3 Skills Successful Salon Owners Have Mastered. And You Can Too!

BY DWIGHT HODGE

The fact that other salon owners have been hugely successful in creating significant profits and, more importantly, having the freedom to live the life they choose means you can too. Those who have gone before you have left clues and a path to follow, and here are 3 skills all successful salon owners have mastered.

Following in their footsteps and developing your skills in these three areas will add 10s, if not 100s, of thousands of dollars to your bottom line.

Leadership Confidence.

Constantly experiencing Leadership anxiety is a fast track to business failure. Unfortunately, you get stuck in your head, continually worrying about what might go wrong, thinking about what you should have done and second-guessing every decision you’ve made or failed to make. When you’re stuck in your head, you’re imprisoned in old ways of thinking and doing without the keys to unlock new perspectives, opportunities or the solutions to old problems that are holding you back.

Leadership confidence is not about having all the answers. It’s about taking steps to develop your leadership capabilities. I know what you’re thinking: that’s great, but how do I flip feeling’ leadership anxiety’ to living with ‘leadership confidence’? It all starts with you!

You need the right mindset. That’s not to say you don’t already have it; for some, it’s a matter of fine-tuning. When you have the right mindset, your perspective shifts. You see challenges, not problems. You find solutions, not roadblocks, and focus on what can be done instead of what can’t.

You lead confidently, communicate effectively, and create a strong team culture where you all come together as one and achieve success.

Know Your Numbers

WOW! Talk about overwhelming. Not only do many salon owners fear the numbers, but they dread the thought of even looking at them. And let’s be honest: when you don’t understand the numbers, do you feel smart, in control and like you know what you’re doing as a business owner? NO WAY! Adding up the daily take is enough to send some salon owners bonkers.

For others, it’s P&Ls, bank statements, bookkeeping, payroll, targets, hourly sales targets, bonuses, tax, superannuation, and the list is neverending...

You don’t need to know, understand, or memorise every number in your business. However, you need to understand the critical numbers that give you a snapshot of how your business and team are tracking.

They are the three to five key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to your business. KPIs are like the dashboard of your car. I don’t know how the engine in my car works.

However, my dashboard lets me see the car is running well. I take my car to a mechanic if the engine warning light comes on. It’s the same with your business; instead of a mechanic, you have a bookkeeper, accountant, mentors and maybe a coach.

You can look at general industry benchmarks, yet every business is unique, and you should calculate what is right for your salon to maximise efficiency and profit.

Business Success

Most salon businesses fall into one of two categories when they fail to grow.

1. Low or no client growth. Your regular clients love you and always come back. Yet attracting new clients is a real struggle. You want a flood or a constant flow, but you barely have a trick. Not only has your client growth stagnated, but so has the drive of your team and your ability to lead and motivate them.

2. You’re too busy and overwhelmed to move forward. I know it sounds ridiculous, but how can you be too busy to grow? Well, salon owners can get caught on the hamster wheel of life. You get busy being busy. Your hamster wheel is spinning at a rate of knots, but you’re getting nowhere.

When you’re stuck, urgent tasks after urgent tasks keep getting thrown at you. Your to-do list is ever-increasing, and you can’t see a way out.

When you’re that busy, everything else falls apart, not to mention the important tasks and responsibilities you should attend to as a salon owner.

Stepping back and prioritising time for important tasks allows you the time and space to create the business you’ve always wanted and deserve. The important work leads to a more robust culture, more effective team members and the ability to delegate tasks and responsibilities to them.

Giving you freedom while you work less and achieve greater profits. With ‘Leadership Confidence’ and ‘Knowing Your Numbers’, you’ll elevate your team’s performance and achieve ‘Business Success’.

You’ll have the right mindset and perspective to lead your team and navigate your business to success. With leadership confidence comes empowering and effective communication. You will feel heard and listened to and empower and motivate your team to be accountable, effective, and engaged with their growth and development.

Knowing your numbers isn’t about memorising or understanding every number. It’s about knowing the right numbers to focus on and monitor to grow your team and business.

Mastering these 3 skills and creating clear goals and simple strategies to achieve them, coupled with effective feedback and accountability conversations, means you will develop a strong culture, an engaged team, and a thriving business. Now it’s time to take ACTION!

Dwight Hodge is an experienced leadership coach and mentor. His career spans over two decades as a business owner, company director and coach. He founded The Creative Leader, a leadership coaching practice that assists salon owners in propelling their leadership capabilities and business to the next level.

Dwight is a salon owner, a member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), holds qualifications in Business and Personal Coaching, is a Master Coach of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from the Victorian Collage of the Arts (VCA) dwight@dwighthodge.com