You want to start and open your first beauty salon, you are sure you want to create your own story and enjoy your beauty salon.
It might seem obvious but you may not have much knowledge about management. I recommend before opening your beauty salon (whether you are going to work in the cabin, or if you are only going to manage the salon) you have good training and knowledge about the sector or you will be immersed in tremendous insecurity in management once you start the activity.
Although this is not one of the most essential requirements to open your beauty salon today, perhaps your goal is to act as a mere investor, if so, your beauty salon can also be successful of course! Now, as long as you employ a good manager with experience as a beautician with sufficient skills and knowledge to face the cosmetics industry and beauty industry where the beauty salon wants to impact and distinguish itself.
I can assure you that there are beauty salons with astronomical profits whose owner does not know the profession.
What you should not forget:
Starting with your beauty salon is very different from working for another person, once you start to note that everything is multiplied, the dedication you put into the work multiplies, the commitment, the effort multiplies. But, the main thing is that if you make the correct decisions, it results in much more satisfaction.
A person who is initiative, decisive and creative does not always have a good “business muscle and this is crucial that your company is not affected by loopholes.
So get ready for hard work! If you are starting to create your dream, take note of these:
1. How to make your salon stand out from the rest
There are thousands of beauty salons around you with many established as long back as five decades. When the competition is so tough, you must think to differentiate yourself and stand out among so much competition.
To create different services and make your business stand out you need to transform the current proposals and position yourself, here are some ideas on which you can focus your company:
- The men world is increasingly committed to its beauty and wellbeing. However, only a few beauty salons have places for men only, so even exclusive salons for them can be a great innovation.
- It can be a center intended for people of high purchasing power, celebrities, and personalities.
- You can specialize in your business in a specific service: acne problems, pigmentation treatment, body remodeling, etc.
- If everything in your beauty salon is designed for those who bet on a more holistic life, bet on organic / bioproducts.
- Direct your services towards a specific ethnic group as we live in a multicultural country and the needs of the skin are very different, why not specialize in a specific type of skin?
Wondering which one would be most successful in your city? A good idea may be to carry out a market survey in the area where you are looking for a place to open your beauty salon. Do not be afraid to ask people on the street, schools, town hall, shops, bars, etc. to get their opinion and conduct assessment surveys.
2. The essentials to begin a beauty salon on a good footing
A business plan is a good way to focus on the services to be offered, it also ensures maintaining the initial budget and controlling the costs of creating your beauty salon from the beginning.
Make sure you have correct estimates (not exaggerated or underestimated).
Take note of the following things:
Your salary: Remember that you need to eat and pay your mortgage or rent of your home. Many people only include the costs of the staff they employ, but they do not include the salary for themselves.
Your brand: You want your business to be distinguished and connect with your target audience, working on the expressiveness of the brand is essential to make a difference with your competition. How do you want your brand to look? What do you want your customers to perceive when they enter?
Marketing costs: You must ensure that you allocate a part of your expenses to attract new customers, take your business to the top of Google, and have a good digital presence (website, social networks, etc.).
Insurance: Rely on the right insurance policy. Sometimes, things can go wrong and you have to make sure you have the insurance to cover it.
3. Meeting the expenses in your beauty salon
The most important thing for the business to go in the right direction is revenue. Have you ever wondered how to achieve sustainable income over time?
If you still do not have a clear response, there are several different options:
In the case of having staff, you can incentivize the income in your business with commissions for the sale of products and services to your employees. This generates greater involvement in salaried people and, above all, greater motivation.
Are you still not clear about the incorporation of personnel? You can use spaces in your living room to perform complementary services to your services, this allows you to increase income (percentage charge for space rental) and offer other alternatives to the client.
The overhead costs are very difficult for you, partnering with experts in other areas can also be a great option, so the expenses are divided and you can reach a greater number of customers offering different services.
Rental assistance or shared exploitation for beauty salons: More and more companies are renting their technological equipment and appliances, sending their technicians and beauticians to perform the treatments. So, you can have new services and carry a percentage of commissions without making expensive investments in appliances.
4. Setting the prices of the products and services
This is the biggest headache for new entrepreneurs. Fixed and well-defined prices will make your business sustainable.
You can be the cheapest or you can be the best, but trying to be both is to jump directly into failure.
When setting the prices of your services to remember to consider:
Include in the price the cost of the items (paper, towels, disposables, etc.) that may be needed to prepare the service, such as cosmetics, serums, and percentage for the payback of the technological equipment to be used.
Develop a business plan before opening and set approximate prices before setting up your company.
