Time for Your first team member? Grow a strong salon and Get it right!

You're being brave, you're ready to grow, you're ready to take on your first salon team member. How do we get it right? Hello, hello, hello, my salon friend Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons. Coming in your eyes and ears on YouTube and all the major podcast channels. Why not flick around a little bit? You don't have to look at me if you don't want to. How are we doing? October the 24th, steaming towards the end of the month, steaming towards Christmas. Oh, I do love a good Christmas, don't you? Incidentally, the whole of November is going to be about planning a brilliant festive season in your salon, so look out for the episodes coming through November as well. What are we talking about today, though? Well, we're talking about recruitment and specifically how we can make sure that your first recruit is a triumph, a success in your salon business. And firstly, I'm assuming that you're sure that it's time to recruit. And lots of people get this wrong, actually. They don't really take into account the amount of capacity they've got in the business already. Or they're not very sure about how many team members they need in order to hit the financial goals that they're setting for themselves. And they don't know whether they should be recruiting, how many people they should be recruiting, how many hours they need covered. And I've got a whole mini course on this, in fact. If you reach out to me, phil at buildyoursalon.com, let me have your email address and I'll figure out whether it's open for enrollment. At the moment, it's a free mini course. It walks you through that process step by step so that you know whether you need to recruit and how many people. So I'm assuming that process is done. How do we make sure we get it right when we are recruiting? And I'm also not going to be talking about the recruitment process. We've got podcasts out there talking about that already, the marketing of your vacancy and how we go through that process. But the one thing I will say about the recruitment process is we need to make sure we are definitely not recruiting in haste. It is better for you to be understaffed, even if it means you're not hitting your financial goals. It's much better than it is to be staffed with the wrong person. So in particular, if it's your first recruit, we need to make sure we get this absolutely right. So all those red flags that you're trying to ignore because you haven't had many applicants, all of those little signals that you're getting that things may not be quite right, that bit of gut instinct that's saying, hmm, not sure about this one. Trust it. We've got to make sure we get it right, especially, as I've said, with a small team. The other thing that I think people get wrong when they're recruiting is they take too long to get their expectations clear. So what I would have, in fact, in your job description is a very clear idea of exactly the level of performance you expect from that person.

And I'm talking about targets. So those targets need to be clear before the person even applies for the job, because when they've actually taken the position and they're in, it's too late for you to explain what you expect. And I think in particularly in those early days, those expectations need to be crystal clear. So what I would be doing is having one-to-ones with my team member every week. And I know that can feel a bit too formal when you've only got one team member. Doesn't matter. Start as you mean to go on. Those performance meetings are vitally important for all team members, but particularly in the early days. They need to feel supported. They need coaching towards those results. But you also need absolute clarity on what it is that you want that person to achieve. So you'll be presenting their targets. And I would keep one eye on the prize. I'd be saying, OK, this is the turnover I expect from you in three months' time. But for now, we've got an interim target that I'm coaching you towards. What help do you need? OK, so we're explaining to them that actually this is where we need you to be. There's no surprises. You are going to get there by the end of your probationary period. But for now, this is what we're working on. So they can see those smaller targets as part of a bigger picture. If you need help, if you want more ideas on team performance and performance measures, there's a podcast episode, not too many episodes back, where we break down exactly what targets I'll be setting. So we're making those expectations really clear. In the early days, those targets, in my mind, would be tied to a probationary period. So I'd be giving people a certain amount of time to attain a certain level of performance. And if they don't, well, you've got two choices. You could either extend that probationary period or we could be saying, I'm sorry, this isn't a fit. It's time for us to move on and find somebody else to take your place instead. And I know it feels tough. And I know that you struggle to find applicants in the first place. And I know that you don't feel that there may be other people out there that want to apply for your position. But trust me, we need to hire slowly, fire quickly. And I know that feels callous. But what we need to start to realize is that the people you're bringing into your salon are a business resource. If that resource isn't a great fit to help you achieve your goals overall, then we need to move on. So that probationary period with targets, start as you mean to go on as far as performance management is concerned. Start as you mean to go on as far as the tone of your relationship is concerned.

The relationship that you have with that team member. It's very tempting in a small team to turn into bosom buddies and great friends. It's a mistake. Because at some stage, you might have to turn around and give that person a bit of a bollocking. You might have to turn around and take someone through a disciplinary or capability process. You might have to turn around and sack somebody in the future. And that's going to be a lot harder if you've built that relationship as a friendship rather than a manager-employee situation. The final point that I want to make is one that I see people get wrong again and again and again when they're recruiting, particularly in small teams. And I call it the altitude problem. And the altitude problem is basically an analogy that I draw from airlines, from aircraft. I want you to imagine the amount of energy and momentum it takes to get a plane off the ground and in the sky. They're burning huge amounts of fuel, okay? Nothing's normal until we've reached altitude. Now, that burn, that initial burst of energy, that momentum, doesn't stop until we're at cruising altitude, until we're at that 30-odd thousand feet. And it's the same in your business too. The temptation is as soon as you've got a new team member, you can take your foot off the gas. We can start taking the odd afternoon off or we can stop working the Saturdays or we can stop doing the late nights because we've got an employee to do that now. But I want you to think really carefully about the profit margin you have in the business, about how much extra income needs to come in, how much extra profit needs to come in, in order for us to keep hitting our business goals. Because I promise you, one team member covering your Saturday is not going to do the same for your business as you working it yourself. They've got to cover their wage, your wage, and the profits that you were going to put in the till as well. So it's probably going to take a couple of team members, even if your profit margin is really good, you're probably going to need a couple to cover that shift in order to generate the same amount of profit. So what I see lots of people in the altitude problem doing is getting to 2,000 or 3,000 feet and then taking their foot off the gas and starting to level. And what's going to happen? That plane's going to come straight back down again. Nobody can relax. No one can enjoy the champagne until we are way above the clouds. So get plenty of altitude. Don't stop pushing until we've got to our cruising altitude in your business.

So I hope that's been useful to you. If you've got questions or comments about recruitment or anything else to do with your salon business, reach out. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. You know I love hearing from you. Also reach out with your questions for my November Q&A podcast, which will be coming out in a couple of weeks. I'd love to make sure that I'm hitting the notes in your business too. Just seven short days until I'm coming in your eyes and ears again. And if you can't wait, head over to buildyoursalompodcast.com where you can get an archive of all the previous episodes. Until we speak again, take care. Sit down and see what's going on with the queen of salons. Hair, beauty and more successful tips for business owners. All on Build Your Salon.