Visagism: A Competitive Differential

One of the main marketing objectives is to reveal to the market a company's competitive differential, in order to attract new customers and retain existing ones. In the beauty market, most professionals are looking for new techniques, new products or to be informed of the latest fashion and style trends, precisely to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

In today's globalized market and with hundreds of information channels – specialized magazines, internet, television, and sector fairs – anything new is quickly disseminated throughout the entire market. High-level courses, workshops, and lectures, which were previously only given in a few cities in Europe and the US, are now found in several places around the world. While all this improved the quality of services provided by beauty professionals, and, consequently, it made it difficult to differentiate between them. Therefore, the demand for courses that teach how to improve customer service, marketing and salon administration has grown.

Philip Hallawell Visagism is a concept that introduces new customer assessment techniques, the teaching of visual language and a consulting method, created by me, which allows you to define, with the customer, a personalized style, according to their physical type, its personality, its activities, and its principles. It presents solutions for the hairdresser's biggest challenge: discover who your client is, discover what you want to express through your image and create a style that reflects that intention. Therefore, interest in Visagism grows exponentially. The general public, when they know what it offers, also want to be served by a visagist.

Every month I receive dozens of requests for information from visagist hairdressers, by email and by phone, from people who read a story in a magazine, on a website, on a blog, or watched an interview on television and visited my website. Today there are more than 1.000,000 references to Visagism on the internet and I have already given more than 300 interviews about various aspects of it. Anyone interested in the subject and then doing a research, is very well informed.

I received a call not long ago from a woman who told me she had gone to a salon, where she asked if there was a visagist. The receptionist said she did not know but that she was going to check with the management and came back saying that all hairdressers were visagists. When she was seen, she immediately noticed that the hairdresser was not trained in Visagism, because she proceeded like any other hairdresser, without consulting. Evidently, the client was irritated by the attempted deception.

This story illustrates very well why you should not use Visagism as a marketing tool if you are not fit to practice this art. When a customer discovers they have been the victim of an attempted fraud, they can turn into what marketers call a “watchdog”. Outraged, he will tell at least 20 people what happened. The damage that a displeased customer does to the image and reputation of a business is enormous and there is nothing that can be done to remedy the situation. It is possible to attract customers saying that you offer visagism but remember that you will only be able to attract those who already know something about it, and these people will compare what is done with what they see in reports and on the internet.

Interest in Visagism is growing constantly, but unfortunately, I have news of professionals saying they are visagists, when in reality they do not even know how to recognize face shapes, let alone conduct a consultancy, and salons advertising this service, without having qualified professionals. Some people still think that Visagism is all about matching your haircut and hair colour with your face shape and skin tone. This is not what delights the client, but the idea of ​​going through a consultancy and the possibility of someone creating a style that perfectly matches who you are.

The person who goes through the entire process – analysing, consulting, setting the intention and creating the image – has such a rich experience that they usually share it with their friends. The practice of visagism generates the best advertising there is, word-of-mouth, and creates the type of client that every entrepreneur dreams of, what in marketing is called an “evangelist”. He enthusiastically recommends his services to about seven friends. He realizes that for each "vigilant" it is necessary to have three "evangelists" to undo the damage! That is why it is not worth the risk to try to be “smart” and use visagism as marketing without doing it. You should never try to differentiate yourself with something you do not have, one of the principles of marketing.

On the other hand, the business of a true visagista has enormous growth potential, as long as it also has technical excellence and exquisite service. He needs to know how to develop a marketing strategy to be able to capitalize on this great difference and, in some cases, even restructure your business. From what I have witnessed over the past fifteen years, the effort is highly rewarded, financially, and emotionally.

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