Why is it that 90% of salons make mistakes that spiral into disasters, lose all the fun from their original vision, and hit obstacles that cause them to fail in the first 5 years….
When others grow more and more successful, attract all the great stylists and customers, outperform their competition, and thrive?
What have these successful salon owners figured out?
They have embraced the vision that the way you see business determines what’s possible for you.
Show me just one successful salon owner that thinks business is too tough, scary, and overly complicated.
You can’t because if business owners think like that they fail. No matter what industry they are in.
Do you really think that successful salon owners give up when it’s a tough day full of problems or do you think they proactively review, reframe and realign?
Have you taken the time to notice that believing that business is too tough, risky, and stressful means you could be avoiding taking the crucial steps that will move your business forward toward the successful vision you want?
Consider this… The way you perceive your salon business determines what is possible for you. Perception is everything.
If that’s true, how you see money, sales, and marketing will determine what’s possible for you to achieve in your business.
What do you think will happen when you see leadership as complicated?
Do you realise thinking that will determine how you nurture and connect to your vision and your leadership growth?
Could the possibility that you perceive team training as a waste of time and money influence how empowering you create the sessions.
How does this affect the outcome for you and your team?
Have you considered that the way you see your team individually and as a whole will determine how you connect and empower them in regard to performance and growth for you and your salon business?
Could it be true that how you perceive yourself as a business leader shows up everywhere, every day in every way?
Let’s look at a leadership activity like goal setting.
How you see goal setting will determine how invested you are in the results.
Is goal setting in your business life something you only do once a year?
Do you revisit them quarterly?
Are you checking in every week?
What about goal setting? Are you creating realistic goals that you can achieve or do you set huge goals and see who you show up as in the pursuit of them?
Does rewarding achieving goals look like A or B
A – Rewarding yourself ONLY when you achieve your goals or
B – Celebrate the attempts to cast your vision and give things a try.
Do you beat yourself and your team up if goals were not met?
How you see goal setting and casting a vision in your business determines what is possible for you.
Check out this blog I wrote on successful goal setting
What do you think will continue to happen if you see parts of your business as:
Frustrating
Overwhelming
Too tough
Annoying
Bad
Stressful
Too Competitive
Difficult
Hard
Time Consuming
Complicated
A waste of time
Too scary
How much longer can your business survive if every time you put on your salon owner hat and you feel these things?
What do you think will happen if you continue to create a reality full of problems and difficulties?
The PROBLEM should be the motivator to CHANGE, not the excuse.
Let me ask you …is the success you desire plus the freedom and life purpose you wanted when you started out still seem possible?
So what can you do instead that will make your salon business seem fun, exciting, a pleasure and fire you up again?
#1 See business as fun!!
Chances are at the moment this may seem a stretch some days… but creating a vision for your hair salon or beauty business felt like fun in the beginning… Am I right??
It was exciting and got you fired up.
You were inspired by the challenges and excited to overcome them.
The problems were interesting challenges that you were motivated to solve.
Sorting out the team and the culture was a dream come true!!. Choosing products and pricing a puzzle to solve.
You were focused and wanted to live your dream life, not seeing it all as drama, stress, and mistakes at every turn.
So I invite you to bring your creative spirit to how you perceive the challenges. See business as fun. In the words of Richard Branson
“Business has to be involving, it has to be fun and it has to involve your creative instincts”
This leads to the next common problem we need to change…
#2 Labelling Mistakes as Failures
Missing a payment deadline or running out of the team’s favorite lightener.
Forgetting a scheduled meeting, having a disastrous performance review…
Upsetting a client over her appointment, mischarging someone, or getting yelled at by someone who doesn’t respect you and your salons’ values.
These are all mistakes large and small but part of the daily for a salon owner.
How you perceive these mistakes will determine what effect they have on you going forward.
Instead of seeing them as mistakes try looking at these as signposts in your journey.
What system, assistance, automation or strategies could you look at to alleviate the pressure and overwhelm that once comes up just seems to get worse!!
