Do You Take Days Out to focus on the business?

Two salon owners discuss how they dedicate time to their salons

YES

“Some may see taking time out of the business as a luxury, but it’s amazing how after a long weekend or a few days change of scenery, I am refuelled and bursting with ideas. Ever since the early days of running a salon, one day a week has been devoted to business. It took discipline to stick to that, but it has paid off. On those days, it’s not about clients or day-to-day details; it’s longer-term, foundation-building tasks that take priority. You need to get off the salon floor and find a space where you can be uninterrupted.

Having the confidence to do this relies on a solid team. We’re fortunate to have a reputation for having a loyal and highly successful team. Everyone is home-grown and we’re proud to have offered careers to so many budding, local hairdressers and beauty therapists. Preserving that time, for teaching or focusing on continuous training, has been a fundamental part of that success. The payback is that we can trust them to keep the business in safe hands whether we’re there or not.

At the start of every year, we take time away to discuss plans for the year ahead, establish some creative goals and plan what the business priorities will be. If you don’t carve out the time, mundane tasks take over and you end up never focusing on development and growth. The key to your time away is to spend it wisely. Whether that’s taking things to the next level or switching off for a day, you’ll come back fired up and more productive.”

MARK LEESON, OWNER MARK LEESON, MANSFIELD

NO

“When you run a busy salon, you don’t just work ‘in’ the business, you constantly work ‘on’ the business. It’s not an added extra that you need to step back to do. Big picture stuff like streamlining, building a strategy, analysing your output and refining operations happens every day. In fact, it happens almost every minute of every day.

My biggest issue is that taking time ‘away’ from the business has an implication for productivity. In a salon environment, so much of what we do takes place on the shop floor. There are lots of operational demands involved such as managing inventory and scheduling staff shifts, to overseeing daily finances. Attempting to compress these responsibilities into a single day of focused attention is like trying to fit an entire makeover into a 30-minute time slot - it's simply not realistic.

Rather than waiting for a designated ‘business day’, get into the mindset of continuously working at it. Allocate small pockets of time to reflect on operational challenges, brainstorm new ideas, or analyse your performance metrics. Much of it comes down to time management. For me, blocking off an hour or two a day is always going to be more productive than a day or a week at a time.

What I would say is that holidays are sacred. It’s vital that you build in these breaks for your own sanity. Perhaps you use them as a chance to do some creative thinking - that's when some of my best breakthroughs have happened. Whole days out to focus? I’m not so sure”

PHIL SMITH, OWNER SMITH ENGLAND