Five Tips To Beat the Overwhelm As A Salon Owner By Kara Lehmann

Beauty salons work hard to make countless faces look refreshed and confident. Behind the cosy environment, lavish ambiance, and personalised services are business owners who have to balance the needs of their clients and employees daily.

Beauty entrepreneurs also have to get creative in navigating through customer engagement and sales amid the regulations imposed under the new normal.

I can remember days when I had my salon where I feel so overwhelmed, I wanted to just throw it all in and run away. Overwhelm can cause stress, it can steal away our passion and love for our business but there is a way to move through it. Business doesn’t have to be all hustle and grind. You can make your business work for you! And I’m going to so you how.

OVERWORK: ADDRESSING THE MAIN PAIN POINT

Personal time is one of the things that many business owners sacrifice to achieve success. This means giving up the 9-5 schedule and, to a certain extent, being flexible or spontaneous with plans. Competition can be fierce, pressuring entrepreneurs to pour plenty of hours building something they can be proud of. There will always seem to be one more thing to do: another client to attend to or another employee issue to address. Thus, entrepreneurs have to learn to seize every chance to relax, sleep, and spend time with their loved ones. Without an effective business and staffing plan, business owners might end up trying to do everything themselves. Physical and mental fatigue can negatively affect the quality of service. Being overwhelmed also leads to early burnout.

FACTORS FUELLING THE OVERWHELM

So many things demand your attention as beauty business owners. Which of these factors get you caught up in the overwhelm?

Control

Founder reliance can naturally result when you and a handful of people invest your all to see a business take off. As a fledgling business, you may fear the possible effects of mistakes on your brand reputation and overhead. But being afraid to delegate tasks deprives your enterprise of growth possibilities. Without trust and training for your people, you might wear yourself out as everything depends on you most—if not all—of the time.

Adopting a digital-first work environment

Technology is helping businesses reach a wider section of their target market at a faster pace. But learning and mastering skills to manage e-commerce, customer relationship management systems, and social media can be an added burden to small business owners. What’s more, entrepreneurs can spread themselves too thin as they cope with the expectations of being “alwayson” for customers.

Staff management

Recruitment: Screening the people who’ll provide different types of services your salon offers can be time-consuming. Besides showing the right skill level for a specific type of service, your recruits need to share your values and vision. Training: Once they’re on board, employees need regular training so they can work according to your preferred methods and keep up with trends. They’ll have to be familiar with all the treatments and products across your brand to effectively upsell to customers. Staff engagement: Business owners need to constantly motivate their team and ensure work is equally distributed. Overburdened staff may resort to shortcuts to meet goals. You also have to make time to encourage, recognise, and reward your workers to keep them productive. Payroll: Managing your staff’s payroll independently takes up a lot of time as you need to keep track of other expenses such as rent, utility bills, taxes, products, and so on. Salon maintenance: You need to ensure your salon is clean, regularly sanitised, well-stocked with beauty supplies and working equipment.

Marketing

Exceptional quality service can win you referrals besides sustaining your loyal customer base. But in today’s digital world, you may be left behind in retaining and attracting new clients if you don’t use online reviews, business directories, and marketing campaigns.

Pricing

Charging clients based on your and your team’s skillsets and training can be tricky, especially if other salons within your area offer services at lower prices. Your team has to consistently display professionalism and superior customer service to prove its worth.

Maintaining a steady cash flow

Long-term planning is a must when you need to cover energy and advertising costs amid low patronage and sales. You may have to look for or negotiate deals and perks with product distributors. You’ll also need to install appliances and implement procedures to help lower power use.

5 STEPS TO TAME THE OVERWHELM

Are you saddled with certain aspects of running a business mentioned above? Well, you don’t have to be. With a new year dawning, it’s about time to reflect on your current work processes to reduce the overwhelm. Here are some steps you can take:

1. Perform a time audit of your daily and weekly tasks.

Where’s your time really going? There’s often a great gap between how we want to spend time and how we actually spend it. Conducting a time audit helps you establish everything you do in a day, the length of time you spend on each task, as well as when and how you get distracted. Only one in five people conduct time audits regularly and nearly half of working professionals haven’t done such an audit. So there’s no shame in doing this for the first time.

To conduct a time audit:

1. Write down your goals or how you’d really want to spend your time. 2. List categories of the activities you do in a day (e-mails, client calls, and so forth). 3. Pick three to five days to track your daily performance of tasks. Put off auditing when you’re midway through a holiday season, you’re about to go on vacation, a co-worker is absent and you have to pick up the slack, or you’re going through negotiations with a big client. 4. Use a time-tracking app or tracking sheet to note down your activities by the hour. 5. Set an alarm every 30 minutes or every hour.

Write down all the things you’ve done in the past period when your timer sounds off.

With your tracking sheets on one hand and your activity category list on the other, evaluate yourself by asking the following: - What type of tasks take up the most of my time?

- How much of my day goes to focused work? - How much of my time goes to distractions? - Am I spending enough time on activities that help me reach my goals? - How much time do I give for self-care activities? 2. Identify the task you’re the best at and love to do.

What are your strengths? What activities do you look forward to doing when you wake up in the morning? You ideally need to give more time to these tasks. To do this, go back to your tracking sheets and group your activities according to the following: - High-value tasks

These are activities that you’re really good at and passionate about. They also deliver the biggest results for your salon. - Good tasks

These are enjoyable but routine activities that another person can do equally well or even better. - Low-value tasks

These activities may deliver great results but don’t excite you or even frustrate you due to your lack of interest or skills in that area.

To spend more time on your high-value tasks, you may have to pick a time when you’re more focused and energised to complete them. This may also entail breaking down activities into smaller steps so they can be easier to complete.

Implement a change one month at a time.

Track your progress, preferably with a colleague, family member, or friend to who you can be accountable. 3. List the activities that you can delegate or outsource.

Instead of planning how you can pack everything into your day, think about the people who can take on the good and lowvalue tasks on your list. You can designate a member of your team or outsource the task to a third party.

When choosing the jobs to outsource, examine which aspect of your regular operations is wasting your or your company’s

time or resources. Then find someone who can put an end to that wastage. 4. Track your spending’s religiously. - Have a dedicated savings account, checking account, and credit card for your business. - Keep and organise receipts. There are mobile apps that are now available for taking pictures of receipts and saving them in the cloud. - Invest in accounting software or hire a bookkeeper and dedicate a regular time to review your books. Financial freedom is crucial. Strong internal controls will protect your business against worker theft and fraud, which can lead to legal problems. 5. Build a support network around you.

Building and nurturing business relationships within and outside your industry can help you learn about best practices, trends, and sources of practical help. This will come in handy when you’re seeking competent people to add to your team or to do special tasks. Don’t forget there’s also usually people in your life that are willing to help! My mum loves to cook meals for us to help take away the pressure of ‘doing it all’. Is there someone similar in your life who can do the same for you? Often they will feel it’s a privilege to help!

There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do business, I am a big believer that your business and life can look how you want it to, without the overwhelm, stress or guilt. The key is to know and understand what is driving your overwhelm and where you can improve.

Then taking action.

OVERWHELM CAN CAUSE STRESS, IT CAN STEAL AWAY OUR PASSION AND LOVE FOR OUR BUSINESS BUT THERE IS A WAY TO MOVE THROUGH IT.

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