A window into the consumers mind

A Window Into The Consumers Mind

Leon Alexander Ph.D.

A Window Into The Consumers Mind

Leon Alexander Ph.D.

Preface How much do we know about why we buy? What truly influences our purchasing decisions? An eye grabbing advertisement, a catchy slogan, an infectious jingle? Or do our buying decisions take place below the surface, so deep within our sub-conscious minds, we’re barely aware of them. Remember the story of the emperor’s new clothes? That kid was able to see things as they were because he looked at the world from a different perspective. And that’s just how it is in strategic marketing. To be the most creative, competitive salon out there, you have to escape from the usual initiatives and learn to look at your business in a new way, the way consumers see it.

“A Window into the Consumers Mind” is a compilation of published articles that enable you to create a strategic blueprint that will frame your corporate future in real time.

You will learn: • • • •

How customers think How design and environment influences consumer behavior How to think to a higher order A Window into the Future

This book makes sense of a brave new era of consumer behavior in which everything we though we knew about retail is being completely re-imagined.

It explains why we do what we do, notice what we notice, ignore what we ignore and buy what we buy. It will change forever the way you look at service, marketing, retailing and consumers. It’s a fascinating and shocking journey into the mind of today’s consumer.

Core Purpose “A Window into the Consumers Mind� is intended to give insights into the evolution of consumer thinking. It also shows ways that we can position our businesses to entice and allure consumers into our stores and subliminally seduce then into purchasing products.

The book is designed to stimulate and challenge salon owners. You will discover some fascinating facts about your brain and its function.

The content will give you profound intellectual freedom, by demonstrating that you can control the nature and development of your thinking processes, and that your ability to think creatively is theoretically infinite.

Regardless of the current business development curve of your salon, your initial approach should be to browse through the book fairly rapidly, scanning its content, observing those areas that will be of particular interest to you, and formulating your initial goals. After that, your priority and approach will differ according to your knowledge and experience.

The book personifies the epitome of a consumer bible, and is applicable for all industries that retail and supply services to consumers.

A Window Into The Consumers Mind No Copyright ยง 2014 No rights reserved. The intention of this book is to contribute in elevating the beauty industry. With that in minds, all of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior permission from the author.

Printed in the United States of America

by Serbin Printing, Inc. - World Class Publishing Sarasota, Florida First Addition

Contents Chapter 1:

How Customers Think

Chapter 2:

What Customers Need

Chapter 3:

Marketing to Our Minds

Chapter 4:

Women Shop in Venus, Men Shop at Mars

Chapter 5:

Thinking to a Higher Order

Chapter 6:

How To Think Like a Genius

Chapter 7:

How Salon Design Influences Your Behavior

Photos:

Environmental Psychology Examples

Chapter 8:

Designed For Emotional Behavior

Chapter 9:

Emotional Decisions

Chapter 10:

Total Retail Experience

Chapter 11:

Window into the Future

Chapter 12:

Consumer of the Future

Chapter 13:

Language of Eye Movement

Chapter 14:

The Ultimate Consumer Experience

Chapter 15:

Psychology of Retail

how customers think neuromarketing FOR SALONS AND SPAS

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chapter 1

How Customers Think Have you ever walked into a hotel room and tossed your room key or card somewhere, and a few seconds later forgotten where you put it?

The data just vanishes from the brain’s hard drive. Why? Because our brains are simultaneously processing all kinds of information - what city or time zone I’m in? How long until my appointment? When is it time to dine? With a limited capacity for short-term memory, the location of the room card just doesn’t make the cut.

Our brains are constantly busy collecting and filtering information.

Some bits of information will make it into long-term memory, but most will become extraneous clutter, dispensed into oblivion.

Objective Effective design, education, marketing, strategies and initiatives, will ensure that consumers do not view our salons as the equivalent of the hotel room key. It is important to understand how customers think and act. If we don’t know how customer think, how can we be expected to sell to them or give them experiences? Ethnology tells us how customers think, Retail Anthropology tells us how customers act and Environmental Psychology tells us how customers think and act, within a specific environment.

Neuromarketing Lets start with Neuromarketing, which is a combination of marketing and science. It is the window into the human mind - the sub-conscious thoughts, feelings and desires that drive our purchasing decisions.

The medial pre-frontal cortex is a portion of the brain responsible for higher thinking and the ventral putamen is a region of the brain that’s stimulated when we find things appealing. These two areas of the brain are in a tug-of-war between rational and emotional thinking.

During that mini-second of grappling and indecision, the emotions rise up like mutinous soldiers to override consumer’s rational preferences.

All positive associations with a product, the sheer inarguable, inexorable, ineluctable, emotional feelings have beat back their rational choice, because emotions are a way in which our brains encode things of value. Think Apple, Harley Davison, Starbucks. how customers think / 8

Psychologists asked a group of students to choose between a pair of Amazon gift vouchers. If they picked the first, which was a $15 gift voucher, they would get it at once. If they were willing to wait two weeks they would get a $20 gift certificate. Brain scans revealed that both options triggered activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that generates emotion. Of course the rational mind knew the $20 offer was logically a better deal, but guess what, their emotions won out. We have an opportunity to maximize the potential of a consumers visit when they are in our salons. Impulse buying should be a major part of a salons retail strategy.

I’ll have what she’s having!

Mirror neurons are responsible for why we often imitate other people’s behavior. When other people whisper, we tend to lower our own voices.

Mirror neurons explain why we often smile when we see someone who is happy, or wince when we see someone who is in pain. Yawn!

Are you yawning now, or feeling the initial stirrings of yawning? Not because you are bored, but simply because I typed the word yawn.

Mirror neurons become activated not only when we are observing other people’s behavior, they even fire when we read about someone performing it. If I simply write the words “nails scratching on a chalkboard” or “sucking a lemon” or “giant hairy black spider,” the chances are that you will recoil, wince and squirm while reading them.

Your mind visualizes the painful sound or furry legs edging along your calf. Those are your mirror neurons at work. That’s how consumer’s behavior is affected by what they see, read and experience in our salons.

Mirror neurons don’t work alone. Often they work in tandem with dopamine, one of the brains pleasure chemicals. Dopamine is one of the most addictive substances known to man and its seductive effects drive purchasing decisions. When you see that new camera, or those flashy diamond earrings, dopamine subtly flushes the brain with pleasure, and then before you know it, you’ve signed the credit card.

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It takes as little as 2.5 seconds to make a purchasing decision. A few minutes later, as you exit the store, bag in hand, the euphoric feelings caused by the dopamine recede, and sometimes you wonder if you made the right decision.

We have all heard the term “retail therapy.” All scientific indicators point to it making us happier in the short term. That dose of happiness can be attributed to dopamine; the brains flush of reward, pleasure and well-being. When we first decide to buy something, the brain cells that release dopamine secrete a burst of good feeling and this dopamine rush fuels our instinct to keep shopping even when our rational minds tell us we have had enough.The future of advertising isn’t smoke and mirrors, it’s mirror neurons.

Subliminal Messaging Generally speaking, subliminal messages are defined as visual, auditory, or any other sensory messages that register just below our level of conscious perception and can be detected only by the sub-conscious mind. 95% of cognition occurs below the awareness in the shadows of the mind. 5% occurs within the individual’s conscious awareness. Retailers and service providers have to appeal to both the conscious and sub-conscious minds of the consumer.

Subliminal messaging has shown to influence how much a consumer is willing to pay for a product or service. Unconscious emotions, (smiling faces) have an effect on consumers to buy more, or to make a purchase.

Silk Cut, a popular British tobacco brand, positioned its logo against a background of purple silk in every ad they ran. When the advertising ban on tobacco came into effect and the logo was no longer permitted on ads and billboards, the company simply created highway billboards that didn’t say a word about Silk Cut, but merely showed swaths of purple silk. Shortly after a study showed 98% of consumers identified those billboards with having something to do with Silk Cut. In other words, manufacturers efforts to link innocent images with smoking in our sub-conscious minds have paid off big time.

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Rituals Buying a product is more often a ritualized behavior than a conscious decision. Do those anti-wrinkle potions that beckon women and some men actually work? Many women consumers admit that anti-wrinkle creams are pointless, but every three months, they’ll still clamber to the local pharmacy to pick up the latest miracle balm. The one with the newest, sexiest, most complex-sounding formula. It’s a pattern as predictable as the seasons. Why? Simply because it’s a ritual they and their mothers and grandmothers before them - have always followed.

In an increasingly standardized, sterilized, homogenous world, rituals help us differentiate one brand from another. Once we have found a ritual or brand, there is a lot of comfort in having a particular blend of coffee every morning, a signature shampoo with a familiar smell, or a favorite make of running sneaker we buy.

The Power of Somatic Markers The Greek philosopher Socrates once told his student to imagine the mind as a block of wax “on which we stamp what we perceive or conceive.” Whatever is impressed on the wax, we remember and know, provided the image remains in the wax, but “whatever is obliterated or cannot be impressed, we forget and do not know.” A metaphor so suggestive and widespread that we still say that an experience “made a good impression.”

Imagine as a child we touch a hot pot on the stove and burn the tips of our fingers. Assuming our fingertips weren’t too badly burned, a half hour later you’re back playing. The tenderness of your fingertips will vanish in a few days, but your mind isn’t that lenient. It won’t forget what happened. Sub-consciously, the neurons in your brain have just assembled an equation linking together the concepts of “oven” and “hot” and “fingertips” and “grill” and “pain.” In sum, the chain-link of concepts and body parts are what is called a somatic marker, a kind of a bookmark in our brain. These markers serve to connect an experience or emotion with a specific, required reaction. These same cognitive shortcuts are what underline most of our buying decisions or

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whether we return to a salon to get a service. Every day we manufacture new somatic markers. Without them, we would not be able to make any decisions.

Branding Unilever was launching a shampoo in Asia when an employee wrote on the label “contains the X9 factor.” It went undetected by Unilever, and soon millions of bottles of the shampoo were shipped to stores. It would have cost too much to recall the shampoo, so Unilever simply let it be.

Six months later, when the company reprinted the label, they left out the reference to the nonexistent “X9 factor.” To there surprise, they soon received a slew of outraged mail from their customers. None of the customers had any idea what the X9 factor was, many people claimed that the shampoo wasn’t working anymore and their hair had lost its luster. It just goes to show the more mystery and intrigue a brand can cultivate, the more likely it will appeal to us.

Selling to our Senses Visual images are far more effective, and more memorable, when they are coupled with another sense. Imagine viewing a fish dinner along with the slightest whiff of lemon, perhaps evoking the summer you spent grilling fresh fish on the beaches. That’s because the sight and smell of the product were congruent - a perfect collaboration between eyes and nose. The same principal should apply to both sight and smell when the consumer enters a salon. The most recognized smell in the world is Johnson’s Baby Powder. Yet practically nobody remembers the Johnson & Johnson logo. Of all the senses, smell is the most primal. All other senses we think before we respond, but with scent, your brain responds before you think.

Color Psychology When asked the importance of buying products, 84.7% of consumers claimed that color amounted to more than half of criterion they consider when choosing a location or brand. Color energies affect our brain.

Neurotransmitters in the eye transmit information about light to

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the brain and releases a hormone that affects our moods, mental clarity and energy level. Brown is conducive to hunger, that’s why McDonalds trays are all brown and it is used as part of a design for restaurants.

Light purple is the color most conducive to buying. An accent color of red at the back of a retail area contributes to drawing the consumer to the back and encourages the brain to spend.

It is important in incorporate all the senses into the design of a consumer location in both the retail and service areas. Tomorrow’s retail world will have distinct smells. It won’t be in black and white, but in vivid color and will infuse you and leave you humming. This assault on your senses will be more effective in winning your mind, your loyalty, and your dollars than you ever thought possible. The road to emtion runs through our sensory experiences. Emotion is one of the most powerful forces in driving what we buy.

Conclusion Now you and your brain have a better understanding of why we buy.

The hidden preferences, unconscious desires and irrational dreams.

Thanks to neuroimaging, we can now better understand what really drives our behavior.

Science and marketing have come together. Science is hard fact, the final word. Marketers, on the other hand, have spent over a century throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping it will stick.

Until now, marketers and advertisers haven’t really known what drives our behavior, so they’ve had to rely on luck or chance. But now we know that roughly 90% of our consumer buying behavior is unconscious, and the time has come for a paradigm shift. The design and strategic blueprint of our salons today and in the future, must be around creating an experience for the consumer.

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Personalized experiences designed to contribute to the self-esteem of consumers will be the most esteemed propositions in the new economy.

chapter 2

What Consumers Need As we exit the current recession, a new experience economy will be centered on one of the most fundamental human motivators: our need for self-esteem.

