Seeking Business Advise for out Barber Shop (financial, advertising, workers)

[saas_1gatorfan]

This is going to be a long post so I appreciate you taking time to read it. We are in need of some advice or direction. To start, my wife has been cutting hair for about 14 or so years and is a very good barber. Yes there are women barbers. She has been cutting hair where she started her new shop for almost 7 years. Over the past 7 years she has built up a very large clientèle. I would say at least 4 or 5 hundred people. The shop she worked in normally ran 4 5 or so chairs, normally keeping 4 busy all the time. Most of the time if and when her coworkers were sitting she was cutting with 3 or 4 waiting for a cut in excess of an hours wait. She is that good.
Not to bore you with the details, but the owner of the barbershop and my wife had a disagreement and my wife decided to quit after seven years of employment there. It was just time to go. The new shop is on the other side of town yet, in the same town. She told my wife that it was her town and she wouldn’t work in this town because she knew every barber in town and she was going to call them and make sure they didn’t hire her so what was she to do? I said, forget about her, we will open you up your own shop and that’s what she did. The shop is very, very nice and upscale. She offers shaves, hot towels and all the other treats you wouldn’t expect to get in your run of the mill shop. She has retained about 40% of her customers. More and more are coming every day. Word of mouth has really worked well. We have spent thousands of dollars in advertising in the local papers, penny savers, flyers, brochures, business cards etc so we are definitely being proactive and trying to seek out her old customers. Here’s the dilemma we are facing.
Her old boss and her so called, old friends all have suffered amnesia and now have no idea where she has gone. They just say they don’t know or the make things up. Talking about bad business huh? The old boss has said every hateful thing from my wife has a metal illness to she is charging 16 dollars a haircut which neither are true. My wife has already taken a lot of business from this lady. I never wish misfortune on anyone but I want this to succeed as we have put everything we have into this business and we want it to work.
What were looking for are some creative ways to get men in the door. We want to pull people out of her old shop where the old hateful boss is. Again, not to be spiteful but there are a lot of her customers misplaced out there that don’t know where she’s gone. Once new customers get their haircut from my wife or her employee, whom got fired because he was accused of backing us financially which wasn’t the case. The lady just fired him. Pretty much guilty by association I guess. Their hooked. There has got to be a way that when people turn around and walk out of the shop when they don’t see their barber that we can help answer the question, where’s my barber? Unfortunately they are the property managers so I can’t park a truck with a banner or anything like that as they would have it towed. We have gone to all kinds of community events, joined the chamber, chased people down in the parking lot, ran ads for half price haircuts. We just need a hook. We even considered giving away free haircuts which we reconsidered on because we didn’t want to get riffraff in there. My wife is young and attractive and sometimes works alone. You see where I am going there. We are looking for some feedback as to what you like, dislike about getting your hair cut, what would you do if your old boss was spreading nasty rumors about you when your customers ask where you are? Where would you recommend we advertise as not all customers read publications, papers etc. We tried the radio and are in the process of getting vinyl put on the back of the car with the shop info. We leave the lights on at night so that the passerby’s can see in. Our shop has only been open for a short time but we are looking for short term growth in a expediential way. Thank you again for taking time to read this post.

[BLAZER PROPHET]

There are probaly numerous ways to increase business.

Have sports on TV's, offer free sodas or beers or maybe a cigar waiting room...

As to the other place, one could stand outside and hand out leaflets letting people know where she is and what she charges... there's no law against that. However, it could get messy.

[saas_1gatorfan]

we do give out sodas, water etc. The x boss is a loose cannon so we are trying to avoid that if possible. Thanks for the reply.

[USMCSoCal]

A good family friend of ours owns a bunch of very successful barber shops here in NY. My wife has worked for him so I am picking her brain for you. This is what we can pass on..... He advertises quite a bit, is open 7 days a week and is also open 9 to 8 weekdays and Sat. and 9 to 4 on Sun. They do a very popular "father and son" deal where the father is a full price cut $11.00 and the son is $5.50. This has always brought in young families. They do not put an age limit on the father son so they also get 40 and 60 year olds too! They have neon barber signs that they leave on at night like you do and that has helped put (and keep) them on the map. A large part of their clients are young men in their 20's that come in once a week (usually Fridays and Sat.) before heading out to the bars/clubs. This is a huge market to corner and my wife says this age usually loves having a woman barber as long as they are excellent. Do you have a college campus that you can advertise flyers? Undercut the competition for 6 months by over a dollar and slowly raise them back up but not more than everyone else. The shop my wife worked at is always a little cheaper than most others but sometimes they have a wait of over 30 min. +