The WHY, WHAT, WHO, WHEN, HOW of Salon Spas

I see "What we do" in salon more of a by-product of "Why we do it" and so rank Why higher in importance. Also because our Why tends to change less often than What we do.

In our career our Why naturally must first meet our own hierarchy of needs. We start by  needing a job to pay the bills, but to stick at that job, our Why will soon grow, so that the job also needs to satisfy our interests, challenge our skills, fulfill our passions.

For many our Why evolves further still, to others; delighting clients and nurturing those in our circle of influence following the same career path.

For some the Why gets even bigger as what we accomplish in business allows us to give into more social projects, even as much as leaving a legacy others benefit from after we've gone.

It will be hard for your Why to grow to higher levels of meaning if you don't excel technically in "What you do", so for anyone starting out with whatever 'Why' that motivates you, a focus at being good at "What you do" should be where you begin. After all a qualification in What you do, is only just the beginning of your career.

As for "How we do it", I feel this becomes a lot easier, when we next think about "Who we do it for" followed by "When we do it".

In this often ego fed industry, pointing out that the 'Who' is not You, is not quickly received - because if you don't look after yourself, no-one else will, right? True, however, we have already got 'You' covered up to this point. You have taken action toward a career path to meet your current 'Why' and you have concentrated your attentions to become good and always getting better at "What you do". So You are covered enough at this point, for it to be OK for the rest of "Who we do it for" to not be about You - and that's where You can truly be rewarded. The Why - What -Who questions create a constant circle. It's in the circle of flow, that greater things come back to you.

As a skilled salon professional, the Who is now all about the client. When you don't have a client in front of you, make it about training others in your team, (unless you're still the least trained in the team, then learn from others) otherwise offer up spare time to work ON the business.

Remember I started by saying "What we do" is more of a by-product? This is really important when we focus on the "Who we do it for", because if What we do is, for example a haircut, then it goes without saying that the client should receive a great haircut - its what they are paying for, so the very least they should receive. However they can get a haircut from any salon, so what is their why for coming back to your salon?

The client must value the experience and to come again and again, they must trust the experience, hopefully enough to recommend it to their friends. Their experience is largely the responsibility of the team members performing the "What we do" in salon and so if the team is not constantly focused on this "Who we do it for", they are likely to miss out on their part of providing a delightful client experience.

"When we do it" is the easy part. Every visit, every time. Okay so maybe its not that easy to delight a client every time, but the important thing is for the entire team to be consistent in your intent to delight every time, which means not getting complacent with our most frequent clients by skipping on consultations to check we are providing full care solutions or recommendations to met their needs, or to know if they are ready for some new suggestions.

Which finally leads to "how we do it". Truth is How a salon chooses to do it, isn't important, so long as you can do it consistently, profitably and measurably to know its working or not. Efficient operations providing good work in 20mins without the need for an appointment can be just as successful as opulent establishments that allow an hour to deliver the same by-product, and everything in between, as there will always a customer for every place in the market.

What is the best way to attract new team members to my salon?

Salon Owners should see their own role, not of one that directly focuses on serving the Salon Client, but firstly to serve the Salon Team. (It's the Salon Team, which focuses on serving the Salon Client, the properly serviced Salon Client is then much more likely to serve the Salon Business with loyalty and then the Salon Business serves its purpose to the Salon Owner) - see http://salon-management-nexus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/is-your-salon-built-to-last.html for more on this.

This means for the Owner - its all about the Team. Its about creating a workplace internal structure that rewards better than they are likely to find anywhere else. And no, this doesn't mean just financially. Money will always be a strong motivator out of necessity, but there are plenty more needs a great job will provide, so the best internal workplace policies will include structured rewards for;

* A clear career path for promotion advancement
* Recognition for excellence
* Flexibility in rostering or ways to earn bonus time off
* Salon Perks - Service & Retail rates for the Team and or family
* Opportunities for Industry Awards
* Annual Events
* Training and Education
* Team Clubs / Points / Member of Month, Quarter, Year
* Partnership opportunities in existing or additional planned sites
* Long Service benefits
* and off course multiply forms of performance based bonuses and commissions

Be as creative as there is need to drive any area of the business forward that would benefit from factoring in an affordable and equitable way to cultivate additional buy-in from the team, so the more they put in the more they can share in the returns they are responsible for generating.

We encourage salon owners to take an in depth look at the numbers that make up the internal mechanics of the business, (or we do if for you) so that you can set out your Salon Progress Ladder - see http://salon-management-nexus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/whats-best-compensation-model-for.html and also document your own chosen mix of the above Team Perks into your Salon's Team Member Handbook - see http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/I-Need/Less-Headache.aspx

This way when you are advertising positions vacate, your potential new team member can be shown in black and white (although we do customise Salon Manuals to your salons branding), exactly what is so attractive about being a member of your team.

Do you have salon managers that split their time between technical client services and business management functions?

How you need to allocate admin hours may vary week to week depending on the growth and needs of the salon.

If for example, the salon is currently recruiting, a manager may need to set service appointment time aside to interview, run trials, induct and even train new team members.

If the manager is responsible for stock control, then one week could include ordering or receiving, but not the next, then again their will be times when a 100% stock take is required to be managed.

Some salons have great habits of conducting monthly style sessions as additional training time and also quarterly team member appraisals, if not the opportunity to schedule weekly 1-2-1's to address certain team member requirements.

The list of course can go on, with marketing, reporting, seasonal planning, banking, industry awards, photo shoots, team scheduling, pays, bills, general maintenance.

This all becomes a huge juggle for managers who service repeat clientele and can be a bigger headache for salon owners to calculate reasonable bonus targets and pay commissions when weeks vary so much.


Nexus Revolution comes to the rescue in a number of ways.

* We provide salons with an equitable Salon Progress Ladder, which can be used to quickly and easily calculate individual targets for service, retail, productivity, rebooking, retention, clients (whatever you need to measure) for any level in your salon structure, be they an assistant, graduate, senior, manager, director - based on the actual floor hours they spent servicing clients, so you can always fairly reward the team against the actual time they were split to provide client services. see - http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/I-Need/More-Profit.aspx

* We provide salons with a documented Operations Manual, backed up by easy to follow checklists to make every management task mentioned above an easy to follow procedure, saving the time it takes to train, delegate and complete the various management responsibilities, the way owners want them done. Which also makes it possible to spread tasks within roles, across team members who might otherwise have idle appointment times. see - http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/I-Need/Less-Headache.aspx

* We provide position descriptions for the entire salon structure, with specific duties for reception, assistant managers, managers, trainers and owners - which can also include specific admin related performance bonuses to further compensate team members who need to come off the floor from servicing clients. see - http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/I-Need/Less-Headache.aspx

One final tip: If you haven't yet - invest in a computer that allows you to schedule admin tasks and team sessions in advance on your quite days / times and then take client booking around these. This way if you do need to open the time back up for client appointments you can see at a glance where you can either reschedule the salon task or weigh up its administrational importance to leave it in place to ensure it gets done.