DO YOU HAVE A SALON VISION?
Have you thought about what you ultimately want to achieve as a salon owner?
As a salon owner, creating a salon vision of what you want to achieve with your business and how you are going to get there is crucial for success.
- What do you want?
- Where you are heading?
- How do you want to influence people?
- What do you aim to create?
- Who do you want to work with and serve?
Did you create a salon vision with your business plan? Did you create your business values, mission and goals, or map out a process, system and strategies to achieve your dreams?
This is your salon vision.
THE BIG QUESTION IS… IS YOUR SALON VISION SHARED BY YOUR TEAM?
Have you or did you communicate to your team what you wanted to achieve with your business?
When hiring, did you find out if the prospective new team members shared the vision you have for your salon?
Have you worked together to create a direction and vision at salon team meetings?
Are you providing ongoing training for your team to ensure they bring their A-game and contribute what they can to make your salon vision successful?
DO YOUR EVERYDAY ACTIONS REFLECT THE VALUES YOU TALK ABOUT?
WHAT EVEN IS A SALON VISION?
There was something that inspired you to open your own salon.
A desire to showcase the kind of hairstyling and salon service that was aligned with your values and what you wanted customers to experience.
A culture and way of working that align with your values and beliefs.
Sharing that with your team is crucial. If this is an element missing from your team, now is the time to cement some solid values, a culture and direction to give your team a success path.
CREATING A SALON VISION AND CULTURE
Creating a salon vision with your team gives you a chance to agree a common goal and what contributing to it looks like in everyday work. It highlights your values and priorities which you convey by your salon branding and marketing, plus the systems and procedures your salon operates under.
The vision can help you explain why a decision matters. The team still need to understand what it means in the work they do. Saying “We care about our customers” is a start; agreeing how you check a customer has understood their home-care advice makes that value easier to use.
How do you treat the customers and each other? How do you work together as a team? What is everyone responsible for? What are everyone’s priorities? Is sustainability a priority?
You can talk about things like what music fits the vibe or how does your social media activity reflect your brand and its importance to your salon?
Get clear on procedural things like how you dispose of rubbish, phone communications, time spent on education and even the magazine choice, choice of products, time allocated for services and staff responsibilities.
Spend some time getting clear on what your salon vision is if it has been a while or you just winged it at the start-up phase. You won’t regret it, it’s definitely time well spent.
Once you get clear on your salon vision, it should feel authentic. We are in the creative field so it can help to create something visual. If it fits with your vibe, make a vision board. It could be in the salon, your office, on Pinterest. Anywhere that works.
WHAT IS A VISION BOARD?
A vision board is a space that displays what you desire.
A vision board can be a useful reminder of what you want to create. Seeing it regularly gives you a prompt to come back to that intention, but the board still needs to connect to what you and the team actually do.
Visualisation is powerful.
Use your imagination to picture what you want in your life and salon, and how you would like that to feel. Then ask what those ideas would look like in a customer appointment, a team conversation or a business decision.
How to create a salon vision board with your team
Have a meeting earlier in the day. Make coffee, have fruit and scones… whatever your team love. Get them in a creative, positive mood.
We have taken salons through this at retreat team building days. It is an excellent time to put the hairstyling work to one side and dig deep on what you all want to achieve.
Explain that you want everyone in the team to create a salon vision and why it is important to you, the salon owner, to implement this.
Take some time and go through magazines and tear out images, quotes and words that inspire them in the salon. Get everyone to pick some favourites. This can be quite revealing… you might be surprised about what drives and motivates some people you thought you knew quite well.
Ask them to keep the salon in mind when choosing for this exercise. You can always have a personal vision board for each team member too to express their wants and dreams in the salon.
Once the vision board is complete, place it in a communal area where you can see it multiple times throughout the day. Take a photo of the board and save it to your computer wallpaper or home screen of the salon iPad.
KEEP THE VISION CONNECTED TO WHAT YOU DO
TEAM-BUILDING TAKES TIME, BUT SEE IT AS AN INVESTMENT
Building your salon tribe reaps rewards for your business, but most importantly your customers will receive the benefits.
A clear direction helps you explain what your salon stands for and make decisions that fit. Look at how that shows up in the customer’s experience, and listen to what they tell you about it.
Come back to one choice from the board. If it represents customers feeling listened to, what will the team do differently in a consultation, and how will you find out whether the customer felt understood? The board is a reminder of that intention; the conversation and practice are how it begins to show up in the salon.
Do you have strong leadership skills at your team meetings? Read our blog about productive team meetings here.
YOUR SALON LEADERSHIP LIBRARY
The Leadership Goal Setting guide can help you work on one part of your vision and decide the steps you want to take. It is included in the three-guide Leadership Library.
Thanks for the inspiring article.
All I can do is add the miracle question: “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”
Thanks for the feedback:)