2 Must-Do Simple Strategies to Avoid Salon Burnout

2 Must-Do Simple Strategies to Avoid Salon Burnout

Running your own business is plain hard work, and if you’re not careful it can sometimes lead to business owner burnout.

This is when you no longer feel that the rewards you get are no longer worth the amount of effort you need to put in.

But it’s not just the long hours and physical activity that can lead to burnout, it’s also the extra stress from added responsibilities involved in running a spa.

It’s not easy, but there are things you can do to prevent burnout before it takes over your life.

Here are two strategies that you can use to help you avoid it.

 

Strategy 1. Have two or three breaks planned in advance at all times.

Open up your diary and find a time when you can get away to totally relax and unwind.   This is guaranteed to minimise the buildup of stress.

Try to plan for at least three or four short breaks each year. These will do wonders to restore your sense of well-being, and help you to stay fresh and ready to tackle the additional workload.

As well as this, it will also give you something nice to look forward to at all times, and that in itself can make a big difference to how much stress you’re feeling.

 

Strategy 2. Identify and deal with the things that cause your stress.

Once you identify your main stressors, you can devise ways to minimise their impact on you. These are the top 3 stressors that I regularly see in spas and how I recommend you deal with them.

1. Poor Employee Performance.

This one generally tops the list of things that stresses out most business owners. But there are things that you can do to minimise this in your spa.

  • Never hire in haste. Make sure you interview potential employees twice, check performance and attitude with past employers, and do a practical skills tests before employing.
  • Always look for a great attitude first, and then abilities.
  • Always work with a clear and precise Job Description, so you know exactly what kind of skills and attributes your new employee must have to do a great job.
  • Provide as much hands on training as often as you possibly can.
  • Deal with poor performance issues immediately and always in private.
  • Spend as much time finding your employees doing things right as you do when they are doing something wrong.
  • Reward great performance with something that is meaningful to your employee. It’s not always just about the money.

2. Inadequate Profits.

If doing business isn’t your thing, get help sooner rather than later to keep your finger on your financial pulse.

Here’s what I recommend:

  • Work closely with your accountant, business coach or mentor regularly, to ensure you don’t get to the end of the year only to find you have made no money.
  • Don’t bury your head in the sand when it comes to understanding the numbers in your business. The sooner you know what’s happening the quicker you can do something about it.

3. Work Overload.

You simply can’t do everything yourself, so don’t try. Learn how to delegate work to others.

  • Think about what you do that robs you of your time, and find other people who, with a little training and guidance, could take over these jobs for you. This will free you up to have more time to work on making your business more profitable. Plus your business will continue to function while you’re having that much-needed rest.

Avoiding burnout in business is possible, but like all things, you must plan for it in advance. Now, go and plan those first few breaks!

4 Sure-fire Strategies to Avoid Business Burnout

4 Sure-fire Strategies to Avoid Business Burnout

Growing a successful business in the beauty industry can involve lots of stress and hard work.

Many spa owners try to divide their time between servicing clients and managing their business, which is why they are often the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night.

What inevitably results from this routine is a lack of time to wind down and restore your sense of balance and well-being.

Yes, you may be able to do these long hours for a while, maybe even a few years, but eventually it catches up with you, and all you can think about is selling your salon to restore your sanity, and get some much-needed rest.

But does it have to be like this?

I don’t believe so.

Not if you have a plan to help you balance your life.

One that ensures you don’t burn out because you are getting the breaks you need to reduce your everyday stress.

So, what strategies can you implement to ensure you don’t end up on the worn out pile?

 

Strategy 1: Use your time more efficiently

There are only twenty-four hours in each day.

No amount of wishing or hoping can create more, so you have to divide that time into segments that provide the best outcome for you.

Begin the process by understanding how much sleep you need to be able to work efficiently.

This can be different for each person, so if you need eight hours a day, then make sure you get them.

The body does not forgive lost sleep and accrues the debt.

Even if you think you are successfully getting away with less than you need, eventually your body will recall the debt and down you’ll go.

Loss of time with friends and family is also a sure-fire stress builder.

Avoid this by setting yourself strict starting and finishing times for work, and keep your personal time for living your life.

So how do you fit all the work stuff into what’s left? This takes us to our next strategy…

 

Strategy 2: Learn how to delegate effectively

Notice I use the word ‘effectively’.

