Digital Glam: Harnessing Technology for Personalized Connection in Beauty Schools
Violet M. Tamayo
Sr. Account Executive, LeadSquared
Video not loading? Click here to watch.
Violet:
Oh my gosh, thank you. Who gave you that introduction? That made me sound really nice and great and fantastic.
Chris Linford:
AI or maybe you, I don’t know.
Violet:
Nice. AI. Hopefully the algorithms are working, making me look good. Thank you so much. The LeadSquared team and I want to thank you, your team, for inviting us to speak. We’ve been looking forward to it. I’ve met Parker at a conference, and this is a perfect segue into my presentation. Hello and thank you to all who are tuning in live or are listening later. Like Chris said, so welcome to… Hopefully you all can see my screen. Welcome to Digital Glam: Harnessing Technology for Personalized Connection in Beauty Schools. Again, my name is… I go by Violet or Vio. I’m a senior account executive at LeadSquared, which is a CRM, marketing automation, and technology solutions company. We are so grateful to be here today.
I know I just met all of you wonderful people who are listening to me now, but I do want to ask you a favor and this is part of my presentation. Everybody who doesn’t follow Oozle Media on LinkedIn yet, can you please go, maybe not now but later, and follow them on all of their social media channels if you don’t already? If you do follow them already, maybe ask a friend who’s not familiar with Oozle Media to follow them on all of their social channels. This is how we spread the word about events like this Beauty School Summit. Again, just going to ask you for a favor even though I just met you, okay?
How Technology Can Help the Beauty Education
Again, I’m Violet with LeadSquared. Welcome. I have been listening to the webinar. It is a good segue to talk about technology. There is a fusion of education and technology. We think about where beauty and the beauty industry has come, even just personally all the things I’ve done myself in the beauty scene, my hair person, my eyelashes person, everything. I get excited about the topic because I know that it hits me personally, but I also know that the professionals I look to for my beautification process go to schools like yours. We’re going to talk about a number of possibilities.
Just for the sake of time, we’ll cover just a few points about how technology can help the beauty education.
First thing I want you to do is picture the perfect workday. So you go in, whether you’re an admissions representative, an owner, an administrator, what does your perfect day look like, your perfect work day? Do you clock out so early because you’ve finished all your tasks, everything has been checked off? Your students are moved to the next stage from an inquiring student to an applicant who has been admitted to the program to alumni who may be coming back to level up their certifications, continue their education, you’re reminding them to get licensed.
Whatever that perfect day looks like, it might not exist in our reality but you can get close to it. How do you do that? You do that through technology.
Really, one of the… Again, we’re going to cover a few topics. There’s so many topics when it comes to technologies and how, again, beauty school personnel and owners can get assistance with these technologies that are coming out. There’s so many. It can be overwhelming. First thing I’ll say is try not to feel overwhelmed. Just know where you stand. As I go through the presentation, rate yourself on a scale of one to ten, “Violet’s asking about this topic. How do I rate myself in this area?” We’ll talk about maybe traditional methods, word of mouth, maybe working on Google Sheets to these technologies that are coming out and have been the last few years. We won’t have too much time to talk about AI if that comes up, but it is these topics that are going to be important to get you to the next level. There’ll be an investment of time and for some of you investment of money, but sometimes it does help address those topics now rather than to feel the pain of not addressing it or addressing it a little later.
I have a picture. I kept a couple of pictures of some of the conferences I’ve been to. The reason I put that on here is because I’m a huge fan of connecting and networking, and you never know where your next great idea will come from as well as just in conversation, “How can I get to that next level?” Networking has been my secret sauce, my 11 herbs and spices, so I recommend… Again, that’s why I started off with asking you all to follow Oozle Media’s LinkedIn page or just any of their social channels where you’re going to find their information.
How Technology Can Help Your Business
So how does a CRM come into play and how does technology help you? I talk to customers every day, prospective customers. I still talk to some that have very manual processes. Where a CRM like LeadSquared or any of these other vendors that you’re going to meet, where they come in is helping your teams from admissions to financial aid finance teams, student success, alumni, professionals, helping you automate administrative tasks, managing applications. Retention is a big conversation that comes up. How does a CRM help you with that? We’ll talk about that in a couple of slides. Workflows. If I go in… I started by asking you to picture your perfect day. I have a process as well. I use LeadSquared to sell LeadSquared. Luckily for me, there’s already a process, but I know that when I come in today I have X amount of folks that I need to follow up with, these who are on this stage and so on.
