Ah Zuo was hesitating whether to go back to his hometown to open a shop. He told me that his friend was about to have a second child, but he has been in Beijing for 5 years, and he "hasn't even dealt with the object seriously". Urge him to go back on a blind date and get married.
Although his income is only 6,000 or 7,000 yuan, Ah Zuo doesn't want to go back to his hometown. He believes that there are still opportunities for development in the future in Beijing, but when he returns to his hometown, "it's really going to be a long-term life."
In this community store located in Daxing, Beijing, the rotation of hair stylist is very fast. A Zuo told me that the hair stylists in this kind of small shop are very mobile. They either go back to their hometown to open a shop, or go to a big shop to study, make as much money as possible, and try to stay in the city.
After working in hairdressing for 5 years, Ah Zuo believes that "hair stylist" is a tool for earning a living, not a career with a clear development path - work for others first, then open a shop when you get bored, anyway, by yourself mastered a craft.
Due to the lack of a perfect training system and promotion mechanism, the hair stylists who have fallen into confusion are rapidly transferred and lost, resulting in talents becoming an important factor restricting the development of the hairdressing industry. The relevant data of
shows that the market size of the hairdressing industry has reached 240 billion yuan, but there is no brand with a market share of more than 1%. At the same time, a large number of stores rely on prepaid models such as membership cards to survive, which puts the hair salons and customers at risk of capital, and the occasional store closure incidents have also led to a continuous decline in the industry's reputation.
To solve the stubborn diseases of the hairdressing industry, it is essentially to improve the training system of hairstylists, establish professional standards for hairstylists, and define career planning paths.
Under the new market demand, the contradiction between supply and demand intensifies.
The establishment of professional standards for hair stylists is not only to promote the healthy development of the industry, but also a necessary condition to meet the needs of current consumers.
. Consumers are pursuing a new consumption experience.
Since 2012, the hairdressing industry has been constantly changing under the impetus of the mobile Internet, and models such as quick cutting, professional ironing and dyeing, and professional men's haircuts have appeared successively.
The rise of fast cutting shows that more and more customers are dissatisfied with the consumption experience of barber shops, especially the hair stylist's sales card making them troublesome, so the main theme is "no sales, no card, 15 minutes to complete the haircut" Quick-cuts are rapidly emerging.
The fast-cutting brand "Xingkeduo" founded in 2015 received millions of dollars in angel investment and 30 million yuan in Series A investment. With the help of capital, Xingkeduo opened 25 stores in 2015.
Founded in 2014, Kuaifa started to implement the partnership system in 2016 after polishing the direct store model. The company provides branding and management systems, and partners inject funds to quickly enclose the land. In 2016, Kuaifa opened more than 300 new stores across the country.
Although the establishment of the quick-cut mode died down under the suppression of rent and labor cost , it blew the clarion call for the hairdressing industry to improve customer experience.
Since then, professional men's barber brands have begun to exert their efforts. This model draws on the barbershop in , Europe and countries to upgrade the quick-cut mode. The store only accepts male customers, does not sell or apply for cards, and focuses on technical details such as gradient and engraving, and the charges generally reach more than 100 yuan.
Founded in 2016 in Chengdu , the professional men's hair brand "Scissors Man" has opened more than 40 stores in recent years. At the same time, it is also positioned as a "professional men's hairstylist community" to provide hairstylists with technical learning and shop opening support .
. In the digital age, the ability of hair stylists needs to be upgraded.
Under the guidance of the post-90s and Generation Z customers, hairdressing is changing from a service that enhances personal image to an experience that highlights individuality and strengthens self-aesthetics. The changes in the industry are not only about specialties and subdivisions, but also the application of Internet products.
Since the birth of the hairdressing industry in China, the training of hair stylists has been based on hair cutting and dyeing techniques. Later, the brands of major salons have started internal training to improve the sales and communication skills of hair stylists.
In the era of interpersonal communication, it is enough for hair stylists to master technology, communication and sales skills, but after entering the era of mobile Internet, hair stylists need to master more than that.
