5 Critical Things You Must Know To Create a Super Hairdressing Salon

I know, I know, I know, being a Hair Salon owner is enough to drive anyone nuts. I’m nuts for being one. You… I’m sure you feel the same. 

I actually get recognized now as the guy from Hairee.com. Strangers talk to me and ask me questions. I ask them the same stuff. Once I asked a world wide super-star salon owner/stylist how much he takes a week in his salon. I nearly dropped, he told me.

 That got me thinking, here’s me telling everyone you can’t do well being a stylist on the floor and at the same time run a salon. He was doing both.

 So my theory outta the window was I right or wrong. 

Now I don’t like being wrong and you know what I wasn’t. There was a reason he could do both and I will explain later.

 First though after a couple of years of emails and letters and phone calls to my office I am going to share a secret with you.  

What I am going to share with you isn’t rocket science, its dead easy and a simple analysis of the whys behind the average salon. Its not dead cert facts just a thought from myself as to why they never get out of that average mode. 

Act on what you read and you will reduce you salon problems virtually over-night. You can rise above the average. 

Lets go then…   

5 Reasons why most Hair Salons NEVER rise above the average.  

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1.   EDUCATION.

 

Look before I start on a ramble let me make it clear that education doesn’t equal success. School sucks and so does that system. I left school with my self and that was it. Most successful people I know are not the average educated bunch. The world is full of educated derelicts. I am not proposing we join them. 

So what do I mean? 

When you open a salon you stop becoming “just” a stylist and become a business person. Now this is a different league for us and like it or not you need advice. Most salon owners I meet refuse advice. They believe their “business” is in their hands. To some extent it is, after all clients “buy” haircuts.

The problem is though it takes more than being able to do a great haircut to balance the books, find out break-even, handle reps, create great teams, and grow your salon and that… is just to start with. 

Most salon owners never go beyond haircuts. They cannot and will never be able to see it and that saddens me.  

How do you do it then? 

I have another company called http://www.Orangebeetle.com. We market and help business of any kind to create sales and sales letters or copy. We can get paid large sums just for writing adverts, letters and other bits and pieces. 

Why do I mention that? That proves a point. Outside hairdressing if a business wants results… they do certain things that I recognize. 

They pay someone else to do it… or…  read a book… or… pay for a course so they can learn how to do it. 

In other words, they recognize the value of education in their business. DO YOU. Most salon owners DON’T and never will. How about you and your salon? If you want to see changes it might be that you need to make changes in your approach to you hair salon business. 

Try this…  

• Read books on business management.

• Attend courses and seminars about the same.

• Go on-line and find good resources on running your business properly.

• See a business consultant.

• Look outside hairdressing for inspiration.

• Apply what you learn.

• Learn from others.

• Copy success of others.

• Put cash to one side to educate your selves.

• Don’t see spending on this as a waste of money.

 

Listen and listen good. I used to pay at least £200.00 for my scissors and never thought a thing about it. My kit was worth around £2-3,000 at one point easily. 

You are probably in a similar position yet, it will only cost you a few notes to buy a book that will make your money or save you money. See the logic? Easy. Do it. Raise your salon above the average, don’t be like those that never do and never will. The ones that moan about how badly they are doing yet never do anything about it. 

Solution? Get reading and learning, simple.   

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2.   STRUCTURE.

Being creative types the thought of structure does nothing for me at all, how about you. I associate structure with grey suits and bank managers, urghhhhh. 

One thing most salons don’t have and will never have though is good structure. I run my salon this way for years and years. No wonder we never grew. No wonder I was always trying to shore things up. 

Could you throw a ton of ingredients into a pot and hope, just hope that a fantastic cake would come out of the other side. Never would it happen. The recipe is king for a great cake. 

Your recipe or structure is the one thing that will produce a good business that will grow. What do I mean structure? 

Ok, you want you salon to grow, right? You create a plan. You should have a recipe for success. That means as part of your structure you will sit and plan the next month. Over that month you will set goals, targets, one to ones, motivational mornings, takings, colour promotions, staff promo’s and a ton of other stuff that add to your recipe or structure. 

You also need to know who does what. Managers, seniors, juniors, receptionists, accounts. 

Sickness and any other procedure through the salon… IT NEEDS A GOOD STRUCTURE. No structure = failure or average salon performance.

 

Want to be above average? Try this…

 

·        Read more books on management.

·        Attend courses.

·        Speak to others.

·        Trawl the web and get FREE stuff.

·        Copy what others do.

·        Start it right away.

·        Write a big list of what needs to be structured.

·        Get it done… TODAY. 

