We know that opening a new Salon can be challenging at the
best of times, in fact so challenging that it is a proven fact that roughly 1
in 3 small business fail within the first 2 years of opening. Which is exactly
why we have come up with our very own Salon Bible for all you newbies out there.
Something you can rely on to guide you through to an exciting, successful
Salon!First of all, you need to make sure that your salon looks the best it can be; inside and out!
This doesn’t necessarily mean splashing the cash on luxurious
interior décor but instead, especially in the beginning; focus on the
cleanliness and marketing of your new salon. A mistake new salon owners often
make is spending their needed cash on overly-priced luxurious furniture which
can be bought later on when the salon is well established and booming with
revenue. As for the outside, make sure it's always clean of litter and make use of free marketing by advertising what you offer on posters in the window. Top tip - Make offers and lots of them in the early days of your Salon opening. This will entice clients in and encourage re-booking to keep the revenue flowing! In the beginning; limit your budget and spend it wisely. Have a look
at the cash you have available to spend on establishing the salon and
set a reasonable limit for each important factor. Remember, you need to spend a
large amount of the budget on the marketing of your new salon because if your
possible clientele aren't aware that you even exist, how will you generate a
sufficient revenue? And speaking of marketing, make sure you prepare in advance for
the opening of your Salon and begin to promote it at least 3 weeks prior to
opening.
A marketing plan is fundamental to a successful salon.
Essentially, a marketing
plan for the year would be ideal. However, if you’re running out of time,
create a marketing plan for quarterly periods. For example, Jan-March and
April-June etc. Make time behind the scenes to really work on these marketing
plans and ensure there are no gaps. Once you’ve completed your marketing plan
you will feel much better and prepared walking into your salon on the official
opening day. You can find tips and tricks on how to create the perfect
marketing plan here - http://ow.ly/m4AW30hFhhF.
Work on it, not just in it.
Leadership is the very foundation to heading for a successful
salon. You need to lead the way and guide the salon through the good times and
the bad times. A common error in Salon Start ups is thinking you constantly
need to be in the salon and do the most work inside of it. Wrong! Yes, being in
the Salon and being familiar with the clients is important as it helps with
customer retention but what goes on behind the scenes is what keeps your Salon
running! What I’ve found and what the majority will agree with me on is the
fact that I tend to find a Salon with active social media pages presenting good
content will always be more trustworthy than a Salon that doesn’t. “Good
content” includes a variety of posts, blogs, tips, competitions, offer
advertisement along with well-advertised opening times, updated price lists, and
services that the Salon has to offer. Additionally, reviews play a big part of
your social media compilation. They give potential clients an insight into the
quality of service you give and places a level of trust into the business - meaning the more good reviews you get, the more clients you will get! Our
system provides a feature allowing you to link your Facebook review page directly
to our marketing section, entitling you to send automated text messages with a
friendly reminder to review your Salon 2 days or so after their appointment.
We understand that all this may be a lot to take in, but once
you’re on the right track and your business is booming… all the effort you’ve
put in to ensure your Salon is successful will seem minuscule!
Perhaps booking onto a management course will help you get a
better understanding of what it takes to be a successful business owner or a
cheaper method of doing this would be to shadow a salon owner for a day, take
notes and ask if you could occupy your time with some of the owner’s main responsibilities
of running the salon and ask for some feedback afterwards. Lastly, speak to
lots of new and old entrepreneurs and ask them for tips and advice, what they
would have done differently and what they did successfully. Following all this you
should be good to go and well on your way to establishing your Salon in the
very best way possible!
Good luck!
Salon Tracker x
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