Poor delegation can also cause stress, so when you decide to hand over part of your workload to someone else, be sure that you’ve given them everything they need to do the job well.

Start by choosing someone who has the right skills and then top that off with detailed information and an explanation of what outcomes you want to see.

If you don’t have someone on staff you can delegate to, it might be worth considering outsourcing some of your work.

Things you can delegate might include:

  • bookwork,
  • writing salon newsletters or marketing letters,
  • social media marketing
  • salon cleanliness checks,
  • stock ordering and display,
  • computerised client marketing,
  • staff training and even
  • some of your clients,

…to name just a few.

 

Strategy 3: Always have a short holiday planned in advance.

If you always have something to look forward to, it will reduce your stress enormously.

Knowing there is a light at the end of the work tunnel is so important.

Start by finding a spot in your diary that allows you to have a few days away from your business.

Follow that up by finding another break no more than three months down the track.

These short breaks are sanity savers, so try to have at least two breaks planned in advance at all times.

Strategy 4: Develop an outside interest.

Focusing one hundred percent of your time on your business might help you to grow at a rapid rate, but it might also lead to major burnout just as fast.

Find something that you love to do that gives you some me-time.

Whether it’s exercise, meditation, reading or something else you love, you must incorporate it into your life.

Not only will this bring you back into balance, but it will actually allow you to function more efficiently for the rest of your day.

 

So, to avoid burn-out, you need to find time away from your work every day to rest, re-balance and enjoy your life.

Make sure you grab those short breaks at least quarterly, even if you don’t go anywhere except by the pool at home.

Let go of your ego and learn to delegate jobs to others.

At first, you may think that no-one but you can do them well enough, but you will soon find out that there are many talented people around you.

Follow these few simple strategies to avoid business burn-out and remain in your business for the long-term. 

7 Simple Things You Can Do To Build A More Successful Spa Business

7 Simple Things You Can Do To Build A More Successful Spa Business

1.  Stop discounting.

Discounting your products and services will almost always lead you down the road to financial stress.

I know you have most likely heard and read this message many times over from a variety of sources, and yet it continues to happen in most salons.  

It may seem like a good short-term solution to get money in the door and boost your bank balance temporarily, but gaining those few extra dollars in the short-term may have a long-term detrimental impact on your business.

Once offered at a discounted price, the integrity of your services becomes damaged permanently. 

Clients will wait for the services that they used to pay full price for, to be offered again at a discount rate before purchasing from you, and will begin to look elsewhere if you don’t keep those discounts coming.

Discounting reduces the true value of your services in the eyes of your clients.

Discounting makes you look desperate for business.

Is this really the message you want your customers to receive from you?  If not, don’t discount – value-add instead.

Unless you are a whiz at maths, discounting will often cause you to lose money and lots of it

When is the last time you costed your services properly to determine how much profit you are actually making?  

If you haven’t done it lately (or have never done it), do it now. 

You may be shocked to learn that you are already barely breaking even given what your costs really are.

Tip: When calculating your products costs within a service, I suggest you double the costs provided by your suppliers.  You would be shocked to know just how much excess product your team use in the treatment room or even worse, flush down the sink at the end of a treatment.

 2.  Start value-adding.

Instead of throwing money away by offering business destroying discounts, try value adding to your services when doing promotions or creating new packages.

The secret to successful value-adding lies in what you actually “add”.  Unfortunately, when done badly, this can backfire on your business and damage the rapport you have built with your clients.

For instance, just recently I received a flyer from one of my local salons offering me and “Incredible” $180 dollars worth of services for just $79. 

WOW, that sounded like an offer not to be missed, but when I checked out what was really on offer, I found that all that I was getting was a complimentary hand massage, head massage, and “special mask” treatment.

In actual fact, all of these things were included in their regular treatment and I knew it. 

Bad promotion. 

Now I feel cheated and lied to.

Don’t treat your clients like they are fools. 

If you are going to value add, make it genuine and use the opportunity to introduce your clients to something new or not well known on your service menu, that they will enjoy and perhaps try again.

 

3.  Freshen up – re-invent and re-package your services.

Freshen up your service menu and create renewed interest from your clients.

