11 tips to start a Salon business in metro cities

It’s essential to keep the basics clear while making a move into much potent and competent salon industry. Renowned Aesthetician & Cosmetologist and Founder-Director of Alps Beauty Group, Bharti Taneja, shared 11 impactful tips to keep in mind while starting a salon business in India.

1. Keeping Trust on Beauty Business: Before you getting ready for starting your own beauty venture, it becomes important to prepare yourself – both mentally and financially. Fortunately, beauty industry is recession-proof and therefore, no matter how much downfall the economy might encounter – your business will never experience the slump. All thanks to the recession-proof industry of beauty and to the brides who can’t survive their wedding without their pre-bridal and bridal services!

2. Having Patience: The world we live-in has empowered the women with a better purchasing-power in recent years and they’re not shying away to spend more and more on the beauty and its services. Analyze that aren’t these benefits lucrative enough to let you earn a handsome amount every month. However, things might take their own course of time before becoming this favorable – so be sure to patient.

3. Differentiating your clientele: Regardless of all the above factors – there are exceptional cases too where a beauty salon could not work-out because of one or the other reason. In most cases, it was seen that those salon owners never acknowledged their true clientele which they wanted to cater and therefore drowned in industry rain. We all know are aware of the budget that we can invest-in for our ventures. So, according to your particular investment try to differentiate between your clientele type.

4. Deciding Upon Price Range: After choosing the audience, one may keep the prices of your salon’s services accordingly. In addition, the area where you are going to open a salon also matters a lot when it comes to setting-up the price range of your salon along with deciding for the clientele. Read more about it ahead.

5. Choosing a Suitable Location: It will be highly beneficial to open a salon in a mall where the footfall of people is always frequent – or in fact, high. Plus, it will save of lot of your advertising cost spent in publicizing your venture as the mall authority will itself do it for you. But, a parlor in a retail hub (mall) can only cater specialized services in beauty or hair and not bridal services. Anyhow, if you dread this idea because of the rent you have to offer in such malls – you can start-up your salon in your city’s local market which is always filled with potential customers. Plus, it will be made available with a mediocre budget rent amount. Putting just few sign boards in the market will attract many towards your salon – making way for a successful business. However, in case of further low investment – you may incept your idea from a room of your home itself – which is completely legal too. Doing this will not only give ample time to your family, apart from earning a sound living for yourself! Just make sure to choose well and live wisely.

6. Hiring an Efficient Staff: Though we understand the lack of elaborate budget, which prevents you from hiring too expensive staff at the inception of your salon – the need of a professional staff cannot be ignored. Do smart investment in such case by hiring smart freshers of beauty industry in order to train them and place them in your salon. The cherry on the cake is not just will they charge very less but will be ready to adapt according to the culture and needs of you and your salon. Win-Win!

7. Dedication to Deliver Quality Services: In order to stay ahead from the rest, focus more on providing quality in your services as it will be only beneficial to tempt a plethora of clients quicker for your naïve venture. For this, make sure you always buy good quality products for your salon so that is has the best effects on your clients. Hire a trained staff which is well-versed with his skills to provide the clients his services in the best possible way. As results and effects in beauty industry count the – delivering great results will only let you attract more clients day by day.

8. Selecting Promotional Activities: When it comes to establishing a new brand, you must put all kinds of mass media to good use. A lot of people these days get overwhelmed by the power of social media and take JUST its route to promote their brand. While it’s great for one to use the power of internet for spread his brand – sticking only to it is not going to get you returns in the long run. In order, to bring your brands name to audience’s mouth – you should resort to all sorts of media, be it print, electronic, outdoor or online to cover the larger spectrum of clientele. While, ads TV channels or newspapers will pinch your pocket a little more – the number of people your brand shall encounter will be tremendous.

9. Giving Discounts and Offers on Services: People swear-by fashion in India and don’t hesitate to splurge on it. You can surely play upon this habit of people to keep people running to your salon even during the humid-weather. For example, as you know these days hair-coloring is in rage – so offer the service at discounted price or with some offer, to tempt clients like; college girls, working ladies to go for coloring without thinking twice. Same goes for men’s services, as salon-owners who are into unisex salon business can definitely offer discounts on the latest haircuts and beard-style to remain on the top of client-retaining game! Also, a little slash in pricing on your “needed” services like; de-facials and treatments, waxing and bleaches will slowly but steadily reap your enormous returns.

10. Designing the Interiors: First and foremost, remember to allot a specific work station or room, for every different beauty service viz; facial, threading, waxing, hair cutting etc,. to leave a lasting impression on your clients’ mind. For example, if the facial and cutting room are common, the client is certainly going to get irritated by the flying strands of hair. Similar goes when the threading area is shared with waxing one. So, make sure to segment specific areas for every service to keep such mess at bay.

11. Planning The Ambience: There is no doubt that services come first for any client – but facilities like; light music, soothing ambience and proper hygiene are bound to leave a lasting impression on him too. So, ask your staff to follow utmost hygiene rules to impress your customers from heart. You may also get aromatic candles lit-up at some corners of your salon to keep freshness on inside your salon. If possible you can also arrange a music-player at the premises of your parlor to soothe the senses of your clients during her services like; facial, body massage etc,. and be ready for a successful innings of your beauty business.