Unite's marcus allen puts business on the agenda

Marcus Allen welcomed some 40 delegates to the Unite Paramount Business seminar in London. Unite’s global education director provided delegates with a guide to creating the framework for a successful salon business, from forming a mission statement, goal setting and marketing to creating health and safety manuals, art direction manuals and understanding profit and loss statements. Marcus drew on his own extensive experience managing salon in both the UK and the US, including eight years managing the Urban Retreat at Harrods. "At Harrods I looked after 226 staff and a turnover of around £16 million, but I had the same problems as you just on a larger scale," said Marcus. On the importance of creating a mission statement, Marcus said: "Everyone will have a different mission statement, but it needs to be on paper so that you can share it. If you are uncertain about what your mission statement is than your staff will be uncertain. A mission statement is a clarity of purpose." Marcus also stressed the fact that it was fine to review a mission statement every few years in order for the business to evolve. His method of creating a mission statement, he said, was to create a list of core values which applied to a company and then form them into a sentence. On the subject of creating a brand, Marcus said: "Brands are built through actions – the experiences you deliver every day. Your brand is a promise that says ‘this is who we are’." Salon owners needed to take an unbiased look at their business and see it as the clients sees it, said Marcus. "Sit in every chair in the salon and make an evaluation right down to a cobweb in the corner – these are the little things a client will notice." These invaluable insights were just the tip of the iceberg of the two-day course, which left delegates invigorated and ready to make changes to their businesses.