When my favorite Italian cafe, Carluccios, closed down I was disappointed, but not surprised. Carluccio’s had the best location in our very wealthy village, but while other casual dining places in thrived, they had to close their doors.
Is your salon also located in the best street in the busy town, or city, but struggle to attract the clients you need to thrive? Or perhaps you are just too comfortable at your current level of turnover?
One of the problems Carluccios and similar restaurants faced with were the temptations to scale up and expand instead of focussing on their core brand and what they stood for. For example, although I enjoyed cappuccinos and almond croissants on Sunday mornings, I never quite figured out what they really stood for… I take many felt the same way…
How about your salon? Sometimes it is tempting to scale up by trying to innovate, hire more and invest in the next best computer systems, but if you take your eye off your brand’s core values, your clients will slowly start to move away from you.
That of course, does not mean you are not to leap from your current situation to the next stage (whatever that might be), but as you do, here are some things worth remembering…
- Loyalty is not the same as it once used to be
- People move on fast and forget faster
- If you don’t know what your salon brand stands for neither do your clients (we cut hair is not enough)
- You can grow stronger by scaling back to basics
- The latest computer systems do not mean higher sales, could have the opposite effect
- Ugly flyers can give you more than you need to get busy on a Tuesday afternoon
- And ultimately, if you don’t know where you are driving, chances of arriving anywhere is pretty slim
- Every quarter, it is wise to unplug, review, reevaluate, then set in goals, visions, and targets
- It is wise to craft your salon message than learn how to communicate with your clients
- If you stop promoting your salon you will cut the lifeline from your sales
- If you don’t understand your individual team member’s needs and aspirations you will always be having staff walkouts (their needs is not what you think they are)…
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… so the moral of this message is, when you are thinking about scaling up, remember, it’s not always about expansions and latest technological innovations, think holistically, think outside the box and remember sometimes scaling back will give you the boost you need to eventually scale up.
Happy scaling up and leaping from this to that
Tamara Forrest-Smith
PS. One salon owner recently wrote to us…
“Just received the sx 21 parcel….
Wow.
Is all I can say, if I had had this in my hands earlier, my salon might not have gone under the way it did!!!!!!”
ORDER YOUR COPY HERE