How long have you been using the same old treatment and package names on your menu?  Clients like to see something fresh along with their old favourites.  This gives the impression of staying up to date within the industry. 

So this is your opportunity to bring some zing into your salon by making your old and tired services look and sound more appealing.

Ask yourself this question when setting out to re-invent your menu.” What message would I like my clients to receive when they read my service menu”?

Where do you start?

First, consider how you want your clients to think of you. 

Are you remedial, relaxing, holistic or something else altogether? 

Once you have made your decision about what your message should be, you have established the basis of how you want your salon and your services to be perceived and named.

Remember when you are thinking of renaming your services, keep in mind that you should be selling the benefits that the client will receive, not the ingredient listing in the products you will be using.

Nothing sounds worse or less appealing to a client than a treatment called “The Hydroxy Acid Peel”. 

The clients are much more interested in what the service will do for them, rather than what products are in it.

Much better to go with something like “Skin Renewal Treatment”. 

This describes the benefits much more accurately for your clients and they are not left guessing if they have chosen the right treatment.

Tip: If you are hanging on to old prices and outdated services because you still have a ton of services menus that you had printed cheaply, it’s time to throw them in the bin.  They are simply costing you money and retarding business growth.

4.  Get rid of the ‘minis’ on your menu.

After looking through many salon service menus, I am always amazed to see treatments labelled with Mini, Petite, or Express.

Are these the treatments that you really want your clients choosing from your menu?

Not only is it nearly impossible to get the desired outcome from a mini anything service, but you are encouraging your clients to start at the bottom end of your services, both in quality and price and probably never move up from that spot.

My recommendation is that if you really, really have to have these treatments available at all, that you do yourself a major favour and at least take them off your service menu – they do not add to the image of a professional, results driven salon.

Instead, use the additional space you have created to better explain the services you know will produce great results for your clients.

 

5.  Re-invigorate your Pamper Packages.

Pamper packages (as opposed to the bulk purchase of the same services), are often sold as Gift Certificates. 

You already know that Gift Certificates can create fantastic income as well as being a great way to gain new clients for your salon.

With this in mind, it is important that the services you package together are appealing to the potential purchasers and make good sense.

Look at what your salon clients love to have most often as pampering style treatments (your hero services) and make these the basis of your newly built packages.

Don’t include services that no one wants (after all, who really wants a bikini wax in their pamper package).

Once you’ve decided what you are going to offer in your newly re-structured package, you need to add the perfect description that will leave your customer no choice but to purchase a Gift Certificate for someone special.

Tip: Pamper packages never need to be discounted. Think about using the ‘Value Add” philosophy instead. The client who buys a Gift Certificate from you is looking to spoil someone they love, and what they really want from you is to be sure that the recipient of the certificate is going to be pampered and treated like a VIP.

6.  Market your salon or spa to those who are interested.

Many salon owners find marketing to be one of their biggest challenges and often confuse advertising with marketing. 

They are not the same thing. 

Marketing encompasses all of the things that you do to promote your unique message to existing and potential clients and only a relatively small portion of that is your advertising.

There are many things you can do to market your salon without spending an arm or leg in advertising and the best place to start is with your own database.

Using the contacts that you already have, assures you that you are targeting people who have proven to you that they are interested in what you have to offer. 

After all, they have already done business with you at least once.

Referral and loyalty programs for your salon are both tried and tested ways to retain existing clients as well as attract the right kind of new clients to your salon.

Too many salons spend a small fortune on trying to attract new clients into their salon, whereas it is much more cost effective to retain the clients they have already attracted and to reactivate clients who have strayed away. 

When you stay in touch with your existing clients on a regular basis through newsletters (email or snail mail), remember their birthdays, thank them for their referrals and offer them special incentives,  your clients will be more likely to feel a rapport with your salon and less likely to look elsewhere for their beauty needs.

Marketing is also about the consistency and quality of the services you and your staff provide, so don’t neglect this essential aspect of your business.

Remember, everything you do contributes to your marketing message, so take the time to re-evaluate all aspects of your business to ensure that your salon is as appealing to your existing and potential customers as possible.

Tip: Why not consider a team meeting where your staff can put forward ideas on ways to improve your business.  After all, they are the ones working with your clients each and every day and will be those hearing what your clients are asking for.

