#writingconsultant

[scriptwriters-network]

Telling and Selling Your Story and Developing From Within With Jen Grisanti, Story and Career Consultant. For more information, please visit Jen’s website by clicking here.

[scriptwriters-network]

Telling and Selling Your Story and Developing From Within With Jen Grisanti, Story and Career Consultant. For more information, please visit Jen’s website by clicking here.

[thewordcurator-blog]

Community Over Competition

Sharon Solz Shares Three Tips To Run A Successful Small Business

Words: Kent Lindiwe

Email: [email protected]

Follow: @thewordcurator

1. Create a welcoming and professional space

Walking into Sharon Solz’s salon, you are struck at first by the tasteful, “hygge” way in which she has decorated it. Directly opposite the main door, lies a small nook, where a flank of varnished wood underscores a polished round mirror, and serves as a ledge on which to rest things. With the addition of a cushioned black-leather swivel chair, Sharon repeats this set-up for the three other stations in her salon. Rendering the space more personal, is a striking statement wall that frames the two wash basins. White silhouettes, of a stencilled flock of birds, create a pleasing aesthetic journey from one end of the wooden-coloured wall to the other.

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Using the visual charisma of Sharon’s salon as a model, the lesson here is that whether you run your business from an online space, or from a physical space, it’s important that you render that space simultaneously friendly, and finished. Be careful not to be over-familiar in the way you treat your space — avoid it looking too “comfy”. Your business space shouldn't mirror your bedroom at home, or, for those of you online, your personal Facebook page. Keep it neat, clean, and carefully-arranged, with a touch of “personal”.

2. Build meaningful client relationships

As one of Sharon’s longest clients, I can attest to the power of this statement. My aunt was first recommended to Sharon by a family-friend near the beginning of Sharon’s career in South Africa. Twenty years later, and all the women in my family remain loyal to this one hairdresser, from me and my mum to my grand-mum, and two cousins. We’re not the only ones though, a number of other clients, that came to Sharon around the same time as us, are still with her today. Each one of us has followed her through the different salons at which she has worked, and finally to the salon which is now her very own, “Hair at Louvain”.

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What’s one of the ways for novice businesswomen to follow Sharon’s lead? Talk to your clients! Engage them in friendly conversation, have a chat with them over coffee like Sharon does with me, as we wait for my colour to set. The more we feel like we are friends with the person from whom we are acquiring a product or a service, the more likely we are to return — it might be a cliché, but it’s true.

3. Community over competition

Sharon’s most important tip, to which the title of this blog-post gives credit, is to build a community of fellow businesswomen. “We have to support each other,” says Sharon. One of the ways in which Sharon does this, is by using her salon, and exquisite outdoor patio-area, to host workshops. Although these workshops are an effective marketing tool for Sharon, they are equally as generative for the women who attend them.

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In a relaxed environment, where everyone is learning how to style their hair into a classy up-do, the women get networking. First they all have a chat, and everybody introduces themselves, then inevitably this woman gets chatting to that one, and she soon establishes that her new acquaintance offers various skill-services of which she is in need. Although the business world is full of different ideas to create this type of networking event, a workshop is a simple, and effective model that benefits the growth of both your own, and your clients’ businesses. You want to support the growth of your clients’ businesses and careers, so that they have the means to support yours!

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