In recent years, with the concentration of traffic online, hair salons have successively entered online platforms such as Meituan, and gradually realized the onlineization of marketing, reservations, orders, cashiers, and store operations. In this case, the hair stylist needs to be upgraded to a digital stylist - both understand digital operations, and have aesthetic and technical capabilities.
The hairdressing brand "Pace Style" has fully launched its digital transformation during the epidemic. In addition to continuously reaching customers through live broadcasts, a digital operation manager has also been set up in store operations to be responsible for online traffic operations and store data analysis. . After a year of upgrades, the online orders of Passe-style have exceeded 50%, solving the traffic problem of the store.
But at present, more brands and stores do not have the awareness and ability of digital transformation. Meituan believes that the total demand for digital operation talents of active merchants is as high as 2.7 million to 5.4 million.
Stylist learning path: from single to multiple
Stylists are actually one of the groups who love learning the most.
Meituan's "2020 Life and Beauty Industry Craftsmen Survey Report" shows that before becoming a qualified hairdresser, more than a quarter of the craftsmen will invest almost all of their income to learn professional skills and knowledge. In terms of career development, more than 30% of the craftsmen invest more than 10,000 yuan in tuition each year to participate in technical, management, service and other training, and nearly 70% of the craftsmen need to study more than 3 times a year.
In the past few years, studying abroad has become a further choice for high-performance hair stylists. With the maturity of online communities and live broadcasts, more and more hair stylists have begun to participate in low-cost and fragmented training.
A Zuo told Meiye New Latitude that he used to organize studies every week in his previous store, and he would also watch videos online to learn how others cut.
Hair stylist training still has not broken through the technical category, but technology is subjective, and the technology recognized by hair stylists often cannot be exchanged for customer satisfaction.
Pais styling CEO Wen Zi cited a very common example, A hairstylist's technology is difficult to be recognized by peers, but there are still a group of loyal customers. Once the hair stylist A was on vacation, after his customer came to the store, the store replaced the customer with a hair stylist with better skills, but the customer was not satisfied after the cut.
Technology is important, but blindly pursuing technology will become self-inflicted.Especially in the new customer demand and market environment, hair stylists should devote more energy to learning how to improve customer stickiness and efficiency.
. Personal IP leads
Technology that cannot be turned into profit is worthless, and hair stylists learn to create personal IP, which is the premise of turning technology into profit.
In today's emphasis on individualization and diverse needs, hair stylists of any style can find their own customer group, but many hair stylists do not know how to establish and show their own style. Lack of a clear positioning of themselves, and then unable to accurately find target customers, resulting in their passenger flow , income instability.
On the basis of technology, the training of hair stylists should add courses for personal IP creation and operation. Through the establishment of the personal image and style of the hair stylist, as well as the shooting and operation of short videos, the personal brand is finally strengthened. On this basis, customers can be tapped. In addition to ensuring the customer's satisfaction , it can also ensure stickiness and reduce Customer churn rate.
Sen Ran, a hair stylist who entered the industry in 2005, told New Latitude of the Beauty Industry that he has been vertical in the field of perming and dyeing since 2015, combining Japanese and Korean technologies to promote popular hairstyles. Over time, "advanced hot and dyed styling" has become a label for him, and all customers who want to pursue this style have gradually found his studio.
In the past two years, Sen Ran has insisted on studying in Japan and South Korea, and fine-tuning his works to ensure customer satisfaction and repurchase rate.
. Application of tools
In 2020, under the influence of the epidemic, Meiye stores experienced a decline in customer loss, decline in store arrival rate, and inefficiency in drainage, so digital transformation has once again become a hot topic in the industry, and many brands start with live broadcasts Click to start exploring online operations.
In the future, digitization will further become a tool to improve the operational efficiency of hairdressing stores. Customer reservations, store management, and brand marketing will all be embedded in the digital system, and the data formed by the digital system will also feed back operations, helping stores reduce costs and increase efficiency.
And hair stylists will also become digital stylists that meet current needs through the application of digital systems. Dongying's Lin Jun suggested that in the future, a digital stylist evaluation system should be established, and data such as personal drainage, customer consumption, conversion, and repurchase should be deposited, and follow the stylist's entire career. The
3 big plan has been implemented, how can the hair stylist instigate the change?
