As a beauty professional in a competitive market, your hardest job may be finding loyal clients to keep your schedule fully booked.
With StyleSeat, you can find a solution for your empty slots and your business management needs all with one membership.
Having a tool catered to your specific industry can be an absolute life changer.
Whereas other business platforms are built for universal needs, StyleSeat is designed for your exact needs as a beautician or barber.
In this article, we’ll guide you through the benefits and best features StyleSeat can offer professionals like you.
What Is StyleSeat?
Founded in 2009 by CEO Melody McCloskey, StyleSeat is best described as a digital appointment booking and scheduling platform for beauty professionals and their potential clients.
However, it takes the concept several steps further than reservations by providing a business management backend that offers everything from marketing assistance to payment tracking.
Its primary goal is helping you not just maintain, but grow your clientele.
McCloskey originally launched the platform as a fully bootstrapped business, but as she began to prove her business model, both Uber co-founders, as well as Ashton Kutcher, quickly invested in the company.
By 2016, StyleSeat had raised $40 million in funding and expand into the wellness space by acquiring the salon and spa platform BeautyBooked.
How Does StyleSeat Work for Professionals?
For barbers, hair stylists, and beauty and wellness professionals looking to grow their clientele, StyleSeat first serves as a platform for you to book appointments.
It does so by allowing you to build a profile complete with a short biography, service menu, business hours, images, and more.
If a potential client clicks on your listing during a general search, this profile becomes the landing page for anyone seeking your services.
StyleSeat states that they receive over a million bookings on their platform each week, so simply having a listing already gives you a good chance of expanding your clientele to other locals in the area.
However, StyleSeat isn’t here to take your money just for a possibility of earning.
It’s also a full-blown management platform that will help you make smart business decisions and earn more.
You can currently get a 30-day free trial without providing your credit card information or committing to a purchase.
And when you purchase a $35 per month membership, you unlock every single feature of StyleSeat’s mobile and desktop platform.
This means your membership allows you to purchase a single digital tool instead of 20.
Keep reading to learn about the four best features of this business tool.
4 Best StyleSeat Features
By now, you’ve gotten a hint of how StyleSeat aims to help independent professionals in the beauty industry.
Here we’ve narrowed down four specific features beyond your basic profile page and appointment bookings that may inspire you to get your membership.
1. Work and Personal Time Management
Accidentally overbooking your time is always a pain, so this service makes sure you won’t have to decide between cancelling on clients or cancelling on friends.
Much like Calendly, a popular appointment booking app for freelancers, StyleSeat syncs with your Google Calendar, so your appointments never coincide with other events on your calendar.
This ensures that you’ll never have to deal with awkward rescheduling again.
In addition to helping you separate your personal and work life, the program can also help you maximize your professional time with its Power Booking feature.
Using the platform, you’ll be able to select the services you’d prefer to book at overlapping times (such as hair cutting, styling, and color) and control how much time each service would require.
2. Email Marketing Campaigns
As you’re growing your business, professional tools like Mailchimp and Infusionsoft can get more expensive than they’re worth if you’re not getting results.
StyleSeat solves this with one of its most impressive features: its integrated email marketing campaign tool.
This tool is on par with other email campaign-focused platforms, allowing you to:
- Create dedicated lists for different types of clients
- Utilize easy templates to build an attractive email
- See the amount of opens, clicks, and appointments that result directly from the campaign
You can even send special offers to your previous clients to encourage them to return.
StyleSeat will also automatically generate appointment booking and rebooking reminders, as well as thank you notes, if you activate them.
One other special feature: When you sync your Google account, this can also sync your contacts if desired.
This means any clients you already have will automatically populate in your account, so you don’t have to re-import each one.
3. Sales Management
StyleSeat as a sales management platform is extremely robust, covering pretty much everything you need to do and know to keep your business in the green and growing.
Most prominently for your day-to-day, it can assist you with all money transactions, including:
- Credit card payments: Payments processed through the platform do require you to pay a 2.75% transaction fee, which is fairly high for a basic in-store credit card fee. However, this fee is still cheaper than those for common payment systems, like PayPal and Square.
- Next-day deposits: You can get the money you earn deposited into your bank account within 24 hours.
- Additional charges: If you experience any no-shows or late cancellations, you can ask StyleSeat to automatically charge the user for the inconvenience, so you’re not faced with a totally empty slot.
In addition to processing your financial transactions, StyleSeat also displays your sales growth trends and history with daily income reports so you immediately know whether you’re on track to meet your business goals.
If you sell over $20,000 from over 200 transactions directly through StyleSeat, you’ll also qualify to receive Form 1099-K to make the other end of sales management — tax management — easier.
4. Client Notes
Our final favorite feature is the ability to add client notes about everyone you’ve worked with in the past, starting as soon as they become a new client.
The client notes feature basically allows you to track important details for each person you work with.
For example, if you’re a hairstylist, you can make notes about where you are in a client’s hair dying process when you expect it to take multiple appointments.
If you’re a personal stylist, you can take notes about your client’s taste in fashion.
Regardless of your job, this feature can help you remember past conversations and facts about your clients, so your clients feel special every time.
Client notes are a convenient way to make your service more customized, meaning bigger tips and increased customer loyalty.
FAQs About StyleSeat
With the help of StyleSeat, you’ll have no problem booking services and tracking how your business is doing.
To help you maximize your use of the platform, here are our answers to a handful of frequently asked questions.
1. How do I know if StyleSeat’s customer base is worth my money?
Forbes has reported that the StyleSeat community is predominantly made up of women but is very racially diverse.
That said, it’s possible that barbers, who usually have a mostly male clientele, won’t find a lot of clients just by creating a profile.
However, StyleSeat reportedly has a large market for stylists who focus on African American hair and other niche, female-focused beauty services.
Plus, if you take advantage of all the features, the business management tool alone may be worth your investment.
2. How do I delete my account if I decide I don’t want to renew my membership?
Deleting your account is easiest when you use the desktop website.
If you do, following these simple steps will prevent any future charges while allowing you to have access to the account for the remaining days you already paid for:
1. Log in to StyleSeat.com.
2. Select the “More…” tab.
3. Select “Account Settings.”
4. Select “Manage Subscription.”
5. Select “Cancel Subscription,” and follow the prompts until your cancellation has been confirmed.
3. Can I purchase a cheaper membership to just list my services without getting the business management platform?
Unfortunately, there’s only one membership option.
If you want to join, you have to pay $35 per month and will receive access to the full business management and online booking platform.
Fill Your Appointment Calendar
Joining StyleSeat as a professional in the beauty industry can help you achieve your full growth potential and turn your side hustle into a successful career.
When you take advantage of the platform’s many useful features — each one catered to you — your earnings can rapidly grow.
Plus, you’ll feel more organized and prepared to build your small business step by step.
With your free trial waiting for you, there’s no reason not to try Styleseat for yourself.
If you’re more interested in helping everyday people learn how to get professional-level makeup straight from home, get our list of beauty blog ideas to follow your passion.