Those workflows, are you automating those processes so that if I get, let’s say, an email from Parker, my CRM, my system will remind me if I haven’t replied within let’s say four hours because that’s how I’ve designed it or configured it to be so that I don’t forget about him to reply by the end of the day, “Hey, Parker. Great. This is the answer to your question. Let’s set up a meeting.” Whatever that workflow looks like, how can technology help you and your student move to that next step and help you complete your tasks? Now, there won’t be a perfect system or a perfect process, but, again, how can technology help you get there and get close to that?
Chris, I always love to throw in that I have two robot vacuums. Now, I don’t like to clean and anytime technology can help me clean, I’m going to… Sign me up, okay? Now, will it do the same job as if I’m in there and cleaning all those corners that the robot vacuum will attempt to clean? I can do a better job, so we won’t lose that human interaction with the CRM or with any technology that you bring in.
You still need your admissions representatives, still need your customer success or student success teams. Again, that technology is supposed to help you enhance communication as well, including personalized communication internally and externally.
If I was to go to one of my customers’ landing pages and I look at the cosmetology courses and I submit my information or submit my email and phone number for more information, I should be getting back an automated text, an automated email that says, “Hey, Violet. I see that you’re inquiring about our cosmetology courses or microblading, so whatever that is.” Then having transparency and visibility across teams so not only will the admissions representative see that I opened that email and that I clicked on this link, but so will an administrator, maybe a director of admissions, see where that admissions representative is at with all of their leads for today.
Tracking Data and Analytics with Technology
Data-driven insights, I believe I caught the tail end of the last session. That’s really important. Having data and analytics to give you that data to assist all of the teams across the board with time and investment, money spent on bringing in those students, having insights on how your students are progressing. We talk about retention a lot. Then this allows you to make and plan for the future. To answer a quick question, we can always go back to this topic, you can have analytic platforms that… We’ll run into customers that already have some sort of analytic platform. Typically you should be able to connect that to the CRM, again assuming that the CRM has advanced technology, and have one screen to look at all of your information so that the less systems you have to deal with, the more time you’re going to save. I’m a huge cheerleader for employees who can be efficient, not have to worry about what they didn’t do during the day, they’re thinking about it at night. If you can have employees who are really efficient, you keep them engaged in continuing their career with your school.
Alumni Engagement
Then alumni engagement I think is important. We’ll cover as much as we can. I know we have a short amount of time today, but increasing the lifetime value of that student. I have a hair girl, and now she knows how to do eyebrows and eyelashes so guess what? Guess who I’m going to use? It’s because she went back to the school to get those certificates. We’ll touch on this because I know it’s been touched on already, but networking with influencers, you see it on TikTok on Instagram, connecting with those beauty school professionals, especially your graduates, and staying on top of their content is going to help you create a five-star review process with your graduates.
Again, engaging with similar professions, I’m sure that at some point there’s a lot of attendees here at this webinar I would’ve met you, maybe I was looking for you at a conference, but get really good at connecting with people, staying in contact. I heard this in another webinar so I can’t take credit for it, but I have an Excel sheet because it’s a personal thing where once a month, once every two months, I stay in contact with people, maybe if it’s just a quick hello via LinkedIn, via email, via text, depending on the relationship. You never know when they might introduce you to that again next person who can help you meet your goals with whatever’s going on at the school.
Active Social Media Presence
We’re talking to professionals about having an active social media presence. The school needs to do the same. About the ask with Oozle Media, do the same for your school. Ask maybe your friends, “Hey, can you follow us on Facebook? Can you follow us on LinkedIn?” Get that engagement up. It is a personal ask for most folks. Shout out to my siblings. I always ask them to like my LinkedIn posts, so I can always count on them. I can always count on my colleagues. Then so it does take a little bit of effort, but a lot of those efforts, again, they’re going to multiply and get you to some of these goals that you have in mind for the rest of the year and into the future. Embracing TikTok marketing. It’s been talked about so I won’t go too much into it, but don’t forget it that it is a good source. It is a good source to find and attract your new students, and stay on top of the new trends with the digital landscape.