The purpose of this article is to stimulate further thinking around the Salon-Consumer relationship. The following thoughts represent the view from a consumers approach.

The modern consumer has a myriad of commercial choices at his disposal. Paradoxically, consumers are increasingly unimpressed by these developments. Customer loyalty has dropped for most businesses.

In the past, economic progress from an agrarian to an industrial economy was driven by transformations in the value proposition of commercial offerings.

Product and service personalization will undoubtedly be part of the new emerging economy. One should expect an increase in formulated customized hair care products, cosmetics and perfumes for consumers.

Consumer markets will need to be refreshed with radical new proposals that will have to bring greater substance, meaning and excitement back to the market. Marketers need to reconsider the consumer and his needs from a deeper perspective.

We care about satisfying our needs and preferences. Thus the perennially obvious and compelling question becomes: what is the modern consumer missing?

Human beings have many needs, which are physical, psychological, social and spiritual. Marketers dig for clues about these needs in order to discover new commercial opportunities. They have been focusing their market research on the attributes of a product and service on their immediate psychological benefits, at the expense of the

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emotional benefits. In other words, companies have been avoiding digging deeper into the consumer’s unconscious needs, while fighting over superficial differences. The fundamental motivation of humans is expressed in two forms: a desire for both esteem and self-esteem.

While esteem is mostly a public perception, the desire to be esteemed or respected by others in order to gain status and acceptance.

Self-esteem is motivated by private beliefs and feelings, the desire for self-satisfaction, self-respect, self-confidence, and achievement. We want to be esteemed by others as well as by ourselves.

Until recently, businesses have concentrated mostly on our desire to be esteemed by others, while paying little attention to consumer self-esteem. Media advertising persistently feed illusions, by communicating the anticipated gratification of being noticed, accepted, appreciated and praised by others as a result of using, wearing or owning certain products: “just drive this car if you want to look great!” ‘Eat our healthy food if you want to look beautiful!” or “our cosmetics make you stand out and look wealthy!” Often these illusions are created at the expense of a person’s self esteem in the form of self-deception.

On another level, we are also increasingly questioning the meaning of our purchases. The collapse of the financial markets was the tip of the iceberg that led to the resetting of our consumer behavior. We paused and now question our consumption habits. As a consequence we want more than mere illusions and have become attentive to more meaningful and deeper transformations that involve both external and deeper internal changes.

Things are beginning to change though. Driven by several factors, consumers are increasingly aware of their unstable self-esteem.

Companies are starting to recognize the opportunities that this awareness creates. Apple is a company that has been successful in feeding into the consumer’s self-esteem. “We will help you get more out of your Mac, so you can get more out of yourself”. Mac users

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experience deeper than usual emotional satisfaction. Nike’s “just do it� campaign is another example. Its Internet program lets you compare personal performance results.

Conclusion Until now, the fundamental need that has received the least attention is our need for self-esteem. This powerful human motivator will shape future economies. As customer experience becomes more relevant, a broader view of business-customer relationship must be adopted. The business-customer relationship should be approached from a system perspective as opposed to the current process approach: experiences should be emphasized rather than services. The customer becomes an integral part of the economic offering: he is now the product.

Personalized experiences designed to contribute to the self-esteem of consumers, will be the most esteemed propositions in the new economy.

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Dopamine Dopamine is one of the most addictive substances known to man.

Purchasing decisions are driven by its seductive effects.

chapter 3

More businesses, marketers, advertisers, and retailers have gotten far craftier, savvier, and more sinister. Today, thanks to all the sophisticated technologies they have at their disposal and the new research in the fields of consumer behavior, cognitive psychology and neuroscience, companies know much more about what makes us tick.

In the previous chapter on “How Customers Think� we focused on the way consumers think when they are visiting our salons. With that knowledge, this article is focused on how marketers use that information to get us to buy their products or services.

They scan our brains and uncover our deepest subconscious fears, dreams, vulnerabilities and desires. They mine the digital footprints we leave behind each time we swipe a loyalty card at the drugstore, charge something with a credit card or view a product online, and then they use the information to target us with offers tailored to our unique psychological profiles. They hijack information from our own computers, cell phones and even Facebook profiles and run it through sophisticated algorithms to predict who we are and what we might buy.

They know more than they ever have before about what inspires us, scares us, soothes us, seduces us, alleviates our guilt, or makes us feel less alone and more connected to the scattered human tribe. What makes us feel more confidant, more beloved, more secure, more nostalgic, more spiritually fulfilled. And they know far more about how to use all this information to obscure the truth, manipulate our minds and persuade us to buy.

The minute we’re born, we may already be biologically programmed to like the sounds and music we were exposed to in the utero.

Shrewd marketers have begun to cook up all kinds of ways to capitalize on this.

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A few years ago a major Asian shopping mall chain realized that since pregnant women spend a great deal of time shopping, the potential for “priming” these women was significant. Pregnancy, after all is the most primal emotional period in women’s lives. Between the hormonal changes and the nervous anticipation of bringing another life into the world, it’s also one of the times that women are most vulnerable to suggestion. So the shopping mall chain began experimenting with the unconscious power of smell and sounds. First, it began spraying Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder in every area of the mall where clothing was sold. Then it infused the fragrance of cherry across areas of the mall were people could buy food or beverages. Then it started playing soothing music from the era when these women were born in order to evoke positive memories from their own childhoods.

Not only were sales boosted, but to everyone’s surprise, a year later it had another far more unexpected result. The chain began to be inundated by letters from mothers attesting to the spellbinding effect the shopping center had on their now newborns. It turns out the moment they entered the mall, their babies calmed down.

Counterintuitive though it sounds, there is a real biological basis behind our attraction to fear. Fear raises our adrenalin, creating that primal, instinctual fight or flight response. This in turn releases epinephrine, a hormone and neurotransmitter that produces, as many “adrenalin junkies” will attest to, a deeply satisfying sensation.

Fear is a powerful emotion!

Our brains are hardwired to fear potential threats. We come into the world knowing how to be afraid, because our brains have evolved to deal with nature. Fear is far more powerful than reason. It evolved as a mechanism to protect us from life threatening situations. The fear enters are situated in the most “ancient” evolutionarily section of our brain, known as the reptilian brain, which goes back to when vertebrates were primarily in the oceans and were more likely to survive if they had the neural capacities to evade “The bigger fish” sooner than their companions did.

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When a threat is perceived, the body goes into automatic mode, redirecting blood to certain parts of the body and away from the brain.

The respiratory response also decreases blood supply to the brain, literary making a person unable to think clearly. In other words, the loss of blood to a person’s brain can make him or her stupid, literally.

Some of us are scared about the economy, of losing our jobs, and of defaulting on our mortgages. We’re scared that our spouse or partner might leave us. We’re scared of loneliness and having no friends. We’re scared of sexual inadequacy, of getting cancer, of getting old and breaking a hip, of death. We’re scared of driving and were scared of flying. We’re scared of terrorists and of global warming, we’re scared of the dark.

It’s these seemingly infinite fears, some planted in our minds by marketers and advertisers, others merely amplified by them, that drive us to buy triple moisturizing cream, teeth whitening strips and multi vitamins. Not to mention, gym membership, organic food, bottled water and humidifiers.

Germophobia When we buy a morning paper, we bypass the one directly on top of the stack. Instead, we pull out the one directly underneath it. Why? Because we imagine that the second one hasn’t been manhandled by fingertips with germs and is cleaner. When women visit the ladies room at a restaurant or store only 5% enter the first stall. Why? Because they believe it’s less clean than the second or third one. The point is that the illusion of cleanliness or freshness is a subtle but powerful persuader and marketers know it. It is tied to our universal fear of germs, which ties into our innate fear of disease and illness.

Does any of this make us healthier? No, not really. But it does make us less afraid of getting sick.

It all goes back to Dopamine So how does a shopping addiction start? It all goes back to dopamine, that feel-good neurotransmitter our brain’s limbic system spurts out to

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give us a “high” or “rush” so pleasurable that we can’t help but repeat the behavior as soon as dopamine drops back to normal levels. The more we experience the object or behavior, of our addiction, the greater the tolerance we build up, meaning we need more and more of the substance or the behavior to get back that dopamine high.

We have become addicted to our smartphones. When we receive a new e-mail or text, our brains release a shot of dopamine, and thus we learn to associate that pleasurable feeling with the act of checking our phones.

Hooked on Brands How do we get hooked on brands? It happens in two stages. The first is known as the routine stage. This is when we use certain brands or products as part of our daily habits or rituals. The second stage is known as the dream stage, where we buy things not because we need them but because we allowed emotional signals about them to penetrate our brains. It’s usually when we have let our guard down, over the weekend, on a vacation. When the weekend approaches, we shed our routines like an unwanted skin and become more susceptible to the dream stage.

A habit is formed in the dream stage, and then the habit is reinforced and permanently embedded in the routine stage, at which time we are unconsciously longing for the dream stage feelings we left behind at the beach or at the spa.

We all know a person that has to have her Starbucks in the morning before she can function. Not just any coffee, it has to be Starbucks.

Or maybe you are the person!

We as consumers, act in much the same way as birds and termites.

We are wired with a collective consciousness in that we size up what those around us are doing and modify our own actions and behaviors accordingly.

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Humans flock like sheep and birds, subconsciously following a minority of individuals. It takes a mere five percent of informed individuals to influence the direction of the crowd. The other 95 percent of us trail along without even being aware of it.

The beauty industry has evolved in technique, design, and business acumen. We will take a giant leap if we do what successful marketers outside our industry do before launching a new brand or service. They study the consumer and market to their emotions, needs and fears. If we emulate their proven practices, we will fulfill both a consumer need and create a seriously profitable retail business that complements our service business. Both fall under one umbrella, formulating “The Ultimate Consumer Location.�

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“The Perfect Storm Brain!”

Sometimes, very rarely, as history moves us along, a confluence of events occurs, and new vistas appear.

These are horizons we see at the end of “perfect storms” crackling with clarity and tingling with the electricity of new ideas and methods for implementing them.

chapter 4

Women Shop at Venus, Men Shop at Mars Anatomy of the Female Brain

If your ambition were to open a pet shop, one would hope you would know a little about the animals you are dealing with. As a hairdresser you spend years studying your craft and ongoing education is fundamental. The same principal should apply to both retailing and service. As salon owners and service providers, we should study our consumers, if we aspire to understand their needs and provide solutions.

Statistically the majority of the consumers that spend time and money in our salons are Female. If that is so, we need to look at the Female brain, so that we have a better understanding of why they buy!

We all start off as females, as all brains are female from the very beginning. During the eight week of gestation, a testosterone bath occurs in about half of fetuses. If this powerful shower of testosterone happens, some communication centers in the brain shut down, while other centers gear up, and a male brain is born. If no testosterone appears, communication centers continue to grow and the brain remains female.

As an adult, a woman has four times as many neurons connecting the right and left-brain. This means she processes information through both rational and emotional filters. In constructing marketing messages to her, always include some emotional component. This superior connection between the two hemispheres makes the female brain the most highly attuned multitasker of all time.

The difference between male and female brains has a profound importance for marketers. How they shop and view products is a key strategy in designing a salon, service or retail area. It is also important when we are composing marketing literature.

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This chapter is about how and why brains buy. There is a wellspring of new knowledge that has been pouring out of neurosciences over the last few decades, especially the last five years. These are remarkable times.

It is a rare event when science, technology and real practical problems come together. It happened with chemistry in the eighteenth century, physics in the nineteenth century, microbiology in the twentieth century, and now neuroscience in the twenty-first century.

Human brains process much of their sensory input subconsciously. This is, of course, counterintuitive because we can’t think about how we think when we are not aware of the thinking we’re thinking about! Most of the work our brains are doing occurs below the threshold of our personal conscious awareness.

11 million bits of information every second Our senses are taking in about 11 million bits of information every second. Most of that comes through our eyes, but all the other senses are contributing as well. Our conscious brains- that part of thinking in which we are aware of thinking - can only process, at best, 40 bits of information per second. All the rest is processed subconsciously.

The challenge to marketers, retailers and salon owners is how do I get into the 40 bits of conscious considered information? Brain science is nice, but so what? How do we use this knowledge to change my brand strategy? How do I market product design, services and pricing? How can I make sure I get the return on investment in advertising?

We need to motivate consumers to try or continue to use our brand, or services by activating their pleasure/reward circuit and focusing on powerful images of the emotional “payoff” elements of your services.

When the brain is exposed to too many messages, or interrupted in its drive, it purpos efully drives distracting messages or images into the background so that it can focus on the task in hand. The brain can ill afford to attend to each note of the cacophonous barrage it encounters.

Frustrated the brain ignores all the messaging. Whenever possible, position your message or product in scenarios without clutter.

