Every Conversation is a Consultation.

By Robyn McAlpine

If you’ve wanted to step into your confidence and up your skin saving game in the treatment room, THIS is the article you want to bookmark!

If you’ve ever found yourself in the friend zone with your clients; you know that zone, where you know so much about their personal life (and they yours) that it would just feel hella awkward to now try and talk to them about their skin care and *gasp* sell them a retail product!

Or maybe you’re a new therapist, you’re a lot younger than your clients or you just don’t know how to get your long-time beauty clients to take you seriously as a skin expert, now that you’re shifting into more facials and less waxing and tinting.

Either way, you’re going to need to start thinking and acting differently to get them to sit up and take notice.

I’m about to teach you how to switch up the conversations and see every client interaction as an opportunity to have a skin focused, results driven conversation… and they won’t even know you’re doing it.

See, I think we get scared to talk about skin, products, and treatments in case it feels like we are trying to sell something or get our clients to book something different to their usual relaxation facial. Well, yes, we are wanting to move in that direction, but it doesn’t have to be all ick, sales scripts and ‘bro’ tactics.

Instead, I’m going to teach you how to look at every client conversation through a skin focused lens. Because if you start to train yourself to think like this, you’ll start to see every conversation from a completely different angle.

I’m about to show you the hidden spaces in your client interactions where you can practise your consultation and skin education skills, without losing that friendly and warm connection with your clients and feeling like your pushing sales.

So where are these hidden conversations that help us to engage and take us into the authoritative, skin expert space?

Here are just 3 examples of the many conversation scenarios we have each day and once you start looking and recognising them, you’re going to find so many more in your clinic. It’s all simply a matter of retraining your brain.

Opportunity 1: When clients pop in to purchase product

Think about the client walk ins you’ve had in salon in the last week. Now think about the conversations you had.

Do you let your client walk in, grab product off the shelf and pay whilst you chat about their weekend, the kids, their love life? Or do you actively check in with them, ask them some leading questions to ensure they were getting the right product for their skin right now?

How can you make this conversation intentional and not just a mindless routine transaction for both you and your client?

By asking questions!

But what Questions are going to work here?

How do you move out of the friend zone and turn this into a skin focused conversation?

It’s easy to ask how is their day going. How are the kids? How was their weekend?

But imagine if you took this opportunity to ask more skin focused questions. Your client will still feel connected and engaged, but the level of connection becomes more professional and purposeful, with their best skin interests in mind!

Instead of asking how they are, what if you asked them:

How has your skin been feeling? This still shows you care but it’s now intentional to their skin.

Are you happy with the texture of the moisturiser? This shows you care about them even after the purchase and it shows you don’t mind hearing feedback and are able to help provide a solution.

How does your skin feel after cleansing? This will indicate if they need to switch to something more nourishing or perhaps add a product to help with makeup removal? It shows you care and creates connection.

How as your skin coping with this been weather change? Gives you an opportunity to share you recommendations that will help them overcome this!

All of these questions are still personal, but they’re skin driven, and it will give you a tangible outcome to help your client further.

Opportunity 2: When booking a treatment on the Phone:

This might feel like a no brainer, particularly when making a booking for a new client. It is only natural to ask a few questions to be able to guide them in the best option that will suit their needs, but what about our regular client’s?

Are we getting complacent with them and not making new or relevant recommendations? Or are we just rebooking them for the same treatment month after month?

This is the perfect opportunity to guide your regular clients towards new services or to guide them towards a more results driven treatment.

How can you change up the conversation to create a more skin focused conversation?

Ask: How was your skin after your last treatment? This will help you recommend adjustments or more suitable treatments. you need to know so you can adjust this treatment accordingly

What has your skin been like in the last week or so? You want to make each treatment as relevant and specific as possible. By knowing how their skin has behaving of late, you can make a new recommendation to change, adapt, upgrade, or add on to their treatment.

How are you going with your home care products? You want to check for consistency. Any changes? Other things you haven’t prescribed creeping into the regime?

Do you have any special occasions or events coming up we need to plan around? You wouldn’t want to create ‘down time’ right before a special event, and you also wouldn’t want to miss the chance to help your client create amazing skin for any upcoming events.

Opportunity 3: That moment during a facial when the conversation flows

This moment creates more quality conversation time than a walk in or a phone call booking, BUT this is also where we unknowingly turn off our skin expert brains and accidentally go into ‘friend zone’ mode.

There is often a very distinct point in a facial where you take off your therapist hat and put on your friend hat… if you didn’t recognise it before you read this article, you sure as heck are going to feel it every time here after!

It’s that time in a where you ask about their day, ask after the kids, gossip about love lives and the conversation can end up in some rather unsuspecting personal places. No wonder when it’s left unchecked and without intention.

But what if you could still let your client decompress and debrief about life whilst looking at every conversation through a skin focused filter?

Let’s run a few popular scenarios…

Your client is STRESSED: the kids are driving them nuts, there’s tension in their relationship and they’re under the pump at work! Before you start trauma bonding over whose life is more stressed than who’s, Stop for a moment and think about what happens when we are stressed?

We don’t eat, or we do. We don’t sleep, we over think everything, our self-care drops off and we most likely make some pretty poor life choices.

What does all of this impact? Our adrenals, hormones, mood, gut, energy. Think about the skin connection.

What signs will you be seeing in the skin? Stress pimples, mindless picking, barrier impairments like dermatitis that like to flare up during season of stress.

Are you actively listening and making the skin connection or are you going into friend zone and switching off your skin brain and ignoring the signs in front of you?

What does your client need topically to support these stress knock on effects on skin? What can you do to tweak this very treatment to be more effective for your client today? (a truck load of antioxidants please!) And what do you need to tweak or support with their home care routine?

Your client had a big weekend out with the girls: Before you start swapping drunk stories and having a laugh thinking you are connecting and bonding with your client, put you skin therapist hat on first.

What does this tell you. Alcohol, late nights, probably a greasy breakfast? Shocking hangover and probably slept in their makeup! *GASP*

What systems does alcohol impact? Then how does this affect our skin? What signs might you be looking for whilst they are laying there in front of you? Sallow, dull skin? Makeup leftover? Puffy Eyes?

How can you help your client restore that which was undone on the big night out? What can you add to today’s facial that will help counteract some of the skin things linked to binge drinking? What can you add to your client’s home care to help?

Every time a client speaks to us, they’re giving us intel whether they know it or not. As a skin therapist it takes practice to hear these conversations through a skin focused filter, to find the clues and cues that can help you step into your role as your client’s skin professional.

This switch of focus can be the difference between you stepping onto your authority and leadership as a skin expert, instead of just going through the motions. By looking at every client interaction as an opportunity to learn, it will help you switch on your brain and really become engaged in your client’s skin journey.

@expert_skin_therapist