If you’re thinking about starting your own beauty business, or even if you have an established salon, spa or clinic, the question of how do I make my salon successful is often asked of oneself.
There are a few things you need to keep in mind in order to answer that question.
- First of all, you need to provide quality services that your clients will love.
- You also need to market your business effectively
- Create a positive environment for your employees and clients.
If you can do that effectively, you can create a successful salon that will thrive for years to come.
One of the biggest challenges that people have when starting a salon is creating a successful business model. Most small business owners start their business based upon a dream of owning their own salon after working for someone else and think they can do it better themselves.
The trouble starts after you have started your business and discover that the dream of spending all of your time with clients providing the treatments and services you love does not necessarily reflect the harsh reality of bookkeeping, staffing, managing inventory, marketing your salon and other nitty-gritty tasks.
In his excellent book, the E-myth Revisited Micheal E Gerber describes the pain of salon owners who sacrifice their businesses because they don’t have the business skillset. Gerber states that too many small business owners work long hours trying to do the job of two people – the technician and the business owner which often is unsustainable as your fledgeling business grows
In order to make your salon successful, you need to have a clear idea from the outset of what you want your business to achieve and put systems in place that will help you to achieve those goals.
It’s not easy starting a salon, is it? Well, this article will help you make your salon more successful
In order to do that, we need to talk about the difficulties of running your own business. I’m going to list some of the worst pitfalls and give you advice on how to avoid them. Hopefully, when we’re done, you’ll be on your way to salon success!
Start with a salon business plan
One of the most important things you can do when starting your own salon is to start with a business plan. A business plan will help you to outline your goals and strategies for achieving success. It will also help you to identify potential obstacles and develop strategies for overcoming them. Having a business plan is essential for any small business, and it’s especially important for a salon since there are so many unique challenges that come with the industry.
Establishing Your Salon Goals
When you’re starting your own salon, it’s important to establish your goals and objectives. What do you want your salon to achieve? Do you want it to be the best in the area? The most affordable? The most stylish? Whatever your goals may be, make sure you write them down and keep them in mind as you move forward with your plan.
you also have to consider what type of salon you want to open. Do you want to specialize in a certain service, or offer a variety of services? Will you cater to a specific clientele, or be more general? These are important questions to answer before you get too far into your planning process.
Developing a Business Plan
Once you’ve established your goals, it’s time to start developing a business plan. This will outline the steps you need to take in order to achieve your goals, and will help you to track your progress along the way. A business plan should include information on:
- The target market for your salon
- Your marketing strategy
- How do you plan to attract and retain clients
- The services you plan to offer
- Your pricing strategy
- The management and staffing requirements for your salon
- The type of facility you will need, and the associated costs
- Your financial projections
So, as you can see, a business plan is essential for any small business, including a salon. It will help you to stay on track and keep your business moving in the right direction.
Setting Up Your Finances
Starting a successful salon means keeping your finances in order. This means developing a budget and sticking to it as far as you can, tracking your expenses and revenue, and making sure you have a good understanding of your financial situation. It’s also important to have a system in place for collecting payments from clients and to make sure you’ve got enough in reserve in case anything unexpected comes up…
All you need to do is to look at the experience of businesses across the globe in light of the pandemic for example and how it was unexpected, think about those worse case scenarios and what contingencies you have to put into place.
Staffing and Human Resources
Another important aspect of running a successful salon is the staffing and human resources. initially, you might be doing everything yourself, but you also need to plan for growth.
For that, you need to have a good team in place who are capable of delivering high-quality services, and you need to have systems in place for hiring, training, and managing your staff. It’s also important to have a policy for dealing with difficult situations, such as staff discipline and termination for example.
Marketing and Advertising Strategies
In order to be successful, your salon will need to have strong marketing and advertising strategy. This means identifying your target market and coming up with a plan for reaching them. It also means developing materials such as print ads, web banners, and even TV commercials, and making sure they are consistent with your branding.
You’ll also need to consider how you might deal with this as you grow. Salon owners get bogged down with the minor details thinking they have to become marketing experts and do everything thing themselves, but this is a symptom of a scarcity mindset and that you need to save money by doing it yourself.
The truth is that if you really want to grow your business you can’t think like that, you have to be brave and give away control to specialists who will do a better job than you.
By doing all the jobs yourself you’re costing money and potential growth. You can outsource your marketing needs to a third party without breaking the bank, and in doing so you’ll be able to grow much faster and focus on what you’re good at – running your salon!
Building Clientele
It goes without saying that you need customers, but you have a plan for building clientele. This might involve developing a referral program, offering free or discounted services to new clients, or running special promotions. You’ll also need to find ways to keep your current clients coming back, such as loyalty programs or seasonal specials.
Ongoing Maintenance and Growth
Once your salon is up and running, you need to keep it running smoothly. This means ongoing maintenance, such as regular cleaning and repairs, and also planning for growth. This might involve expanding your services, adding new locations, hiring more staff or buying new equipment.
In your plan, you need to account for this and how you are going to finance it and consider questions such as cash flow and profit margins etc.
Unique salon service ideas
A successful salon needs to offer unique and innovative services that will appeal to its target market. This might involve developing new services or expanding on existing ones. It’s also important to keep your services up-to-date and in line with current trends.
Look For inspiration From Other brands you admire
When developing your services to be unique, it can be helpful to look at the services offered by other businesses, both in your industry and outside of it. This can give you some ideas for services that you might want to offer and help you to stay ahead of the competition.
It could be as simple as changing the name of a service to tie in with a theme or demographic you serve or as complex as completely reinventing how you provide the service.