Using Your CRM for Student Reviews
Back to five-star reviews. Sorry if I’m going a little fast, Chris and team. I always feel like I have an hour for webinars. This is short and sweet, but I hope it gives you the information. I’ll go back to the questions if we can answer some to get you to think. Again, my job’s not to necessarily guide you towards specifically LeadSquared, but really to say, “Hey, so where do I stand when it comes to workflow management, marketing, conversion rates on my marketing, my leads? Our recruiting and admissions teams, are they working efficiently? Have I given them the right tools, the best tools I know about that we can buy at this moment to make them feel like I’ve given everything to make them do their job as best as possible?”
Your students, what is that student experience? Like it says on here, are you getting your five-star reviews? We have a connector to Google reviews. You can get that connected and that information exists within the CRM as well.
Ask your professionals, your owners, so those folks that got into owning their own salon, get feedback, get surveys. Constantly keep a pulse, as they say.
I went to the doctor yesterday. They get your pulse, check your heart. They want to have a baseline for where I am so when I come back next year, they can compare it, and that’s no different when it comes to our students, being able to understand when they came into your school, why did they come in, why are they passionate about cosmetology or whatever course they’re taking, what was their interest, and continue to take that pulse as they are middle of graduating, past graduation, licensed professional. Always have that information because that also helps you track what kind of turn you’re going to take with regards to your advertising and your future.
Analyze Your System
Then I think we’re at second to last page. Challenges and considerations. Really want you all to do an analysis. Do we upgrade our technology or CRM or marketing automation? The goal for us is to try to keep it under one place. We don’t do it all. Whenever we don’t do something, like let’s say we don’t sell a student information system, we can integrate with that system so that that data passes automatically. That’s the way it should look so that, again, you’re not spending any manual time doing these processes, or do we stay the same and maybe touch that topic again in six months? Your admissions team is on the ground, get their feedback because a lot of times when they can tell you, “Hey, you know what? I wish I had a tool that would automatically send a text that would give me a nudge to make sure I don’t forget about calling Violet back about this course.” Get their feedback. That’s going to be really important as you choose if you stay with your current technology solutions or choose another.
How can technology help you prioritize?
Sometimes we can help you and make suggestions. Sometimes you need to get a consultant to look at your landscape depending on the size of your organization. Again, back to student and professional surveys, I can’t say enough about that because, again, you’re keeping your pulse on everything that’s going on in your organization. Then finally because I think I’m down to a few minutes, if you’re not already sending some of your folks that don’t typically go to conferences and webinars to conferences and webinars, webinars are free just like this. Most of the time you get on, you’re already in the office, they can be listening in. Conferences is a whole other experience. I love that I got to connect with Parker I believe it was at that very conference that I’m looking at in the picture here and just getting to connect a name to a face, talking about the industry, there’s nothing like it. There’s webinars and Zoom calls and phone calls, but there’s nothing like meeting your colleagues in person and being able to share ideas, being able to help each other. If you haven’t in the past, maybe send one or two folks that don’t normally go to these conferences to these conferences. Make new connections on a weekly basis. Ask your network to follow you on social media.
Learn, research, and ask. I believe LeadSquared’s a great solution, but if it’s not for you, go continue that research. What’s going to solve this issue that we have? My mom has been telling me since I was a kid… Whenever I would ask her a question and she didn’t have the answer to it, she would say, “How do you get to Rome?” Or she would ask, “How do you get to Rome?” We’d say, “By asking.” Because back in the day there wasn’t GPS or maps, so you just ask until you get to Rome. Again, it’s maybe not the shortcut, but just being inquisitive I believe solves a lot of the questions that we have with regards to technology. Chris, if I went a little faster than I normally do, sorry about that. Again, I’m used to a little bit longer, but I wanted to get as much information in this 15, 20 minute timeframe that we have for your audience. I’ll stop there and find out if anybody has any questions.
Chris Linford:
Yeah. Thank you so much, Violet. If you have any questions, please put them in the chat. We have a few minutes to answer them now, but great information. Obviously technology changes and sometimes it can be intimidating for some people. Let me ask you this. For LeadSquared, what do you think are some of kind of the top challenges that maybe LeadSquared solves or helps solve?
