Hj upskills: 5 ways to strengthen your salon business without spending a penny

Maria Evangelou, salon owner and business director at Meraki Consulting shares five ways to strengthen your business without spending any money. Perfect for lockdowns! This article is part of our HJ Upskills programme, a series of talks and articles to inform, inspired and engage during lockdown 3.0.

Take five

Every day take five minutes without any external distractions, devices, TV, radio or social media and write down five things you care about, need to do, want to change. Focusing on the key things you need to do or get done helps you gain some control when operating in a world that has so many uncontrollable variables. What is important to you today and right now? It doesn’t have to be work related – write down anything that comes into your mind. Don’t overthink, but write on instinct. Writing on instinct helps you to develop an awareness and insight to what is relevant and important to you rather than what someone else is doing. It helps you take action where it is most effective.

Stock take

..take the time now to pause and look at what has worked for you in your life. What has been the biggest challenge? The biggest reward? Reflection is a good way to take time to focus on previous success, if something went well. Take time to enjoy it but also think about why it went well so perhaps you could replicate this success. What is the biggest challenge you have faced? Which skill or resource did you have or developed that helped you overcome this difficulty? Did you seek external advice or guidance?

Be brave

Always hold exit interviews, call the difficult clients, call the challenging team member and ask them why they felt like that? How could you improve the situation? But do it from the position of sincerity and kindness, because you genuinely want to have a positive outcome. Not to blame but to learn better, knowledge is power. When there is very little or no money coming into your business, it is natural to think about cash flow and revenue and chase the sales. But if you can use this information learned from having difficult conversations this can help you identify how to gain client and employee loyalty. This can help you greatly – e.g by increasing the average ticket-sale per client (number 1 priority in a recession, but especially in a pandemic when you physically have reduced capacity), and also by giving insight into employees gripes which can help identify how they need to be supported, feel valued, secure and that they belong in your organisation (salon). This will give you more confident, loyal team members that work in difficult challenging times with respect and more understanding. So you earn more with less clients and with a positive ethos and culture in the work place.

Read ...

... or listen to something new, something different and outside of your trade or industry. Something that sparks or excites your creativity from a different angle. It’s amazing what you learn from someone outside of your immediate community that you can apply to your business. Sparking your creativity cannot only help with solutions to your problems, but may inspire you to explore alternative revenue streams that complement your existing business. This will build on clients’ and employee confidence as they see new and forward thinking management styles . .. and will want to support you.

Be kind

Be kind to yourself to others and to your thoughts. When you are being kind or thinking kind it is almost impossible to be completely angry at the world. And when you are less angry, you think clearer and make smarter decisions. And making smart decisions is a great way to strengthen your salon business as we all know.