What I learned from a $10 haircut that could make you Famous

This kind of guy will probably never raise his rates and will end up running into serious problems. He can be the most humble guy in the world (and he probably is a genuinely great person) but he's in business, not running a charity.

If he raised his prices and charged what he's worth, he'd have enough money to give back to his community in ways other than providing cheap haircuts at his own expense. If he truly has a loyal clientele, they will not start dropping like fleas over a small price increase. The ones that do, obviously weren't that loyal. Price increases are understandable by nearly everyone.

The interesting thing is, if he raises his rates and loses some people, those will be replaced by the people who keep getting referred to him.

He can also change his pricing in ways that might be a little more easier to stomach, such as raising the cost of regular cuts, lowering the cost of childrens cuts, and keeping the $10 for seniors.

Since he is the whole business, his time is limited, so he needs to charge what he's worth. "Sales for vanity, profit for sanity".

Four words. Senior Special, Kids Special.

Everyone else pays the new rate.

Remember, the guy just recently took on the business. He still is in the process of getting it all switched over into his name.

I think that, at this point, living in his dad's shoes is kind of like a tribute for him, maybe even part of the grieving process.

And it's true, he could raise his prices 50%, and still lose no revenue even if 1/3 of his client base falls off.

Regardless though, the point I was trying to make was not that he is a schmuck or that he should charge more. I hope that people reading this thread take away a strong point about the power of humble gratitude.


Posted from Warriorforum.com App for Android

Point taken. Showing more appreciation for the people who help you in life (which is what clients are) is a good thing.

Well to the average person who doesn't know anything about business or care about business, or has ever ran a business or managed one your point would be just what you want, he's humble and people should be more humble.

But for people here on the forum I think we more so take from it that you a business owner that runs his business like a charity will ultimately need a lot of charity.

In other words you can't charge $10 for a haircut hahahahah

I'm just being a pain haha he sounds like a great guy and very humble as well.

When I first went to my local barber he was charging
about $10.

I told him I knew a way he could increase his profits
instantly.

He was interested.

I said put your prices up 20%. Almost no one will really
be concerned about the price increase and your increase
in net profits will be really substantial.

He did that and overnight had a dramatic increase in
profits.

He thought that was such a great idea that over the last
5 years he's done it several times.

Right now he's charging $19 a haircut and for large
portions of the year he can afford to holiday overseas
while his son and an employee work the shop.

For many businesses the simplest way to increase profits
is to increase prices.

The number of clients who will stop doing business with you
is often very small if you have good service and the reality
is most businesses can't afford to do business with their
cheapest clients anyway.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

He could simply grandfather in the old customer base and at the same time offer a new menu so to speak to new patrons. I can see too where he can chat up the old customer base while cutting their hair mentioning newer services and see if anyone bites.

When he has a good stream of people at the newer rates he can choose to drop the older rates. He's going to have to for two reasons: One is he has to keep up with increasing costs, the second is that old base of customers will die off eventually.

Yes, charity work can make you famous. Although so can a good service. And it is faaarrrr better to get in the public light, providing a good service, rather than charity work. Even though this thread technically isn't charity work, here is something to think about.

One of my competitors got on the news for restoring peoples homes for free after the hurricane. He did like 6 homes where people only paid for the material, not the labor, and him and his crews did all the work for free.

They got on the news, then guess what happened? They got a bunch of phone calls from people looking for free work.

On the other hand, our company also got on the news. And it was a bigger media outlet (CBS). We didn't actually do anything special like free work, we just got lucky and got a phone call from CBS.

Then the day we broadcast, we got around 60 phone calls from people looking for work. People who were willing to pay for work.

Even though we didn't become "famous" (lol) we gained attention in the right way. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying THE WAY you become famous is extremely important.

I know 1 woman (not personally) who invented something for children, and was on every tv show you could imagine. I remember seeing her on Shark Tank once. She was on Ellen, and like 6 or 7 other major shows I can't remember. Plus a few magazines as well.

You would think, with all that attention, her business would have been successful?

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

She was not a savvy business woman. In fact, all that attention wound up putting her hundreds of thousands of dollars in DEBT.

You know why?

Because on all these shows, she thought it would be "nice" to give away tons of free inventory to people... inventory that SHE paid for.

I almost wanted to cry for her I couldn't get over how stupid she was.

Moral of the story: Getting a tiny bit of attention, and being properly positioned, is FARR BETTER THAN becoming hugely famous, and being improperly positioned.

What was the product Red?

I love this tag. I think everything has already been said and is valid.

Tricky one.

Dan

Sure he needs to raise his prices and with your help, I'm sure he will.
The elementary school (we called it grade school) I went to a long, long time ago served great lunches as the cooks were mostly local mothers. It was passing through that serving line that I first learned how powerful those two words could be (were my helpings a tad larger? ) Please and Thank You. Simple but powerful words and many businesses today would benefit greatly from those two words, Please in a call to action and Thank You in a followup.
Thanks for posting this reminder.