How to Make Money in 2025 (5 New Business Resolutions)

Are you ready to make 2025 your most profitable year yet? Stay with me as we go through my five business resolutions that will help ensure that you're not just surviving, but thriving in the next 12 months. Hello, hello, hello my salon friends. Phil Jackson here for the very last time in 2024. Here we are on the very edge of a brand new year full of exciting possibility. Gosh, I'm absolutely dripping with excitement myself. Can't wait to jump into the new year. I love the possibility. It's like a brand new notebook, isn't it? All crisp and clean and ready to fill with your thoughts. So what are your thoughts as far as the next 12 months are concerned? Are you filled with trepidation and a little bit worried about the next 12 months? Or are you really excited and looking forward to a triumphant year? Well, I've got five areas of your salon business that I'd like you to look at. Just five little bits of food for thought, if you like. Five areas that I think most salon businesses could stand putting a few resolutions behind. So let's jump straight in with number one. And the first is I really want you to look at the financial health of your business in 2025. Not just focusing on turnover. Actually, I kind of believe that small is beautiful as far as turnover is concerned. But my goodness, I want you to be making some triumphant profits in 2025. So if, like many of the salon owners that I speak to, you're not friends with finance, if you don't really enjoy time with your accountant, if you're not shaking hands with a spreadsheet every now and again, then I really want you to set a resolution and start to get to grips with the money. We've got to keep a really close eye on the money that's coming in and out of our businesses. I'm talking about pricing as well. Of course, I don't want to hear that you're only increasing your prices once a year. Oh, my goodness. Some of you may not have increased your prices at all in 2024, in which case I should be terribly cross. So I'm recommending that everybody review their prices twice a year. It means, firstly, that we're more in touch with the actual costs of running our business. But secondly, it means that we're not trying to guess quite so far ahead. Nobody really knows what's going to happen with things like energy prices over the next 12 months. So if we're doing regular reviews, it tends to mean that the increases can be a little bit smaller, but also we're not doing quite so much in terms of guesswork. So first resolution, make friends with the finance in your salon business. Second, I want you to invest heavily in terms of time and effort in your customer experience.

There is so much now that your customers could be doing at home in terms of their hair and beauty and aesthetic procedures. I really don't think it's OK for them to come in and just get the service anymore unless you're charging bargain basement prices. And my goodness, who wants to do that? If you want to charge top end prices, you've got to give people a reason to come into the salon. And that reason has to be hugely enjoyable. I want you to really emphasize how coming into the salon is part of an entire journey, an entire experience. That means increasing the number of touch points ahead of somebody's visit. It means keeping in touch, following someone's visit and making sure every aspect of your business is examined so that we can elevate the experience to something that's really Instagram worthy. Something that people can write home about, but ultimately something that people don't mind paying really good money for. I don't think it's enough to go through the motions anymore. I don't think it's enough for us to just tick boxes. I want to enjoy my visit to the salon. I want to feel that I'm part of the family, but I'm welcomed and that my experience is a joy. While we're elevating experience, though, let's also maybe make a resolution around elevating our skills. Now, I know there are lots of you that take investment in your training very, very seriously. And why wouldn't you? Training or at least decent quality training is very rarely cheap and cheap training is very rarely decent quality. But I don't think there's enough people actually investing in the other areas of their business. So I think we're very good at investing in our technical skills. I think, you know, hairdressers are very good at zipping up to their manufacturers and going to the academy for a day. I think beauty therapists are amazing at adding another line, another line to your price card by bringing in another service or polishing and refining or elevating your levels of expertise. I don't see people investing in the other areas. And what do I mean by that? I mean, I think every pound or dollar that you're investing in technical skills should be reflected in business skills, too. Of course, as a business coach, I would say that, wouldn't I? But let's tap into some areas that I don't provide just so that you know that I'm not just blowing smoke.

But why are we not investing in our consultation skills? I don't offer consultation skills training. There's nothing in for me in it for me, whether you do it or not. But the consultation is going to be key in 2025. And it's key in elevating that experience, as I've already outlined. Why are we not investing in our motivation skills? Why are we not investing in our mindset? All of these things deserve a level of investment as well. And I don't see people putting enough money aside. Now, I do think that we should be budgeting. I think there's a finite supply of cash for these kinds of things. And we've got to make sure that we're investing in things that are actually going to move the needle. So that means setting out your goals for 2025 and then identifying the gaps. Where are the areas that we need to invest money? And then putting a budget to one side and making sure that we take that as seriously as investment in our technical skills. Next, I want to talk about something that is a lot more of a challenge in the salon industry. And it's actually the reason that the salon industry is kind of poorly paid. And that's because we haven't done anything or nothing meaningful, at least, to increase our productivity. What do I mean by that? Well, largely, I'm going to take hairdressing as an example, because I think it's a bigger problem in hairdressing. But largely, a haircut takes about the same amount of time today as it did five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, maybe 50 years ago. We haven't seen an increase in productivity. There's still only a certain number of haircuts that can be turned out in a day. Now, what I'm not talking about is cutting corners, reducing standards in order to get more people through the door and, you know, turn it into some kind of factory line. When we're talking about elevating experience, that's not going to wash. But I think we need to be looking for ways in our industry that we can get more done efficiently. We should be looking for efficient ways of providing the same service or for getting people results a lot more quickly. And I think that's going to be a huge challenge because I don't think our manufacturers are stepping up in any meaningful way. I don't think they're putting the work into the innovation that we need in order to provide a more efficient service to our customers.

