3 Ways You Are Stopping Growth in Your Business
1. Not Educating Yourself or Spending Money on Things you Need to Run Your Business.
There are so many different topics that we as business owners need to be on top and aware of.
Some people love to pay for training for new techniques in nails or hair and there are some that don’t. Up-skilling is incredibly important. If you don’t, it can leave you behind on the technical side. It’s also equally important that you don’t forget that you also need to learn how to run a business.
Investing on the business side is even more important. This is the stuff that will grow your business, free up your time and make you more money.
Things that you absolutely must consider and look into when starting your business:
Bookkeeping
Emailing systems
Booking systems
Tax responsibility
Employer responsibility
2. Not Planning for the Future.
Picture this; you open the doors to the salon, people are happily coming in and spending money in your business, you feel content. Hurrah! But not planning or considering what direction you want to take the business in both, long and short term, can leave you in a permanent state of groundhog day and with you feeling that there is no end to this game of business.
I found working towards a goal really helped to keep my head in the game when I started to feel lost and tired. (And trust me that will happen). Planning also got me excited to see if I could reach the next stage and kept me focused on building the business from the inside. I find planning backwards is the easiest, so knowing how you want the business to run around your life can really help to get the planning to flow and begin to work for you and your vision.
For example, if you want to drop the kids at school, what factors and considerations do you have to put into place so that you are able to be present as a parent but also so the salon is still opened on time and someone is welcoming clients and carrying out morning bookings? Start by breaking down your ultimate ‘big’ goal to little more manageable day to day goals. Doing this will ensure that you stay in momentum and heading towards those beautiful goals of yours without feeling overwhelmed and keeping you excited about what the future holds.
Planning how I could still make money without having to work 40+ hours a week while having my children was a huge personal goal of mine.
This is how I broke my goals down:
Reduce my expenses by 50% to allow myself enough room to hire a full timer
Reduce my working hours by 1 day at a time
Hire a full time therapist
Move my clientele to other staff
Write a job spec and look at everything I need in a salon manager
Hire someone as a manager
Train the manager in daily operational tasks
I was able to put these steps in place in less than a year. It felt amazing to be able to tick each step off, knowing I was moving in the direction I had always wanted, running a business with staff. This leads me onto point 3…
3. Not Wanting to Train Staff or Knowing How to Hire Your First Employee.
I’ve sat with a number of different hairdressers and nail technicians in the last few years and have listened to them explain their fear of hiring staff. It can feel overwhelming not knowing where to start or being scared to hire and train someone to help take on the workload of your clients. A lot of therapists just haven’t made that jump. I understand the fear, I get it, but I also know that it is stopping you from building your business and living that life you dream of.
If you don’t hire others to help you as you build your business then you are only guaranteeing that you will overwork yourself, burnout and not future proof your income.
The only way to grow your income is to open up more appointment spots but remember, you can only work with one client at a time and that dictates a certain number of clients per day. Having an additional pair of hands to help take on the workload will come in handy when you get sick, want to go on holiday or start a family. Whilst it is an investment outlay, it will bring in extra dollars in the long run.
You can go from earning $50 an hour to $100 an hour just by adding 1 staff member being paid in total $30 an hour. That’s a pretty good return, and if they sell retail products that amount can double.
Of course, hiring staff also means training staff in your own unique way. Any good business spends the time to train their staff. You have to make that commitment to train them as well as you. And yes, I’ve heard every fear and excuse in the book, for example, “what if I train them and then they leave?” And my response is always, “what if you keep them and don’t train them?” What will happen then?
You have to let go of the idea that you are the best and that no one can service your clients the way you do. Whilst it may be true – the owner will always go above and beyond for clients – it really is no way to run a successful business. Bringing staff on is a big commitment and is a full-time job in itself, so it’s not one to be taken lightly. It is, however, one that is incredibly rewarding and that will pay off for you in the long run.
If you have any questions on these topics I would love to hear your feedback over in my group Beauty Business HQ on Facebook.