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Spruce up your salon

Liz McKeon’s guide to Spring cleaning your business!

Occasionally your salon needs a good Spring clean to improve your company’s performance and service to your clients. Here is my guide to sprucing up your salon…

Clean up your finances

The first place to tidy up a business is to get all your finances is order, making sure that you are managing your cash flow on a daily and weekly basis.

Clean up the web

Go on-line and objectively assess how fresh your salon’s website is. It doesn’t have to be an extreme makeover, but get rid of stale material. Determine the key goals for the site – is it to direct sales and enquiries to your salon?

Gather salon news, media articles and relevant links to upload immediately, based on your salon’s new priorities.

Clean up your database

Your salon database is one of your company’s most important assets.

Use it to your full advantage; record every single client’s details, keep it up to date and use it to stay in regular touch with your clients.

Keep your tax affairs in order

This is an unavoidable spring-cleaning chore. Lodge paperwork on time. If the business cannot meet its tax obligations, get in touch with Revenue quickly. Get much closer to your clients

Review your business through your clients’ eyes, priortise issues for improvement and gain competitive advantage by giving clients what they really want. Do this by running a ‘client survey report’ which:

• Provides feedback on how they see your salon;
• Highlights areas for improvement;
• Shows clients that you care about their opinions;
• Helps you to listen to your clients;
• Keeps you up to date with competitor’s strengths and weaknesses.

Create a clear vision for your salon

Vision is so much more than management jargon: it really does help to drive the salon forward because it provides energy and direction, a common understanding of where the business is going and enables all staff members to work out how they can personally add value to the salon.

Clean up your image

“You never get a second opportunity to make a first impression!” Take an objective look at your business: what image do you portray to both regular and potential new clients and is that image in keeping with your vision for your salon? If it is, great, and if not, then it’s time to raise the bar and improve your standards in every aspect of the business from the exterior, to the look of your treatment rooms, to the image of your therapists, to the layout of your reception and to the quality of each and every service you provide. Remember your long-term goals for your salon. All business is cyclical, use Springtime to spruce up all your business strategies and your salon, and get ready to capitalise on a fantastic Summer season.