Running a spa or salon business means working in a fast-paced industry with high customer expectations and tight financial margins. Whether you’re just opening your salon or spa or have been in the business for years, you likely deal with different obstacles on a daily basis, some of which can take considerable planning to overcome.
Still, being a business owner comes with a wonderful sense of freedom and ownership that makes the journey worthwhile. You get the chance to supply people in your community with services that make them feel and look great. In many ways, it’s a rewarding career path that allows you to make a positive impact on your clientele.
We’ve put together an ultimate guide to help you navigate the complexities of growing your salon and spa business so you can enjoy success while giving your clients the best services you can provide. With determination, persistence, and market research, your business can expand and thrive. Keep reading to learn about industry challenges and how you can overcome them as a business owner.
What Challenges Do Salons and Spas Face?
There are several recurring obstacles that spa and salon owners face, but each presents an opportunity for your business to excel. Understanding these issues is the first step toward overcoming them.
As you read through this list, consider which areas for improvement resonate with you the most. Where are you thriving, and what business elements could you spend more time on?
Fast-Paced Industry
Fashion and beauty trends change quickly, and it’s important for salons to stay on top of new trends. While some clients will enjoy trying new trends, others will prefer classic beauty treatments like blowouts and French manicures.
The trends you decide to follow will depend on your clientele and location. While some trends change quickly due to celebrity beauty choices, others — like the move toward sustainability — will likely become the new industry standard.
High Overhead Costs
Another challenge spas and salons face is high overhead costs. These costs include expenses like rent, equipment, product inventory, utilities, and more.
A high overhead is particularly challenging for spas and salons because their business income fluctuates month to month. Building a base of recurring clients is one of the best ways to create stability in this industry. As your clientele grows, you can expand your services and organically grow your business.
Marketing and Client Retention
Because this industry is so competitive, reaching and retaining clients can be a problem. However, you don’t need everyone in the area to choose your business. What you do need is a loyal customer base that covers your expenses and has some margin for business growth.
One of the best ways to gain new clients is through word of mouth, so over-delivering each client’s experience can go a long way toward growing your client base. When a client receives stellar service at your salon or spa, they’re highly likely to tell their family and friends, bringing you more clientele.
Other marketing ideas and strategies include creating a user-friendly website, using email marketing, and keeping up with the latest industry trends.
Hiring and Retaining Staff
The employees you hire are the face of your business and part of the service you offer. When clients interact with them, they gain an impression of your spa or salon that they’ll share with others.
Investing in your staff is essential to running a sustainable business that aligns with your mission and values. When your team offers an incredible experience, client retention and rebooking grows.
Regulatory Compliance
Another industry hurdle is ensuring you follow all necessary regulations. In the spa and salon industry, this includes licensing requirements, health and safety standards, and some environmental regulations.
Facing these industry challenges demands planning and strategic business decisions and should be a constant focus of your operations so you can meet changing requirements.
Tips for Spa Business Planning
There are two sides to running a spa and salon business. On one side, you want to offer extremely high-quality services to your clients. This is the creative side of your business, where you hone a craft you love and share it with others. The other side is the business itself, which requires understanding your finances, seeing your time as an investment, and learning to set healthy boundaries.
These two sides work together. When clients think of your spa or salon, they’ll remember the personal interactions they had. However, you know there’s a lot of additional work that goes into sustaining a profitable spa or salon. When you improve the operational side of your business, the creative side massively benefits.
Creating a business plan for your salon or spa is an important step for business growth. It helps you maintain direction, reach measurable goals, and understand where you are in your business journey. When you have a plan, you can use it like a map to navigate tough decisions.
Running a successful spa and salon business doesn’t require you to have it all together. You can learn as you go, taking one step at a time toward success. Wherever you’re at in your business journey, use these tips to take the next step forward.
1. Start With Your Values
As the business owner, you get to decide the culture of your business. “Culture” is just another word for how staff members act, talk, and think within the business environment. It includes the way they engage with customers, how they interact with each other, and the quality of service they offer. The values you prioritize define the culture of your business.