I met a salon owner that when I asked him told me he took £18,000 every week. Guess what he wasn’t lying, he really did take that kind of cash. He had no structure at all. He didn’t have a clue as to what was going where. All he knew was that he had a salon that bought him a flash Porsche, large house and paid for private school for the kids. 

That is a one off. It never happens that often. He employs great hairdressers and is in a very wealthy area. The catch-ment is there for him. He makes big bucks. He felt structure wouldn’t help him.  

Structure would do this for him. Increase his takings from £18,000 to maybe £25,000 a week. That’s what it does. 

Get a structure, raise your salon above the average. Most wont, most don’t, YOU CAN.

  Solution? Find out how to create a structure. Read and apply, dead easy.  

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   3.   STAFF PROBLEMS.

 

Around 10 years ago I went from 8 Stylists to 1 and myself over a  2-3 week period. Takings dropped. I couldn’t pay my taxes, I only just scraped through to survival. 

Go to your local store. See the stuff on the shelves, that is the product they sell. If it goes, they order more and they do it all again. See that big dope in the salon that looks mega cool, does great haircuts and makes you money. If he/she leaves so does your product. You can’t order another for the morning so how do you get a new product or stylist to fill the gap fast. 

The short answer is you cant, sorry. The long answer is easy. 

Here’s is a solution  that has worked for me very, very well. Let me tell you now I keep all my team. Very rarely do we lose seniors. All have been with me for at least 5 years now. 

How do I do it? It’s dead easy, it’s not even a secret. Here it is. 

GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT. 

 

That’s it. Sound too easy? It isn’t. Look you and me, we are both humans (no jokes please I am human ;-)). We all have needs that have to be filled. 

Desires, wants, wishes they need to be filled. Here is an example for you. I set  goal for my team. It was all done. The prize was one week in Europe fully paid by me. They could even take a partner and I would pay. 

Not ONE went for it, not one. Why? It filled my desire but did nothing for them, not a thing. Lesson was this, find out what makes my team tick, get to know them. Find out what they want and… build a job for them around it. 

If they want a new car, if the job you give them wont fill that want, they will go somewhere lese to get it. If they want a new house or flat and your job will never help them to get it, they will move on to somewhere that will. 

You need to find out what they want… NOT WHAT YOU WANT. I want all my team to be high earners and make me a good profit. They really don’t care about my great profits, they care about their profits. Both have to be tied together in a way that benefits us both.   

Here is what we do now in our salon. 

·        Speak with my team, face to face, one to one.

·        Ask them what THEY want.

·        Create a job around their desires and needs.

·        Bend over backwards to help them get there.

·        Become their ally in reaching their goals.

·        Become their coach.

·        Make sure they get it.

·        Have a training system that feeds us new team members.

·        Use local training partners for young stylists.

You know, and I don’t say this just to show off but all my team have brand new cars. All have their own living space. All wear great clothes. All have a couple of holidays every year. I love it. They love it. They stay with me. I stick by them. 

If you want to rise above the average salon you really have to start to put your team first and give them what they want. Fill those desires, let them reach their personal goals and you will create a great loyal team that will stick with you forever. 

Solution? Re-read the above and just do it. Pay peanuts… get monkeys. Give them what they want. Easy. 

 

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4.      PLANNING.

 

Fail to plan… plan to fail. It’s that easy to understand why most salons never rise above average. They don’t plan anything. They don’t understand planning, most really don’t care. If you don’t plan, you are going no-where fast. 

Let’s make this clear. Planning and Structure we mentioned earlier are connected but not the same. You can have structure but if you don’t plan with it and use it the salon wont do a tap, not a bean to rise above the average. 

Let’s assume you now have a decent structure in place. Now is the time to apply the structure and plan. Look I am going on a trip right. From one end of the Country to the other. I jump in my car and just drive. I haven’t looked at the road map. Haven’t got a clue what direction I am headed, I just drive. 

Question is… will I ever get there? Doubt it. That’s the crux of planning. If you want your salon to take £5,000 and you are only doing £2,500 you will never take more if it isn’t planned properly. 

Your salon is a journey. I have never been on a journey that isn’t planned. Plan it and you are laughing. 

So…  

• Read books on the subject.

• Search the web for help.

• Find free advice on it, accountants and banks can help.

• Copy others.

• Write a plan.

• Reverse-engineer the plan. In other words start at the end goal and work backwards.

• Move a step at a time.

• Don’t expect too much.

• Measure your progress.

• Be happy with any advance on the plan.

• Review every week and if no progress is made change the plan.