5. How to support salon sales and expenses
At point two we talked about the importance of developing a good business plan, it is here that we will know exactly how much money we should invest in our beauty salon.
All small and medium-sized business associations warn that inadequate cash reserves are one of the main reasons why businesses fail. Do not start your business if you do not have a cash reserve at least to ensure you pay for the first six months of the activity until the beauty salon begins to generate benefits.
Maybe you have worked for years and you can finance the beauty salon with your savings, otherwise, you could turn to family and friends for this financing before applying for a bank or commercial loan. You will save good money on costs and interest.
Some places especially relevant to obtain funds for your new salon:
Analyze the grants and subsidies: There are many grants and support to the new entrepreneur, or women entrepreneurs, although applying for them requires time and dedication. You can request information from chambers of commerce. They will facilitate the processes to carry out the procedures.
Talk to the owner: Many people who sign a long-term lease or rental contracts to start their business often forget to request a period of free rent and cost reduction for starting the activity. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, check this option.
There is the last idea which a little cheaper and it is to open a beauty salon at your own home. Many people are turning free spaces of their home into small beauty centers, this can allow you to save some costs to start earning income and a portfolio of customers with the aim of in the future being able to carry out a greater investment. The truth is that the visibility and reliability of the client in this option is much lower and therefore the business opportunity will also be less, but it is still an option.
6. The name of your beauty salon
And what name do I give to my classroom? This is another big question and a decision of enormous weight for the future of our business.
A good name:
- is short and nice
- is unique and special
- is functional
- is catchy
- tells a story
- creates a new word
When choosing the name of your new salon, verify the following;
- Check the availability of the domain name of the same name: In this digital age, it is super necessary to verify if the domain of your company name is available on google.
- If your domain is not available, you can add the name of your city to the domain.
- Don’t make it too difficult to remember or spell!
- Check the name with other people to see if they can spell it or remember it
- Do not ask friends or relatives too close, they will also give a positive response.
- Check that nobody has the same name. You would not want to be a copy.
- Check out Google Maps to see if a nearby location has a name similar to the one you have chosen for your salon.
- Check if it is a registered trademark: there is nothing worse than paying for all your marketing materials, website, and discover that the chosen beauty salon name is a trademark.
7. Choose a good location
In some cases, the location may not be as important, if, for example, you have all the following ingredients:
- An excellent product
- An excellent customer experience
- A great commitment to visibility through marketing
- Testimonials of satisfied and delighted customers!!
Simply make your salon easy to find via Google and make it the most important salon in your area.
DO NOT get excited about the first property you visit and make sure you visit a wide selection.
Questions to ask yourself when looking to find the perfect location.
- Do you have a good pace of people?
- Do you have good public transport links if you are in a city?
- Do you have easy access or do you have to go up or downstairs?
- If you are in a more suburban area, is there car parking nearby and is it free or affordable?
In general, a location with good access is always a good bet.
8. How your beauty salon will look
Make sure your living room looks great! , a great design does not always cost a fortune you can do it with a low budget, there are many ideas on Pinterest and YouTube on how to convert for example Ikea furniture into unique pieces that will make your living room stand out at a low cost.
Try to restore or upholster your chairs, choose simple mirrors and use your imagination to make them creative, use your ingenuity, I assure you it will be worth it.
Avoid that your beauty salon looks as if it had come out of a catalog of aesthetic supplies, think that your beauty salon is a human, you have to connect with people, and you must have your personality.
9. Analyze the competition of your business
It is not about doing what they do, but about investigating and verifying what they do?
Check your website, what information do you have?
Where are they on Google when you are looking for a beauty center and their location?
Are they at the top? If so, you must also be there.
Observe the comments of your customers; read what your customers say about you on Google, Facebook, Instagram, and your website.
What do they post on their social networks? This will help you know how to handle yourself in this area.
What if you book an appointment to see what the customer and product experience is like? Only then can you know firsthand what you do want and what you would not accept to keep that experience for your business (competition).
If you are in a larger city or town, check who you would like to compete with, what do you think about organizing a trip to the big city to visit a beauty salon?
10. Digitalization for salon management
From restaurants and stores to gyms and spas, almost all of the businesses that deal with people have begun to take advantage of the technology. Digitalization has become a need and not just an option just like mobile phones.
Salon Management Software can greatly help you in maintaining customer relations, point of sale, inventory and employee management as well as in many other administration tasks.
Easy Salon Software is one of the leading and one of the most cost-effective options for you. It will help you in many things that we have discussed before such as reducing marketing costs, deciding prices of products and services, customer feedback and making customer profiles.
If you like to know more about what you can accomplish using Easy Salon Software click here.