As the business owner, you’re the primary role model for creating a healthy company culture. When you’re clear on your company values, you can communicate them to staff through the hiring process, training, and feedback. Clear values mean consistency in your service standards and customer experiences.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to clarify your business values:
- How do you want customers to feel when they’re in your space?
- What do you want them to say about their experience afterward?
- Who do you want to appeal to? Who is your ideal client?
- What three words describe ideal customer service?
- Think about your personal best spa/salon experience. What stood out?
2. Make a Financial Plan
Since overhead is high and business income often fluctuates in this industry, it’s important to be intentional with your finances. Part of setting up a successful business is managing your funds well — tracking expenses, finding ways to save, and planning for the future.
If you’re just starting out, think about how you can best finance your business until it gets off the ground. It’s not uncommon for sales to just cover expenses at first until your salon or spa has expanded and can generate profit.
Here are a few tips for making solid financial decisions as a spa or salon owner:
- Start small so you can offer high-quality niche services.
- Trade your time for money — do things yourself when possible.
- Put money aside in busy months to help cover slow periods.
- Prioritize high investments that generate more revenue.
- Consider unexpected expenses when budgeting.
By thinking ahead, you can make better financial decisions and invest in your business’s growth over time. If you can, hire a financial assistant to help you set up and create a solid financial plan. Having a plan will help you make better financial decisions and stay focused on your goals.
3. Invest in Your People
The staff members you hire are your most valuable business asset. They determine your clients’ experiences and the stories they share about your business with their friends. If you have a team that aligns with your mission and culture, they’ll be a powerful force for turning your spa or salon into a well-known local spot.
To attract and retain the right staff, you need to be clear on who you’re looking for. Are you creating the kind of environment they’ll want to work in? Consider the benefits and compensation package you plan to provide. What can you reasonably offer?
In addition to stylists, massage therapists, and makeup artists, you should consider hiring staff members to run the operational side of your business. When you can afford it, this role can take pressure off the rest of your staff, leaving them free to focus on clients.
Ultimately, you only want to hire people who contribute to your business’s vision and mission. If they don’t fit the culture, wait until you find someone who does. Creating hiring guidelines and dedicated job descriptions can help you streamline this process and make quick decisions. It’s up to you as the business owner to define and cultivate a team that takes your business’s success to the next level.
4. Conduct Market Research
Another way to boost your spa and salon business is by doing market research. Even if you’ve been in operation for a while, doing research can help you find new clients and opportunities in your area.
Market research should include what competitors are already offering in the area. Based on what you know about the spa and salon industry in your town or city, how are you going to make your business stand out? For example, it’s important to consider the accessibility of your location and what other beauty services are nearby.
Spending some time on research can help you identify new trends and find opportunities to upsell existing clientele. You also want to stay on top of current industry trends so you have expert knowledge to share with clients and can anticipate their interests and concerns.
How to Boost Salon Growth
Once you’ve taken care of the operational side of your business, you should also spend some time focusing on the creative service side. Taking good care of your clients is the number one way to increase business and revenue at your salon or spa. When clients love your business, they’ll tell everyone they know about it.
Attracting Salon Clients
Because this is a service-oriented industry, your clientele grows through building relationships. This involves several stages, from connecting with clients for the first time to investing and reconnecting with them. However, before you can think about client retention, you have to find ways to connect in the first place.
Many spas and salons use social media marketing to get the word out about their services. Showcasing sales and deals is a great way to connect with new clientele. However, word of mouth is the most powerful way to gain new clients. When your business is recommended by someone a client knows, they tend to show up and keep showing up.
Here are three ways you can attract salon and spa clients:
- Advertise on social media and with physical posters.
- Stay true to your values and do high-quality work.
- Put your client’s needs before making money.
People can tell when you genuinely care about them. A stylist or massage therapist is someone you want to trust, and the best way to build trust is through genuine service. Think about your clients’ needs first and your needs second.