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Women, particularly mothers, are supreme at empathetic skills, watching others and knowing what they’re feeling and often, what they need. The female brain is hard-wired to seek community and uses this enhanced empathetic ability to foster it. When presenting a message, service or salon environment to a female, engage her empathetic mind. She engages immediately with faces, particularly when they are making direct eye contact with her. She cannot look away from a baby making eye contact with her.

The human brain is a network of a hundred billion individual cells, called neurons. Complex and intertwined, those neurons, each electrically charged, could be compared to the night sky. But the metaphor is incomplete. Imagine instead that every one of those stars is pulsating with electricity, communicating with other star systems through a complex interplay of signals and brain chemicals. Imagine further the star system sets in motion every aspect of humanity, from breathing, to creativity and insight, to charity and love. It sets us apart from all other species by allowing us to walk on the moon, to compose symphonies, to fall in love and to ponder the universe.

How to appeal to the female brain!

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Pay attention to facial expressions and tone of voice, not just text or spoken word.

Because her hemispheres are so connected, and because she filters ideas through her emotions, present material with some emotional component.

Women recruit brain areas containing Mirror Neurons to a

higher degree than males do.

Social connections are crucial, help her feel included; appeal to her through shared stories Above all, be vigilant as to how you present your brand: it truly is like a person to her, and she will embrace or discard it passionately and completely, depending how well your brand maintains your promise to her.

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The Perfect Storm Brain!

Sometimes, very rarely, as history moves us along, a confluence of events occurs, and new vistas appear. These are horizons we see at the end of “perfect storms,” crackling with clarity and tingling with the electricity of new ideas and methods for implementing them. For example, when astronomy and the ability to navigate by the stars coincided with our ability to build ships that could sustain life in the open sea for months at a time, the world changed from flat to round.

When steam and electricity were harnessed and made available to the populace, our agrarian society formed cities and the Industrial Age was born. When Watson and Crick discovered the double helix in 1953 they set in motion a flood of new discoveries about human genome that has revolutionized medicine.

Conclusion Today, the ability to monitor the full brain in real time, combined with the computational capability to make sense of the results, applied to the needs for more effective and accountable marketing expertise, have launched us into our own perfect storm of consumer insights. In the future, neuroscience insights will impact everything. Alarm clocks will wake us in concert with our REM sleep cycles. Exercise machines will coach and motivate us as we stride toward fitness. On the way to work, the car will monitor our moods, and provide us with music, information, or phone conversations depending on how we feel. Those salons, manufacturers, advertisers and retailers who take time to know us at our deepest subconscious level will survive. Those who don’t will fall swiftly to the wayside. It’s not hubris, but rational optimism, that leads me to believe that the advances we see today, will make all our lives a little bit better in the future.

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chapter 5

Education is a companion that no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy and no enemy can alienate. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, and at once lends grace and government to genius.

The beauty industry has excellent technical education for hairdressers and good business education for salon owners. If we aspire to elevate the beauty industry to compete with serious retailers, marketers and service providers outside the beauty industry, we need to emulate their proven best practices.

What is required is a radical approach to education that is approached from two levels. We need to offer business education to all service providers on sales, finance, marketing and retailing. This will elevate an understanding of how a salon operates and would benefit both hairdressers and salon owners.

Equally, we need be looking at adding a lateral creative thinking element to salon owner’s education. Put simply, “Thinking to a Higher Order.�

Thinking to a Higher Order Higher-order thinking requires us to analyze information and ideas in ways that transform their meaning and implications. This transformation occurs when we combine facts and ideas in order to synthesize, generalize, explain, hypothesize or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation.

Manipulating information and ideas through these processes allows us to solve problems and discover new meanings and understandings.

When we engage in the construction of knowledge, an element of uncertainty is introduced into the instructional process and makes instructional outcomes not always predictable.

Creative Thinking As a child, I remember being shocked to learn that Walt Disney was a person. To me, Disney was a mysterious entity, symbolized by the

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magical castle that appeared at the start of every film, a cross between fairyland and a faceless corporation.

So it was hard to get my head around the idea that all those films were the brainchild of one man. Not to mention the theme parks. How could a single person be responsible for all of that? Later on, I discovered that the truth was even stranger. There wasn’t just one Walt Disney, there were three! Creativity as a total process involves the coordination of three sub processes: dreamer, realist and critic.

•

•

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The Dreamer – the visionary who dreamt up ideas for business ventures.

The Realist - the pragmatic producer who made things happen.

The Critic - the eagle-eyed evaluator who refined what the Dreamer and Realist produced.

A dreamer without a realist cannot turn ideas into tangible expressions.

A critic and a dreamer without a realist just become stuck in a perpetual conflict. The dreamer and a realist might create things, but they might not achieve a high degree of quality without a critic. The critic helps to evaluate and refine the products of creativity.

Creative thinking is also ‘double-minded’ thinking that ‘operates on more than one plane’. It can be described as a ‘transitory state’. As a result of this transitory state “the balance of both emotion and thought is disturbed.”

Using logic to derive new consequences amounts to little more than permutations of existing concepts, we can generate new links between concepts perhaps, but no conceptual novelty.

Here’s how thinking to a higher order works. If I hand you a brick and ask, “How many uses can you think of for this?” you’ll probably come up with a dozen or so uses, all of them functional. If however, I asked you, “What 40 ways can you think of to use a brick?” I’m likely to get a whole different kind of list. After exhausting the obvious uses, you’ll

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find yourself uncomfortably searching for other unthought-of uses, before you’ll actually hit on something truly original. It is here, at this uncomfortable point when you think you’ve exhausted all practical uses for the brick, where true creativity lives. It’s where you start to find new connections between the object at hand and the world around you. You start thinking beyond the obvious solutions. Your ego stops judging every passing thought in the name of quantity.

Another example is to look at the symbol ‘x’ and ask what universal word would define this symbol? Logic says it’s a letter x and this is correct! Now ask the question, what six other explanations could it be?

And you tap into higher order lateral thinking mode.

It could be times, multiply, wrong, kiss, cross, or ten in Roman numerals. We have now taken our brain out of logic mode into creativity mode.

Creativity can be defined as the process through which the mind finds formerly unrecognized relationships between two entities or ideas. It is something that allows us to see something in a different way. It is taking the obvious and making it interesting.

Knowing how our mind’s creativity works is the reason few advertising creatives settle on the first idea (or handful of ideas) they find. The thinking being, if it was that obvious to me, it must be obvious to everyone, therefore there’s nothing new or exciting about it. Truly creative solutions are a bit unnerving, not because they are provocative or irrelevant, but because you’ve never seen something quite like this, and your mind doesn’t know how to evaluate them.

Higher order thinking is thinking on a level that is higher than memorizing facts or telling something back to someone exactly the way it was told to you. When a person memorizes and gives back the information without having to think about it, it’s called rote memory.

That’s because it’s much like a robot; it does what it’s programmed to do, but it doesn’t think for itself.

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Higher order thinking, takes thinking to higher levels than restating the facts. It requires that we do something with the facts. We must understand them, infer from them, connect them to other facts and concepts, categorize them, manipulate them, put them together in new or novel ways, and apply them as we seek new solutions to new problems.

Problem Solving Not a day goes by that a person doesn’t have to solve problems. From the moment a person gets up in the morning and decides what to eat for breakfast, he is solving problems.

Being creative, considering several strategies, and trying out multiple strategies, as a means toward reaching the solution is part of being a good problem solver. It is important in problem solving to remember that mistakes are learning opportunities because a person learns what doesn’t work. In scientific research, the goal is as often to prove a theory wrong, as it is to prove a theory right.

Thomas Edison was asked once how he kept from getting discouraged when he had made so many mistakes before he perfected his idea of the light bulb. He had tried over 2,000 ways before one worked. Edison responded that he had not made 2,000 mistakes, but rather that he had over 2,000 learning experiences that moved him closer to the answer.

Idea Generation Coming up with original ideas is very important in higher order thinking. But what are ideas and where do they come from?

Insights – Some ideas come from insight – a spontaneous cohesion of several thoughts. An insight is like a light bulb turning on in a person’s head. Insights are great thoughts that help a person to see or understand something, quite often something that he has not been able to figure out before.

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Original Ideas – Some ideas are called original ideas. These are thoughts that a person has made up himself and has not copied from someone else.

Critical Thinking Another way to form ideas is to use critical thinking. This involves a person using his own knowledge or point of view to decide what is right or wrong about someone else’s ideas. This is sometimes called “having a mind of your own.” It means that a person doesn’t have to believe or accept everything that someone else says or writes.

Creativity Creativity can be measured by its fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. The most creative minds are those for whom creative thought is fluid. The most creative thinkers are also flexible within their creating; they are willing and able to manipulate their thinking to improve upon that which they are creating. Creative thinkers are able to elaborate on their creation, largely because it is their creation and not one that has been borrowed. When creative thinkers are at the peak of their creative process, they may enter a state of concentration so focused that they are totally absorbed in the activity at hand. They may be in effortless control and at the peak of their abilities.

Creativity is usually thought of as divergent thinking – the ability to spin off one’s thinking in many directions. But creative thinking is also convergent, for when someone has created something; his thinking may converge only on ideas and information that pertain to that particular invention.

Inventors such as Thomas Edison took the information they had and regrouped it until something new happened. Creative thinking has novelty, flexibility and originality.

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Have you ever seen an advertisement for something new on TV and thought to yourself, “Now, why didn’t I think of that?” The person who thought of the product being advertised is now making millions because he connected ideas that had never been connected. He also solved a problem common to many people, and now many people are buying his product.

The invention of Velcro is a good example. The inventor of Velcro got his idea from a cock-a-bur that stuck on his pants when he walked in the woods. When he looked closely at the cock-a-bur on his pants, he saw that one “side” had lots of points (the cock-a-bur) and the other “side” was made of lots of round loops (the pants material.) He also noticed how firmly the cock-a-bur was stuck to his pants. He decided that pointed and looped surfaces could be a good way to join two items. Thus, Velcro was born.

Conclusion There are not many industries that are as creative as the beauty industry. We have a license to use artistry in creating new hair and color concepts. The balance between art and business is always essential for salons to flourish and be perpetually sustainable.

For our industry to move a giant leap forward, we need to add to that formula by using the creative side of ourselves, on our business.

Solutions to the world’s problems will never be found in books. They reside in the minds of creative inventive people. So it is very important for all Salon Owners to exercise their creative “muscles.” and think to a higher order.

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Creativity emerges from the basic mental operation of conceptually blending dissimilar subjects.

chapter 6

How to Think Like a Genius What is common to the thinking style that produced the theory of relativity and Mona Lisa? How do geniuses come up with ideas? What characterizes the thinking strategies of the Einstein’s, Mozart’s and Steve Jobs? What can we learn from them?

If we can understand the commonality, we can apply them to become more creative in our work and personal life. Genius is not about scoring high on an IQ test, or mastering ten languages. Creativity is not the same as intelligence. An individual can be far more creative than he is intelligent, or far more intelligent than creative.

The key question isn’t “why are some people more creative then others?” It is why isn’t everyone creative? Where was our potential list?

Why does education cripple creativity?

Making Connections We have been educated to process information based on what has happened in the past and to be analytical thinkers. Once we think we know how to get the answer, based on what we have been taught, we stop thinking. We have the ability to make common associations between subjects that are related. We are far better at associating two things, than we are at forcing ourselves to see connections between things that seem to have no association. We form mental walls between association of related concepts and concepts that are not related.

We are all born spontaneous and creative. As children we embraced all kinds of outlandish possibilities. We knew a box was much more than a container. A box could be a fort, a car, a tank, a cave, a house, something to draw on and a space helmet. Our imaginations

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were not structured according to some existing concept or category.

And then something happened to us: we went to school. We were taught how to think; we were taught to reproduce what past thinkers thought. When confronted with a problem, we were taught to select the most promising approach based on history, and then work logically in a carefully defined direction towards the solution.

This is why, when most people use their imaginations to develop new ideas, those ideas are heavily structured in predictable ways by the properties of existing concepts. Creative thinking requires the ability to generate a host of associations and connections between two or more dissimilar subjects, creating new categories and concepts.

Imagine that thought is water! When you are born, your mind is like a glass of water. Your thinking is inclusive, clear and fluid. All thoughts intermingle and combine with each other. Once something is learned and categorized, your thoughts about it become frozen like ice cubes in a tray. You are taught, when confronted with a problem, to examine the ice cube tray and select the appropriate cube. Then you take the cube and put it in the glass, where your thinking heats and melts it.

Conceptual Blending Creativity emerges from the basic mental operation of conceptually blending dissimilar subjects. When analyzed, creative ideas are always new combinations of old ideas. A poet does not generally make up new words but instead puts together old words in a new way.

