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working with mary queen of shops
Mark Wilson - Salon Development Consultant worked with Mary Portas and BBC2 on the hit programme Mary Queen of Shops when Mary visited John Peers Hair Studio in Rochdale.
How did it come about?
I am often asked by television production companies if I could recommend any Hair or Beauty Salons that meet their needs for specific programmes.
On this occassion, the production company Optomen called me to ask if I could recommend any salons to appear on one of the Mary Queen of Shops Episodes.
They gave me an outline of the type of business they were looking for and although John Peers Hair Studio was not one I recommended (simply becasue I had never met John before) they asked me to carry on aiding them.
What did you do for the programme?
Having been invloved with the initial search and speaking to me about my work with Independent Salons, Optomen asked if I would visit the salon with Mary's team to give an overview and help with any industry specific topics that arose.
I met with John and various other people at the salon in Rochdale and afterwards I put forward my suggestions to help the prodcution team put together their plan of action.
After that Mary did what she does best and worked her magic.
I took part in the final session of filming in Rochdale but I think the production team decided I had a "face for radio" and not TV as I didn't make it on the edited version!
Does appearing on shows such as Mary Queen of Shops guarantee success through Marketing/PR?
No it doesn't, it will help John tremendously in terms of getting customers through the door, although that is only a small part of what salon owners need to focus on, if the team don't retain the customers and keep their interest alive then it will just feel like a flash in the pan!
Salon owners don't just need to get their marketing strategy right, but also their recruitment, pricing, customer service and cost control strategies right too. On the bright side my team and I can help with all of that...OK I had to get a plug in somewhere!
What was the most memorable part of the show for you?
Strangely it was meeting Mary's business partner Peter Cross, who as it turns out gave me my very first work experience placement in L'Oreal back in 1994...what a small world!
