3 mins
HOW TO INVEST IN YOUR FUTURE SUCCESS
Smith England salon owner Phil Smith explains why going back to basics is the secret to ensuring the future success of your hairdressing business
1
Offer student discounts for cuts
Use social media to reach your target market. When I worked at TONI&GUY, we found giving students a discount would lead to their mums coming in to see us after they saw their son or daughter’s cool new look and paying full price for a cut and colour. We’re trying this method at the moment at my salon in Salisbury. We’re offering a student discount on cuts and it’s working. We’re seeing more students than ever before, and we hope that will encourage their mums and dads to start using the salon again too.
If you target one element of your business for discounts such as cuts it’s a win-win. The students benefitting from the discount will be happy, plus it will allow your staff to be more creative. It will also give your team fresh content for their social media channels if they’re savvy and use the opportunity to take plenty of images.
SHUTTERSTOCK
2
Invest in education
If you have a junior or apprentice who is being paid £200 a week I would suggest paying them £150 a week and putting the remaining money into a fund for them. At the end of the year, you will then have enough money to pay for an education course that will really help them in the long-run and will give them the knowledge and training they need to progress.
I believe if we can help our juniors and apprentices to get through their training more quickly it will help them to be inspired and work hard for it. Nobody wants to clean toilets for three years – they want to do real training as soon as possible. I’ve started doing this with my younger team so their training will last 18 months maximum. The apprentices will do a year on the salon floor and then they will get to experience a great course in London that will give them that buzz and excitement about working in our industry.
3
Inspire your team
Photoshoots are an easy way to get your team excited about hairdressing again. You don’t need to spend silly amounts of money on a photoshoot – research photographers who are cost effective and models who are keen to do test shoots. Once one person in the team tries a photoshoot, the positivity and excitement will spread across the team and it will get everyone feeling creative and motivated again.
4
Speak to young people in your community
It’s important to go into schools within your local community and offer to do talks about hairdressing as a career path. My son, for example, went into three schools and gave the students a career talk. He found nine people were really interested in hairdressing and one of them has now started working in hairdressing – you only need one person to be inspired and want to join your team to make it worthwhile for your business.
5
Learn to delegate
I believe the most successful salon owners are those who have learned the best ways to delegate. This will give you extra time to look closely at the experience your client receives when they come to your reception desk. Consider how their coffee is served, if the stylist is talking enough to the client, are the magazines they’re reading right for them or would they prefer to read from an app where you can download magazines? There’s a huge amount going on within your business every second of every day but if you’re too busy working on your own clients, you’ll never know – you’ll just be oblivious to it. You need to know what’s going on in the staff room. If you have issues within the team or discontentment you need to nip those things in the bud as otherwise it’s game over.
Equally, if you’re working on 20 clients each day, you’ll be too tired to focus on your business. It’s taken me 35 years to realise this and I’m always busy. I’m always working hard and I love work but working hard for your business doesn’t have to mean working on clients all day every day.