When asked, “what is one-half of thirteen?� Most of us would answer six and one-half. Typically we think reproductively, on the basis of similar problems encountered in the past. We become arrogantly certain of the correctness of our conclusion.

In contrast geniuses think productively, not reproductively. When confronted with a problem, they ask themselves how many different

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ways they can look at the problem, how they can rethink it, and how many different ways they can solve it. They tend to come up with many different responses, some of which are unconventional and possibly, unique. A productive thinker would say there are many different ways to express “thirteen” and many different ways to halve something.

(6.5. Six and one-half, Thir and teen, 13 = 1, 3) Once geniuses obtain a certain minimal verbal facility, they seem to develop a skill in visual and spatial abilities that gives them the flexibility to display information in different ways. When Einstein had thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many ways as possible, including diagrammatically.

He had a very visual mind. He thought in terms of visual and spatial forms, rather than thinking along purely mathematical or verbal reasoning. He thought that words and numbers did not play a significant role in his thinking process.

“Thinking Fluently,” presents a set of timeless and solid principles on how to produce a quantity of ideas. A distinguishing characteristic of genius is immense productivity. Thomas Edison held 1093 patents, Bach wrote a cantata every week, and Einstein published 248 papers. Out of their massive quantity of work came quality. Most do not survive; in fact 95% of a new species fail and die in a short period.

Geniuses produce, period.

Making Novel Combinations Geniuses are geniuses because they form more novel combinations than the mere talented. Consider Einstein’s equation, E=mc2.

Einstein did not invent the concepts of energy, mass, or the speed of light. Rather by combining these concepts in a novel way, he was able to look at the same world as everyone else and see something different.

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Connecting The Unconnected If one particular style of thought stands out for creative geniuses, it is the ability to make juxtapositions that elude mere mortals. It’s a facility to connect the unconnected by forcing relationships that enable them to see things to which others are blind. Leonardo da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves.

Finding What You Are Not Looking For Whenever we attempt something and fail, we end up doing something else. As simplistic as that statement may seem, it is the first principle of creative accident. It is not luck, but creative instinct to the highest order. Alexander Fleming was not the first physician to notice mold that formed on an exposed culture while studying deadly bacteria. A less gifted physician would have trashed this seemingly irrelevant event.

This observation led to penicillin, which saved millions of lives.

Summary Genius is analogous to biological evolution, in that it requires the unpredictable generation of a rich diversity of alternatives and conjectures. We are in a very creative industry, but creativity should not be the exclusive domain of the service provider. We have to be creative in all aspects of marketing, design and technology to position our industry at the forefront of consumer aspirations.

The world of the future will demand capacities, that until now have been mere options. We live in a time of vast changes that include accelerating globalization, mounting quantities of information, the growing hegemony of science and technology, and a clash of civilizations. Those changes call for a new way of thinking creatively in schools, businesses and professions.

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Each of us has the power and capacity to think more creatively. When you look at a caterpillar, what do you see? A caterpillar! Someday this will be a beautiful butterfly. Look at it carefully and see if you see anything that proves this will be so. There is nothing in you on the outside that shows others what you can become. You cannot see what is going on inside the caterpillar, and others cannot see what is going on inside your heart and mind.

Creative geniuses are geniuses because they know “how” to think instead of “what to think.”

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Design is a type of “food for thought� where your designed surroundings impact not only how you perceive that world, but also how you interact within it.

chapter 7

How Salon Design Influences Your Behavior The design that surrounds you, influences your thoughts and subsequently your behavior. Understanding this relationship between the environment and your mind is important. Your brain is not only hard-wired to interpret certain spatial characteristics in certain ways, but your mind also plays a role in how you make decisions based on those interpretations. All in all, design is a type of “food for thought” where your designed surroundings impact not only how you perceive that world, but also how you interact within it.

Design impacts our creativity, focus, health, attention, mood and social ability. Design plays a major role for our brains, not just as we perceive space, but also as we engage in interactions, behaviors and thoughts.

Processing Architecture With Your Brain “Designing salons around the mind.” The ceiling of a room has an affect on how consumers process information. A lower ceiling within a room promotes greater attention to detail by occupants. Higher ceilings promote greater abstract and creative thinking by occupants.

Different objectives call for varying ceiling heights.

Feeding Your Thoughts Via Your Senses The beauty of salon design is that it can be designed as interactive embedded with sensors and actuators that allow it to respond as well.

The main idea is that your brain interprets design through your mind and plays a role in influencing your thoughts and subsequent behavior.

The recent slowdown in consumer spending particularly affected the retail sector. However, this most competitive and dynamic of sectors is fighting back with some innovative design strategies at the cutting edge of experimental psychology.

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In just a few decades, this sector has changed out of all recognition and driven by fierce competition and has been at the forefront of new marketing concepts, such as brand management and customer loyalty. Now, in a period of economic uncertainty, retailers are adopting another weapon - the manipulation of our minds.

It’s a developing science but one that retailers are increasingly relying on because what matters, particularly in a downturn, is footfall through the door and converting browsers into customers. Parting us from our money has never been more important.

Needless to say, it’s a science that varies between men and women.

For example, 65% of men who take a pair of jeans into a changing room to try them on will buy them, while only 25% of women will make that purchase. Likewise, a women shopping with a man will spend less time in a store than shopping by herself or with a child.

The trick, as retailers know, is to first entice a shopper inside their store and to then make them linger. The longer they linger, the more they are likely to buy. That’s why supermarkets stock their most popular staple items like bread and milk at the back of their stores - forcing customers to walk further and pass other products on the way. It works: research suggests that over 50% of supermarket purchases are bought on impulse.

However, modern research-based and observational techniques have gone much further in trying to understand how we shop. For example, we walk around shops in the same way as we drive a car. If we drive on the right, we tend to keep to the right when walking down sidewalks or supermarket aisles. The British and Australians, conversely, tend to turn left when entering a store. It’s a branch of scientific observation that now has a name: environmental psychology, and its proponents claim that it will revolutionize the design of shops and public areas.

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Sounds unlikely? Well, putting the theory into practice, it means that in a well-designed airport travelers walking to their gates should find fast-food outlets on their left and gift shops on their right. The mind game being played is that, if a traveler is hungry, he or she is quite happy to cross a lane of pedestrian traffic to buy something to eat.

However, they’ll rarely do so to make an impulse gift purchase.

Some retailers who have bought into the new psychology have taken it to extremes. Samsung, for example, has experimented with what it calls coercive atmospherics in its flagship store in Manhattan, pumping in the smell of honeydew lemon and constantly and subtly changing the lighting scheme to create a tropical and relaxed atmosphere.

That level of sophisticated manipulation does raise ethical issues but, as an overall strategy, it’s no more than retailers have been doing to us for many years - appealing indirectly to our subconscious minds. In recent years, retailers have acquired a greater understanding of psychology and its role in the sales process.

The Power of Essence It’s a fast-developing, branch of psychology. In clothing stores, when “feminine scents” like vanilla were introduced, sales of women’s clothing increased. The same was true for men’s clothing when “male” scents were used.

Color Psychology The one major psychological influence that all retailers can and do, is to make use of color. Color can be everything to a successful store, if the palettes work well across the whole shop and complement other elements such as product displays and lighting. The point isn’t about creating the most beautiful shop, but one that has coherence.

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Color is central to coherence because we react instinctively to it. Red means “stop” and green means “go.” Our brains are hot-wired to respond to color and for modern retailers, the trick to using color is to understand both its physiological and psychological influences.

We react fundamentally to colors because they help us make sense of our surroundings; indeed, some 80% of information reaches our brains via our eyes. It means that we are instinctively more comfortable when colors remind us of something familiar. For example, a soft shade of blue triggers associations with the sky and a psychological sense of calm. Prisons and hospitals now use color to influence the behavior of inmates and patients.

With children, color associations are still being formed, which is why youngsters respond best to bright primary colors. Bold colors are the color of most toys, clothes and children’s books - and the color schemes of the most successful kids’ retailers.

Color psychology perhaps explains why people are allegedly more relaxed in a green room and why weightlifters perform better in blue gyms. It’s certainly the reason why some paint manufacturers now have color cards setting out the therapeutic aspects of each color, and why some cosmetic companies have introduced ‘color therapy’ ranges.

We all share similar responses to color, although some cultural variations exist. For example, white is the color of marriage in western societies but is the color of death in China. In Brazil, purple is the color of death. Yellow is sacred to the Chinese, but signifies sadness in Greece and jealousy in France. People from tropical countries respond most favorably to warm colors; people from northern climates prefer cooler colors.

Our heart rate and blood pressure rise when we look at intense reds, conversely, we can become tired or anxious by looking at large areas of bright whites or grays. In a retail environment, understanding those

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responses can be crucial to enticing that customer inside, and then enticing them to open their wallet or purse.

To make things more complicated, the success of a retail store isn’t so much influenced by the chosen color scheme but by how their target customers react to it. Is the store aimed at teenagers? thirtysomething? senior citizens? The success of the store depends of how the customer reacts to both the products on display and the sales environment. Younger people like the energy of bold colors; older people prefer more subtle palettes. Get those colors wrong, and a retailer will find that their customers simply won’t relate to their brand.

Color association also extends into food retailing. For example, most fast-food restaurants are decorated in vivid reds and oranges. These are colors that encourage us to eat quickly and leave - exactly what the fast-food operator wants us to do. Luxurious brands, on the other hand, favor softer colors and browns that appear more sophisticated.

In fine dining restaurants, those are the colors that are more conducive to hunger; encourage us to linger - and to order another drink or coffee.

Creating strong and effective color associations is about using every surface to convey the brand message, and that includes floor coverings. In some retail environments, it really does start from the floor upwards, because colors, if required, can enhance mood or change special awareness.

For example, lighter floor colors can make a smaller room appear larger and a dark floor colors will make a room appear more intimate.

Combined with wall paint colors, a short narrow room can be transformed by matching light colors to deeper color on the short walls and lighter color on the long walls.

Some retailers are now using colors to influence patterns of travel around a store - particularly from the crucial zone just inside the shop

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entrance, often referred to as the compression or transition zone - the place where customers first orientate themselves with what’s inside.

Here, color is being used to subtly ‘direct’ shoppers deeper into the store or, by using different colors and patterns, create subconscious walkways that shoppers will tend to follow.

By recognizing how color influences us, retailers are better able to induce feelings of warmth, intimacy or serenity, or by using more vibrant palettes, to excite or stimulate. It’s about understanding target markets, the product lines to appeal to them and the kind of brand the retailer wants to convey. Lastly, it’s about conveying that brand though color and design.

As with everything, creating that perfect palette is about balance between strong colors, sophisticated neutrals, and subtle textures. It’s about creating style and projecting a corporate image that resonates with customers. It’s about using the walls and floor to help create a coherent image.

Salon design influences your customer’s behavior. The primary design objective is to create and implement a design that combines the physical rejuvenation with an emotional space, achieving a powerful experience. As a result it creates an environment that is conducive to buying and maximizes the potential of the salon business.

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environmental psychology examples

The Mastery - Atlanta, GA environmental psychology samples / 60

E Salon & Spa - Bakersfield , CA a window into the consumers mind / 61

The Mastery - Atlanta, GA environmental psychology samples / 62

Ira Ludwick Salon - Bethesda, MD a window into the consumers mind / 63

Panache Salon & Spa - Erie, PA environmental pschologhy samples / 64

Panache Salon & Spa - Erie, PA a window into the consumers mind / 65

Jean Paul Salon - Latham, NY environmental pschologhy samples / 66

Schardein & Co. - Oklahoma City, OK a window into the consumers mind / 67

Schardein & Co. - Oklahoma City, OK environmental psychology samples / 68

The Mastery - Atlanta, GA a window into the consumers mind / 69

Mango Salon - Richmond, VA environmental psychology samples / 70

Dre’s Hair Salon - Scottsdale, AZ a window into the consumers mind / 71

Since Descartes said, 300 years ago, “I think, therefore I am” we have seen emotions as something that interferes with rationality.

We now know the reverse is true.

“People have emotions, therefore they are rational.”

chapter 8

Designed For Emotional Buying Behavior Companies like CVS and Duane Reade have recognized the potential impact beauty products have on their bottom line and are adjusting their strategic plans accordingly, by designing their new locations to gain an even greater market share of the hair and skincare market. In essence, they are coming after your salon business, the beauty industry business.

Never has there been a better time to design our salons around the emotional buying patterns of the consumer. But to compete, we have to go beyond mere design. We must incorporate the tenets of environmental psychology. We have to emulate the best proven practices of successful retailers, service providers and marketers outside the beauty industry.

The salon of today and the future, must combine elements of dependable science, blended with wishful thinking to create an alluring cocktail of reality and desirable fantasy.