But there are some things that I think we could be doing. I've already mentioned consultation skills. Why are we not streamlining that process? I think there's an awful lot to be gained by doing a quick consultation on a Zoom call, starting to build some rapport with the customer. Start apart from anything. Let's get rid of the tire kickers. When we're talking about certain services, there's always a certain number of people who've got no idea what's involved and no idea what the cost is going to be. And it doesn't seem to matter how much information we put out there. They still come in absolutely clueless and waste our time. A little five minute Zoom call, well, we could get three of those done in 15 minutes. So it's a much more efficient way. By the time people actually come into the salon, we know they're serious. We know they're a good fit. They've already had some advice from us and they are good to go and start spending money. So look for efficiencies. Look for ways that we can get people to a result a lot quicker. We can reduce the amount of time that you take to make money. Let's turn this into a much more productive industry. At the moment, it's way too labour intensive. And I think we need to be looking for opportunities to make more money in the same amount of time. And finally, to that end, actually, and related to that, I do think we need to be looking for ways that we can diversify our income. I see a trend towards smaller business, which is something that's been happening, let's face it, for the last probably 10 years plus, certainly here in the UK. And that's been accelerated as people want to get a better work life balance and more and more people are working from home. And I understand that trend. I'm pleased that not everybody is heading in that direction, but I understand where that trend is coming from. That kicks up two problems for me. The first is inefficiency, because ultimately the most efficient way of working is for everybody to work in the same space. It means that we can tap into things like economies of scale. We can reduce our costs by buying lots and lots of tint for lots and lots of stylists rather than each stylist carrying their own stock, for example. So I do think these smaller businesses lead to inefficiencies. There is an opportunity there, by the way, for somebody to come along. And why not get a group of independent beauty therapists all together so that you've got more buying power with your manufacturers? There's a little idea, a little buying consortium, if you will. The other thing that I think is a worry, though, is we have a lot of people who are very vulnerable in their business, because ultimately as a salon owner and a salon manager with a team, if anything happens to me and I break my leg and I can't work for four weeks.

Well, the wheels will keep turning. There are some things that I can do towards my business, but ultimately my team will keep carrying out service. The doors stay open. Clients still come through the door. We may not be as profitable, but the world is not going to fall apart. If your entire business rests on your shoulders, there is huge vulnerability there. So, of course, we should be ensuring ourselves against awful events. So we should make sure that we've got some kind of flow of income if something means that we can't work. But also, I think we should be looking for opportunities to bring income in that does not rely on us directly carrying out service. And I'm talking about things like putting training programs together, particularly online training programs. And I'm not talking about more and more programs being out there that cover, you know, do a really cheap job of teaching people how to do a service. The days of us falling for the trick of a twenty nine dollar online course that shows you how to become a nail technician in under an hour. It's just not going to wash. It's not good enough anymore. But there will be aspects of your service that you're doing particularly well. So, for example, are you particularly good at the consultation part or are you superb at steering a retail conversation? You could be putting a little training course together for other salon professionals that they could buy. And that doesn't rely on you standing behind a chair carrying out service or carrying out beauty treatments. So we've got a stream of income or perhaps there's training courses that we could be putting together for our customers. Maybe we need to emphasise more in terms of retail. Perhaps we need to expand our reach as far as retail products is concerned beyond the walls of the salon. Perhaps we need to be selling to people who are not our customers. I have one coaching customer over in Ireland who does an amazing business as far as online facials is concerned. So she posts out a kit and then everybody gets together on a Zoom call and carries out that facial together. That means that she's servicing so many customers all at once. But the key to it is they don't need to be her salon customers. They can be anywhere in the world enjoying that experience with her. So look for opportunities in 2025 to bring streams of income into the business, not only to increase your profitability, but to reduce the vulnerability in your business too. Particularly if you're one of these magnificent solopreneurs.

So there we have it, my areas that I think you should be at least building some of them into your New Year's resolutions, your business resolutions for 2025. If you need help to stay on track in the next 12 months, why not reach out to me, Phil at buildyoursalon.com. You know, I love hearing from you guys anyway, and I'd love to be helping you on your path to success through one of my coaching programs. Just seven short days until the next episode of the Build Your Salon podcast. And until then, I wish you a very, very happy New Year. Take care.