Back to the basics of salon management with jon macleod

It was back to basics at Jon MacLeod's Business Extra, sponsored by Salon Genius, when he took the audience on a journey of his business - the award-winning Paterson SA salon group.

"It's becoming more and more difficult to manage people - there are millions of reasons for that - but managing and motivating people is not easy today." 

Jon explained how he motivates, rewards and manages his team and says that the secret, to doing it well is the art of delegation.

"If you are the person responsible for everything you will be exhausted. You need to teach people to spin their own plates," he said.  

Creating a balance between business and creative has been key to the salon's success and his team is constantly encouraged to think like business people. But how is the balance of creativity and business acumen achieved at PSA? Here are some of the business's secrets:

• Communicating with the team as to how well they are performing is done through league tables and 'top 10' charts which are published in the salons newsletter. Highest earners, stylists that utilise their time most effectively and most successful retailers are all acknowledged.



• Jon recommended reading aloud the team figures out to the whole team in team meetings, with praise going to the highest achievers.  



• Customer service training is key and is now a major focus of Paterson SA's staff training. "I am happy with the standard of hairdressing, but the customer experience needs to get better each time."  



• Recognising assistants has played a particularly strong factor in motivating the team. "My business is not the Jon MacLeod show. Assistants that are recognised by clients are given a token, and the one that gets the most tokens is rewards with a gift, such as a pair of scissors."



• Reward both your business and creative high achievers. The PSA Conference includes a balance of business and creative awards to incentivise the whole company.