In the world of the beauty industry, it’s hard to find some honest straight talk. So often, the glamour of our industry masks the difficulties we face in the workplace every day. That’s why I’d like to help. I’m here to share my 40 years experience as a hairdresser, salon owner, and educator and give you the straight talk about what’s wrong and what we can do to fix it. I hope to help you identify your business challenges and find solutions to the many concerns facing salon owners in our ever changing business climate.
Everything that has happened to you as a hairdresser and salon owner has happened to me.
It’s been a difficult journey, and there were plenty of times I wanted to throw in the towel and quit. But with family support and determination, I found a way to not only survive, but to find solutions. It was sink or swim.
My motivation to continue was my family, their future depended on me.
Fortunately, I was able to survive, learn from my mistakes, and successfully retire financially independent and debt free. If I can do it, you can do it. Anything is possible when you’re determined to succeed.
I created Hairdresser Career Development Systems to help you find solutions and reform our current educational system to better meet growing job market and consumer demands, free from special interest groups. Currently, I am working on my digital University of Educational Excellence for Beauty Professionals to bring you affordable educational content that will help you avoid costly and fatal trial and error mistakes.
It is my wish that this blog post will help make your journey easier than mine while giving you hope and a new direction. Be warned: I won’t sugar coat my message. I respect you as professionals; most of you don’t want the glitter and hype so prevalent in our profession.
My tough love message is for those of you who want to overcome the challenges of owning your business, who want to take your business and staff to higher levels of excellence personally, professionally, and financially.
A wise man once said, “Always take criticism seriously, but never take it personally.” I urge you to read this message with an open mind. This is my opinion based on over 43 years as a working salon owner/hairdresser and ten years as an educator and author of four books on business and personal growth.
Before we can find solutions, we need to have the courage to identify and overcome our challenges. We must clearly define the dark side of the beauty profession: in realty statistics tell us only 5-7 % of salons make it beyond 7 years. The average earnings of hairdressers is $20,000-$25,000 per year. The dropout rate of young talent leaving the profession is ridiculously high. Most people have little or no medical benefits, retirement, and pensions like other professions. Sadly, with all these obstacles, salons are failing at an alarming rate, but this need not to happen to you.
Here’s what’s wrong and a glimpse at what we can do about it.
The following are serious challenges that are affecting salons everywhere:
Lack Of Unity Among Salon Owners — Price wars, recruitment wars, commission wars, rent wars, and business instability are some of the main reasons of turnover. Turnover interrupts business stability and growth of any business. We are so busy competing with one another we have no voice or unity among ourselves. Most salon owners are trying to meet and overcome their business challenges in total isolation. Rather, we should form a dialogue with our colleagues in our community and find solutions together. There is more than enough business for all of us especially well managed and high end salons.
As salon owners, you can help combat turnover by creating conditions that foster loyalty and ask the question, why is this s prevalent in our profession? Beyond turnover, you can organize with your fellow salon owners to find solutions together by joining my Salon Owners Alliance Network on LinkedIn for the entrepreneur salon owner, a forum for salon owners to share their experiences and knowledge together.
Beauty Schools — Most beauty schools are following the dictates of their local state boards, whose responsibility is to protect the public health and safety of the consumer, and help their students pass the state board. This is not enough! Students need to develop other critical skills such as improved communication skills, client retention, better work habits, improved customer service guidelines, money management and much more.. If the schools will not teach us what we need to learn, then we must teach ourselves and create our own learning solutions.
Product and Manufacturers — It’s deeply frustrating to watch companies with financial resources to influence us selling their products, only to learn many of these products are being sold at discount prices to Wal Mart, Costco, and Amazon—at up to 40% less than what we sell them for in our salons. If we’re to retail their products in our salons, then there needs to be fair treatment between the companies and salon owners.
Salon Owner Apathy and Denial — Poor hiring decisions, lack of leadership skills, new minimum and overtime laws, failure to state terms of employment in your employee handbook, failure to implement a staff development program, no probationary period, and poor employee training are some of the main reasons new salons open and close in the blink of an eye.
Trade Shows — Trade shows are really designed to influence you to buy their product line. Many of our shows are becoming more like flea markets and less about education. We need to focus our attention towards improving our salons if we want our beauty industry to survive and thrive.
It’s time we take back our salons, return to professionalism, and raise our standard of living.
If you agree about the problems in the industry, or are figuring out how to tackle the difficulties of the salon, don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place. My goal is to provide every hairdresser and salon owner with the information they need to succeed. Because I am not beholden to any special interest groups, I need your support, so please share this post and hit the like button with your colleagues and others on Facebook and Twitter.
These are just some of the challenges we all face: with rising business costs and a changing business climate, you can ill afford a trial and error approach to learning how to own a successful and profitable business. I will be addressing these and other topics at my two day business management July 9-10 in Las Vegas. Click here for complete information and reserve your seat today.