This doesn’t mean you should make poor business decisions. However, it does mean that you shouldn’t do things like aggressively upsell products to clients who aren’t interested in them or overlook genuine client concerns and complaints. Listen, ask questions, and make recommendations that are truly best for your clients.
As your clientele grows, your reputation for being trustworthy will spread. You’ll attract clients who like your business’s approach and feel connected to your unique vision. Staying true to your values can also help you connect with potential staff who like the way you work.
Improving Spa Client Retention
To improve your client retention, take some time to assess your business decisions. How can you offer more value to your clients? How can you exceed their expectations? Your clients should never feel rushed or like they’re only valuable for the revenue they bring you.
One way to improve client retention is to offer personalized customer experiences. Allow clients to mix and match services and give them discounts when they ask for multiple services in one visit. Learn their personal preferences and keep notes so you can refresh your mind before their next appointment.
Another way to improve retention is to listen to client suggestions. Your clientele has insider information on what services they prefer and the experience they’re looking for. By listening to them, you can gather information about how to improve your services and bring them the best value.
Keep an email list of clients, and send out periodic emails to the ones who haven’t come by in a while. You can even offer discounts that incentivize them to choose you instead of another competitor. Still, remember to refrain from pestering past clients, as this will make them want to avoid your business!
Enhancing Salon Employee Experience
Because your employees are so integral to your business’s success, they deserve to be valued. Making your business a place where people want to work takes more than offering them a fair salary and benefits package. You also need to consider their daily experience, bonuses, and how you can support their work/life balance.
Make a point of noticing positive behavior. Positive feedback will boost your employees’ confidence and improve their work culture. However, it’s equally important to be clear when you’re unhappy with something they’re doing. It’s all about creating a balance that facilitates great work.
When your employees respect you, they’re more likely to have high job satisfaction and feel secure in their position. Building trust and sharing responsibility happens one day at a time through each interaction and the way you manage your own emotions and decisions.
You can invest in your staff by continuing to train them. When they feel valued as people, they’ll be more motivated to do their best work at your business. Going on staff trips, paying for additional courses, and practicing new skills together are all ways to invest in your staff.
Creating a Salon Marketing Plan
Having a solid marketing plan is another important part of boosting your salon or spa’s growth. Marketing is how you reach new clients, engage past clients, and share incentives like deals and special packages.
However, posting on social media isn’t the same thing as having a marketing plan. To create a powerful strategy, you need to know your clients and competitors in the area, as well as when you may need to market more than usual. You should start with a list of goals that outline specifically what you hope to achieve with your marketing plan.
Once you know what your focus is, you can plan a social media campaign that aligns with that direction. It’s a great idea to take notes on how successful your marketing choices are so you can adapt and improve for the next time.
BONUS: Use our free annual marketing calendar to market your business and boost bookings!
Save Time, Increase Revenue, and Simplify Operations With Meevo
Meevo is a cloud-based software for spas and salons, designed by industry experts to help you succeed. It’s uniquely configurable for your business, allowing you to streamline administrative tasks so you can spend more time offering premium services and connecting with your clients.
Because Meevo operates from the cloud, you can access it from anywhere at any time. Manage scheduling, check reports and finances, update staff schedules, and more after you’ve left your salon and whenever is most convenient for you. Customers who use Meevo love this feature because it simplifies their access to business data and management.
Meevo is an all-in-one platform to help you communicate with clients, complete administrative tasks, and manage marketing. As your business grows, Meevo will grow with you — allowing your salon or spa to expand with the support you need to stay organized and thrive.
At Meevo, we have a reliable and fast customer support team that’s always willing to answer your questions and ensure the software is doing its best for you. We’ll help you set up your business on Meevo, streamlining the process so the transfer is as smooth and seamless as possible. The only thing you’ll regret about working with Meevo is not trying it sooner!
Contact Meevo Today for a Free Consultation
Meevo’s innovative management software makes streamlining your salon or spa business easy. We offer solutions for booking, automated appointment reminders, inventory management, and more.
Keeping up with operational details is simple with the right tools. Contact us today for a free consultation and learn how Meevo can support your business!