“Business has to be involving, it has to be fun and it has to involve your creative instincts”
#3 Perceiving ‘worse day ever’ events as the end of the world
Have you ever been fired….. the worst day ever!!
The breakup that literally broke your heart!! Missing out on the house of your dreams. The friend that let you down big time!! These can all be very hard to move on from.
In business we have these uncertain and unpredictable outcome events show up all the time!
Your star stylist resigns… and takes a bunch of your team with them. Your landlord does not renew your lease. A disgruntled customer wrote false, horrible reviews on social media!! Your stylist breaks her ankle and is off work for 2 months. A team member leaves and takes a personal grievance. Catastrophes!!
Maybe you have never faced any of these challenges but rest assured they will come. It’s business. But maybe it’s because you aren’t taking any risks.
If you have had these kinds of things happen can you now look back and realise that these events were the turning point that led you on a journey to where you are now.
A journey that delivered some lessons that freed you up from a job you hated, star stylist demands that were draining your resources, and a business that was unsustainable.
Maybe it led you to adopt a better strategy or process to limit the possibility of it happening again. Maybe the next thing that came along was better than what you had ‘lost’
#4 Thinking obstacles are brick walls.
We come up against obstacles for ourselves and within our business every day.
A product company that won’t supply you. Your bank won’t extend your OD.
‘Stuck in their way’ team members who just can’t change their attitude.
Customers that won’t just get the treatment and save her damaged hair!!
Day after day this can wear you down. If you find yourself thinking, why don’t they just listen to me and say yes or do what I tell them!! Then you are living in a world of obstacles, objections, and limiting beliefs like the rest of us.
When events like this happen how we perceive them determines what happens next.
Are you going to be the type of person who avoids the lessons and repeats them or are you going to use these situations as guiding signposts on your success path that takes you closer to your vision no matter how hard it seems in the moment?
Next time you find yourself facing an obstacle, challenge yourself to find a solution. Spend only 5 minutes on the problem. Acknowledge it then spend 3 times as much time coming up with solutions.
It’s what Tracey found released her from the challenge, uncertainty, and anxiety of lockdowns and reopening when working with me using the A.S.C.E.N.D Salon Method
#5 Forgetting that your customers also have perception problems
What do you think will happen if you are constantly stuck in the perception that business is difficult, too competitive, and frustrating.
Does this allow you to be a great problem solver for your customers?
Being bogged down in the weeds of a frustrating, complicated business that drains you of your energy means your focus is not on them.
Using great perception and problem solving skills is crucial as a stylist and that’s what the customers need you to focus on their objections and concerns with a very clear path on how to set them up with a successful hair and salon experience.
Helping you create a positive perception that sells your services very effortlessly is what I talk about HERE https://success.salonownersolutions.com/3-steps-access
Get your free copy of how to not only communicate effectively to tackle customer perception issues but also your own around money and profits.
#6 Ignoring leadership Principals
I’m curious…has anyone pointed out to you that great leaders are solution focused and learn how to tackle problems in their business using the
Reframe, Refocus and Realign Framework?
In the A.S.C.E.N.D Salon Method, we go through each pillar
Attraction
Structure
Connection
Empower
Nurture
Delegate
with this focus.
Business is always full of things that come up and your business will only grow as big as the size of the problems you can handle.
Let me ask you, do you see every road bump as a mountain to climb and just not bother?
Do you avoid those challenging conversations? Are you courageous enough to charge what you are worth?
We use the 6 key principles to run over every problem and solution so it does not become a brick wall on your pathway to your salon vision.
They are really good at helping you understand customer and team objections. How many times have you faced them!!
Find out more about this HERE
It can be easier just to blame and look outside of yourself to the reasons why you are not having the business success you want but …
One of my favourite quotes from the brilliant Albert Einstein “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
If you want to Increase Your Salon Revenue and Profitability
Get your copy of my 3 Steps to Designing Services That Sell
There is a Money Mindset Guide to help you create the abundance mindset you need for success, a Profitability Calculator so you can understand the numbers that affect your profits, revenue and salon success, and an Effective Customer Communication Guide so you can learn the 5Cs for consultation success.