 

Look, don’t expect a miracle. Be happy if you can start a plan today and get it going. Just make a start and you will progress. After six months you will be a planning expert but you need to stick at it. Most salon owners never rise above average. They hate planning, they don’t plan and that is why they are average. Not you, just get it done.

 

Solution? Get planning. If you want to get somewhere you need to know where and how. Plans are for the successful thinkers. Do it. 

 

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5.   OWNER IS A STYLIST.

 

NO I CAN’T DO IT… if I get off the salon floor my salon will fall apart. My clients love me and cannot live without me. My team think I’m great and well, I take all the money. 

In the average salon that’s true but the good news is that you can overcome every problem to getting off the salon floor… EASILY, well maybe not that easy but it can be done. Right lets do it. 

May 2001 was a great year for me. Actually it was the 23^th day of the month because I was going to France on the 24^th. Great day, why? That was the last day I EVER spent on my salon floor, ever, ever, ever. 

Was I worried? You bet I was. My salon pay’s my 10 staff. It also pays me. The money I get feeds my four kids, my wife, holidays and all the usual stuff, yes, I was worried. 

Want to know what happened? Actually the truth is it has taken me since 1989 to get off the floor. But my systems are in place. I have a good structure. Good planning. A good stylist plan. I have re-educated myself and guess what… our salon has had an overall increase of nearly 30% since last may. 

What a happy guy I am.

 

Now what about you. See the average salon that never rises above average never moves on. But… they could easily, they just don’t. Not us. 

Get off the floor and here is what you have. A business that creates wealth for you and your team. A salon that stands alone without you. Time to spend on other things (I am at home in my office now and the salon is packed ;-). Time for my family and kids. No late nights and no mad, crazy Saturdays killing myself with a busy column. 

You can do it.

 

• Create the four things above we mentioned earlier.

• Get a superb manager.

• Set down the rules.

• Set standards.

• Increase standards.

• Improve team.

• Automate everything.

• Get a good salon computer.

• Measure everything.

• Test everything.

• Go away for a week when its all set and see if the takings increase while you are away.

• If they don’t read more books.

• Copy others.

• Create systems and keep applying them.

• Get team support.

• Do it.

  What can I say. I felt disappointed when my long term clients didn’t miss me, I really did. They asked where I was going, no they didn’t. They asked if I would be back, they soon forgot, takings went up and I had too much time on my hands. 

It will be the same for you as long as you feel that you have everything in place.

 Salon is running great now. We attract the best hairdressers in our area. We charge the highest prices. We do everything right and it pays well. It just takes a decent system and good planning and a lot of support.   

Solution? If you have done the above and all the other points take a deep breath and let go. Keep a close eye on the whole thing and monitor it all until its on auto-pilot. Not simple, easy or a dodle. Hard work but can be done.  

My very personal advice to you and all salon owners is this…

 “if you really, no I mean really want to rise above all those Joe average salons, read and learn, apply what you learn, copy other success stories and try it. I did and it’s worked. If I can do that, you can, Alan”

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Salon punk Alan

Reb, Rebecca-ZA.Chapman@noriba.com

Alan,

Since I just read two of your books this weekend, I have introduced the info on how to get rid of dead time to my staff already.

We've already selected several of them to start up - they are not the type to get excited right up front, but I can see that they are open to trying the referral one and the free service tacked onto a paying service.

They weren't up for the cutting hair in the street (or parking lot for us) idea yet. However, the seed has been planted. Maybe this summer when it's nice and balmy out, I can coax someone out there. And they're still chewing on the standby idea. I thought these were enough to start off with. I've reserved the others for later when we need another boost on ideas.

When I've got more to tell you, I'll send you details on how it's all working - So far, I'd like to take a look at "increasing your take" on my next one for you.

Thanks for your help !!

I've rough sketched the beginnings of how to keep stylists happy. Still working on that one

Sandi MacCalla mailto:[smaccalla@yahoo.com

I've loved going through the archived newsletters.  I've learned so much that's unique to this business already.  Just one comment I'd like to make though.  Because I'm not an experienced salon owner I have just sat back and absorbed your comments for the past few weeks. Superb.

Susan.

Hello Alan, I have only just begun to read through some of the info you are offering...

I can relate to much of it!I have been in the beauty industry for 14 yrs. and have recently been questioning my career choices. I have been working as a stylist/manager. After careful evaluation , I have decided that I am going to work for myself. I believe that continuing your education on your 'craft' is vital and I continue to do so. I want to thank you for opening a window for me and letting fresh air flow (talk about dramatic huh).It was exactly what I needed!

Sincerely, Darlene K Scott

Nova Scotia, Canada

Becky Eak's.