Create a Rewarding Business

Create a Create a Rewarding Business Rewarding Business

Both Financially and Emotionally

By Shanna Moll, Owner, Shanna Moll Studios, Austin, Texas

Have you ever thought, “How can I be working 10-12 hour days, have so many wonderful clients, be bringing so much money in, and still feel like I’m treading water as fast as I can?”

That’s what was happening at Shanna Moll Studio four years ago. Since then we’ve turned things around with a few easy steps any owner can follow.

First, let’s understand what had happened. After a life-changing trip to Israel, I was inspired to add nonsurgical hair replacement to my already full mainstream hair business, which I’ve since had to let go.

I believe God has a hand in everything I do and gives me purpose on a daily basis. Soon after my trip, I received some training in long hair bonding, loved it, and knew it was an untapped part of our industry that I wanted to explore. I decided to move from a private suite into a 1,600-square-foot space that I designed to feel like a spa. I wanted my clients to feel like they were treating themselves by getting their hair done. The business was booming, clients were loving their hair, and I felt great about changing people’s lives.

The problem was I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I am an artist and thought I had done everything right as I expanded into

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hair replacement. I designed a beautiful salon, hired a CPA and bookkeeper, a publicist, and an apprentice and receptionist. I built relationships with vendors I trusted. The more people learned about the nonsurgical hair replacement services I was providing, the busier I got. But I never had enough money to pay all my bills at the end of every month.

After a year in my new space, I realized things needed to change. My receptionist didn’t want to work on Saturdays and wanted unlimited time off to travel. My apprentice was frustrated every time things changed in the salon as they did often because we were growing so much. I loved being with my clients but was frustrated with the business side of things.

Fortunately, I was able to reconnect with Jeni Rosen, the former principal of my children’s school, who had returned to Austin after three years away. I not only trusted her, but she had a business background, had been following what I was doing, and wanted to be involved. Together, we analyzed everything I was doing and had created and implemented several changes that allowed us to expand the business and grow our team.

I realized there are several things any owner can do to avoid some of the mistakes I made and create an emotionally and financially rewarding business.

My Top 6 Tips:

1. Plan for the long term: Have enough money

banked to cover expenses for six months, anticipate business growth, and design your space to accommodate more than you expect. Be sure to build a good size lab and storage space. This is crucial as you have more clients in hair systems and need space to properly clean, store, color, and prepare for appointments.

2. Have a scheduled monthly meeting with

outside professionals: Ask questions and make sure your advertising, marketing, bookkeeper and CPA provide you with detailed reports on what they are doing and a monthly profit and loss statement and balance sheet. Advertising and marketing people need guidance and most people don’t understand the reports bookkeepers and CPAs provide, so ask every question you can think of to understand how much revenue you are generating and exactly where the money is being spent. Keep asking until you understand. This way you can make adjustments if needed, and they almost always are.

3. Have professional financing: Use a service like

Care Credit or AdvanceCare Card for clients who need financing. Try not to finance yourself. In the beginning, I was so happy to give people hair and was allowing them to pay it off over several months. This was wonderful for the clients, but I never had enough money in the bank to pay the bills. Now I always get half down and the balance through a credit service.

4. Hire and train support people: Look for people

who are great at things that are challenging for you. Make sure you hire people who want to learn and grow themselves. Hair replacement is a different side of the industry emotionally and you need staff who truly have helping personalities. Build programs to support and reward staff by finding out what matters to them and how they learn best. Provide opportunities for handson learning right away, along with written materials, and use mistakes as learning opportunities. I also offer a retirement plan and health insurance to my team along with quarterly bonuses.

5. Always keep up: Continue educating yourself on new trends, techniques, and products. Include your staff so they feel empowered and can adapt when needed. There are many online learning opportunities and these have been perfected during our pandemic and are less expensive to access than having your whole team travel to conferences. But the conferences are finally coming back and are amazing team-building and learning opportunities.

6. Don’t try to do everything: It is important for

salon owners to understand that to build a successful business where you can also have a personal life you need to surround yourself with people who know the things you don’t. Just because you are a great artist and give wonderful service, that doesn’t mean you have the knowledge and skills to run a successful business. Hire the right people to support you and always ask questions and continue your own learning. Don’t just trust professionals to do the right things.

In the past four years, I have been blessed to be able to increase revenue by 500% while keeping profits at 30%, develop a team of six people who are supported both emotionally and financially, have hundreds of happy clients all while being able to enjoy life outside of the salon.