Opening a Successful Beauty Salon

/ posted in: Beauty Salons

Beauty and wellness is a thriving and rewarding industry. If you want to own and manage a successful beauty salon, there are trials that you must surpass – especially if you are a first-timer in the industry.

If you are going with an already established salon brand as a salon manager and want to run it successfully, today’s post is filled with advice.

While it is indeed challenging, it’s not impossible. 

If you don’t seek proper guidance and direction as you run your beauty salon, it could be taxing. 

Don’t fret. We got you covered. 

Read on for helpful tips in proper beauty salon management. 

Beauty Salon Managers: Tips for First-Timers

You need a beauty salon business plan.

The role of a beauty salon manager can be demanding and overwhelming. This is especially true if you don’t have proper guidance. 

A Salon Business Plan Is Important

If you want to start your own beauty salon, you need a business plan. Think of it as your blueprint for success.

You’ve probably already mulled over certain aspects of the salon business without even realizing it. All you have to do is put everything in writing. 

Your business plan will need these essential items:

  • Company Summary
  • Mission Statement
  • Business Objectives
  • Funding Requirements
  • Marketing Plan
  • Management Team
  • Financial Plan
  • Financial Forecasts

Do You Have a Mentor?

If you are starting out in the beauty industry, it would be ideal to find a mentor to teach you the ropes. Find someone who has been in the industry and can answer any questions you may have. 

If you are a novice in the industry, here are some specific aspects of salon business management that you must pay special attention to:

Utilize Client Feedback to Improve Your Salon Business

Whether they are positive or negative, customer reviews are a fantastic source of information for a salon manager. 

Listen to your beauty salon customer reviews.

If you get bad client feedback, try not to take it too personally. Use it as a way to evaluate how you run your salon business and what aspects you have to improve. 

Understanding your salon customer feedback is putting yourself in your clients’ shoes. You are looking at your business through your clients. 

Set up a customer feedback log (not necessarily only for complaints) to record the reviews of your clients. 

If you go in as a salon manager and discover that your business doesn’t have a customer feedback log, then it’s an apparent sign that they don’t have a suitable way of handling clients’ complaints.

And that’s not a good sign.

The absence of a client complaint log means that any issues that customers raised are not addressed. There is no standard procedure to address these complaints, and there is no business management follow up. 

This is not a good practice. It means that the business does not fully comprehend the influence of the clients’ lack of satisfaction with the salon business’ service and productivity.

If, however, you come in as a salon manager and find an existing procedure for handling customer complaints, then that’s more ideal. The customer log records are a huge source of help when understanding the way many customers perceive your salon business.

Be creative in attracting new clients and retaining old ones to help your salon business
  • What are the common issues clients raise about your business?
  • Are there any specific salon employees that customers raise issues about the most?
  • How many complaints are there daily, weekly, and monthly about the salon’s performance?
  • How are these issues addressed?
  • What are the best practices utilized to handle customer complaints?

Salon Human Resources Issues

The employees and staff are the greatest value of any business and industry. The same can be said in the beauty salon business. As a first-time beauty salon owner or manager, you must understand this.

A robust marketing strategy, a popularly marketable product or service, and a reliable process – these all contribute to a salon business’s success. 

However, it is your salon staff that execute these processes, plans, and strategies. 

As such, you must show your employees how much their presence is valued in your company. One of the most effective ways to do this is by listening to their concerns and addressing any issues they raise, especially if they are urgent.

Doing so will prove that you, as their superior, have the ability to resolve issues. This strategy will further reinforce your position as their manager or leader.

Making the Most of Your Salon Business’ Recruitment Process

As we mentioned above, any business is only as good as the staff and employees. If you lack personnel, you can’t go above and beyond for your clients, let alone provide sufficient service. 

If you have vacancies within your staff, make sure to address them right away. The first thing you need to do is set up a procedure for recruiting new members of your staff. 

If you don’t have a standard recruiting process, then now is the time to set one.

Recruitment is one of the most challenging processes in business management. It can get challenging, lengthy, and at times quite hopeless – especially if you can’t find suitable candidates.

Get yourself ready to improve your salon’s recruitment process – making it as effective as possible.

Achieving Your Salon Business Goals and Understanding Your Business Budget

No matter what industry you are in, you need an action plan for your business. This applies in the beauty industry. 

In order to successfully execute your business plan, you need to have a comprehensive understanding of your business budget and correlated business goals and targets. 

An extensive comprehension of your business budget will give you a clearer conception of the day-to-day business decisions made in the salon, such as:

  • Concentrating on cash flow
  • Reducing costs
  • Increasing profits
  • Improving returns on investment

Budgeting is fundamental in ensuring the success of your salon business. Done properly and it will aid in both finance planning and control of your company.

If you need professional help to analyze the budget of your beauty salon, then acquire it. It’s essential to evaluate the budget and forecast so you can focus on achieving the benchmarks you set for your company.

As a business manager or owner, every decision you make for your salon business has a financial significance – on whether it’s a positive or negative impact will depend on that specific decision you made. 

The handling of your business budget is the key to the success of your salon.

Becoming an Integral Part of Your Team

As a beauty salon owner, your staff is a valuable resource.

As a salon manager or salon owner, you must make yourself an integral part of the team.

While it’s true that you are your staff’s superior, you should never create a divide between you and them.

Be part of your team, observe, and most importantly, learn from them.

Whether it’s the routine tasks such as some necessary cleaning or putting away hair tools, or spending some face time at the reception, be part of the team, not just their superior. 

Don’t create an air of intimidation about you. Your team will start to appreciate when they know you are not the type of boss who would micromanage.

Obviously, it’s still your responsibility to ensure that everyone in your staff is completing their assigned tasks. However, it’s never good to nitpick and breathe down on your employee’s neck.

When you are abrupt and curt in how you run the business and how you interact with your team, you’re only creating an unpleasant and unproductive working environment. Your team will see you as controlling as offensive. They will not regard you as an effective leader.

You can create an individual connection with your team through one-on-one meetings. This is ideal, especially if they want to share certain things with you about work that they are not comfortable sharing in a group setting.

Individual meetings are also an excellent avenue for you to get to know each member of your staff’s expectations and goals.  

When you become one of the team and you blend in with them, your employees will treat you as their own. Most importantly, it’s more likely that they still be responsible even if you are not present. 

Bond with your team. You don’t have to be best friends. Create a pleasant working environment where you and they can thrive and learn from each other. Carry out any changes accordingly, and make sure to do so for the good of your beauty salon business.

Work for Your Beauty Salon Vision

Aside from your plan of action, the vision you set for your salon business is the foundation on which your success will lay.

Determine your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. Whether it’s reaching more clients, earning local, state, or national recognition, acquiring new beauty tools and technologies – whatever your goals may be, make sure they are clearly established.

Others find printing and placing these manifestations to where you can see them in your office as an effective strategy. 

Share these goals with your team. Assign individual team members particular tasks. You should also conduct regular meetings to get an update from everyone. 

Make sure everyone in your business is working towards achieving the goals you established. You absolutely need the help of your team to succeed. If each and every one in your team pulls in the same direction, your beauty salon business will prosper.

I have been a professional hairstylist for 23 years. Husband to my high school sweetheart, Ines. We love each of our four cats. I was born in Lyon, France but my whole family moved to Atlanta when I was 17 years of age. At times I miss France, but America is forever my home. A few years ago, I visited Canada and tried out a high-quality goose jacket. It was so unique that I immediately bought it. I've never owned a coat so comfortable! Later on, I was domain shopping for a new blog to share helpful haircare tips and knowledge with the world. Saw this one and couldn't resist!