There are tons of things you must keep in mind when opening and running a salon. Salon owners need to learn essential skills to turn their business into a customers’ favorite and regular beauty destination. In other words, it means upgrading your salon management skill.
Here are 9 essential skills salon owners should know to take your business to the next level.
1. Recruitment and HR Organization
Good staff can smoothen your salon workflow and help retain customers. It’s best to hire and train your team carefully before you officially put your salon into operation.
We recommend hiring some professional and experienced staff. You may need to pay them higher, but good and skillful workers help everything go smoothly and be under control.
Once your salon attracts more customers, you can recruit and train some assistants and apprentices. These workers can help with small tasks such as shampooing and nail polishing first. When they’re more experienced, you can let them help with more important tasks.
2. Employee Training
In addition to specialist skills, you should also train employees on other skills such as customer service. No matter how skillful your staff is, bad attitudes can frustrate customers, making them never want to go back to your salon.
As a salon manager, you’d better take training courses to know effective methods to train your employees.
3. Listen to Customers
One of the most effective ways to understand the performance of your salon is listening to customers’ opinions, questions, or complaints.
Once a month, we suggest you conduct a short survey with customers. This includes several questions regarding service quality and staff’s attitude. And this is a chance for customers to share their suggestions.
This survey will help you find out problems in your salon and quickly find solutions to resolve them.
4. Work with Suppliers
As a salon owner, you need to regularly check whether products from suppliers are of good quality. It’s best to choose a reputable supplier to guarantee the source of the products and avoid overpricing.
Suppliers sometimes provide product samples and professional courses for salons. Don’t be afraid to ask for samples, along with staff training courses. This not only saves your budget, but is also an excellent chance to help your employees improve their skills.
5. Budget Management
Budget management is the next crucial skill a salon manager needs to have. How you allocate your budget will greatly determine your salon’s future.
At the end of each month or week, you should check to see whether there’s any overspending. Besides, you need to do research and collect data to estimate future budgets. Take into consideration other aspects such as inflation or emergency funds.
If possible, invest in budget management software to capture and manage your expenses.
6. Observe Workflow and Work Environment
A salon manager should observe the workflow in the salon to notice problems and solve them in time.
For example, observe the shampoo area to see whether your staff have cleaned up soap bubbles, or rearranged hair care products after use.
How often are towels washed, dried, and neatly folded? How often is the hairdressing/nail polish area carefully cleaned? Are all equipment used for hairdressing/nail polish neatly arranged? Do employees have arguments or any problems that might impact the service? How do your staff serve guests?
All activities that take place within the salon need to be carefully and subtly noted for the right adjustments. But be careful not to over-examine, criticize or offend employees if you catch their mistakes.
7. Organize Effective Meetings
Nobody likes meetings, but these are opportunities for you and your staff to reflect on every achievement and backlog, then together find solutions to problems.
Encourage staff to share their thoughts and suggestions to improve your salon operation. Create a joyful, open atmosphere in the meeting. Avoid rambling, stretching, and straying from the main subjects, or discussing irrelevant issues.
Don’t offend your employees if their opinions are different from yours. This only makes them resent you, hesitate to share their ideas, and even refuse to work.
8. Improve Procedures and Workflow
A logical workflow allows your staff to complete all tasks quickly and efficiently. Establishing certain procedures to your workflow can be time-consuming, yet beneficial in the long run.
Think about how you’ll handle busy days with lots of guests flooding in. Who’s going to do what? What’s the first thing to do? Try to arrange the steps in a logical way so that time, effort, and resources can be utilized most efficiently.
9. Be Close to Your Staff
Many business owners today aim to shorten the distance between them and employees. Employees can be comfortable at work, trust you more, and devote their best to the job.
You should organize occasional team-building activities, picnics, outings, and dining out with your staff. This brings you and your employees closer together, and they’re more likely to share their thoughts and aspirations.
To create a happy atmosphere at the workplace, you can chat and communicate with employees more. Don’t hesitate to open your heart because you will receive warm responses.
Conclusion
Running a professional salon is not an easy job. It requires certain skills of managers and owners. Join training courses and classes to constantly upgrade your knowledge and skills. And don’t forget to adopt the 9 skills above to better your salon management.
Want to learn more about effective management? Check out our post of 7 management styles here.
