You Built a Treadmill, Not a Business

If your salon business feels like it's being held together by toupee tape, caffeine, and crossed fingers, this one's for you. You're not failing, you're just doing too bloody much, and in today's episode, we're stripping back the chaos and giving you space to breathe. Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends, my gorgeous salon warriors. Welcome back to the Build Your Salon podcast, the final instalment of Mindset May. We've talked money, we've talked confidence, we've talked about owning your worth, but today I'm going to let you off the hook a bit. We're going to talk about something just a little bit softer. It feels like I've been ranting at you for weeks and weeks, my darlings, so we're going to look at something that could change how you work every single day. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope. How's business? Reach out and let me know. I'd love to hear how this year is panning out for you. I think after a very, very shaky start, people are starting to feel a little bit better about business across April and May, and I hope that's the story in your salon business too. So what are we talking about today? We're talking about stripping things back because the truth is that your business probably isn't broken. It just feels that way because you're doing too bloody much, darling. And I want to talk about the quiet kind of stress, the kind that builds up over time, the admin piling up, the phone that doesn't stop, the client who just wants a quick fringe trim squeezing in between double booked appointments. It's not one big moment that's going to break you. It's the relentless drip, drip, drip of too many things on your plate. So if you've been feeling like you're stuck in a constant sprint, your uncle feels here for you. You don't need to be holding everything together with duct tape and dry shampoo. This episode's for you and it's going to feel like a big, deep exhale. Because the truth is, and I need you to hear this, generally, if you're a business owner, you are not lazy or disorganised or bad at business. You are overwhelmed, overloaded. Most of the salon owners that I speak to day in and day out in my salon business, coaching business aren't failing. They're just exhausted. They're spinning way too many plates and wonder why a few of them are smashing to the ground. You're replying to DMs at midnight. You're mixing colour while you're rebooking three clients and mentally writing next month's email campaign while folding towels. It's not your fault, but I'm afraid we need to unpack some stuff because industry has taught you, in fact, the self-improvement business has taught you that hustle equals success.

And we were all fed this absolute BS that we need to be hustling and grinding and 10x, that if you're not constantly busy, constantly stretched, you're doing something wrong. But I'm here to tell you, hustle is just not the vibe, darling. Simplicity is. There is an elegance to simplicity. And the most elegant solution tends to be the most profitable too. I don't want you doing more. I want you doing less because it doesn't matter how talented you are, how clever your marketing is. If you're always knackered, your business is going to hit a ceiling. There's a myth of working harder and harder. And I get it. There are times when we need to lean into hard work. There are times when we need to hustle and grind just a bit harder. Usually, that's at the beginning of our journey. And when we're first opening the salon doors, yeah, we stay later than we should do and squeeze a few extra people in. But we've got a whole salon to pay for. But we get trapped into that. We wait until things are going to settle down. And that moment never seems to come. Because the harder you work, the more the chaos seems to grow. And you become the crutch for your own broken systems. By working harder and hustling harder, actually, we prop up a salon business system that isn't performing in the way that it should. And we've talked about systemization way back in April too. So let me ask you this. If you were hit by the flu tomorrow and needed a week off, would your salon survive or would everything fall to bits? What if it wasn't a week off? What if it was a fortnight or a month or a quarter? And if the answer to that question makes your stomach drop, that's your sign. And let me tell you that hustling harder and burning yourself out is not a badge of honour. What we've got there is a red flag which is waving in your face. And you deserve better. Because the truth is that we've swallowed this pill that harder work equals success and money. And let me tell you, well, I don't need to tell you, you know, out in the big wide world, there are lots and lots of people working very, very hard who have no tangible level of success and no money either.

There are billions of people in this world who work really, really hard but have no level of material success. Equally, there are people in the world, quite a few people in the world, actually, who don't work very hard at all and enjoy a pretty high level of success. And I'm lucky enough to count myself in that number too. I bet I work a lot less hours, a lot fewer hours than you think I do. And I do all right. Thank you very much. I drive a nice car, have nice holidays and live a reasonably decent level of, you know, reasonably high level of lifestyle. So where's that chaos coming from? Well, it doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes from trying to be everything to everyone. It comes from full service menus that offer every single thing from beard trims to nail art and everything in between. And it also comes from having no clear boundaries. So treating your clients in a way that means they can expect to get a reply to a text message on your day off because you felt guilty or responding to DMs at midnight because that's what they're used to. It comes from doing it all yourself because no one else will quite do it the way that you want it done. And it comes from being reactive instead of proactive. It comes from reacting instead of planning. Panic posting on Instagram because it's been a week since you shared everything, anything rather. And it also comes from good intentions. You want to help. You want to say yes. You want to be available. You want to do a great job for your clients. And before you know it, your calendar is stacked and your energy is gone. Well, remember back in April we talked about niching. Well, that wasn't just about marketing. Niching also clears the clutter. It focuses your energy, focuses your systems and it focuses your branding. So simplifying isn't about being lazy. It's about being strategic. It's about stripping back what doesn't matter and choosing what matters most so that you can do it brilliantly with love and with energy. Are you ready for some predictable in your salon business? Do you want to know the secret to steady salon income? I'm Phil Jackson, your queen of salons, your undisputed queen of salon memberships. And I've helped hundreds of salon owners just like you turn their businesses from a very spiky takings graph into something much more steady and predictable.

