Starting a new salon? Do avoid these 10 common mistakes

Venturing into salon business won’t be a cake walk for all. Though seems easy until someone dwells into it. While investing hard earned capital in a small or medium salon venture, owners’ biggest fear is failure.

However, you can take heart in the fact that every successful salon owner has made their share of mistakes and reached to the top by taking it as a learning step. Here is what you must avoid:

Overpaying technicians

Some salon owners begin to bribe technicians, right from the beginning, that causes trouble later. A new salon owner has to ask what commission she can really afford to pay over the long term. Now, the question arise, if not with a high commission, how should salon owners lure top-quality technicians? Convince the technician about the salon credibility and excitethem about your market reach and demand. This would surely buy them for your salon.

No background check of staff

Don’t rush into hiring new staff members. You must give acute attention towards the background screening of your would-be employee’s training, education, job history, and abilities. Some owners get into trouble when they trust the employee right off the bat and don’t screen their skills carefully.

Hiring over-experienced staff

There are disadvantages of hiring technicians or staff members with much experience. A technician can be too good in the sense that she may be enamored with her own creativity at the expense of the client. It’s not the experience that’s important, it’s how quality conscious the person is and how desperate he/she is to get the job.

Skill test is a must

It’s a good idea to give a prospective employee a hands-on test. Its a fail proof solution to hire on a trial basis, try the new technician for one or two weeks before giving final offer.

Obscuring your business

Don’t set up your salon in low visible areas. The salons near shopping centers, local markets, public places or malls lure adequate attention of pedestrian traffic, hence grab better footfall. In fact, the salon sign, hoardings or public promotions can make a big difference in footfall.

Develop your business sense

Once you become a salon owner, you can no longer rely on your creative talents alone to keep your business going. In the beginning, salon staff shows adequate creative of pleasing clients and offering quality services, but later they start ignoring all these practices, leading to unhappy clients and failure of the venture. To run a successful business, get a system in place, often organise competitions among the staff to bag maximum repeat clients every month and award them. This will surely boost morale of your staff as well as your business growth.

Not placing a yellow pages ad

Being in the yellow pages is a necessity for a salon brand. According to one salon owner, even if you get no new clients from the yellow pages, occasionally old clients need to look up your address or phone number. Do you need to place a large ad? Many salon owners didn’t think that the size of the ad was as important as where the ad appears.

Whether you choose to be listed under Manicures, Pedicures, Fingernails, Beauty Salons, or all, get listed. It also doesn’t hurt to put your salon in more than one book.

Ineffective advertising

Are you adequately advertising your salon? Although being close to a supermarket can get you plenty of walk-in clients, it doesn’t follow that advertising on the back of grocery receipts will bring you business.

Power of social media marketing

Don’t underestimate the power of the digital world. Often salon owners make adequate promotions of their salons through various advertising channels like newspapers, hoardings, pamphlets etc, but they miss on social media marketing. Sometimes, they do create their brand page on Facebook, twitter, etc, but miss on updating them regularly.

Remember, in the world of smartphone, people tend to miss on seeing outside their phone, but would never miss on social media promotions. Grab eyes on Social media promotions at the most.

Turning a deaf ear on employees

Your employees are valuable as they’ll are equipped to create a niche of your brand in the market. Address problems as soon as they come up with any. You have to make things comfortable for the employee, because even though you pay the rent and pay for advertising and everything else, your staff is the face of your brand. They can take their clients with them to newer salon.