It really does come down to you and the type of individual you are and how much you’re able to change something and if it can be done.
Often it can come down to a simple idea being flipped on its head and then explored further. Who’d have thought that a taxi service paired with an app to create Uber could revolutionise the cab business for example?
The latest trends in hair and beauty services
Keeping your salon’s services up-to-date is important for two reasons: first, it ensures that you’re offering the latest trends and styles to your customers; and second, it helps to keep your salon-fresh and exciting.
Again, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but keeping an eye on what is happening in the beauty, hair and aesthetics space can provide you with enough scope to keep your business fresh and interesting as well as maintaining the interests of your clients all of whom may become bored with the same repeatable services, so doing little things to keep their interest really does pay dividends.
what sets your salon apart from the rest
What sets your salon apart from the rest is important, as it can help you to attract new customers and keep current ones coming back. There are many ways to do this, but it’s important to find something that is unique to your salon and that reflects your brand.
Services
your services and how you provide them can be the biggest thing to make your salon stand out from the competition. You might also want to focus on your team, and how they deliver services or on the experience that your customers have when they visit your salon.
With so much competition out there now, the thing that makes you stand out is the experience the client has – make the client feel special each and every time and they won’t go anywhere else.
in the words of Maya Angelou
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Location
Location can also be a major factor in helping your salon to stand out. This could be the location of your salon or the areas that you service. It could also be the type of clientele that you attract.
You can also approach it from another angle by having a salon interior in total contrast to the location you’re in, for example, having a theme such as a garden and having lots of flowers and plants, could be in total contract to a concrete shopping mall you’re located in for example.
The Goldie Locks Pricing strategy
You might also want to consider your price point, as this can be a major factor in whether people decide to visit your salon. If you’re priced too high or too low, you might not be attracting the right type of customer, so it’s really important that you get the price just right for your particular client and location.
The key thing for pricing is that you are able to adopt a profit first attitude for your salon to have a chance that it will remain successful
Quality
Quality is also important, having an eye for detail is a really important factor as this can reflect on the quality of everything about your brand, from the services you provide to the scent you use in your loos.
If you’re using inferior products, your customers will be able to tell and it could impact their opinion of your salon. Using high-quality products not only reflects well on your salon but can also help to improve the results of services and the whole customer experience.
Environment
Creating a relaxing and welcoming environment for your customers is important. This could be through the use of scents, sounds, furniture and even lighting.
It’s also important that you create an environment where people feel comfortable to ask questions and experiment with new styles. If they feel like they’re in a safe place, they’re more likely to be more comfortable with trying something new, sharing with their friends and becoming raving fans.
Customer service
This is another area where you can really set yourself apart from the competition. This goes beyond just providing a good service, it’s about creating an experience for your customers that they won’t forget.
Making them feel welcome, special and important is key, as well as being able to listen to their needs and wants. It’s also important not to cut corners and be very exacting and ensure that your staff are in full alignment with your goals and expectations.
How to get clients back in the salon
Up until now, we have concentrated on a successful salon being the very best at providing the best experience to your clients. The objective here is not to lose clients because of this.
Obviously, there is going to be some percentage of natural churn, which should be taken into account in your business plan.
However, getting clients back in the salon is essential for the success of any business, but it can be especially challenging when posing the question of How Do I Market My salon. There are a number of things that you can do to encourage them to come back, and it’s important that you focus on more than just one aspect.
Offering incentives
This is one of the most obvious ways to get clients back in the salon. This could be through discounts, loyalty programs or even free services. You could also try targeted marketing campaigns specifically aimed at getting them to come back.
Making sure that your salon is top of mind is another way to encourage them to come back. This can be done through a variety of methods but one of the most powerful ways to do this is through email marketing. this is why we encourage all of our clients to adopt an email marketing strategy within their business.
It’s been shown time and time again that emails still have one of the best ROI’s and click-through rates of any medium including social media.
Implementing a customer loyalty program
A customer loyalty program is another great way to get clients back in the salon. This could be through offering points for every pound spent or providing exclusive deals and discounts to members. You could also try a tiered system, where customers earn rewards for spending more money or coming more often.
Creating a referral
A referral program is such a powerful way to get clients back in the salon and it’s easy to implement. Have a client pick up a card at their last appointment and hand it out to their friends. On the front of the card, have a space for the client’s name and phone number and on the back, have a list of services they offer with prices. When the friend calls to make an appointment, the receptionist will simply ask if they were referred.
you can also easily implement a similar scheme for online bookings as well.
Offering discounts
Discounts are one way to make your salon successful and get lapsed clients coming back. You can also offer loyalty bonus cards to customers, which gives them discounts on future services.
Hosting events,
Hosting your own events are an amazing way to get clients back in the salon. ideas such as hair shows or makeup tutorials is another great way to bring people in and show them what your salon has to offer. You can also team up with other businesses in your area to cross-promote each other. For example, you could partner with a local spa to offer package deals. Whatever you do, make sure you are active on social media and that your website is up-to-date with the latest activities and make sure you go all out to promote these events, not only will it create a buzz it will also create some FOMO for your lapsed clients.
On A Final Note
In this article, we’ve covered a number of ways that you can use to help in how to make my salon successful. First, you need to make sure you plan your business and then you have options such as incentives, loyalty programs and even events for hosting at your location or partnering with other businesses in your area. Whatever strategy you choose, make sure it takes into account how people think about their purchase decisions and make the client’s experience the best it can be, and by doing that you’ll have a thriving and successful salon on your hands.
