Managing a Successful Salon

The truth is that for any business to be successful it must be well run. It doesn.t matter how large or small the salon, in order to be well run there must be good management and leadership. A good manager knows how to identify and eliminate the obstacles in the way of growth. A good leader is a problem solver and inspires their staff. A well run business has systems that produce consistent and predictable results. There's lots of business information available today so what makes it so hard to have a salon run smoothly, have the staff be happy and actually produce a profit? There are two major reasons: Fear and Quilt Work Management.

The fear that keeps owners from moving forward is the fear of failure. This particular fear is born when an owner or stylist must seek out new information. The fear comes from the questions they ask themselves. Questions like; "Will this work?", "Will my staff accept the changes?", “What if it does't work?", "Can I afford it?", "Will it be worth it?", "Can I do this?", "Do I have the time to do this?" and “Who do I trust?". All good questions that produce fear and the fear keeps a decision from being made. The indecisiveness is immobilizing, the problems continue and you feel like a failure or go into denial. Overcome it by "feeling the fear and doing it anyway". If you see fear as darkness and knowledge as light, the more knowledge you get, the more the fear goes away!

The Quilt Work Management phenomenon happens when an owner does get some business education through seminars, books and tapes. Almost all business education has at least one good idea. An owner takes what they consider to be the “one good idea” and begins their management quilt. As the quilt grows it becomes a mismatch of ideas, that of their own merit are good ones but when combined, just don't work well together.

Take for example someone that wants to build an excellent car and decides to take all the best parts of great cars. They start with a Mercedes body, add a Lexus engine, BMW suspension; well you get the idea. All these pieces and parts are excellent but when combined, don’t work well together since they weren't designed to work together in the first place.

An owner that uses Quilt Work Management gets frustrated at the lack of consistent results and determines that what they learned just doesn’t work. They may decide that getting more business education and information is useless because of their bad experience. Or worse yet, questions their own management ability and leadership skills or blame their staff. If you’ve experience the fear of failure or used Quilt Work Management, it’s not your fault. You’ve been doing the best you can with what you know. There is a better way however.
The better way is having systems that produce consistent and predictable results. It’s developing a business in which your staff sees value being in and staying in. It’s having systems that work and a clear understanding of what needs to be done to be successful.

Now if you're like most owners, you’re thinking, "I know what to do to be successful". If that’s true, then why isn’t it working? Most likely because what you know are philosophical phrases about what needs to be done. Phrases like "work hard", "work more as a team", "sell more color", "rebook more clients" and "sell more retail". Those phrases are true but they lack clarity, measurement and how to do it. Instead, they tell you what to do. A true system is all about clarity, measurement and how to do it. A true system produces consistent and predictable results. Managing a successful salon is just like doing good color. In order to do color, you need to know what you’re trying to accomplish, develop your formula, apply it properly and get feed back from the client. Change anything, and the color won't come out the way it’s supposed to. The same is true of managing a successful salon. Following sound formulas will produce predictable and consistent results.

Your business is headed somewhere. Businesses are fluid entities. They change and evolve. What happens and where your business ends up depends on the decisions and choices you make along the way. Your staff’s and your businesses success starts and ends with you. The good news is you can develop the formula that will get you want you want: Happiness and Success!