The fundamental tenet of market research is that you can ask people questions and what they tell you will be the truth. In fact, it turns out that the opposite is far closer to the truth. The conscious mind finds it is impossible to resist putting a spin on events. From the moment we do anything it introduces distortions. When the mind considers the future, it does so with an idealism that is both optimistic and simultaneously devoid of any objective assessment of the past.

There is a way to obtain a deeper understanding of consumers and make better-informed decisions. Humans have virtually lost the ability to appreciate the present, so wrapped up are we in dwelling on the past and wondering about the future.

We want our lives to have meaning. In the quest for significance, we miss the moment of now. It is in this moment of consumer behavior that we have the best opportunity to connect.

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Understanding the Unconscious Mind The unconscious mind is the real driver of consumer behavior.

Understanding consumers is largely a matter of understanding how the consumers mind operates. The first obstacle is to recognize how we frequently react without conscious awareness. As long as we protect the illusion that we are primarily conscious agents, we pander to the belief that we ask people what they think and trust what we hear in response. Easy usually wins!

Repeated conscious actions create unconsciously driven behavior.

Thinking uses glucose, so the more thought any activity requires, the more tired we will become. The extent to which our unconscious mind likes the path of least resistance is both intriguing and disconcerting!

Studies have found that stocks with easily pronounced names are preferred and selected over those with less familiar strings of letters, and handwriting clarity and font choice also effect how people respond to something. But of course we don’t know we are doing this and that is shaping our judgments.

The saying, “first impression” is not just appropriate when a consumer enters a salon. It is also important in verbal communication with a consumer.

When people were asked who they think they would like more: John is intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn and jealous.Mark is jealous, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious and intelligent.

It shouldn’t make a difference, since the descriptions contain exactly the same words, yet more people attach more weight to the words they hear first and say they prefer John.

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Environmental Influences Humans like animals, interact and respond to their environment far more than we are aware of at a conscious level. If we want to change people’s behavior, the first thing we can do is change the environment.

Changing the environment is uniquely powerful in changing behavior.

There is no greater single influence.

If we want to know why someone does or doesn’t buy, we have to understand how the environment shapes behavior. To maximize sales or the impact of communication, the environment has to be right. It is not a revelation to learn that music and lighting can affect our mood and as a result, our behavior, the extent to which both can cause people to spend more is surprising.

People spend more than three times as much on a bottle of wine when classical music was playing, compared to when pop music was selected. They assumed that they were buying wine they wanted to buy and would be able to provide apparently rational justifications for doing so.The taste of wine is also influenced by what music is playing because of the impact of unconscious mental associations and potential misattribution.

Music can also dramatically alter the amount of time people stay in a store and how quickly they move.

It is well documented that light levels have an effect on brain chemistry. Light regulates the body clock and is associated with the release of serotonin, which plays an important role in the regulation of mood, mental clarity and energy levels. Consumers who engage with displays that are illuminated, touch more of the items, and spend significantly longer shopping and as a result buy more products.

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People in rooms with higher ceilings perform better and spend more than people in lower ceilings. The environmental influences take place at an unconscious level. Our conscious minds are oblivious to what’s really driving our thoughts, feelings and behavior.

I have emotions, therefore I am rational Since Descartes said, 300 years ago, ‘I think, therefore I am’, we have seen emotions as something that interferes with rationality. We now know the reverse is true “people have emotions, therefore they are rational.” We should view emotions as a fundamental component of rationality. People buy on emotion not logic.

Great retailers want to understand why consumers are acting in a particular way. It is important to read the environment as a consumer’s unconscious mind does. The most useful objective measurement is conversion: what proportions of people who engage with a product go on to purchase it?

What proportion of the people who go into a store make a purchase?

How many leave without purchasing?

The amount of time someone spends shopping in a store is the most important factor in determining how much he or she will buy. The interception rate is also crucial.

It is possible to gain an insight into the mindset of the consumer by closely observing their total package of expressions. By paying attention to the words people choose to use, their tone of voice, the gestures, postures and facial expressions, one can read with surprising accuracy the ego state (or frame of mind) they are occupying at any particular time. The key is to observe the total package rather than erroneously attach significance to just one aspect and deduce, for example, because someone has their arms folded they are defensive. Observing how someone emotional state alters as

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they move through a retail experience and identifying where a number of people respond similarly, is the key to identifying where an aspect of retail experience is having an emotional impact.

Many key elements contained in a retail store design become unnoticed by consumers. Customers scanned the perimeter of the store to navigate it, enabling them to retain one focal length as they scanned the environment, and ignored relatively large features in the middle of the store. Humans like animals scan their boundaries for exits! It is not that they don’t know that it is there. People often ignore apparently significant visual events if their attention is focused elsewhere.

Your competition is not the salons in your region; it is retailers like Sephora, Duane Reade and CVS. The formula for success is to design our salons around the consumer’s experience. Where the beauty industry has a great advantage over national retailers, is the ability to offer our consumers a personal experience.

Environmental design + Personal consumer experience = Sustainable Competitive advantage.

We must up our game to a level that aspires to maximize the potential of our retail and service business. A more self-esteem conscious consumer exiting the recession compounds this opportunity.

The future for those salons that pioneer and implement this vision is bright.

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The difference between

“almost the right word” and the “right word”

is the difference between a lightning bug and lightning.

Mark Twain - American Author

chapter 9

Emotional Decisions Similarity is good! Neuro Linguistic Programming studies have demonstrated that when two people communicate in a non-threatening environment, they will adopt a common language, a common voice, and a common posture. They will even start to breathe in synchronicity and it’s all sub-conscious.

7 percent of the impact of your communication comes from your words, the verbal component of your message - while 38 percent comes from your voice - the vocal aspect of your message - and 55 percent is achieved with your body language, the visual component of your message.

In other words, it’s not just what you say; it’s how you say it. How well you express yourself depends on three factors: 1.

2.

3.

Your Words Your Voice Your Body Language

The difference between “almost the right word” and the “right word” is the difference between a lightning bug and lightning.

Mark Twain - American Author Do you remember where you were on July 20 1969, or on September 11, 2001? Likely, depending on age you do. Yet you may not remember what you ate for lunch yesterday. The emotions attached to a significant event are powerful memory-makers.

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Many of us think that emotions are things that happen to us. In reality, emotions are an inner source of energy, information and influence.

Thousands of years after the Romans defined the word for emotion, neuroscientists have confirmed that only emotions can trigger decisions.

The fastest way to influence the consumer is through the heart not the head. Whenever we experience a strong emotion, our brain creates a cocktail of hormones that act as a memory-maker and decision trigger.

The stronger our feelings, the more vivid and long lasting are our memories.

Strong emotions accelerate and strengthen synaptic connections between our neurons. We have more than 100 billion neurons in the grey matter of our brains. Individually they are unremarkable. But when they connect with one another, magic happens. “When dealing with people, remember, you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.�

Dale Carnegie - Renowned author When we have strong emotional reactions to a person or event, the cocktail of hormones that is released into our bloodstream accelerates and intensifies the synaptic connections to our brain. If the emotion felt was very intense, like a wedding or birth, only one occurrence of the experience is enough to create a lifelong memory.

A baby in the womb experiences the same pounding heart and muscle tension his mother feels as she experiences fright if she slips or falls.The baby associates the feelings with fear of falling and later relives the same symptoms as an adult when the plane he is flying on experiences turbulence. The hormones released by the mother have created a strong associative memory in the baby’s brain.

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“The difference is trying to comprehend the cosmos through a land-based telescope.

Peering through our layered atmosphere that necessarily distorts the image, versus soaring high above the earth and gaining as clear and unconstructed a view into the depths of space as can be had by the human eye.�

chapter 10

Total Retail Experience In the beauty industry we are in a strong position to create opportunities for our consumers to listen, see, touch, smell and take ownership of the products we apply during services. We have known for a long time that an experiential event for a consumer greatly advances their chances of purchasing the product.

What I am sure we are not aware of is the specific processes that our subconscious mind goes through when a shampoo, styling, or skincare product is experienced. The Total Retail Experience is a methodological framework including examining the bottle, handling the bottle, extracting the product from the bottle and applying the contents to our hair or skin.

But what are our brains doing when we see, touch, smell and hear about a bottle of shampoo?

If we can touch it, taste it, smell it, see it, and hear it, we can observe the brains reactions to it. If we applied this methodology to a container of yogurt, you may be wondering what is there to know that’s so complex about eating a container of yogurt? You put your spoon in it, you stir it up and you eat it. Simple right? But for your brain, it isn’t at a simple process.

First all five senses are involved. Next, from a neurological perspe tive, there actually are several distinct steps involved.

First you see the package. Synapses in your visual cortex fire as nerve endings in your retina capture and transmit signals. Your prefrontal cortex calls the shots, directing muscles around the eyeballs to focus your vision on the target. Your brain simultaneously decodes color, shape, size, and location of the container. This data is matched against information stored in your memory, and at the same time is matched against all the data streaming in from your other senses.

The supercomputer spits out the answer in an infinitesimal fraction of a second: yogurt! That known, the prefrontal cortex proceeds to order

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the muscles and ligaments in your arm and hand extend toward the container. Your brain calculates the distance and amount of time to target, and adjusts actions accordingly. Your fingers form the correct shape to grasp (touch) the container.

As you grasp the round plastic, your brain modifies the amount of pressure required for your fingers to hold onto the container, as it receives data about the resistance of the package and its weight.

Temperature and surface texture information are transmitted as well.

Time to proceed to the next step: lifting the container and opening it.

Now the nerves and muscles coordinate anew, driven by the master control center in your prefrontal cortex. Then another sense kicks in: as you remove the plastic top and then peel the metal foil back, you hear the sound at the same time as you sense the slight resistance of the adhesive on the top of the container.

And yet another sense floods data into your neural networks: you smell the contents. Now we’re approaching what everyone would consider the moment of truth: tasting the product.

Next, because it’s a fruit-based yogurt, you pick up a spoon, inset it downwards, feel the consistency of the gelatinous content as the spoon encounters slight resistance due to the semi thick texture and stir. As bits of fruit surface and swirl, your senses of sight, smell and touch actively process new streams of data.

At last: time to taste.

You collect a puddle of creamy substance on the spoon and raise it to your mouth. Once again, whole batteries of nerve endings, muscles, neurons, and synaptic networks within the brain interact, enabling the motion and anticipation what concerted action is required to get the spoon and its contents safely and intact into your mouth.

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Before it even gets there, though, your sense of smell is heightened as yogurt approaches your face. Both your nasal cavity and your mouth receive the scent. Once inside, your mouth and tongue experience the flavor texture, solid contents and temperature of the yogurt, signaling your brain with the information that it is delicious, cool, somewhat thick, contains semi firm bits of an identifiable fruit, and is OK to swallow, which you proceed to do.

And that concludes the typical yogurt consumption process and therefore the Total Consumer Experience.

So where’s the special power and value of the Total Consumer Experience? It’s hidden in the information above.

So what would you guess would be the biggest, Neurological Iconic Signature embedded in the simple process? Would it be feeling that cool slick surface of the plastic container? Sticking the spoon in?

Maybe stirring the fruit? Or tasting the yogurt?

The answer is none of the above.

The most exiting and memorable experience was grasping and removing the covering on the top of the container. Our brain loves that action and the multitude of sensations it produces. There is something about the tactile, auditory, visual and olfactory sensations that brings great satisfaction.

As a child, the excitement of opening wrapped presents on our birthday or at Christmas is amongst our most memorable experiences.

Lets now return to the products we offer in our salons. If we can go beyond informing consumers about the product, to enabling them to hold the product, remove the cap or lid, allow them to smell the product and apply the product to their hand, hair or skin. We are creating the Total Retail Experience and greatly enhancing the chances of them taking ownership of the product.

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If you know the process that appeals the strongest to consumers, if you know the optimum positioning, if you know how your consumer’s brain will respond before you create your marketing campaign, you go into a process with a distinct competitive advantage.

The difference is trying to comprehend the cosmos through a land-based telescope. Peering through our layered atmosphere that necessarily distorts the image, versus soaring high above the earth and gaining as clear and unconstructed a view into the depths of space as can be had by the human eye.

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Much like walking through a dark forest with a flashlight, the future comes into focus only a short distance in front of us.

So how do we create a brighter flashlight?

chapter 11

A Window into the Future Don’t predict the future, control it!

What music comes to mind when you try on a pair of jeans? “Does the music in your head” somehow change when you try on a different brand? The next time you try on a piece of jewelry, pay very close attention to the emotional experiences that run through your mind as you touch and feel the jewelry. Even though clothing and jewelry are inanimate objects, they are closely tied to an emotional response, and brand managers and marketers are working overtime to figure out ways to cultivate and amplify that emotional connection.

