Are you managing your salon successfully or are you micromanaging your salon into failure?
All salon owners attempt to manage their salons successfully but often revert to micro-managing their salons thinking it’s the only way to get things done right. It’s one of the biggest mistakes I see salon owners making without them really understanding the impact.
And I get it.
It’s a straightforward enough connection to make..
Managing everything, and controlling every aspect of your salon is the only way to have a successful salon run the way you want.
All too often when things start to slide who can you rely on except yourself?
But how is micro-managing everything working out for you?
Are you getting what you want?
Do your team do everything the way that your systems and structures has trained them??
Are they reliable, engaged and consistently getting it right?
Do you trust them when you are not at the salon?
Are the freedoms of owning a business and choosing how you want to live your life your reality?
Is the salon owner’s dream you had when you started your salon coming true for you?
Most salon owners find the reality of owning a business quite different from what they expected. Longer hours, less freedom, way more stress and employing people is very different from working alongside them.
While you may find yourself trying to micro-manage your business into success so you can live the dream one day, the truth is that managing your business in this way is causing your dream to fail.
And this is the key word here…MANAGE your business.
Seeing your business as something to manage every day is a sure road to becoming an overwhelmed, disillusioned, stressed out and frustrated salon owner.
Managers have little time and scope to lead.
According to the latest on leadership and management in a Forbes article and Gallup Poll
‘70% of team engagement is based on the manager’s ability to lead.
So if the boss is micro-managing and isn’t a strong leader, employees are going to check out.’
Just like any government has ministers and aids, admin and directors so the Prime minister or President can lead so to do business owners need to see leading and managing as separate tasks.
‘70% of team engagement is based on the manager’s ability to lead.
So you can safely connect the idea that being a good manager can get things done but if you want your team to be engaged and stick with the structures of how you manage your business then you need to be a good leader.
Managing your salon successfully means being a leader.. a good leader.
The report goes on to say…
‘One reason the TV show “The Office” became such a hit is that it was close to home — many modern work environments have become mockingly mediocre. At the centre of this: a well-intentioned, floundering owner acting like a manager’
The big reality to grasp that really shifts you from being an overwhelmed ‘behind the chair salon owner’ to an ‘empowered salon leader’ is dropping the manager hat…
but how?
- Who is going to do it?
- How can you trust things will be run as you want?
- Who will keep the team on track and on task?
- How will you manage stock, hours and the key profit areas in your salon?
- Heck, who will keep on to the team about cleaning, and selling retail?
- Will the customers get the type of service I have built my business successfully on?
Structure is like the Marie Kondo effect in your business.
There’s one thing that I have seen with my own salon and with my coaching students that turns this around overnight.
The right structures and procedures are put in place at the right time and in the right way.
You need to rethink what this looks like in your salon.
Not just a manual or contract.
Not just a passed-down expectation or follow-along method.
We all know how Chinese whispers can ballon a simple observation into a catastrophic drama.
Passed down through the team your initial structures and procedures get shifted and shaped until they look nothing like how you initially set them up.
Structure is a key principle in the A.S.C.E.N.D. Salon Method and I suggest looking at it like this.
Structure is like the Marie Kondo effect in your business.
Once you identify where there can be more structure and how you can apply ideas to your salon you start to feel lighter, things happen with less stress and effort plus the extra time you have opens up so many opportunities for you to approach things with a clearer mind.
You feel less overwhelmed and stressed and more in control and empowered.
Just like Marie Kondo knows, more structure means more freedom.
In her show, Marie Kondo cheerfully proclaims, “I love mess!”
With certain calm, she calls on various families and goes about clearing their tat-filled homes and bringing order to their chaos.
Structure is the order that cures the “mess” inside your business.
All those messy cupboards and overstuffed drawers are your business’s old habits.
Habits that we don’t necessarily see as “bad” really are holding us back from moving on.
‘A dramatic reorganization causes dramatic changes in lifestyle and perspective.
It is life transforming.’- Marie Kondo
What can you Marie Kondo to manage your salon successfully?
So…. Where do you start when everything is looking a bit unorganised and overwhelming…. Just like your home… It can feel like a monumental task.
Well, you know what they say when questioned….. How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time!!
Analyse you and your business and see where you are out of alignment with your goals and dreams.
- Change your habits – easily said but a must if you want to change and manage your salon more successfully.
- Create Structures that support your boundaries.
- Focus on structures that keep you and your team accountable
- Evolve procedures that just aren’t serving you anymore.
- Reassess overlooked and ignored structures that are not being trained to new and upcoming team members properly.
- Evaluate how you price your services.
- Scrutinise your Time allocation structure.
- Audit training processes to assess if they serve the new people coming into your salon.
- Revise opening hours and rosters.
Look at some of my community and the issues they were facing before we started working together on empowered salon leadership to manage their salons successfully.
A lack of true structure in your salon business gives you a lack of freedom with far-ranging consequences.
Lack of freedom is one of the biggest issues facing business owners post-pandemic.
If you are having issues managing your salon successfully and creating structure in your business, having your team and customers working in harmony within your business structure or even just creating a week that has freedom from the overwhelm and stress….
then now is the time to change all that…if you are ready that is.
Being willing and ready to change the things you don’t like in your life and business takes time, commitment and courage… its easier to complain sometimes!!
It’s less confronting to look outside yourself to find reasons why things aren’t the way you want them to be.
And the biggest issue is as a salon owner there is nowhere to hide when you do that.
The results of every decision, action, and communication all have consequences that you will have to face.
That’s why business ownership is really only for the brave!!
The way you look at business really does alter your experience of it.
Check out the blog I wrote about that HERE
Just like any bad habit sometimes things have to get pretty bad before you’ll call in Marie Konda to solve your ever-growing mess.
The lack of boundaries is the hardest thing to change with your clients and team members because they get too comfortable and will resist change.
How good at change are you?
I wrote a blog all about change and how it is the key to managing yourself and your salon successfully.
Read that HERE
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