3 Mistakes I see salon owners make
Today we are going to talk about the 3 biggest mistakes that I see beauty salon owners doing all the time.
1. Comparing yourself to the competition
Number 1 comparing yourself to the competition. Why? Why do we do this? it's is only going to stress us out, make you feel horrible and drop the ball in your own business.
What I suggest that you do is stop looking at websites, Facebook pages, Instagram; don’t sign up to the email lists and don’t worry about their price lists. What I suggest that you do is concentrate on your clients. Concentrate on what your clients want and what they love about you. If you don’t know, ask them! Send them a survey. Your focus should only be on your business and clients.
A few years ago I moved my salon to a new premises. Right across the road was a franchised salon. Did I worry? No! Why? Because I knew I could offer something different and there is plenty of work out there for everyone. I didn't pay attention to what they were doing.
I didn't know what items they stock – I don’t know how many staff they’ve had or rooms. I don’t even know how much they charge for their services. All I knew is that I wanted to do something with my business and I wanted to grow my business. And guess what? I did it!
Even across the road from a massive salon. I was able to increase my prices every year, grow my staff and gross my revenue, including growing my profit which is the most important thing. This was giving me the lifestyle that I wanted. I was able to stop working in the salon at that point and move all my clients over to staff. Win/win for me!
I want you to do the same thing. I want you to concentrate on what you want and focus on what your clients want. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. If you ever want to look at new services, go to your rep. Go to the company that you are looking at bringing in and ask them what would be best for you. Talk to your customers.
2. Delegate!
The second is delegating. Staff owners, beauty therapists, hairdressers really find it hard to delegate jobs. 1) You either can’t trust people or 2) you think it’s easier to do it yourself. I’m telling you that the only way you are going to grow your business is delegation. When I started to delegate things in my business it was the holy grail. I started being able to free up more time, I was able to not have so many clients and I was able to grow my business. This is how I did it – I got people to help me. I started hiring staff; HR managers, bookkeepers, lease negotiators. He cost me about $400 to $500 at the time but he saved me a minimum of $10,000 because he was an expert in what he was doing. I didn’t want to be up all night stressing about my lease and about having my lease put up every year and all the rest of it so I got him to do it and he fought for me and he won. So that was a really great investment.
The other thing that I get people to do are get VAs – I get them to help me with running the back end of my business – and I also have my bookkeeper. I love her! That really saved my marriage and my relationship with everyone around me because I now have a bookkeeper who knows what she is doing and I just send her my receipts and she figures everything out for me. Of course, we look over it, but I started to ask people to help so that it could free up time and I could build a family, build on my business and I can have a life. I can go get my hair done, get a massage and go into work and not feel stressed.
3. Plan for your business!
The third one I see is not planning for their business – either not having a business plan, a marketing plan, a sales plan or anything. They are just winging it – every day, every month is just “what are we going to do?” In my business, at the start, I was doing this but I realised it was stressing me out! I needed to make a change and I really want you to do the same thing. I want you to sit down either for the next 3 months or 6 months and plan out what your salon is going to offer. I will suggest that you don’t try and change it up too much; stick with one offer for at least a month, which is what we do in our salon. I want you to look at your revenue from last year, your revenue for this month that you want to earn and really figure out a way how you are going to do that. These are the basic steps of owning a business – you need to understand where you are going and you need to have a plan.
I do have a beautiful downloadable marketing calendar that can help you in my shop. Its only $3 and it will get you started straight away.
You need to take small actions every day which will build on top of each other to make big action! but the most important thing is you need to take each step. Once you download it you will also get an invite to my new HUB to help you implement it. I here to truly help you build whatever it is your heart desires.
I hope to see you in the next fortnight when I have another amazing blog for you!