Warning: This article may make you feel a bit uncomfortable! If you’re okay with that, keep reading.

Truthfully, how are you spending your 9 – 5s? Are you working on the management of your business; monitoring your figures, developing strategic plans for growth, training your teams, discovering ways to reduce unnecessary expenses, improving client acquisition and retention, creating your unique-point-of-difference,

or,

Are you doing lash tints, brow shapes and bikini waxes all day long with no time left over for businessy-type stuff?

Here’s the thing, you can do a little of both and still run a fairly successful business.

I did this in my last salon, and it delivered a fairly good return, but, if I’d spent more time on the management and less time on delivering client services, I’d have had a great business.

I only wish someone had told me then, what I’m telling you now. The more time you spend working on your business instead of in your business, the more successful you will be.

Out there, in the cyber-zone, you see a lot of feel-good graphics that tell you that to be successful, you only need to be good at what you do. Well, unless this means being good at business management, then you’re being lied to.

You may be the best facialist, waxer, brow designer or hairdresser in the city, but that is no guarantee of financial success.

If your idea of success is to have clients tell you how wonderful and how talented you are, then you’re probably achieving that already. Unfortunately, ‘wonderful’ and ‘talented’ doesn’t pay the mortgage; but money does.

For some reason, many of those who operate beauty businesses are not comfortable with the concept of making money. It feels dirty and slimy, and not at all attractive.

But, here’s the absolute truth of the matter – if your business can’t generate enough money to way wages, rent, general expenses AND still leave enough for you to make a decent living, then you are running a hobby business.

You are not a serious business owner because you are not doing all you can to be financial solvent.

Let me clear up this common misconception. Making money is not a dirty or slimy thing to do. It’s a beautiful thing, as long as it’s done with honesty and integrity.

And here’s why…

~ Money is what pays your employee’s wages each week, allowing them to do what they love and sustain their own families.

~ Money is what pays your suppliers for their goods allowing them to grow their businesses, supply your much-needed products and become more financially secure.

~ Money is what allows you to keep your business doors open, so you and your team can deliver your wonderful services to the clients who rely on you to do so.

~ And finally, money is what allows you provide a better life for yourself and your family.

So, as you can see, making money is a very positive and worthwhile thing to do – it’s what makes the world keep spinning, and as long as you do it with honesty and integrity, you need not stress ever again over the fact that it’s okay to make money.

Now that we’ve cleared up this success-blocking thought, it’s really time to get more serious about doing business the right way.

 

Here’s how I suggest you start:

#1. Stop telling yourself that you’re the only person who can do anything properly in your business. Instead, learn the art of good delegation, so you can free yourself from the mundane jobs in your life, and invest that time into running your business in a business-savvy way.

#2. Stop taking on every new client who walks in the door when you have perfectly good employees who can look after them instead. (They must be good, after all, you employed them.) If you’re worried that your employees are going to steal your clients when they leave, you may as well sack them all today, and just go back to being a solo-operator.

#3. Stop making excuses as to why you ‘can’t’ do what you know needs to be done, and start to find reasons why you ‘must’ do what is necessary to be more successful. Time to pull up those big-girl (or boy) panties and face the reality of being a business person.

#4. Treat being in business seriously. Devote at least part of your day to management only tasks that are results-oriented. (The bigger the part, the better). Stop weeding the gardens out the front, stop checking your social media every 5 minutes, stop dilly-dallying with time-wasting activities that will get you nowhere, and instead create a daily plan, and then work your list until everything that is important to your business growth gets done.

#5. Set some clear, measurable and achievable short-term goals for your business. Write them down and revisit them daily to keep you on-track. Once you’ve achieved them, create some more.

#6. Become a time-management terminator. Use your time wisely. You’ll never get back wasted time, so make every business minute count, so you don’t have to eat into your leisure/family time.

#7. Become a first-class communicator. Talk to your team on a regular basis, be transparent, ask for input. You’ll be surprised at how much knowledge they can offer you from digging into their past experiences. Get them involved in growing your business.

#8. Learn how to be business-minded. Invest in your business skills and not just your treatment skills. They will continue to improve your business permanently.

So, are you a real business or just really a hobby? Is it time to get serious about making real money and stop worrying about the future? It all comes down to you, your mind-set and, most importantly, the actions you take.