One example is a company called Gomus, a Brazilian-based music branding company that embeds RFID tags in clothing. When a customer tries on a piece of clothing in the changing room, music will automatically come on that matches the feel or mood of the clothing.

This is just one example of how retail stores of the future are attempting to differentiate themselves from the online world. Much like walking through a dark forest with a flashlight, the future comes into focus only a short distance in front of us. So how do we create a brighter flashlight?

We are a backward-looking society in that we’ve all experienced the past. As we look around we see evidence of the past all around us.

The past is very knowable, yet we spend the rest of our lives in the future.

Until now, the science of the future has been very murky. The tools are primitive and the unknowns continue to dominate the path ahead.

Scenario planning, trend analysis and cyclical patterns are all tiny braille bumps on the looming mosaic that constitutes our future. The future will happen with or without us, whether or not we decide to participate. It follows then, if your vision or project is not aligned to the needs and desires of the future, the future will kill it.

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Examples of technologies that are approaching the graveyard are: Checking industry: The demise of the handwritten check is drawing near. Within ten years the appearance of a paper check will be quite rare.

Fax Machines: Museum curators are already dusting off a spot for this former staple of the business world.

Traditional AM-FM Radio: With commercial free satellite, the success of iPods, and internet radio, traditional radio has lost ground quickly.

Broadcast Television: Internet TV is gaining ground. Netflix and Hulu are causing traditional broadcast TV to dwindle.

Wires: As we move further into the wireless age, more and more of our wired infrastructure will begin to disappear. First TV lines, then telephone lines and eventually the power lines will disappear.

Our visions drive us forward. Great visions have a way of infecting nearly everything we touch. As ideas flow into a crowded room, they create wants, needs and desires, and these in turn create markets.

The vision is only the beginning!

A great vision begins more as an art form than a science, later adding details, attributes and emotional commitment as it progresses along on the path to realism.

An example of more than a vision is Apple. They have trained their staff what they can and can’t say. An apple employee will not say “unfortunately,” instead they will say “as it turns out.”

They have created their model with radical thinking. Other retailers have tried to emulate Apple without the same success.

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Apple broke all the rules. As consumers we lined up at cash registers.

Apple checks you out from an iPhone with the employee standing next to you. They position the products like a piece of sculpture or art. They broke all the paradigms of a computer store and changed a service/retail model forever.

Lessons from the ancient world During the time of the Greek civilization, several mathematicians became famous for their work. People like Pythagoras and Archimedes brought new elements of thinking to society.

A few generations later, the Romans became the dominant society on Earth, but mathematicians were notably absent. People are social creatures by nature and while the online world has dealt a temporary setback to traditional retailers, a new breed of services and retail stores with hyper individualized experiences is starting to enter the marketplace.

When it comes to retail, consumers are in control. They vote with their dollar when they decide what to buy, where to buy, when to buy and how much they’re willing to pay.

In our connected world, where information is fluid and transparent, retailers must become actively engaged in the global conversation.

Touch Marketing A “Virtual Personal Stylist� will be highly involved in the high end of our industry. A retail and service salon experience that brings personalization and customization of shopping to consumers, will be the salons that will continue to flourish in the future. Using a tablet or mobile device, shoppers will be able to access their avatar via a full-sized mirror where they can see color, cut, makeup and products being applied and have their buying profile updated in real time.

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Additional innovations in technology will bring wireless hairdryers, and USB ports will be normal throughout the salon.

Ralph Lauren has unveiled a new form of window-shopping. You can browse merchandise on a 78� touchscreen directly from the window.

With this concept, future salons exterior windows will have embedded glass walls with interactive digital touch screens in them, meaning salons will effectively be open 24 hours a day for products and gifts.

Imagine walking into a retail store in 2015 and having an interaction with products, moving from shelf to shelf and being advised by the products themselves and the retail management network. When you walk in, you are offered products that fit your shopping profile. It’s being streamed to you or you can scan it on your iPhone.

The flow of globalization We are in the global stage of human evolution. We have gone from family to tribe to village to city to nations. Our only remaining boundaries for now are planetary. So we are at the global stage of human evolution. And that means that globalization is no longer just an economic term. It is a term that will cover all aspects of human society for the next 15 years. At the same time we are getting organized to the flow of the individual.

One of the reasons this has happened is because over the past 30 years there has been this explosion of choice. When that happens, something very significant occurs. The power moves from the producer to the consumer, from the institution to the individual. If you grew up 30 years ago, you probably had two newspapers and three television stations. That was your choice for information. Now if you are connected to the internet, it’s unlimited choice. Unlimited choice brings all the power to the individual. The single most powerful force on the planet today is the accelerated electronic connectedness of humanity.

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Predictions based on history are futile!

The greatest minds in telephony when asked in 2007 “when will we reach 3 billion cellphones subscribers?”, all said 2010. Why did they say that? Because it took 20 years to go from the first cell phone subscriber to a billion. Then it took four years to go from one to two billion. That’s 500% increase in growth! They thought “that’s so fast, we will project that linearly into the future” and they came up with 2010.

Nobody should ever buy into the mistake of taking the overwhelming rapid range of change that is occurring right now, and project it linearly into the future. What happened was we crossed 3 billion subscribers by the end of the first quarter of 2008. Today we are 5.25 billion cell phone subscribers.

The cellphone has brought economic leverage to the third world for the first time, because it gives everybody a chance to connect. If I was to call somebody in the next room, it would take about 5 seconds.

If I were to call China, because of the delay of the satellite it would take 7 seconds. The difference between 10 feet and 12,000 miles is 2 seconds. There is now no time or distance limiting human communication.

We want things to happen quicker!

The web has made us incredibly impatient. We lose 30% of people in the first 15 seconds. That’s 15 seconds of answering the phone, waiting for a web page to load, or a credit card transaction to be accepted.

Consumer values and perceptions are changing. It’s not just about high quality, it’s also about speed and convenience.

Have you ever pressed the button to engage an elevator when the light for the button is already illuminated? After it has been pressed once and is lit, not even Bill Gates can make it come faster.

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The Human Driving Force!

The most powerful word that will drive the future, is a word that we see running through the history of Europe for the last 1000 years. This is a word that drove the Roman Empire before that. It is a word that controls the result of every political election. It is a word that creates tribes and also terrorists. This word of course is emotion. It’s about family, teams, belonging. It’s about the passion we have, the culture we enjoy, and the relationships we wish for. Passion and emotion are at the heart of the past and will control the future.

Conclusion All of us are futurists because all of us know that the future depends on us. You can see the future as something that happens to you, or you can see the future as something that we all can create.

We have to ensure that we are not following marketing and management theories that come from the 20th century. If you want to stay current in the next ten years, we have to change our form, appearance, nature, character and thinking. This is the first decade of 21st century thought, because we have barreled into the 21st century with legacy thinking of the 20th century. You see it in Washington, that’s why it’s not working. Most people drive down the freeway of life, looking through the rear view mirror.

Our challenge is to contribute in building a better world. Everyday matters, everyday counts. As we connect with the passions people have, as we understand the emotions they have, as we understand what it is that drives them and what matters to them, then we will find ways to make markets, improve their world and improve our businesses.

Consciously live your vision with the awareness that your unconscious history may undermine your intent!

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What we are learning now about the consumer and what we will learn in the next decade about the consumer’s brain, will surpass our knowledge from the preceding 500 years.

chapter 12

The Consumer of the Future

Will Dictate the Salon of the Future!

If your kids ran your salon, what would they do differently?

The heart of that question is what is going on with the next generation.

Anyone born after 1994 has essentially grown up in a world only knowing the web, so their world is different to you and I. The way they see brands, the way they see content and media and even the way they see shopping is radically different that our world. When the Internet first arrived, a lot of people were saying, “that’s the end of normal shopping”.

What they forgot was that at the end of the day we are human beings and we are very social, and we like to be entertained. What you will see in the salon of the future is a sense of entertainment. I envisage the salon of the future having social media mirrors and touch screen entertainment as being the norm in high-end salons. Services and entertainment will be intrinsically linked.

Over the next ten years consumer attitudes and behaviors are likely to change in unprecedented ways. Retailers and service providers including the beauty industry will have to consider a number of questions to maximize viability: • • •

What will consumers value?

What will they need and want?

Given what they have faced in recent years, how will their attitudes and behaviors continue to change in the coming decade?

We are moving from mindless to mindful consumption The front desk as we know it will begin to disappear. The pioneering salon will have support individuals that will book future appointments, re-book and check customers in and out from an iPad or similar devise. Retailing will be far more educational, experiential and visual.

Additionally, call centers in its present format will not exist for much longer. Instead, what we’ll be seeing is more like a “Mission Control Centre” that is focused on connecting with existing customers or pro-actively marketing through a series of social networking medias.

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Phones will be replaced by computers and will have a real effect on the way customer queries are dealt with.

What we are learning now about the consumer and what we will learn in the next decade about the consumer’s brain, will surpass our knowledge from the preceding 500 years or so. Consumer brain research has moved beyond psychology and neurology and joined with biochemistry, physics and computer science to create advances that enable us to know more about ourselves, and our brains, in ways that were unimaginable in the past.

Not so long ago, scientists believed that the number of brain cells was fixed, and when one of them died, it was gone and irreplaceable. It turns out that our brains are not hardwired; they are changing every second in response to the environment and our experiences. New neurons continue into old age; it’s called neurogenesis.

This indicates that much of our ability to have insights, be creative, and innovative is governed by controllable factors. Your brain can reinvent itself through many thought and activity based actions that spark the creation.

Before we go any further, lets break away from old ideas about our minds, starting with the idea that creativity is the exclusive domain of the right side of the brain. For many years, this notion was a pop psychology staple. Categorizing people as right or left-brain turns out to be inaccurate as far as identifying someone’s ability to be creative.

The activity of the brain is now thought of not as a parallel, but as a conjunctive.

So what does that mean for the salon of the future?

The best way to understand the future is to focus on the people who are going to occupy it. How will the next generation change the world?

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So how is all this relevant to our industry and our salon consumer? In the 90s most salons income was from services applied. Currently the top 15% of salons achieve about a quarter of their sales from retailing. If you are still reading this article, you are probably in that top 15% or aspire to be. Over the next decade, I see salons achieving a much higher proportion of sales from retailing.

If our brains are evolving and our needs are changing, marketers, top service providers and retailers are now studying ways to entice the consumer of the future to spend more time and money in their locations. The length of time a consumer spends in a salon, equates to how much they spend. So how do we get more consumers to enter our locations and how do we keep them there longer! Salon owners have wrestled with these questions for a long time. It goes back to entertainment, education and experiences. The impact of those three dimensions, allied to great services is a winning formula for the future consumer. Entertainment will keep people in a salon longer. Education will create a higher average ticket and Experiences ensure people will connect positively with their social network.

Today’s initiatives are tomorrow’s minimum standards with increasing rapidity What happens in a world where all consumers are connected? In the last ten years, we have seen this progressively take place. Every consumer in the world is connected in ways they were never connected before. By email, mobile phones, Facebook, and Twitter.

When you buy a book on Amazon, it recommends you similar books that other people have bought. The sum totality of all those connetions is leading to a massive change in behavior. Because of the connectivity of technology, other consumers that we are connected to now influence us as consumers. How we buy brands or learn about salons are from other people in our network.

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What do you imagine when you think about the future?

Cutting edge technology, advanced computers, tiny devices or intelligent robots! Have you ever considered that the most disruptive forces shaping tomorrow are in fact none of those things? The future is not a place invented by scientists or technologists. It’s just the sum of all the things that you and I and the people we know do differently on a daily basis. It is a human phenomenon.

What we should be thinking about is not technology, but the anthropology of consumer behavior! We need to understand not how things change, but how people change! Consumer behavior shapes the future. The real magic happens with people.

Summary One of the most valuable asset of a salon is data. We are moving into a new world, a world where you have a generation growing up never knowing anything but the internet. They are a living challenge to all of us to change the way we do business. So think big, think new, but most importantly think quick. Because if there is one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty, it is this. “The future is now.”

Yesterday the world changed, now it’s your turn!

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chapter 13

The Language of Eye Movements

How To Read Others Thoughts By Their Gestures

Have you ever wondered what your customers are thinking?

The ability to read minds has been a pursuit of mankind for eternity.

To date we still cannot read another human’s mind, but we can have a reasonable incite into the implications of customers thoughts by studying some simple rules regarding their body language.

Body language has been around a long time. You can tell a lot about someone by observing his or her hand gestures, general body movements, voice intonation, modulation and inflection, when answering poignant questions, the content of what they are saying and facial movements. Many people have succeeded in controlling their hands, words and body language to make it hard to accurately read them. Interviews are a perfect example where an individual is self-conscious and presents an unnatural facade.