7.  Start a professional development program for you and your team.

When you spend money on professional development you are making an investment in the success of your business.

The very best place to begin your team’s professional development program is in your own salon.   

Every team member needs to have their procedures reviewed regularly to ensure that they are delivering the same high standard of work as you trained them in when they started working in your salon (you did train them didn’t you?) 

Consistently delivered services are essential to client retention.

As each new team member comes on board you must ensure that they are trained in your preferred techniques and products before they even treat their first client. 

You must then review all of your team regularly to ensure that they have not let any bad old habits creep back into their routines.

By creating your own procedure manual for services, you will ensure that each team member has the knowledge that they need at their fingertips that will allow them to deliver a consistent service to your clients.

Every new team member deserves, at the very least, to be provided with full training on the services your salon provides so that they can work to the very highest level of performance.

Once you have your service training in place, consider moving on to training your team in essential areas such as customer service, client re-booking and customer friendly product recommendation. 

This is where the services of a good industry trainer or experienced business coach may be useful to you.  Often this type of training is better received by your team from an ‘outsider”.

Not just your team need professional development though. 

If you are great at what you do as a therapist, but not so great at running the business side of things, invest in some quality business guidance for yourself. 

This can make all the difference between making a success of your business or going broke.

To run a successful business is a skill that needs to be learned, so make sure that you don’t neglect this in your own personal professional development program.

Develop a passion for learning.  If you do, you will never cease to growAnthony J. D’Angelo

Are You In The Beauty Business Or The Business Of Beauty?

Are You In The Beauty Business Or The Business Of Beauty?

You may be asking yourself “what’s the difference?”, but the fact is that being in the beauty business and being in the business of beauty are two vastly different things!

Here’s a quick overview of both…you decide which category you belong to:

Those who are in the beauty business:

  • Generally always arrive first in the morning and leave last at night
  • Have the biggest workload and the most clients
  • Work full-time on the floor delivering services to clients
  • Work well over thirty-eight hours per week (and more than any of their staff members)
  • Have no idea what their services are costing them to provide and therefore don’t know how to market their salon for better profitability
  • Continually search for staff who operate just like they do
  • Believe that without them the business will fall apart
  • Are the last one to take home a pay packet
  • Will never have a saleable business because they ARE the business

Whereas those in the business of beauty:

  • Work realistic hours and are not heading for early burnout
  • Don’t believe they are the only people in the world who can provide a great service to their clients
  • Spend their time doing productive work such as marketing, staff training and developing profitable strategies to take their salons from strength to strength
  • Regularly monitor their business figures and key performance indicators
  • Understand which services provide a worthwhile income to their salons and which don’t
  • Hire staff based on a sound knowledge of skills needed within their salon
  • Are building a saleable business that does not rely on them being the main service provider
  • Make enough money to make it all worthwhile

There are many more differences between the two categories, but I think you may be starting to get the drift.

Which category do you currently belong to and more importantly, which category do you want to belong to in the future?

Many salon owners believe that being great at their craft is all they need to be a successful business owner.

This just isn’t true.  It takes a great deal more.

There is a world full of great service providers out there (just look at all those other salon owners in the beauty business), many of which will fail in their quest to be financially successful.

Being great at the services you provide just isn’t enough to make you successful in the business of beauty.

Running a business requires at least a basic knowledge of good business practices along with the willingness to invest the time and work needed to develop and implement them into your business.

Spending all of your time providing client services will most definitely make your clients very happy but unfortunately, it will most probably cost you the victory you set out to achieve when you started up your salon.

Some business consultants say you need to spend at least twenty percent of your time working on your business, leaving you eighty percent of your time to provide services.

I don’t agree!

Every financially successful salon owner that I have ever met is in the business of beauty first and foremost and spends the majority of their time nurturing the needs of their business and motivating their team.

Whether you have twenty staff or two staff, the same rules apply.

Start to make the time you need to work on your business.

It won’t happen in just a few days or even a few months, but the sooner you make working on your business a priority, the sooner you will begin to move towards having the kind of business you set out to achieve.

A business that will give you not only a great sense of achievement but also the financial freedom you deserve.

You might even find out that your staff can actually make your clients happy too!

