Profit Tip

Are you looking for a way to position your salon as a leader in the fields of hair color and technology? One way to accomplish this, according to Nick Lorenzini, manager at Colorific salon in Bloomington, Illinois, is to offer one of the newest salon software technologies on the market - CyberImaging's Color Imaging.,which allows salons to offer clients a realistic preview of possible hair color choices.

At Colorific, the hair color imaging system is used during virtually every client consultation. A colorist takes a digital photo of the client's existing hair style and color: the origonal color can then be manipulated using computer simulation to make selections from predefined manufacturer's color palettes, helping the client visualize how they would look with different shades. The entire concultation takes less than 10 minutes.

"This gets a lot of people excited about getting their hair colored, and it's also a great way to give our salon a high-tech feel," says Lorenzini. "We use it in our advertising, and it's brought in a lot of business."

The technology, says Lorenzini, also provides an easy way for a colorist to open a dialogue with a client, especially first-time clients who might be a little nervous about trying color.

"Our clients can experiment with different color risk-free, then choose their new colors with confidence," says Lorenzini. "For a color-focused salon like us this is a tremendous asset."

At Colorific, the imaging servise is priced at $20; that cost then goes toward the cost of a color service if the client decides to do it.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time they decide to get their color done, so for the client, it's pretty much complimentary," says Lorenzini.

Danielle Murphy