F E A R – The Four Letter Word That Can Fuel Your Salon Success
Thought Process: Discover what other success salon owners are doing and apply it to your business.
Do you ever fear your hair salon won’t get enough clients? Do you sometimes worry your clientele will be pulled away by another salon and you won’t be able to make ends meet?
Whether you’re renting a booth or running your own shop, all business owners go through ups and downs. Some days it seems like it’s either Feast or Famine –
The Feast: There are days where you are pulling your hair out (!!!) because you have so many clients calling you for appointments and walk ins wanting a hair cut, a chemical treatment, or to get some highlights done. You don’t want to disappoint your regulars and keep them waiting too long for services… they may go elsewhere!
The Famine: Then you have days when you can hear the crickets chirping outside, as you have your shop’s door open to let some air in and get the stillness out.
Now, you may be asking yourself, “How do I handle these ups and downs?”
ACTION STEPS:
When times get tough, here are 4 ways to turn FEAR into FUEL to keep your business running smoothly:
Focus
Focus on your goals – What do you want your future to look like? If you haven’t set any up yet, take a minute right now to choose short, medium and long-term business goals for yourself. Write down on paper your goals for the next month for short-term, the next year for medium-term and the next 5 years for long-term.
Set goals to achieve such as:
• How many new clients do you want to gain?
• How many regulars do you want to have?
• How often should they visit?
• How many products should they buy?
• What hours do you want to keep?
Make sure you are specific and detailed about what you want. For example, it’s not enough just to say, “I want to get more business.” Instead, write something like “I want to attract 5 more regular clients to my business within the next month.” Be THAT specific.
How will you attract those additional clients? Choose ONE method from these Suite Secrets, and make it work for you.
Breaking down your tasks into manageable chunks is a great way to handle things day-to-day. This will help you to achieve your goals, making it easier to accomplish each one.
Expect
Expect to achieve your goals. Be realistic! Otherwise, you will end up disappointing yourself.
Even if you don’t get the 5 regular clients that you were looking for, check how many clients you did get. One more client is better than none, right? Celebrate your wins and you’ll attract more into your life.
Absorb
Absorb the feedback you get from clients, whether it’s positive or
negative. Positive is, of course, easy to absorb, but the negatives are key to focus on.
Ask good questions, listen carefully and fine-tune your service. That will help you to keep clients happy and build the successful salon business you are destined to create.
Reach
Reaching your goals is the secret to feeling fulfilled and successful. If you exceed your goals, CELEBRATE! It’s important to celebrate your wins and set new goals for yourself.
If you come close to reaching them, give your self some credit for the progress you’ve made. Then check back to see what you could do better next time to bring out the best in yourself.
Keep doing this over and over again, until you feel you’ve gotten into a rhythm. These positive habits will becomes second nature, as natural as working on your client’s hair.
Keeping your chair full and giving great, personalized service – consistently – is challenging enough! Running a hair salon becomes overwhelming when you add in all of the nitty gritty details of running a traditional salon, such as overhead, unexpected maintenance, keeping your professional liability insurance up to date, managing other hairstylists… The list goes on and on.