A successful beauty salon owner makes it look quite simple. What most people see is success only. They fail to see the hard work and the years of planning and struggles before success has actually kicked in.
If you are planning to open a beauty salon, you need to ensure you do it by the book. There are a few practices that can make the difference between a beauty salon that stagnates and one where people queue in front of.
Do whatever it takes to make it work
Never compromise for random stuff, just to get the salon working. Avoid buying cheap tools and products, just so you can increase your profits. Instead, people want quality. No one goes to a beauty salon daily, meaning people will spend a bit more for quality.
If you have to, look for loans for hairstylist and buy quality products only. Sure, profits will not be extraordinary straight away, but quality brings success in the long run. People will end up queuing outside if you do a good job.
Keep it together in an organized manner
You need to be organized no matter what, but also realistic. When you organize things, you will have both busy and slow times. To be successful, you need to concentrate on proper management and ensure clients are happy – minimum interruptions will help.
Commit to one task or another and stick to it. Some of your tasks will not necessarily imply dealing with customers. You will also need to deal with your staff, perhaps some suppliers and so on. You get the point – discipline is critical.
Make time for your team
Your business is your team – never forget that. If you think that everyone is replaceable, think twice. Loyalty is very important in this industry. If one of your good team members leaves, they will also take customers with them.
In other words, you need to keep your staff happy and motivated. You know your staff is doing great when customers ask for appointments with one stylist or another. Support them, share your ideas, get their feedback and take their opinions into consideration.
Your reputation does matter
Your reputation is not all about being nice and doing a good job. Keep in mind that most people leave reviews only when they are unhappy. Most of them do not bother if the experience was good. Therefore, you need to ask them to do it.
Ask your customers to leave reviews, be it on Facebook, Google or other places. Put yourself in their shoes. Would you go to a beauty salon with 9 reviews? How about a salon with 275 reviews? Exactly. If most of them are happy, your notoriety will skyrocket.
Keep in mind that we live in a world where the online environment is as important as the offline one.
Automate as much as possible
Unlike other industries, this one does not necessarily allow the use of too many robots. Sure, you can have some automatic sanitizing tools or so, but this is pretty much it. You cannot have robots painting people’s hair or giving them haircuts.
What you can do is get software that will keep track of everything – sales, best selling procedures, slowest times of the day or week, busy times, wages, employee working hours, and so on. Planning is much easier when everything you need is available at a glance.
Plan for tomorrow
Just because your profits are alright, it does not mean that you can start getting the finest things in life. You do not need to change your car straight away or buy a massive television set. Instead, a successful beauty salon owner works for tomorrow because this industry is quite volatile.
There are times when sales skyrocket, and you will do overtime. Then, there are slow times throughout the year too. Some days of the week are better than others. You might have days when there is nothing to do – just wait for some random walk-in customers.
Take the recent coronavirus pandemic, for example. Beauty salons were not considered essential businesses, so many of them were closed for months. To have the ability to reopen, you need some savings. Therefore, work for tomorrow and not for fine things in life.
Inspire your employees
Seven out of 10 employees lack inspiration and motivation. There are things you can do – incentives, random days off, days out with the crew, small gifts, even training courses. People will appreciate the fact that you look after them – customer retention is a plus.
Conclusion
In the end, being successful as a beauty salon owner takes hard work and commitment, but small things will always lead to great results in the long run. Patience is a must, but consistency is just as important in the process.