There is one feature that we cannot control; it’s our eye movement.

When we are asked to visualize a blue elephant, we look up to the right. We are creating a vision of something we haven’t seen.

Contrarily when we are asked to visualize our last vacation we look up to the left to recall that vacation as a past event. When asked to visualize a stranger speaking in a Donald Duck accent, we look sideways to the right. We are creating the sound in our mind. When asked to recall our favorite music, we look sideways to the left. When asked to imagine the feeling of touching silk, we will look down to the left and when asked to create an emotion we have never experienced before, we will look down to the right.

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Visual, kinesthetic and emotional questions create different eye movement effects. When we combine eye movement with the dilation and constriction of the person’s pupils, with their body language, hand movement, voice content, modulation and intonation, we get a fairly accurate picture of the real situation that the person is attempting to use a facade to disguise.

Throughout history, we have been preoccupied with the eye and its effect on human behavior. We have all used such phrases as ‘She looked daggers at him’, ‘She has big baby eyes’, ‘He has shifty eyes’, ‘She has inviting eyes’, ‘He had that gleam in his eye’ or “He gave me the evil eye.” When we use these phrases we unwittingly refer to the size of the person’s pupils and to his or her gaze behavior. The eyes may well give the most revealing and accurate of all human communication signals because they are a focal point on the body and the pupils work independently.

In given light conditions, the pupils will dilate or constrict as the person’s attitude and mood change from positive to negative and vice versa. When someone becomes excited, his pupils can dilate up to four times their normal size. Conversely, an angry, negative mood causes the pupils to contract to what are commonly known as ‘beady little eyes’ or “snake eyes.” The eyes are used a lot in courtship; women use eye make-up to emphasize their eye display. If a woman loves a man, she will dilate her pupils at him and he will decode this signal correctly, without knowing he does so. For this reason, romantic encounters are often arranged in dimly lit places that cause the pupils to dilate.

Young lovers who look deeply into each other’s eyes unknowingly look for pupil dilation; each becomes excited by the dilation of the other’s pupils. Research has shown that when pornographic films are shown to men, their pupils can dilate to almost three times the normal size. When the same films are shown to women their pupil dilation is even greater

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than that recorded by the men, which raises some doubt about the statement that women are less stimulated by pornography than men.

Young babies and children have larger pupils than adults and their pupils constantly dilate when adults are present in an attempt to look as appealing as possible and thus receive constant attention.

Tests conducted with expert card player’s show that fewer games were won by the experts when their opponents wore dark glasses.

For example, if an opponent were dealt four aces in a game of poker, his rapid pupil dilation would be unconsciously detected by the expert, who would get a feeling that he should not bet on the next hand. Dark glasses worn by the opponents eliminated pupil signals and as a result the experts won fewer games than usual.

The ancient Chinese gem traders who watched for the pupil dilation of their buyers when negotiating prices centuries ago used pupil watching. Prostitutes put drops of belladonna in their eyes to dilate their pupils and to make themselves appear more desirable. The late Aristotle Onassis was noted for wearing dark glasses when negotiating business deals so that his eyes would not reveal his thoughts.

An old cliché says, “Look a person in the eye when you talk to him.”

When you are communicating or negotiating with others, practice looking them in the pupil, and let the pupils tell you their real feelings.

Gaze Behaviour It is only when you see “eye to eye” with another person that a real basis for communication can be established. While some people can make us feel quite comfortable when they converse with us, others can make us feel “ill at ease and some seem untrustworthy.”

This has to do primarily with the length of time that they look at us or hold our gaze as they speak. When a person is being dishonest or holding back information his eyes meet ours less than one-third of the time.

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When a person’s gaze meets ours for more than two thirds of the time, it can mean one of two things; first, he or she finds us very interesting or appealing, in which case the gaze will be associated with dilated pupils; secondly, he or she is hostile towards you and may be issuing a non-verbal challenge, in which case the pupils will become constricted. When person A like’s person B, he will look at him a lot.

This causes B to think that A likes him.

Like most body language and gestures, the length of time that one person gazes at another is culturally determined. Southern Europeans have a high frequency of gaze that may be offensive to others and the Japanese gaze at the neck rather than at the face when conversing.

We have to consider cultural circumstances before jumping to conclusions. Not only is the length of the gaze significant, just as important is the geographical area of the person’s face and body at which you direct your gaze, as this also affects the outcome of a negotiation. These signals are transmitted and received non-verbally and are accurately interpreted by the receiver.

The following eye techniques can be effectively used to improve your communication skills.

The Business Gaze When having discussions on a business level, imagine that there is a triangle on the other person’s forehead. By keeping your gaze directed at this area, you create a serious atmosphere and the other person senses that you mean business. Provided that your gaze does not drop below the level of the other person’s eyes, you are able to maintain control of the interaction.

The Social Gaze When the gaze drops below the other person’s eye level, a social atmosphere develops. Experiments into gazing reveal that during social encounters the gazer’s eyes also look in a triangular area on the other person’s face, in this case between the eyes and the mouth.

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The Intimate Gaze The gaze is across the eyes and below the chin to other parts of the person’s body. In close encounters it is the triangular area between the eyes and the chest or breasts and for distant gazing from the eyes to the crotch. Men and women use this gaze to show interest in each other and those who are interested will return the gaze.

Sideways Glance The sideways glance is used to communicate either interest or hostility. When it is combined with slightly raised eyebrows or a smile, it communicates interest and is frequently used as a courtship signal.

If it is combined with downturned eyebrows, furrowed brow or the corners of the mouth downturned, it signals a suspicious, hostile or critical attitude.

Summary The area of the other person’s body upon which you direct your gaze can have a powerful effect on the outcome of any face-to-face encounter. If you were a manager who was going to reprimand a lazy employee, which gaze would you use? If you used the social gaze, the employee would take less heed of your words, regardless of how loud or threatening you sounded. The social gaze would take the sting out of your words and the intimate gaze would either intimidate or embarrass the employee. The business gaze is the appropriate one to use, as it has a powerful effect on the receiver and tells him that you are serious.

What men describe as the “come-on” look that women use relates to a sideways glance and an intimate gaze. If a man or woman wants to play hard to get, he or she needs only avoid using the intimate gaze and instead use the social gaze. To use the business gaze during courting would cause a man or woman to be labeled as cold or unfriendly.

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The point is that when you use the intimate gaze on a potential partner, you give the game away. Women are experts at sending and receiving this type of gaze but unfortunately, most men are not. Men are usually obvious when they use the intimate gaze and they are generally unaware of having been given an intimate gaze, much to the frustration of the woman who has transmitted it.

Eye Block Gesture Some of the most irritating people with whom we deal are those who use the eye -block gesture as they speak. This gesture occurs unconsciously and is an attempt by the person to block you from his sight because he has become bored or uninterested in you or feels that he is superior to you. Compared to the normal rate of six to eight blinks per minute during conversation, the eyelids close and remain closed for a second or longer as the person momentarily wipes you from his mind. The ultimate block out is to leave the eyes closed and to fall asleep, but this rarely happens during one-to-one encounters.

If a person feels superior to you, the eye block gesture is combined with the head tilted backwards to give you a long look, commonly known as “looking down one’s nose.” When you see an eye block gesture during a conversation, it is a signal that the approach you are using may be causing a negative reaction and that a new approach is needed if effective communication is to take place.

Controlling a Person’s Gaze It is worth discussing at this point how to control a person’s gaze when you are giving him a visual presentation using books, charts, graphs and so on. Research shows that of the information relayed to a person’s brain, 87 per cent comes via the eyes, 9 per cent via the ears, and 4 per cent via the other senses. If, for example, the person is looking at your visual aid as you are speaking, he will absorb as little as 9 per cent of your message if the message is not directly related to what he sees.

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If the message is related to the visual aid, he will absorb only 25 to 30 per cent of your message if he is looking at the visual aid. To maintain maximum control of his gaze, use a pen or pointer to point to the visual aid and at the same time verbalize what he sees. Next, lift the pen from the visual aid and hold it between his eyes and your own eyes.

This has the magnetic effect of lifting his head so that he is looking at your eyes and now he sees and hears what you are saying, thus achieving maximum absorption of your message. Be sure that the palm of your other hand is visible when you are speaking.

Conclusion There are many opportunities in the beauty industry to observe a customer, employee or product representative. Studying their eye movements and dilation of pupils will help you understand how they best receive information. If they are more visual, show them what you want them to see. If they are more auditory, tell them what you want them to hear. If they are more kinesthetic, use emotive words related to what you want them to absorb. Favoring a communication style from the above doesn’t preclude using the other two. It just means your presentation or communication leans to the most effective absorptionrate of the individual receiver.

Everything is in the eye of the beholder!

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Decision-makers must cease to view their businesses as salons and spas and begin to think of them as Decision-makers “consumermust locations.” cease to view their businesses as salons and spas and begin to think of them as ‘consumer locations.’

chapter 14

The Ultimate Consumer Experience One Giant Leap When we entered the new millennium, a quote from the last century flashed into my mind. “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

At the end of the past century, salons and spas were moving towards the model of the full service provider with a growing influence from retailing.

Unfortunately, this paradigm represents merely a tentative first step rather than a giant leap for our industry. In business, today’s initiatives become tomorrow’s minimum standards with increasing rapidity. If we really want to maximize our business opportunities, a major paradigm shift in our thinking is required. Decision-makers must cease to view their businesses as salons and spas and begin to think of them as “consumer locations.”

NEW VISION Ultimate Consumer Location

Service Business

Retail Business

Service Strategy

Retail Strategy Components

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What is the difference between a salon or spa and a consumer location?

A salon or spa focuses primarily on service and services. Some owners even view retailing as a service. A service strategy is one that generates throughout the business, incorporating estheticians, stylists, front desk personnel and clients. In contrast, a consumer location is focused on the consumer’s experience. Such a location is designed to be visually enticing and alluring from the outside and complemented by exciting store front visual merchandising.

Effective retailers outside the beauty industry are already designing their stores to meet this philosophy. The salon and spa industry can understandably profit from emulating this proven strategy. Carefully developed interior design supports the techniques of successful retailers. Display units should reach out and captivate the consumer.

Lighting should enhance the products and focus attention upon them.

Display tables should be carefully arranged so that the consumer visits them in a natural flow on the way to the check-in podium.

The key is to create an environment that is conducive to serious retailing. The environment should be as comfortable and inviting for the consumer who only wants to purchase products as it is for the customer who comes to receive services. The goal is to create a one-stop shop where the consumer receives advice from retail specialists and education on products, nutrition and wellness.

It is essential to make it easy for the consumer to experience the products. The business should be equally focused on retailing and service, integrating one with the other in a natural flow. Rather than being confined to the reception area, retailing should be visible throughout the salon and spa and connected to all the service processes. The enterprise is visually merchandized in order to enhance the one-to-one relationship, link selling promotions to other products and services.

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Recently I asked a group of salon and spa owners what they call the people who visit their premises. Some said “clients,” while others replied, “guests.” Here strikes the core of our paradigm shift.

These visitors are not guests and they are much more than clients. As a host, I would not feel comfortable selling things to my guests. When I go to a restaurant, retail outlet or salon, I don’t think of myself as a client. I am a consumer and I buy mainly on the basis of emotion rather than logic.

Clients get service and services. Consumers may also receive services, but in addition they get education and take home products.

They enjoy an experience that is more than the sum of its parts. We in the industry must adopt a consumer strategy. We must think in terms of the consumer’s perspective because it is the only one that counts.

Before we can begin to view our consumers differently, we have to change the way in which we view ourselves. We need to fully understand our own roles before we can understand and help those who look to us to meet their needs. When a group of service providers were asked what they called themselves, they replied, “estheticians and hairdressers.” However, their actual roles are far more encompassing. They are skin specialists, problem solvers, lay psychologists, image consultants and educators all rolled into one.

Owners and their staff members need to internalize the fact that they are comprehensive consumer consultants. Only then they can progress to viewing the people who patronize their establishment as consumers and the salon or spa itself as a consumer location.

In order for spa and salon owners to maximize their success by achieving the above vision, the following key questions need to be addressed.

• • • •

What business am I in?

What business should I be in?

What is my vision?

What are my values?

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• •

What is my sustainable competitive advantage?

Am I client driven or consumer driven?

The key questions give rise to a set of secondary questions.

•

If you conclude that you are in the service business but should be in the consumer business, how do you engineer the necessary shift of emphasis?

•

Is your vision marketable, and is it in alignment with your values?

•

What systems and programs have you created to ensure that your points of difference from your competitors are sustainable?

•

If you still think of people as clients, how can you make the shift to thinking of them as consumers?

