Six weeks after John Di Julius opened the doors of a small hair studio along Mayfield Road, his business mettle was tested. The salon hit a major, if not potentially fatal, snag, and there was real concern whether the fledgling business would survive.
A lack of customers was not the problem. Di Julius’ difficulty was in getting three of his new hires to show up for work. Many days, his wife, Stacy, would be the only hairdresser at the shop, while three other chairs sat empty. That did not bode well for the young entrepreneur.
“I thought, ‘We’re going to be the shortest-lived business in the history of Mayfield Heights,’” says Di Julius.
That was in March 1993. Today, John Robert’s Hair Studio and Spa boasts a staff of 74 and 15,000 regular customers and is expected to top $2.5 million in revenue this year. While Di Julius can smile about it now, he’s not shy about recounting stories of the obstacles he encountered before his salon became an industry leader.
In fact, it was those early struggles that set the tone for the incredible growth that has forced him to either renovate or relocate every three years.
Last May, the hair studio finally moved from its original location on Mayfield Road to a sprawling 7,000-square-foot location a little more than a mile away at the Eastgate Shopping Center. During its first four weeks there, 700 first-time customers walked through the door — more than most of his competitors see in a year — and Di Julius is already talking about the need for future expansion.
If the swift rise of the business can be explained, Di Julius believes it is based on two very important factors: First, employees are hired directly from cosmetology schools so they can be molded to fit the company’s service standards during a one-year apprenticeship program. Secondly, Di Julius goes to great lengths to ensure every customer feels appreciated.
“There’s only so straight you can cut a straight line,” Di Julius says of trying to compete with less expensive haircut chains. “We’re in the experience business. Your perception here is: Is it worth paying $30 for a guy’s cut or $50 for a woman’s cut because of all the little things you get from the moment you walk in the door, and even after you go home?”
It is 11 a.m. on a warm June morning, and although it will not officially open for another hour, the salon is already buzzing with customers. A greeter stands at a wooden podium emblazoned with a looping “JR” logo just inside the front doors. Three workers are busy answering phones at a mammoth desk a few feet behind her.
Far down the hall, beyond the lush, open interior of the spacious salon, is a small white room stuffed with several computers. They are the heart and soul of Di Julius’ operations, storing information about the business’s 15,000 regular clients. Two workers hammer away at keyboards, updating and refining the databases which have become Di Julius’ lifeline to his customers.
A door to a cramped connecting office stands open. Inside, Di Julius finishes collecting business records from a laser printer next to his desk, then darts out to the café inside the salon. Moments later, he returns with a muffin in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He drops into his seat.
“What do you want to know?” he asks without hesitation.
The bantam entrepreneur is modest when discussing his business, which has been singled out by the industry as one of the best in the nation. His words are breezy and casual. It feels like you’re talking to an old friend.
Hearing about the roadblocks he faced in 1993, one wonders how Di Julius transformed his business so quickly. The first step, he explains, was to take a gamble. He quit his job at United Parcel Service and went to school to become a hairdresser.
His philosophy was simple: Even if his employees called off of work, at least two of the shop’s four chairs would always be available with Stacy and him working there full time.
Di Julius also decided to hire industry rookies to avoid the headaches that plagued the salon during its first several weeks. Although it took time to train the first few waves of recruits, the strategy paid off, and Di Julius’ staff quickly grew.
As business and number of employees increased, Di Julius realized he needed a way to keep his staff a coherent group and ensure the quality of service would not decline. He consciously developed a corporate culture, which focused on the importance of community service and teamwork. That, he reasoned, would provide a unique and enjoyable experience for each customer who strolled through his door.
“Every business has a corporate culture, and from my research, 95 percent of them happen by accident,” explains Di Julius, whose modesty gives way to a cool confidence when it comes to explaining how he has built his staff. “We designed one that was really nurturing, really caring. What’s really nice about that is when we’re interviewing a prospective employee, we can see if you measure up to the same things that add to our corporate culture or diminish it.”
A simple recognition reward system has helped build morale and cultivate a dedicated and loyal work force, which Di Julius maintains is the cornerstone beneath the tremendous growth.