My Memberships Made Easy program will help you stop chasing new clients and wasting your time on social media, turning your existing clients into more profitable raving fans who support your business even in the quiet times. My proven membership framework gives you everything you need. Ready to use membership templates, pricing strategies that actually work, even scripts for selling your memberships by email and in person. The program's backed by my signature 90-day no quibble guarantee. Take the program, take the bonus coaching call I'm including, and if you're not ready to launch your Memberships program at the end, I will coach you myself until you are. If you're ready to offer your clients something truly exceptional, ready to build that predictable stream of salon income, head to queenofmemberships.com forward slash podcast for a very exclusive rate on my best-selling program. Head to queenofmemberships.com forward slash podcast and let's get started, shall we? All on build your salon. So how do we know when we're in the deep of the doing too much trap? Well, if you're catching up but never ahead, if your to-do list just rolls from day to day to day, if there's no white space in your day, even five minutes to take a poo and have a breath, if you haven't done anything creative in months because you're too busy keeping the wheels turning, or if you took that week off, everything is going to come to a shuddering halt, well, that's not a business anymore, that's a treadmill. You've built yourself a job, my darling, and it's time to get your head out of the sand and start looking elsewhere for the answers. You might even be successful on the outside, fully booked, waitlist only, but in the business you're quietly drowning. It's time to nudge a shift in gears before you burn out completely. So what if we can flip that script? What if the growth doesn't come from adding more but from subtracting? So I've got some questions I want you to ask yourself about your business. What could you delete from your price card? What are those services that you just don't like doing? Or that weekly offer that no one seems to buy? Or that dusty retail line that no one ever touches? Or maybe even it's a client. Yes, I dared to say it. You know the ones, they're always late, always draining on your energy,

never happy with what you do. Is there anybody that we can delete from your roster? Anyone that we can price out of what you offer? Or what about delegation? Is there anything that a team member could take over? Could somebody else be doing the stock takes? Could someone else be handling your social media for you? And delegation doesn't have to be internal. It could be external. We could be hiring somebody in. Or perhaps we could geek out a little bit with your Uncle Phil. You know how much I love a bit of IT. Is there something we could be automating? Some stuff that we could be systemising in the background. Or is there something that we could template? Is there something we can copy and paste from last time and get it scheduled ahead? Or is there something that we're doing that takes our attention, but it doesn't actually need to be done now? Are we paying energetically into an idea that doesn't need any action yet? Is there something we can kick into the long grass, take away from our 2025 goals and push it into 2026 without really impacting the business? Your to-do list is not a to-do today list. It's just a list to remind you of stuff so that it doesn't fall off your radar. But it's okay for those things to be on the radar for 12 months' time. So write out the tasks that you do every week. Circle the ones that actually move your business forward. And the rest, well, that's where we're going to start simplifying. Remember, clean systems, clear roles, simple offerings. That's not boring, darling. That's freedom. You have permission to stop, to stop overcomplicating, to stop measuring your worth by how exhausted you are and how many hats you wear, to stop pretending that you can do it all and should be doing it all without any consequence. Because next month, oh my dear, we're going to need a little bit of time reclaimed because we're going to be investing some of that time in making life even simpler. We're going to kick off something very special in June. And next week, I'm going to be bringing you five things you never have to do again in your salon, thanks to AI. We're not going to let the robots take over, but we're going to start reclaiming some of your time now that we've reclaimed a little bit of your mental space. Going to automate some of that repetitive stuff so that you can focus on what actually makes you money and you actually enjoy doing. But none of that tech magic can happen if your house is still on fire. We've got to put the fires out and get our foundations firm before we can build a staggering, stunning salon empire.

Simplify now so we can automate later. So here's your challenge for the next week. I want you to pick one thing, however big or small, that you're going to stop doing this week. And then you're going to pick something else because that one thing you were going to do anyway, darling. Don't try and kid your Uncle Phil. I've been around the block a few times, you know, my love. So choose a second thing as well and cancel that service you hate or delegate those stock orders or stop answering your DMs at midnight or sack that bloody draining client that you just can't bear. And then DM me, let me know or tag me at philjacksoncoach. I'd love to see what you're letting go of and I'll be shouting out some of you brave simplifiers in our June episodes. Remember, you're not broken. You're just doing too much. And now you know how to fix it. So just seven short days until I'm coming in your ears again. In the meantime, if you would like to be a guest on a future episode of the Build Your Salon podcast, reach out and let me know. phil at buildyoursalon.com is my email address. You know I love hearing from my salon owner friends anyway. And until next week, 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.