5 Easy Salon Management Tips For An AMAZING Business

Doing a great job with your services will get you so far, but ultimately running a successful salon business is about the management. Here are my five tips on managing your salon more effectively. Hello, hello, hello my salon friend, Phil Jackson here, your Queen of Salons, coming in your eyes and ears again with another dose of Wise Owl Wisdom. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope. I hope October's being kind to you as we're storming towards the end of 2024. How are you feeling about that? Has it been a year that's ticked all the boxes? Have you achieved all the goals that you wanted to? Or are you going to be quite pleased to leave 2024 behind? I'm always very excited this time of year because it's when I do my goal setting for the following year because I take lots of salon business owners through a goal setting process and we're going out to Tenerife for my retreat in January to do just that with a handful of the most spectacular salon owners you can imagine. But it means that I need to get my goal setting done and dusted and out of the way. So October's when I take some time to do some planning and some visualising and making sure that everything's in place ready for a successful 12 months ahead. Personally, I've had a pretty good year. I can't complain. Anyway, what are we talking about today? We're talking about managing your salon business. I'm kind of scratching around for an overarching theme for this episode. And basically, basically, darlings, it's five things that I've cobbled together. If I was starting from scratch in my salon management journey again, where are the five areas that I would put my efforts maybe? Perhaps it's five vital things that I think should be in place in your salon business. I don't know. Anyway, there's five of them. They're all roughly around salon management. So wish me luck and I'll see you at the end. The first cab off the rank is our salon software systems. And I know salon software is frustrating and nobody seems to get all of it right. And I've got lots of experience of a huge number, actually, over the years of different salon systems, either from my own salon ownership or working alongside people that I'm coaching and seeing what they're using, too. And I can tell you there is no perfect salon system out there. But some of them are getting pretty close these days. A lot of the little niggles that we've had over the years are starting to get ironed out. And I think there's some pretty robust systems out there. And it still baffles me how people try, even if you're a solopreneur, how people try to run a business without salon software.

I don't get it. I don't understand it. I see too many people, particularly at the lower end, particularly at the cheaper salons or particularly where we've got teams of one, where people are trying to run their systems from run their business rather from a paper diary. I mean, really these days, dude, or they're trying to run it from their Google calendar. And actually, Google's got some pretty good features and it is ticking a lot of the boxes. But salon software has a whole bunch of stuff in place, which is going to make your life so much easier. If you've got salon software, sign up for all of the free training. Join the user groups. Find out different ways that you can sweat the asset. Now, there is a red line and the red line is we only want to build stuff in that actually we need for our business. So don't do stuff just because the software can do it. That's a really quick way to firstly have too many different systems running in your business. And secondly, end up kind of overwhelmed by the technology and it turns into a part time job. So don't do that. But if there's something that the software has in place that can make a bit of your job easier, then so be it. So have a look at how we can extend and improve that client journey. How many touch points can we have for a new client before they come into the salon? How many times could we be emailing them? How many times could we be building those forms of communication and building that bond with a brand new customer? Can we be automating our aftercare advice? And I know you go through the aftercare when they're in the salon, but trust me, clients only half listen. And at least if you've sent it out by email afterwards, you can say, well, you've had the aftercare twice now. So why are you not looking after your hair extensions properly? It gives you a bit of ammunition, doesn't it, if they're not doing the job properly. And the reporting side of it, master a handful of the reports. Now, I know salon software systems have way too many reports. It's a ridiculous number of reports that lots of people are never going to look at. But there's going to be a handful in there that will give you the figures that you need to run your business effectively. And you've got to make friends with those reports. More on that coming up later. So sign up for the free training. Invest a little bit of time every month. Just one or two hours in training yourself and improving how you're using your salon software.

And I promise you the few pounds or dollars per month that you're paying out are so much an investment in your business. It really can be a game changer for small businesses. Next up, I want to talk about training because we're heading towards the time of year when we're going to be looking at annual reviews and appraisals for our teams. We're also going to be looking at investing in training for our teams and investing in training for ourselves. So where does my advice come from as far as training is concerned? Well, a training plan is not a wish list. OK, so what I would do in my salon as far as my team is concerned is I would do all of my annual planning. Then I would do all of my annual reviews or annual appraisals. And off the back of that, I come up with a training plan which is directly feeding into the goals that I have for the coming 12 months. So just because you have a team member who's really interested in going off and learning how to do a particular type of, I don't know, injectable aesthetic treatment. If that's not part of your vision for your salon, it doesn't make it onto the training plan. Otherwise, you're going to be spending a lot of money on training that you're not going to be sweating in the business. The training is not going to be repaying you in a meaningful way. Also, with any training, whether it's for a team member or for yourself, you want to measure the success of that training. And basically, that means filling out a quick sheet that says, how competent and confident are you carrying out this service or this task in the business? And then after the training, take the questionnaire again. And if there's not a noticeable increase in those scores, you go back to the training provider and say, Oi, I didn't get what I wanted after this training. Are you going to train me again or are you going to give me some money back so I can go somewhere else? And what happens over time is you start to build a list and a library of training courses that you know deliver the results that you need in a particular area of your business. So measure, measure, measure as far as training is concerned. As the business owner, and of course, I would say this, wouldn't I? I think you need to be matching your investment in technical skills with your investment in business skills and coaching. There's no point in being fantastic at a handful of treatments unless you know how to market, unless you know how to run your business profitably, unless you know how to keep yourself on track with your bigger life goals. And that's not going to happen by accident. So every pound or dollar that you're spending on technical training, match it. When whatever training budget you've got, you can find something that fits, whether that be a group coaching program,

