How To Be a Successful Salon Owner: 15 Useful Tips

Being a successful salon owner seems too complicated for you? Well, let me clarify this.

While working as a beauty professional in someone else’s salon is stress-free and easy, owning your own salon comes with lots of advantages, despite the responsibilities.

All salon owners know that there are many things that go into running a business. From providing great customer service to marketing your salon effectively or analyzing the market, there are a lot of tasks to juggle. But with some productive habits and an organized mind, you can easily deal with all these tasks and enjoy doing what you love.

In this blog post, we will discuss how to be a successful salon owner. By following these tips, you can be sure to run a successful business and to own one of the top salons in town! Keep reading to discover the secret ingredients.

1. Stop overthinking

Overthinking is your enemy, especially if you want to become a successful salon owner. 

Constantly thinking about things that you can’t change or that are not important to you may become a problem in the long term. If you want to be productive and get things done in your business, you must think strategically and be efficient. 

Anyway, there are times when you can feel overwhelmed, and that’s perfectly ok. The best solution is to meditate or engage in activities like gym, running, or riding. But definitely avoid staying alone and overthinking problems that don’t even exist. Let people help you and communicate; that’s the key!

2. Delegate your tasks

You will arrive at a point where you can’t handle everything you have to do. In this case, you’d better grow your staff and delegate some tasks. 

You can’t create the perfect salon business if you do everything yourself. Let each team member do their job and learn to trust people. If you are a control freak and you need to know everything that happens, a great solution can be to have weekly meetings and create your business agenda together. 

3. Build a trust-worthy team

Having a salon staff that you can trust and that you enjoy spending time with is essential. To be a successful salon owner, you must hire motivated and enthusiastic people to work with. 

If you need more staff members in your salon, you can run some interview sessions to discuss creativity, their work history, life values, goals, etc. Also, to ensure you have the best people in your team, you can ask a human resource specialist to help you with some reviews or a work background for each person coming to an interview. Why is that so important? Because both salon owners and professionals usually spend more than 8 hours a day at work, meaning that you spend the biggest part of your life together. It’s worth knowing that.

4. Automatize tasks to save time

To be successful, you need to invest in making your business run better and look more professional. And with a minimum investment, we’ve got a solution that will save you a lot of time. 

Goldie is a salon scheduling software that allows you to manage appointments, let clients book online, check your financial reports, manage your staff, collect payments online or contactless, take deposits, and so many more! 

Now only think about how much time you could save by booking your appointments with such a tool. Not to mention that your salon no-shows will go to almost zero, thanks to the message reminders sent to clients. Ready to automatize your salon tasks and be more productive? Download Goldie from the App Store if you’re using an Apple device or Google Play if you have an Android device. Life has never been easier for salon professionals! 

5. Take online payments

As I mentioned, this app allows you to take payments online from clients. Why is that important? Because you’ll have multiple payment methods in your salon, which offer more comfort to your clients. Plus, by taking deposits for each appointment, your salon employees will ensure they don’t have empty time slots in their daily program. Setting up payment processing will take only a few minutes and is the perfect way to secure your income and become a successful salon owner. 

6. Invest in promoting your salon

Do you think that if your business is already running smoothly, you don’t need marketing anymore? That’s not true. Promoting your salon is vital for you as a successful salon owner. Here you can find some practical marketing ideas for salons. You have everything you need to promote your business at a low cost with sure results!

7. Personal branding is essential 

To be a successful salon owner, you have to be an example both for your employees and your salon clients. Thus, personal branding is essential, besides your salon branding. By taking care of your appearance and behavior, everybody will notice you, know you, and want to be like you. 

To create your personal branding, you must be an inspiration for others, tell a story and be genuine. Here are some golden rules of personal branding you don’t want to miss. 

8. Have a healthy lifestyle

Taking care of your business requires time, effort and attention, and you can’t do all of these things if your life is a mess. 

So, you need to improve some aspects of your life before taking your business to the next level. In that case, you should consider eating healthier, exercising more, sleeping earlier, and meditating daily. After you start doing it, you’re ready to rock the beauty industry!

9. Networking is the key

All successful salon owners have a solid networking base. Success comes from people knowing about your business, people promoting your business and people speaking about your business. And how can you do that without constantly expanding your network? 

Even if you think you’re not the most extroverted person or if you feel too tired, going to events in your industry (workshops, conferences, business lunches) is crucial for your business success. The people you meet there can be a great opportunity to develop yourself and let people know about your wonderful salon business. 

10. Analyze the market

To be a successful salon owner, you must know what other popular salons do, and then improve your strategy, and be original. Seeing what other high-rated salons in your area do and why they are successful is a big plus. Not only will you see what they offer, but you’ll also notice what’s missing from them and implement it in your salon.

So, what are you waiting for? Start analyzing your competition and do your best to be better than anyone out there.

11. Stop procrastinating

This is probably the 21st century’s biggest problem. People are more and more likely to procrastinate, and they don even notice it. 

According to statistics, procrastination affects around 15%-20% of adults, which increases greatly in students, where some 80%-90% engage in it to some level.  

Social media, TV, and the daily rush are all factors that take our attention away from the things we should focus on. To get over it, you can set small goals related to your focus, read more, be more organized, stick to your schedule, and remove all distractions. This is a significant step to begin with if you want to be a successful salon owner. 

12. Keep investing in education 

Education is key when you want to be a market leader. In the beauty industry, trends change frequently, and new techniques appear monthly. So, you’ll need to stay up to date to become a successful salon owner. 

Occasionally going to training and workshops with your salon employees will help you learn new skills, know more people, and make your salon staff feel valued and appreciated at work. So, think about participating in educational activities with your team, learning the latest beauty trends together. 

13. Associate your salon with exclusive brand products

Associating your name with professional products will be a huge advantage for your salon. Some people go to certain salons just because they prefer some brands, and if you partner up with a big brand in the industry, you’re most likely to have more clients in your salon,

Brands like Kerastase, Olaplex, Nioxin, Londa, Wella, Opi, Ghd, or Moroccanoil are just some of the ones that make women go crazy about a salon. So if you’re using one of these products (or other big brands) make sure that people know about what you’re using in your salon. They will probably come for the brand first, but after that, they’ll fall in love with your salon services too!

14. Take advantage of technology

Using technology to your advantage will not only ease your work but will also make you look better. 

For example, you can use Alexa or Google Home in your salon for orders (to turn on/off the light, play music, tell you the news, schedule a new appointment, tell you your program, etc.). 

Also, a smartwatch can be ideal if you want to fast check your notifications or messages without taking your phone. 

15. Watch your finances

Keeping track of your financial reports can become a headache sometimes. But if you use Goldie to manage your appointments, you will see your reports directly in the app for a day, a week, a month, or a year. Plus, you will be able to see the clients who spend the most in your salon, your top-grossing services, and many more financial reports that can help you become a successful salon owner.

Conclusions

To take your business to the next level, you must start with personal changes like investing in your education, being more productive, and focusing more on your actions. Then, work on the small details that make a difference in your industry, like offering a unique salon experience, having high-quality products and services, having an excellent salon staff, and automatizing your salon with salon software. When you do all these things, you’ll become one of the most successful salon owners, and it will be worth all your efforts!