The answers to these questions will form the basis for constructing a strategic plan. That plan should address the following components.

Retail Strategy

Merchandising Experience

Personnel Education

Marketing

Design

Promotions

Furniture

Reselling Strategy

Lighting Location

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Lets look at some of the above components Location: Choose a location with a high flow of foot traffic and good front window visibility. The old saying that the three most important characteristics are “location, location, location” has changed in the new millennium. The new saying has become “experience, location, entertainment.” The quality of the consumer’s experience will be the primary factor in determining whether or not he or she returns, although location will still play a major role .

Design: The appropriate design characteristics for a successful consumer location depends on the nature of the products to be retailed. There is a world of difference between an establishment that retails products with an average price of $12 and one that trades in products that sell for hundreds of dollars each. The first should be designed to maximize the number of consumers who pass through the doors. The second should be aimed at attracting a select group of high-ticket prospects. It is vital to create a sense of depth as you enter the location. The correct positioning of furniture creates that illusion.

THE ARENA EFFECT

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Retail Strategy: The successful salon or spa should view itself as two businesses that exist in a single location. Two separate strategies, one each for retail and services, should be devised and implemented in alignment with the overall vision. Expecting to achieve exceptional retail results without a retail strategy is like expecting to produce a good haircut without any knowledge of cutting techniques.

The design and materials used for retailing must be compatible with the image of the service business. The retail and service aspects of the businesses must mesh smoothly to create a consistent overall culture for the enterprise. The right combination of design, products, personnel, services, education, experience, systems and marketing will create the winning formula for success.

Reselling Strategy: We need to consider reselling in addition to retailing if we want our businesses to continue to be successful and maximize it’s potential. If you have been in business for more than two years and repeat consumers account for the majority of your sales, then you are more in the business of reselling than retailing. Successful reselling involves the implementation of one-to-one consumer marketing. These customized promotions and merchandizing techniques are designed to encourage customers to buy more frequently, to select larger sizes, and to select a broader spectrum of product offerings.

Personnel: Recruit retail personnel with specialist skills. You would not expect a front desk person to cut hair or to give a facial. Expecting service providers to produce the desired retailing results is similarly unrealistic. Creation of a thriving retail business requires the employment of passionate, highly trained retail specialists whose attention is focused upon retailing.

Education: We need to devise a comprehensive program for the ongoing education of our staff. The program should focus upon retailing, service, sales, merchandising and product knowledge. In addition, a strong ongoing customer education program should be implemented.

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Merchandising: We have to create a merchandising strategy to allow the consumer to touch, experience, test and examine everything in the retail area, encouraging them to impulse buy. Intimate contact between shopper and merchandise increases sales. Is the product merchandised above 22” and below 5’6”?

Effective strategies for retailing and provision of services are an integral part of the blueprint for success. However, it is the consumer’s experience that is the driving force. If you aspire to offer the “Ultimate Consumer Experience,” ask yourself the following question. What would you offer consumers if you charged an admission fee to enter your location? What type of experiences would you give the consumer?

What program of events would you devise to keep the consumer interested?

An event is usually less memorable the second time you experience it.

Subsequent occasions are even less compelling. Furthermore, a generic experience designed to appeal to everyone usually ends up appealing to no one. Customization is the key to customer satisfaction.

The customized experience is “just right” for each customer on each occasion. When you customize an experience, you automatically turn it into a transformation. Hence the saying, “a life transforming experience.”

The world is changing at a pace that requires decision-makers to constantly review and appraise their businesses. While you are reading this book, your consumers are being contacted on the Internet and by e-mail.

A consumer location should be measured against the standards of best available retail practices. We need to look outside of our own environment and examine the best standards of other retailers. I often hear owners saying that they want to take their businesses to “the next level.” Rather than pursue “the next level” within our own industry, we need to seek out the best practices of other service and retail industries in order to learn and to benefit by implementing proven strategies. As

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an industry, we should not settle for anything less than the highest possible standards.

We need to investigate and emulate the key ingredients in the strategic plans of successful retailers such as Apple, Banana Republic and Pottery Barn. We should strive to understand the ways in which the individual components of these plans contribute to the overall success of those corporations.

The retail revolution in our industry has begun. We must perpetually create new retail experiences. Savvy consumers are hungry for substance and a truly personal experience, which is meaningful and sustainable. Consumers demand that each return visit be a progression from the last one. They will reward the businesses that meet this standard with the most precious commodity of the new millennium: their loyalty!

Store design will evolve to address and satisfy the mindsets of the consumers. Products will no longer be organized around brands.

Instead, aspirational themes, solutions and narratives will provide the backbone for both physical and visual presentation. For example, the shops of Donna Karen are not about fashion, but about an attitude of how women aspire to live.

Ultimately, consumers will no longer base decisions on where they choose to spend their time in our industry upon location or even the physical realm. Instead their choices will reflect the authenticity and quality of the experiences that they are offered. Another notable quote from the last century is, “I have a dream.� Yesterday this vision was only a dream. Today it is reality, set your vision and strategic plan beyond your business’s natural development curve. Aim for a level that positions you as one of the pioneers of our industry. Take one small step and allow your clients to experience one giant leap.

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The quality of your business is determined by the quality of your decisions, the quality of your decisions are determined by the quality of your thinking, and the quality of your thinking is determined by your values.

chapter 15

Psychology of Retail

By Pamela Mills-Senn Retail Psychologist Leon Alexander first came into the industry as a hairdresser, spending 10 years with Vidal Sassoon, working his way up to general manager. Realizing his true passion was on the business side, Leon ultimately acquired 320 salons in Europe as well as a Ph.D. in behavioral psychology. Intrigued by how emotions i nfluence consumer behavior and buying decisions, he turned his attentions to helping retailers design environments that tap into these emotionally driven needs.

In 2006, Leon founded Eurisko, a comprehensive salon and spa design, distribution and consulting company focused on maximizing the consumer experience and consequently, business profitability. He has helped design more than 2,000 salons in the U.S. and Europe. Leon has also created and presented a wide range of educational courses for the beauty industry. He spoke recently with Vivienne Mackinder by phone from his headquarters in New Orleans about retail philosophy and how salons and spas can fashion retail environments that inspire sales. We present excerpts from that conversation here. For the full interview, go to: www.HairDesignerTV.com/HDTV_Radio.html

Leon Alexander doesn’t want you to think of those who visit your salon as clients, who merely get service and services. Nor, does he want you to refer to them as guest (“A guest would come into my home, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable selling something to her,” he explains).

Rather, salons should regard them as consumers who obtain services but also receive education and take home products, and who, adds Leon, buy mainly on the basis of emotion rather than logic.

“Consumers enjoy an experience that is more than the sum of its parts,” he says. “We in the industry must adopt a consumer strategy.

We must think in terms of the consumer’s perspective, because it’s the only one that counts.”

Never underestimate the power of the environment; it can change moods, says Leon. Consider color: it can trick the brain into a feeling or affect (for example, brown triggers feelings of hunger; light purple is most conducive to buying). Still Leon cautions that it’s not just about the surroundings in isolation. Instead, salons must take an entirely inclusive approach, combining every element that goes into delivering the “Ultimate Consumer Experience.” Additionally, hairdressers must start to look at their roles are more encompassing than they typically believe.

“They are color specialist, problem solvers, lay psychologists, image consultants and educators all rolled into one,” Leon explains.

“Owners and their staff members need to internalize the fact that they are comprehensive consumer consultants. Only then can they progress to viewing the people who patronize their establishments as consumers and the salon itself as a consumer location.”

Adopting this perspective will also improve product sales. Because hairdressers tend to think of themselves one-dimensionally, they often resist selling product, viewing it as an afterthought to the service.

Instead, when they understand the responsible thing to do is educate consumers about product features and application, sales take off, along with profitability.

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The first step to success? Creating and defining your salon’s culture.

Critical to this is developing a strategic blueprint that defines your mission, where you’re going and what you want to see in your salon, says Leon.

“A major part of this strategic blueprint is your value system,” he says.

“The quality of your business is determined by the quality of your decisions, the quality of your decisions are determined by the quality of your thinking and the quality of your thinking is determined by your values. This is true in business and in life.”

There’s no denying the galvanizing impact an excellent design has on a salon, or how a poorly constructed space can sabotage success.

Salons not only need to consider their furniture and accessories, but circulation (does the traffic flow provide for maximum product exposure in the shortest amount of time?), the retail/display area (does it make it easy for consumers to experience the products?), the salon’s curb appeal and location, smell, accent colors and more. All elements should support the salon’s strategic plan and transmit the message that the salon provides exceptional service and retail in an exceptional environment. Customers, Leon says, should leave that establishment thinking, “WOW!” “Design,” says Leon, “is the number one determinant why people buy.

Look around in your personal life; it’s all design. If people put this kind of thought into their salons, they will create an emotional effect. And if you design around emotional needs, you will be so far ahead of your competitors.”

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To learn more about Leon’s retailing strategies and Eurisko, visit: www.euriskodesign.com

Leon Alexander is President of Eurisko Design, a comprehensive design, consulting and distribution source serving the salon and spa industry. His educational background includes acquiring a Ph.D. in Behavioral Psychology in London.

He has designed and presented a wide range of educational courses for the beauty industry, including Strategic Thinking, Creative and Lateral Thinking, Body Language, Environment Psychology and How Consumers Think.

Eurisko Philosophy: The beauty industry is changing at a pace that requires decisionmakers to constantly review and appraise their enterprise. Today’s business initiatives become tomorrow’s minimum standards with increasing rapidity.

When consumers enter a Eurisko designed space, they enter “The Ultimate Consumer Experience.”

Eurisko has designed furniture to embrace the needs of the salon and spa professional. Eurisko believes in planning for success and designs furniture accordingly.

Eurisko has applied the best-proven retail and service practices to maximize the potential of your business and position your salon as an image pioneer of the industry.

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The human brain is an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful The human brain is an enchanted loompattern, though never an where millions of abiding flashingone, shuttles weave creating a shifting harmony of sub-patterns.

a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern, never abiding It is as though if the Milky Way an entered uponone, some cosmic dance. creating a shifting harmony of sub-patterns.

It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance.

Retail Psychologist Leon Alexander is a futurist and thought provoker that first came into the industry as a hairdresser, spending 10 years with Vidal Sassoon, working his way up to general manager.

Realizing his true passion was on the business side, Leon ultimately acquired 320 salons in Europe as well as a Ph.D. in behavioral psychology. Intrigued by how emotions influence consumer behavior and buying decisions, he turned his attentions to helping retailers and salons design environments that tap into these emotionally driven needs.

In 2006, Leon founded Eurisko Design, a comprehensive salon design, distribution and consulting company focused on maximizing the consumers experience and consequently, the salons business profitability.

He has helped design more than 2,000 salons in the U.S. and Europe. Leon has also created and presented a wide range of educational courses for the beauty industry.

His objective is to evolve the industry by emulating the best practices of pioneering retailers, service providers and marketers who are at the cutting edge of the consumer evolution.

Contact Leon euriskodesign.com eurisko1@me.com 985.705.0937 Photography by Madelyn Alexander

Dr. Alexander’s expertise reaches far and wide. With his extensive experience in salons, in addition to his knowledge of behavioral psychology, his advise to salon owners is invaluable.

I found that “A Window into the Future” gives key insight into today’s digital age and beyond.

-Van Council, Van Michael Salons, owner Change used to occur in generational terms, now it seems that change is not only inevitable but that it is constant and picking up speed. The formation of our habits, judgments, inclinations, and where and how we draw inspiration has made a radical shift. I read Dr. Alexander’s book, “A Window into the Consumers Mind” and came away determined to understand my customers in a new way and how my organization can remain not only relevant but a trusted resource for their beauty and wellness interests.

Bravo Dr. Alexander, you have me inspired to explore what is next to create abundance in the world!

-David Wagner, Owner/Daymaker - Juut Salonspa Best selling author of “Life as a Daymaker: “How to Change the World by Simply Making Someone’s Day” "Too often we pattern our businesses based on tradition and familiarity. Leon Alexander's book forces us to question conventional practices and to create new strategies based on the drivers that define consumer culture. As the world of technology, communication and consumer access continues to evolve, Leon shows us how to embrace and harness the power psyche to build stronger, more profitable and sustainable businesses."

-Tom Kuhn, Owner/CEO of Qnity and Founder of the 2 to 10 Project “A Window Into The Consumers Mind” is a game changer for an industry that bases its strategy more on feelings than facts. Leon’s data leaves a salon owner no choice but to look at his/her business differently, and the biggest difference will be the bottom line. Thank you Leon for your grand contribution to Beauty.

-Frank Gambuzza, Salon Visage Salon, owner