whether that be an online course, something that's going to improve your business skills and your business aptitude over time as well. Tip number three, I want us to have a much more realistic idea about how social media is helping or hindering your business. I'm currently working with about 25 different salon owners in different ways on different programs or in one to one coaching. And I can tell you of those 25, I can think of one who is actually using social media in a meaningful way to get new clients effectively. OK, I don't think social media is a brilliant way of marketing to new clients. I think that we need to have an attractive profile and up to date content so that new clients can find us and stalk us. But I don't think it's a great way of finding new clients unless you're doing paid for social media marketing there. I'm out there. I've said it now. I think there's a lot of people wasting a lot of time on social media. That said, I do think social media is an amazing tool for deepening connections and enhancing relationships with our existing customers, letting them see behind the curtain, letting them buy into you as a person or your business values and what you're all about, your culture, meeting team members that they might not have otherwise met, seeing services they may not realise that you did. I think for deepening those connections, social media is superb. But I think if you are struggling to get new clients and you're spending a lot of time on social media, start to do the equation. Maybe that is not the most effective way of marketing your services. So figure out a social media plan, figure out what's attainable and maintainable for you. And I see lots of people that think, oh, gosh, I must do more on social media. They draw up a plan for the coming month and they go from posting once or twice a month to trying to post three or four times a day. It's overwhelming, takes too much time. They can't maintain it in the longer term. And the plan gets thrown away after week two. So if you're struggling with social media, why not figure out what you can comfortably commit to? And if that's just once a week, but you can keep that once a week consistently, that's going to be better than peaks and troughs and spikes in your content and then nothing and dust ball for two or three weeks after.

So figure out what you can actually commit to in your social media plan. Do also try and change things up a little bit. Try and use all the different ways that you can use one platform. So, for example, on Instagram, don't just post to your grid. Use stories as well. Use reels if you're comfortable putting video together. Go live if that's what you want for longer form content. Look at carousels. So try and use different social media in as many different ways as possible, because you will touch different people in different ways with different topics. Some things lend themselves to much longer form content and trying to squeeze that into a single post really isn't going to work for you. Tip number four is to keep revisiting and investing in your customer experience. We're operating in a more and more competitive environment. There are more salon businesses opening every day. We're all fighting for a smaller and smaller pie overall because beauty spend is not increasing, certainly not keeping in line with inflation over here in the UK. So we're all fighting for a smaller pie. And that means that we've got to keep hold of the customers that we have. We've got to be investing in loyalty. We've got to be investing in customer experience. We've got to be enhancing how we carry out our services, aiming for that top end treatment offering, which means we can charge top end prices too. We've got to give people a reason to come into the salon. And it used to be, for example, I don't know, let's say eight, nine, ten years ago, Christmas Eve in my salon was a buzz. Everybody was fully booked. Everybody was fighting for those last appointments of the day. Everybody was in fancy dress and we had mulled wine on the go and mince pies. And there was people bringing in gifts and coming and going. The door was barely closed with so many people coming and going all the way through the day. The music up a little bit. We'd go for drinks afterwards. It was an absolute buzz. It doesn't feel like that anymore. In a lot of salons, Christmas Eve, actually, it's not really worth even opening because that buzz has gone. The problem is there's so many things that people can do at home now. And also, if we're charging those top end prices that I was referring to earlier, then there's an excuse to not come in quite as much on the run up to Christmas, which can be a very expensive time for some people. So we've got to give them a reason to come in. And the reason comes from the experience, not from the service. If we can bring back some of that atmosphere, make it the place to be on Christmas Eve and the wonderful start to your festive season is actually coming in and seeing some of your friends in the salon.

My goodness, now I've got a reason to get out, even if it's cold and frosty outside. Now I've got a reason to come in and enjoy that convivial atmosphere. So bring back the buzz a little bit, enhance the customer experience, give people a reason not to do these things at home, but to come and enjoy a salon service. And finally, and I know this one's not going to be popular, I need you to start being a bit of a nerd as far as the figures are concerned. I need you to make friends with some of those reports that we're getting out of our salon software systems. I need you to make friends, dare I say it, with spreadsheets. I need you to get really comfortable looking at the money regularly in your business. And I encourage all of my coaching clients to do this at least once a week. So lots of us have a money Monday or a finance Friday, but carve out some time each week when you can monitor what's going into your account and out of your account. No, I'm not suggesting you do your own bookkeeping. I do think that should be delegated to somebody else. But you need to be in touch with what's happening in the business. You need to be monitoring your progress towards your financial goals. And that means making friends with those reports, maybe even making friends with spreadsheets, being a bit of a nerd as far as those numbers are concerned. If you're not comfortable, get the help, do an online course, find a mentor, get somebody who can position this information in a way that makes sense for you. And I get that some of us are a little bit neuro spicy in our industry and that perhaps money and figures, it takes a bit too much attention and perhaps it's not quite the way that we've been learning in life up to now. But we've got to make friends with it if we expect our businesses to not only survive, but thrive in the coming months. So there we go. My five top five salon management tips. What have I missed? Reach out and let me know. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. You know, I love hearing from you anyway. Also reach out if you have any questions for my Ask Me Anything episode. I think next week we're going to be doing a Q&A episode. That's coming up in just seven short days. Also reach out if you would like to feature as a guest on the Build Your Salon podcast. We haven't done a guest episode for a while and I've got some lined up. I think we're going to be recording some fairly soon just to change things up a little bit. I'd love to be sharing your salon story. You don't have to be a celebrity hairdresser or an amazing beauty therapist with a team of hundreds. All I want to hear is your story to success. However that, however small that may feel to you, I promise you it's a huge dose of inspiration and a massive win in the eyes of lots of other people.

So reach out, let me know, share your story with me. I'd love to be interviewing you on a future episode. So I will speak to you again next week in the next episode of the Build Your Salon podcast. And until then, take care.

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