In January 2019, the General Office of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security promulgated 26 national vocational skill standards including for hairdressers and . This standard divides hairdressers into national vocational qualification level 5 (primary), level 4 (intermediate), level 3 (advanced), level 2 ( technician ), level 1 (senior technician). However, due to the lack of a balanced supply and demand relationship between the talents exported by the training institutions and the talents needed by the market, there has not been a unified professional standard recognition system for hair stylists in the industry.
As the first life service platform to enter the beauty industry through digitalization, Meituan launched the "Meiye Store·Meituan Core" plan in 2018 to provide marketing, system and operation solutions for the beauty industry merchants.
The entry and operation of hundreds of thousands of beauty industry merchants has made Meituan better understand the pain points of merchants and consumers. After clarifying the future direction of the hairdressing industry and the growth path of hair stylists, Meituan launched a set of combined punches to promote this change.
. Increase the income of hair stylists
According to the data released by Meituan, there are more than 160,000 hair stylists among the 390,000 beauty artisans certified by the Meituan platform. How to help hair stylists grow and increase their income is a breakthrough in driving change.
In October 2020, Meituan went to the Zongliren Business Department to announce the launch of the "S Craftsman Program" to help hundreds of thousands of certified beauty craftsmen on the platform achieve better growth and development.
The plan first started with hairdressing craftsmen, and its main content has two parts:
A. Marketing assistance: Meituan will build a more complete, craftsman-based consumer decision-making path on the platform to provide different types of craftsmen. At the same time, we will increase the display of craftsman's personalized information, and launch exclusive activities and exclusive discounts for craftsmen to help craftsmen gain more traffic on the platform and do a good job in marketing.
B. Increase income: Meituan will focus on creating an honor system for craftsmen in the art industry. Craftsmen who reach the S and A levels will also receive additional income such as physical prizes and cash rewards in the future. In addition, Meituan will also build a channel to increase the income of artisans, and help artisans to increase their income through cash back on transaction orders.
. Professional competency standard formulation
In March this year, Meituan University School of Beauty Industry and China Business Technician Association jointly launched the “hairdressing digital stylist” professional competency requirements and talent standards formulation, to help craftsmen in the life service industry. Digital capability development.
Meituan invited more than ten hairdressing brands, including Sichuan Biaobang, CBC Hairstyle, Dongying Style, Summit, Sassoon , Chengdu Shiyue Style, Armani, Shui Linglong, P.STYLE Pais Style, Baqu Hairstyle, etc. Standard setting.
This professional standard stipulates the classification and basis, basic conditions, work experience requirements and professional ability requirements of hairdressing digital stylists. It aims to comprehensively improve practitioners' marketing, Internet tool application, data analysis and other capabilities through standard landing training. .
months later, the first "professional competence standard for digital stylists in hairdressing" was released in Beijing. The standard quantitatively evaluates the relevant skills and knowledge requirements from the three dimensions of technical ability, customer service ability and digital ability, and divides the hairdressing digital stylist into five levels, clarifying the career development path for the hair stylist.
. Build a new growth path
After clarifying the professional ability requirements and talent standards, Meituan will launch a comprehensive training plan.
At present, the first batch of training bases for hairdressing digital stylists have been established, Sichuan International Vocational College , Pais Styling, HairCode Baqu Styling, International Association of Hair Designers (ICD), Cutman Scissors, Gold Standard and other six The unit has become the first batch of offline training bases for new talent standards.
Meituan Meiye Training Center will also continue to help craftsmen achieve better career growth with the help of digital platforms through professional craftsman skills courses, digital operation courses, and industry celebrity sharing. At present, more than 1,800 courses have been launched, providing training services for more than 1.3 million beauty professionals.
Tian Xiaolu from Lanzhou "Dongtian Style" is one of the first trainees to participate in the training of professional competence standards. He believes that professional competence standards can make "stylists' service process smoother, details more simplified, and customer satisfaction. The service is more delicate, which improves the work efficiency of the beauty industry practitioners and the security of the beauty industry service, and also allows more and more industry people to regain their professional dignity, making the industry more and more formal."
