Look, if your answer to competition is dropping your prices, you're not solving anything. You're just telling the market you're cheap. And once people see you as cheap, it becomes very hard to escape.
I learned this over years of running salons. When cash is tight, the temptation to lower prices just to get people through the door is massive. But it’s a trap. You don't build a sustainable business by undercutting the competition; you build it by knowing your value and ensuring your service justifies the rate.
If you position yourself as cheap, the real damage starts quickly. The clients you attract aren't loyal. They come for price and they will leave for price. Your best staff start looking elsewhere because no decent stylist wants to work harder every month just to stand still while inflation eats their income. Meanwhile, the clients who actually spend and stay look at a low price and assume low quality. Simply put, cheap pricing pushes away the exact people you need to grow.
The fix isn't in being slightly cheaper than the salon down the high street. It's in knowing exactly what your margins need to cover before you start slashing prices just to keep the chairs full.
Has anyone here moved away from cheap pricing and lived to tell the tale — what changed for your business?
I go into the full thinking behind this in my book, and the way I'd actually work it out is in the Appointica Academy.