Every hairdresser at one stage or another must have thought
of owning a salon. It is only natural to want to have your
own business. In the past it was rather easy. You looked for
a place to rent in a shopping strip, you borrowed some money
to outfit the salon and with the help of family and friends,
within a couple of months you were in business. Your
customers would follow you and with two or three employees
you could make a profit.
Today’s technological advancements, economic development and more sophisticated consumers than
ever before, saw hairdressing salons evolve from a corner
shop in to large businesses with sophisticated management,
functional and well designed salons and greater financial
independence. All of this means that to be able to compete, a salon owner not only
has to build a great salon but also be well equipped with
the skills necessary to manage a modern progressive and
competitive business.
The public nowadays is more educated, sophisticated and
demanding. Salons must be able to attract clients by meeting
their demands at all levels. People are now accustomed to
buying in comfort from big department stores and malls with
pleasing surroundings. They know large business are more
likely to be reliable, consistent and satisfy their demands
better than the shop around the corner.
This trend is also followed in the hairdressing industry.
Unless salons manage to gain a reputation for comfort,
excellent hairdressing standards, proper training,
reliability for excellent and consistent service and above
all good management, they will find it very difficult to
compete with those businesses that meet these prerequisites.
Your artistic ability and creative talents are very
important to the success of your salon but without the help
of good management skills to direct, control, organize, plan
and coordinate your staff and the other resources available
to you, success can only be limited. It is often said that a
good hairdresser does not necessarily make a good manager or
a businessman. To a great extent this is true. A hairdresser
must be creative and artistic and a businessman must be
analytical and enterprising. Even though it’s unusual for
one person to possess all of these qualities, learning about
management principles will help you tremendously.
I believe that a team effort with emphasis on both
managerial and artistic aspects will have more chances of
success. If you concentrate on improving profitability,
hairdressing may suffer and if you concentrate on only
improving your salons hairdressing skills and neglect staff
relations, salon design, service and finances, your business
will suffer.
The world’s leading authority on management, Peter Drucker
sums it up:
“
The only choice of an institution is between management and
mismanagement. But managers are inevitable and the job of
management cannot be evaded. Whether it has been done right
or not will determine largely whether the enterprise will
survive and prosper or decline and ultimately fall”