“Now that we’re really putting more time and energy into people development, we’re seeing that it is effective,” he says. “Before you can have raving clients, you have to have raving team members.”
Quality service can win favor with customers while they are inside the salon. But in today’s fast-food world, the real key to success is impressing customers enough so that they come back again and spend more money.
“I was just always paranoid people would forget about us, especially when we were new,” muses Di Julius. “There just are so many options out there. Our competition is not the salon down the street, downtown or on the West Side. It is everything and anything. When you have discretionary income, whatever makes you feel good is what you’re going to do with it.”
So Di Julius began sending thank-you notes to each customer and having a member of his staff call patrons within a few days of their visit to see if their experience was a good one. He followed that with birthday cards and started a quarterly newsletter to provide updates about new services. Customers receive a $5 gift certificate and a letter of thanks for each new client they refer to the business.
“We are constantly putting our names in front of them,” says Di Julius “It’s not like they say, ‘Where do I get my hair cut?’ I’ve reminded them several times since their last visit that this is where they get their hair cut.”
The idea behind the mail campaign is a simple one — the average person receives between five and 10 pieces of mail a day, with the vast majority of it being either junk mail or bills. An expression of appreciation sticks out in a customer’s mind.
“When I was a kid, I went to my dentist and I got a thank you card,” recalls Di Julius. “I thought it was cool somebody recognized me, and I wanted to be recognized again so I sent other people there.”
Handling the customer relations side of the business used to be the job of one person. Now, Di Julius has a full-time IS manger and a full-time administrative staff to handle customer mailings, confirmation calls, follow-up calls and employee recruiting. The secret to managing information and keeping up with the wave of new clients is creating a set system and breaking up the tasks among his employees.
Keeping up with this crucial element of customer service has been one of the biggest challenges , but one Di Julius says he will not let slip.
“The hardest thing about becoming big is staying small. I don
46;t want anybody to ever say we had a great business when we started, but now that we’re bigger it’s not the same. You hear that a lot about companies and I don’t want anybody to ever accuse us of that.”
A few years ago, Di Julius called a local travel agent trying to get a donation for a promotion he wanted to run. In exchange, he was offering a prominent mention in the salon’s quarterly newsletter and some on-hold advertising. It was then that Di Julius discovered his customer base was a gold mine.
“I was thinking I could get a trip to Las Vegas, and maybe they would give me a couple hundred bucks off of it,” says Di Julius. “Fortunately, the way I asked the question was what would they be willing to donate. They said, ‘How about a cruise for two on the Royal Caribbean?’ I said, ‘Great.’”
That chance phone call has translated into bigger and better things. In the past several years, Di Julius has given away a stay at a condominium in Naples, Fla., a one-year lease on a new car, airplane tickets and the Caribbean cruise. None of it has cost him a cent
He has also been able to work deals for free oil changes and restaurant gift certificates for each of his customers.
“Our data base is very valuable,” says Di Julius. “We have 12,000 to 15,000 upscale, predominately women clients. Everybody wants an opportunity to reach 12,000 to 15,000 upscale women that are spending a lot of money at a hair salon and have discretionary income to spend other places.”
Di Julius doesn’t just draw a customer name out of a hat for the big prizes. He awards them to the clients who provide him with the highest number of referrals during a certain period of time. His last promotion set off a frenzy with customers who sent hundreds of new faces through the salon’s doors. During the Royal Caribbean promotion, the first-place winner had 92 referrals. And those new customers have since referred other new clients.
The referral promotions have been an important ingredient in building Di Julius’ base of 15,000 clients. In fact, the word-of-mouth buzz is so strong, Di Julius avoids traditional advertising mediums such as television and newspaper. The odds are better that a customer will visit more than once if he or she has been sent there by a friend.
“The retention factor on a cold call advertisement is a lot less than a sales job by one of your friends or family,” says Di Julius. “Customers are going to trust their friends and family and ask them real questions. Provided that we meet that expectation, they’re coming back.” How to reach: www.johnrobertsspas.com or (440) 446-1316
Jim Vickers
([email protected]) is associate editor of SBN Cleveland.