How michael van clarke chose his salon location

In the continuation of our Build a Business series, we talk to the scheme’s official mentor Michael Van Clarke about how he chose the site for his multi-award winning salon. Did you already have in mind the kind of building you wanted for your first salon? Something with light, space, and character. What were your criteria in terms of the location? Ideally I wanted something in London’s West End or Knightsbridge, and not on a high street. It was important to be in the West End as I wanted to serve clients from the whole of the UK and abroad. Beyond the centre of London, the business would have been more weighted to a local clientele. How did you research the location? I’d walk the streets and go out late at night on my motorbike like a trainee cabbie doing the Knowledge. Did you reject any locations before finding the site you finally decided on? I found a location in Knightsbridge which I wanted to take, but the rent was high and I couldn’t persuade them to sell the property. I’m so glad it fell through. It had been a famous salon that was closing down and now it is a travel agent. I came across our building having never been in Beaumont Street before. Why was the building itself right for you? It was on the corner of Clarke’s Mews in a quiet street. Tick 1. It was for sale on a 900 year lease not rent. Tick 2. It was double fronted and big enough to grow into? Tick 3. It was an absolute gutted mess inside, so I wasn’t paying for someone else’s bad taste. Tick 4. How much work was needed to turn it into the salon you wanted? We didn’t have the money and didn’t need all the space, so closed off two thirds of it. We spent £125,000 building a set inside the remaining third, which we could do. This tided us over for four years when we started to restore the entire building from the brickwork up, section by section. Did you manage to stick to budget? We did on the spending but overran to six weeks instead of five so had one week’s less trading income to use. It caused a bit of cash flow panic at the time but was really just a blip in the lifetime scheme of things. You bought your premises rather than renting – why was this? My semi-Mediterranean background I guess. Always own if you can. The thought of paying a lifetimes rent and having nothing to show at the end of it doesn’t appeal to me. I knew this was a long-term life decision and didn’t want a business subject to the vagaries of rent reviews, which have destroyed many a good business. I knew I could cope better with higher up front mortgage costs than negotiating future uncertainty with landlords etc.   For more informative and inspirational business news and features subscribe to HJ