First Impressions Count

When was the last time you looked at the front of your salon?

You may walk through the door everyday but when was the last time you really looked at your salon from outside, which is after all what all clients see whether new or regular.

Check the following to see if it’s still up to scratch:

• signage


• paintwork


• pricelist


• front door, door furniture, door mat


• plants


• window display


• glass


• imagery

Make it a regular task to check it's in tip top condition to ensure you are keeping up appearances!

To ensure all those attention to detail things that clients really notice get done check out http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk 

by Ryan Fox

Online Discount Vouchers - Does the deal stack up?

Groupon, the oneline discount voucher company, was recently described as "the fastest growing company of all time" by Forbes Magazine. Is it any wonder then that Salon Owners ask me should I do an online discount voucher campaign such as those offered by Groupon or Mycitydeal for their Hair or Beauty salon or Spa?

There is no doubt these deals have their place, but there are a number of issues you should consider as a Salon Owner.

Does the deal stack up?

What I mean by this is a 70% discount might be good for the client but it might actually cost you money to perform the service, especially once you have paid the commission to the voucher company.

What type of clients will it attract?

Clients that typically go for these deals tend to shop around and are not loyal. Are they the sort of clients you want?

Can you handle it?

Often the terms of the voucher company want you to offer a large number of deals. Do you have enough capacity to offer it? How will you pay your team? Will you sacrifice full paying clients for those on a deal or worse prevent your regular clients rebook for their regular appointments?

So how do I know what the pitfalls are?

I have crunched the numbers for a few campaigns to see if they were viable for a Salon business. Like any promotion, you can make it work if you are clever and quite restrictive about the offers and you are careful and do it on a small scale in order to only fill your quite slots.

I also sent in one of our Mystery Shoppers on a Groupon Deal at a branch of a medium sized southern based salon chain to see what the experience was like through the client’s eyes.

These were the results:

• The Mystery Shopper called the local branch to make an appointment but was referred to a central booking system.


• The salon chain must have been swamped as it took a week to get back to them to make the appointment.


• The only suitable appointment was on a bank holiday, but was made.


• On the day there was only one stylist in the salon who complained throughout that they were having to work a bank holiday, do a full day of voucher clients and would be working for almost nothing as they were only paid commission on the discounted price.


• The stylist also said they were going to be leaving the salon as they were fed up with how they were being treated.

Question: Would the client go back? Would you?

The point of doing a heavily discounted promotion is to fill the columns of quite team members on quite days at quite times, because it would be better off to give a service away to at least have a them work on someone for the time you pay the team member to be in salon. Sadly this point was missed in this promotion.

So what can you do to ensure that your promotions work for you?

Nexus Revolution offer a Professional Pricing Service that enables you to identify how much profit you make on every service performed. We use this to enable the setting up your entire seasonal plan of profitible promotions over the whole year so your cleverly designed campaigns even lock in profits.

~ Ryan Fox - Nexus Revolution UK BDM

To find out more about this service follow this link http://tinyurl.com/3xmdzuz

Your gift certificates set-up could actually cost your business.

Let me counts the ways...

When I look behind the scenes at how salon computers are set to allow customers to buy and redeem gift certificates, I come across all kinds of issues that can hurt the bottom line when offering this otherwise powerful service offering.

1)       The first consideration is; do you option 1, - pay sales tax on the date of sale of the gift certificate or option 2, – pay sales tax on the date of redemption against an actual service or product?

Surprisingly a remarkably high percentage of gift certificates purchased are not redeemed and even then, not always for the entire amount purchased. Therefore why pay tax before you know exactly what your tax obligation for providing a service or product sale will be, if at all, should the practice of paying tax on the date of redemption be allowed in your jurisdiction?

2)       The second consideration is; if you do use option 1. The sale is recorded as business income on the date of purchase and so on the later date when the certificate is used it is then recorded as a discount to the value redeemed. So has an effect on your performance reports. It shows higher takings than work done at the time of sale, then lower taking than work done at the time of redemption!

This means your average bill looks worse than it should be at a later reporting period and depending on the way you pay commission, could mean different or new members of your team are paid to be busy on clients who will now be recorded as a 100% discount at the time of redemption.

Using option 2. The sale is actually recorded as sundry income, which means you still bank it as takings but it is kept as deposit against future redemption. This means your takings are still higher at the time the gift certificate was sold, but who not only wait to pay the sales tax until it is redeemed against an actual service or produce item, at the time of redemption there is no need to record a discount as the redeemed amount is simply subtracted from the balance, like an account that was in credit.

This means your average bill and team performance is not affected any lower than the actual service and retail sales completed on the day.

3)       Which leads to the third consideration; do you track both the sale and redemption accurately? Once a gift certificate is sold, then whilst ever the terms of redemption remain valid, the value of the certificate stands as a future liability to the business. In both options we bank the money up front, but we still have an obligation to honour the sale at a future date. Unless we accurately subtract the value of redeemed purchases when the gift certificates are used, the liability remains recorded against the business balance sheet, which can really be an issue for future investors, lenders and buyers as each outstanding certificate has the possibility of being called upon after their financial involvement, so you need to be sure which of these promissory transactions are still active against valid gift certificates which might be produced at reception any moment.

4)       The final cost consideration is; how do you issue your gift certificates? Printed certificates will always have printing costs, but pre-valued certificates, where produced at nominal face valued of say 5, 10, 20, 50 and so on, even more so. Not only because they often require multiple slips to make up the required value of the gift, but also, depending on the salon policy, because of the difficulty to reissue the bearer with any unused balance, against the original tracking number. A more cost effective method would be to write the exact value and corresponding tracking number on non-disclosed valued gift certificates. More professional still is to invest in the ability to provide your clients with there on loyalty gift cards which can work with your barcode scanner each time you wish to credit or debit the value left on your own salon branded durable card. 

©  Wayne Kranz 2011

Selling and buying a business for optimum benefit

You may only dispose of a business once, so make sure you get advice from people who know how and when to prepare and how to optimise the price whilst minimising the hassle.

For many salon owners, the idea for starting their business was to make a difference. Not just a difference in the eyes of clients and peers, but also a difference to their own financial well-being. Whether your salon is based on generating an income or for building growth, there will come a time when disposing of the business is the right thing to do.

This topic shows you how to improve the value of your business and make it an attractive proposition to potential buyers. You will be shown when you should build an exit or succession strategy into your business plans and identify what buyers are looking for.

You will be provided with experienced insights from the role of finance director, corporate finance adviser, tax specialist and corporate lawyer. Our intention is to help you optimise your business potential fro when the time is right to move on to new challenges.Selling and buying a business for optimum benefit


The seminar is FREE to attend and you are very welcome to bring a guest or a colleague.

To attend next event please contact us ASAP. Places are limited so please book early to avoid disappointment.

http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/Salon-Services---Products/Financial-Knowledge.aspx