7 Things I wish I knew before I Opened My Hair Salon Business
If I could go back to my 26 year old self (the age I was when I opened my first salon business), there are seven specific things I wish I had known, or paid more attention to!
I want to share them with you now, if you are thinking of taking a leap of faith and opening up your own salon, or are new in business then read on….
Finance mindset and marketing skills.
Sounds obvious right?
Most hairdressers decide to open their own salon when they become the busiest stylist within their team.
They already have their clients and it seems to them that they are earning peanuts whilst the salon owner is reaping all the rewards, so, they go it alone, after all, how hard can it be?
Well, to be a successful salon owner, you need more than good hairdressing skills!
You need to be able to understand how to price correctly, how and why to stick to benchmarks with stock control, when to ‘reinvest’, how to create and understand p&l’s, how much tax needs paying, how to pay your staff correctly, marketing (not just social media!), how to attract your ideal client into the business, tech and so much more!
Most salon owners just ‘wing it’ and hope for the best in these early years.
Don’t spend all your time working IN the business.
You must dedicate time to work ON the business.
Seriously, your business will never grow if you do not constantly adapt, learn, spend time on having a consistent marketing message and number crunching.
Making business decisions based on strategic growth and your numbers is a much better way to run your business than making emotional and quick decisions!
Having your marketing strategy aligned with your business objectives means you will never be short of what to write about on socials again.
Not every supplier, advisor, mentor or Facebook group will help you!
In fact, it took me a while to realise this one but sometimes the people who you look to for help have other agenda’s and helping you run your business isn’t always one of them.
Let me explain, a rep from a supplier has targets to hit and simply wants you to buy from them so they hit their targets, they are working within a large corporate company and they usually care more about their own bottom line then yours!
Only buy from them if your budget allows!
Be dictated by your budgets and not by the commission your rep wants to be paid!
Take on new products and tools based on what your ideal client needs. Think about their pain points and offer solutions to these problems.
Don't just take on a product range because it looks nice.
Other Salon owners don't know it all!
Seriously they don’t!
Don’t copy their pricing structure or marketing! They are likely to have taken their pricing structure from someone else who also didn’t know how to price correctly! They are likely to have a very different ideal client avatar then you!
Work your prices out based on your own numbers. If you need help with this then get a business coach to help you!
Don’t feel like you should ‘follow the crowd’ with your marketing. You should align your marketing strategy with your business goals and stay focused. Need help with this? Join our free marketing Facebook group.
Allow yourself to learn new skills.
So we’ve established that you're already a good and busy hairstylist?
Awesome!
So to run your business for the long term you are going to need to learn some new skills! Management? Marketing? Copy writing? Google ad’s? HR? Budgeting?
The best investment for you will be a mentor who can help you. We specialise in helping salon owners grow their business through marketing. Join our community here.
You can create other revenue streams within your business.
Ok, so, this can be a hard one to get your head around.
Us hairdressers are programmed to believe that time is money and that we earn money when we are servicing our clients, this is mostly true, but, I have learnt over the last couple of years, that a hairdressing business can easily be diversified.
Some ideas of this would be to:
Create an online shop:
Selling retail to your in salon clients is great but there is a whole world of people buying retail out there and if your have a good enough social media presence you could easily sell to lots more people on a daily basis!
Run events?
Running events is a fantastic way to collaborate with other local businesses and get new eye balls on your brand. Remember to run events and collaborate with businesses that your ideal client would like.
Rent out your walls.
Give a local artist wall space in your salon and earn commission from the sales. Perhaps even us your salon space as a ‘pop up’ art gallery when the business is closed.
Source and retail you own tools
Again, this needs to be aligned with what your ideal client avatar wants, think outside the box here, not just hair brushes. What salon merchandise does your ideal client need? Umbrella’s? Shopping bags?
Subscription based services/retail
This is where your clients can subscribe/pay a monthly fee for recurring home care delivered to them or even services like gel nails or blow dries.
Become an affiliate
Becoming an affiliate basically means selling someone else product or service and being paid a commission for it. The company stores and dispatches the product for you, you just sell it an get paid. The best part of this, there is no up-front cost to set this up.
Whether the goal is passive income or just to expand on your offerings, you will then need to consider how you will get traffic and buyers to it.
One post on social media will not work, you may need to consider influencer marketing, evergreen marketing, blogging, building funnels and some other options to help get the traffic you need. Need help marketing your salon business or other revenue streams? Join our community here
Plan for the future.
Again, sounds obvious doesn't it? Most of us open up our salon thinking about the here and now, we very rarely plan our exit. Well let’s face it, we love the industry so why would we need to plan an exit?
Trust me, you do! If you calculate your profits and are disciplined to move them to a separate bank account every month, the first thing I recommend you do is build up a financial buffer. This will help to weather any storm. (or pandemic!)
A buffer of around 3 month business costs and wages is usually recommended.
Once you have this saved put the surplus money into your future, this is likely to look different for everyone but a good place to start would be a pension or long term investments.
I absolutely recommend that you seek the help of a financial adviser here, but, and I cant stress this enough, if there was just one piece of advise I could give you when you are starting out it is this, plan for your future self!
We hope you have enjoyed our blog and it has given you some inspiration in your own business. If you wish to connect with us further or would like some sepcific support with your salon marketing please email: hello@heir-salon.com