Violet:
There’s a few categories. I do run into schools that maybe haven’t revamped or even looked at their technology in years, and some are working off Excel sheets. That still happens, so for them it’s a whole… You’ve seen those extreme makeover shows. That’s what that looks like there. But there’s some that have some sort of CRM and they’ll have questions like, “Hey, can I have that automation in place to be able to help my reps?” When I say reps, I think of admissions teams, advisors. “Help them do more with less. We have a team of let’s say 10, 20 at this campus or even five, whatever that number is. Can they do more in a day?” The automation kicks in to say, “Hey, if I…” Let’s say I’m an admissions representative. “I talked to Chris yesterday and he wants to talk it over with his family, but he wants me to check in with him tomorrow. How do I make sure I don’t forget about you while I have to do everything else in that day?”
Somebody mentioned a busy day is a good day. Well, how do you make sure you don’t forget anybody through that student journey? How do you make sure you also still do your administrative tasks? There’s a lot of compliance things going on. You get it all done. So those nudges, task notification reminders, hot lead prioritization. First thing I would say is I always ask like, “What is your biggest issue?” Sometimes they’ll say, “Hey, conversion.” We can talk about that. How do you make sure that those hot leads get attended to? I do quotation science because you’d get to determine what you consider a hot lead. Maybe it’s somebody who keeps going back to that landing page and the system knows that they are. That creates a task notification for that admissions rep or whatever stage they’re in to say, “Hey, maybe I need to call Violet. She keeps going back to that landing page, she replied to my text.” You prioritize.
Another topic that does come up a lot is integration. How much of your technology is integrated so that as an administrator I can have everything at my fingertips? That’s really our goal. It’s not always going to happen because some of the systems that our schools are using, whether it’s the SIS or just any of the other platforms, might not integrate, but then we still teach our customers how to input that data into any system that they need to do it on.
Automation, you’re going to hear that a lot and really getting an understanding of how automation helps you. If you’ve ever thought… Think of it this way. If you go on any airline page that they have your email information for or phone number but mostly email, you’ve clicked on yes to cookies. Anytime I go on Southwest I’m like, “You know what? I’m going to go to Colorado.” I get off, and then within let’s say an hour I get an email that says, “Hey, Violet. Do you still want to go to Colorado Springs?” That’s automation. That’s keeping track of my buying signals. The same happens when we’re talking to our schools and their students, but I focused the presentation on new inquiring students but this applies to retention as well. How does your CRM help you with retention? Typically it means an integration with your learning management system, anywhere you keep attendance data, let’s say, and the moment a student misses let’s say two classes in a row, a notification for your student success team gets created so that they follow up with them on the phone, follow-up text, email. These automations again just are going to save you time to be able to do more, have more of that one-on-one time with those students, which are going to get you those five-star reviews.
Chris Linford:
Yeah. I mean, so many plates spinning, right? It’s hard to remember everything.
Violet:
Yeah.
Chris Linford:
Let technology help you remember all of the things, especially those important follow-ups but then also when to follow up too. It could ping you and say like, “Hey, this is a good time. Somebody who you’ve had contact in the past, maybe they’re a warm lead, they’re visiting a page. You may want to reach out to them.” Depending on how you set it up, it could ping them with information that’s relevant to what their activity is going on right now. One more question is when schools kind of adopt this technology, let’s say a CRM such as LeadSquared, and they start gathering data, what are some of those kind of aha moments they’re like, “Wow, I didn’t know that about my school, my data. This is helpful?” I know I’m just asking this off the cuff, but what are some of those aha moments when they start seeing the data come in?
Violet:
That’s a great question because a lot of times it’s what they didn’t know they could have at their fingertips, the missing data that they either forgot about because you think about when we’re talking about any education institution, a lot of the folks that are working in education have a lot on their plate, like you said, those plates, a lot of plates. When they realize that this slice of information had they had it a year ago could have transformed how they trained their admissions reps, how they coach somebody to maybe get into management to become the person that that student was looking for, so it’s those pieces of information that were either siloed or just nobody could have access to easily is what gets them to say… That’s actually what gets them to ask us even more questions as we start implementing.
This is an elephant that you’re trying to swallow in one bite. We don’t recommend it, but if we can touch again in recruiting and admissions and how can we help those teams be more efficient and make a greater impact with your students and then give them all the information they need to know how to… You mentioned earlier when to call, when to text, what communication based on the demographic. I still open emails, I still click on links. Maybe someone down in a different age group doesn’t have those buying signals that I do, but having that data for them can take them to the next level.
Chris Linford:
Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you so much for your time and your expertise and being a part of the Beauty School Summit.