The training balance - Outstanding business vs. outstanding services

In an industry known for cutting edge fashion, glamour and beauty there's no question of the importance of focusing on technical training and development to ensure the standards and skills of our beauty therapists, nail techs, stylists and colourists.

Investment in recognised NVQ qualifications and advanced apprenticeships are a must for hair and beauty career makers and landing a position in a salon or spa where attention to constant education and updating of skills, should be high on a budding professionals' agenda.

For salon owners, training is a considerable cost in both time and money, especially when combined with preparing members of the team to enter industry awards and competitions. Let's not forget also, the outlay in fitting out the salon in the first place to provide a creative space, both fun to work in and pleasurable to experience as a client.

Without doubt, the high profile of the industry can only be maintained by excellence in training. It's the reason our industry exists. People are attracted to salons and spas because the core trade skills practiced there provide clients with service results they can't otherwise receive, just as hair and beauty professionals are attracted to the industry because of the rewards achievable that interest them.

The reward for owning a salon business is that you can profit from it, - although I do come across a lot of owners running not for profit operations albeit unintentionally, as they personally subsidise haircuts and beauty treatments to their local community with their own sweat and tears!

Business owners need to be equally mindful, that supporting your team with education and great workplaces that engage in plenty of opportunities for industry recognition, is only addressing essentially what is the by-product of the business. Providing outstanding services, i.e. Great hair, fantastic nails, stunning tans, excellent treatments etc., is simply the result of having applied the training and skills. It's their trade; it's what professionals do in exchange for pay.

If we were in a different trade the by-product of our applied training and skills results in what that trade does. Mechanics - well running motors, Farriers - properly shod steads, Bakers - lovely buns.

How good they are at their trade is only half the story whether the by-product of their labours will result in an outstanding business and yet when it comes to placing an equal focus on training and skills to run the business itself, I see many salon owners neglect investment in this vital area. It's focus in this area that determines the business' profitable success.

Nexus Revolution salon management and consulting at http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk exists as a resource to salon owners to fulfil this training and education requirement, by supporting salon teams with the foundational skills and tools necessary to run all parts of a salon operation in easy to implement, accountable steps.


By Wayne Kranz

7 Levels of Truth – Applied to creating wealth in salon industry

Are there Truths that work within a Salon Business?

Actually there are 7 truths that exist to succeed in whatever industry or game you work or play in. I’ve provided Salon Management examples of these principles of Wealth Dynamics from the accompanying video presented by Roger Hamilton, to explain how they can be applied for you to play your own part in the Salon Hair and Beauty Industry.

The first thing to do when talking about anything complex or having more than one level, is to get clear about the agreement of what the truth of those levels are.

This is particularly important for salon teams with different years and levels of experience and responsibilities. Why? Because the level of our learning and so our understanding, happens at the level of our own personal belief, our level of truth. For example, if you told your team there was a bonus for any who reach a salon target to sell a retail item with every client visit for the month, many probly wouldn’t even be interested, because they don’t believe that target is possible. If however, your customer service training already had a clearly established philosophy that the salon is stocked full of select product ranges to complement and enhance every service your salon offers and that as trained professionals it’s our responsibility to inform our clients what we would recommend they use at home to continue to get the best out of their service. The level of personal belief of the team can shift to knowing that they could match the correct recommendation to the clients advantage and simply ask each one, “would you like to take these home today too?”

Better still, by documenting a clear understanding of your teams’ different salon levels, you can establish a clear agreement of what is expected at each level and set your commission structure accordingly. That way the level of your employee’s truth expands according to their level of learning. The bottom line is, if you want a shift to happen in your salon, where for example; achieving targets is a collective belief everyone has, you will need to introduce an environment that allows each level to take clear and agreed steps towards that change, until the change becomes the salon’s new ethos.

Which leads us into the 1^st Truth;

Truth 1 of 7 : There are different games to play

Business is just a game and within the game we all have our own natural flow to play with. This is your path of least resistance to your successes.

A salon can either run as a business, where we each play our part or it can just be the workplace for our job. A job is just an exchange of your time for pay, where a business can become a game because when we focus on the right parts something much more fulfilling and beneficial results for all involved, staff and clients alike. When each player understands what their focus should be and focuses on being a better player at that for long enough, it results in being able to do the role so successfully that work becomes play, play is fun and both personal and collective rewards are the result.

Business is a team game. Team games require each person to train in their position to best cover the roles needed to achieve the goals of the days play. The team structure needs a balance of roles and levels of skill in order to consistently perform throughout the entire season. In a salon there is always the need to schedule around staff away or to rearrange the roster when they are promoted to higher levels, pricing points or roles of responsibility. Salons that don’t have a plan for keeping a balanced structure are at risk of being top heavy where all members have a relative high amount of years experience. This creates an environment where everyone must work hard to cover all the salon operations with high cost employees, putting a strain on wages verses the income they need to produce to be profitable. Good people can work hard for a while, but inevitably this is not sustainable and work effort drops, service standards drop and focus on other necessary business operations gets left.

To operate smart we recommend in addition to recording how you want your salon to operate day to day and service standards you want every client to experience in your team member handbook and customer service manual, is to also provide your team with a clear progress ladder in the form of position descriptions that encourage balanced growth by making it the responsibility of higher levels to train others into their positions before a space in your salon structure is created for them to move up into. This further strengthens the flexibility of your team because each person is not only trained to focus on their current role but be looking to learn the next, while mentoring the one to follow them.

Nexus Revolution has more information to help produce a strategy for your own salon situation and can be contacted at info@nexusrevolution.co.uk