How to get more men to pay for hair color

Photography: Heather R. Durgin

At the Mensroom Salon and Lounge in Portland, Maine (mensroomsalon.com), Redken’s Camo Colornets $50 for 10 minutes at the sink. Five bucks a minute sounds pretty good to us so we asked owner June Juliano to share her success secrets:

Best Color-Intro Strategy: Train the stylists to use “guyspeak” and be direct.

“The biggest challenge is to retrain your staff to avoid girly words and gossip; the dialogue is completely different. Highlights are ‘Guylights.’ Stop assuming men don’t want color. Tell men all the models in magazines have color—they’re surprised. Men tend to think color is blonde or wild; talk shading and shadowing.”

Best Delivery: Fast! “We use Redken Camo Color and Matrix Color Sync at the backbar, and deliver world-class service in short order. We start at 7 a.m. but come in at 6:30 a.m. if asked.”

Best Retail Approach: Tell, don’t sell. “During the service, explain what you are using, what they need and when to rebook. When the cape comes off, you’re done because they are.”

Best Promise: That they won’t see orange as color fades.

Hot Promo: Two for Tuesdays, when guys bring a friend and get two cuts for the price of one.