and she agrees with everything you said about the way the places are run, and how the owners identify. It’s one hell of a industry.
You can say that again. 
You’ve clearly thought this out well. And yet you’re still having trouble. Hmmm. That’s a tight situation, man.
Yes, but my challenge at this point is one of optimization, not of grand mystery-solving anymore. It’s like the difference between seeing a disassembled gun and not even knowing what it is versus shooting the gun at a target and not quite hitting the bullseye yet. I just need more skillful aim, and I do believe my aim is improving.
Please keep these updates coming. Interesting to follow.
Okay, so let me ask the hard question. Would your time be better spent targeting people who do see themselves as a business, who take active efforts to improve their business?
I’ve seen you working on this for years. At what point do you decide if this market isn’t good enough?
Okay, so let me ask the hard question. Would your time be better spent targeting people who do see themselves as a business, who take active efforts to improve their business?
Yes, I couldn’t agree more. Snip is actually my sixth product business attempt, and the first one that’s made any money. I’m sticking with it because I believe it’s easier to optimize something that’s working than to take something that has never worked (and might never ever work) and make it work.
I’ve seen you working on this for years. At what point do you decide if this market isn’t good enough?
There was a story I heard Joe Polish tell on the I Love Marketing podcast that has stuck with me and I consider it one of the most helpful business lessons I’ve learned.
Joe was working as what he calls an unsuccessful carpet cleaner in Arizona in the early '90s. His carpet cleaning business was so bad that he was making a negative amount of money and living off of credit cards. He got a chance one day to ride jet skis with a friend, and also his friend’s friend, who was a rich, successful businessman.
When Joe got the opportunity to talk to the rich guy one-on-one, Joe asked the guy what kind of business he should go into if he wanted to be successful and make a lot of money. The guy asked, “Are there other carpet cleaners in your area that are successful?” Joe said yes. “Then the problem isn’t your market. It’s you. If you go into some other market, you’ll just have the same kinds of problems you’re having now.”
That’s the story. I found that to be a pretty powerful lesson. It definitely applies to me.
So the answer to your question, which a lot of people have asked me, is: if I get to a point where I’ve tried everything I think I could reasonably try and I’m STILL not seeing encouraging results, then I’ll think about moving onto something else.
Sometimes I imagine quitting. Then I imagine a hypothetical person asking me:
And I would just have to sheepishly answer “no” to all those things. They’re all either things I haven’t tried at all or things I haven’t tried to the extent I should.
So basically, I won’t quit before I’ve done the basic things any business would need to do in order to be successful. There’s so much I haven’t tried yet.
By the way, it’s seeming to me like the PPC campaign I’m working on now might be “it”. In June I spent $500 and got 2 customers which is a good ROI. For most of July I ruined my funnel by changing my landing page to require too many fields. I changed it back yesterday, and if I can spend $500 a few times and get at least one new customer each time, then I think that’s enough to tell me that that funnel can be profitable, and therefore the business can be successful.
And are there other bootstrapped vendors of hair salon software that are successful?
In my experience, markets are not efficient. Some are much harder to make money than others. Can you not take what you have done and leverage it in a similar market that is less tough?
I operate in the same market as Jason. Almost all vendors in this vertical are bootstrapped, the difference being most of the large ones are selling desktop software for $5k+ a pop, much easier than the paying $30 a month in terms of initial cash flow. I imagine almost all saas that are competing against traditional vertical market solutions have the same problem.
One thing we do is offer yearly subscriptions (get next 12 months for the price of 10) which is great for getting some money in, and probably 25% of clients pay this way.
Can you not take what you have done and leverage it in a similar market that is less tough?
I definitely could. I’m reluctant to try doing that at this particular point in time because things are looking pretty promising with my PPC campaign.
Yup, agree.
To rephrase that, are there any vendors for hair salon, dog walkers, pool cleaners, massage therapists, or any of these other “niches” that programmers love to target, successful?
As far as the look of the site I think you should do it a little more modern. Like loosing shadows from the text, use a lighter font and smaller and maybe do a different menu.
I’m with @mcasas. Try to add more screenshots and extend the content.
I would say some of them are mega-successful like http://www.saloniris.com/
We probably don’t recognize them as bootstrapped companies because they are so successful they have grown to employ 100+ people, but this company just started out as a husband and wife.
Funny, I’ve had two leads in the last two days who said they used Salon Iris, and they both want to switch away. They’re definitely a giant in the industry but their product isn’t “modern”. Most of the products seem to be antiquated and suffer from device compatibility problems.
Seems like a software-based business might do well to engineer their product to be sufficiently simple that it’s not a huge deal rewrite the thing top to bottom every few years when the world shifts to the next generation of technology.