 
If It Is To Be…

If It Is To Be…

 

As the current financial crisis is hitting home for many businesses, both large and small, I see a great deal of stress and worry.

What I don’t see is much ‘ACTION’ taking place.

Many small business owners are simply sitting tight, hoping against all hopes that they will simply survive and not be one of the many who will go under before things improve.

I am here to tell you that although I am all for keeping a positive perspective on things – it is even more important to take well-planned action.  

Wishing without action equals – a nice daydream!

Let me ask you this question.

If you were standing in the middle of the road and you saw a huge truck barreling down the road towards you, what would you do? 

I think you know what would happen if you decide to stay put and hope for the best. 

Not a very pretty outcome!

If you want to avoid bad outcomes, it’s up to no one but you, the business owner, to introduce a positive intervention into your business. 

Don’t be like the bedazzled kangaroo who stands in the middle of the road being blinded by the lights and not moving when the truck arrives.

You must take positive action and the sooner the better!

Nothing changes until you do and everything changes when you do. 

So get the help you need, explore possibilities and don’t be the one left sitting in the middle of the road hoping for survival.

I came across this excerpt recently and it struck a major chord with me…

Excerpt from ‘Who Are “They” Anyway?’ by B.J. Gallagher and Steve Ventura.
This great little book is about achieving success through personal accountability. According to Gallagher and Ventura, the most important words of personal responsibility are as follows:

The 10 most important words:
I won’t wait for others to take the first step.

The 9 most important words:
If it is to be, it’s up to me.

The 8 most important words:
If not me, who? If not now, when?

The 7 most important words:
Let me take a shot at it.

The 6 most important words:
I will not pass the buck.

The 5 most important words:
You can count on me.

The 4 most important words:
It IS my job!

The 3 most important words:
Just do it!

The 2 most important words:
I will.

The most important word:

Me

Finding the Hidden Profits in Your Salon

Finding the Hidden Profits in Your Salon

It’s challenging and exciting being a business coach.

I have the opportunity to work with a wide variety of salon owners and their staff and yet I have never yet found any two businesses to be remotely similar.

This is where the fun part comes in though!

Getting to find where the hidden profits are in any business is literally like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and it is often much easier to find than you might expect.

Finding your pot of gold might make all the difference in your business.

It is not unheard of for a salon to find up to $10,000 more in just one month of trading if they know where to look.

This process is something that you might be able to do on your own but often takes an ‘outside’ viewpoint to be highly successful.

Why is this the case? 

It’s because working day in and day out in the same environment often leads to what I call ‘business blindness’ which can often lead to missed opportunities.

Thinking creatively involves thinking outside the square, brainstorming, refining, goal setting and then most importantly, action planning.

This is often very difficult to do on your own.

To get you thinking about where the profit gaps may be in your business, here are 13 vital coaching questions I am going to ask to get you started:

1. When is the last time you introduced a highly desirable and profitable service into your salon and got rid of one that is not making you any money?

2. When is the last time you price checked your competitors to make sure you have not been left behind in your market?

3. When is the last time you had a full price increase for the services and products your business offers?

4. What profitable packages have you developed that will increase your client’s spend amount?

5. Are you using all your salon equipment to produce profits for your salon? (what about that expensive piece of equipment tucked away out the back?)

6. How are you measuring the productivity and return on investment of each member of your staff?

7.  When is the last time (if ever) you calculated how much real profit is in each service you offer after all expenses and cost of goods?

8. How do you measure which services or products in your business are your “heroes” and how are you maximising their impact on your bottom line?

9. What incentives (not just money) are you providing to your staff to ensure greater productivity?

10. How are you using your current database to market to your best customers – the ones who love you and have already spent money in your business?

11. When is the last time you looked at the expenses (including your wages) in your business to see where you are paying too much for what you are getting?

12. How are you encouraging your current customers to refer friends and family to you?

13. When is the last time you ran a team meeting where the team had at least 80% of the input?

If there are things on this list that you haven’t done for a while, or perhaps ever, then there will never be a better time than right now to review your business and look for the hidden profits that you are probably missing out on.

As a final thought, if you are spending more time working in your business rather than on your business, chances are you just have created a job and not built a business!

Today is a great day to start looking at your salon through the eyes of an ‘outsider’ to find your path to the pot of gold!