Is it about time you had a breakdown?

Is it about time you had a breakdown?

There’s just a little bit of time left of 2024 in which you can help focus your business ready for 2025. Hopefully you’ve already started to plan and map out your New Year strategy for your salon, but there’s no need to panic if you haven’t, we still have time to get you in the place you need to be.

Our line of attack is all around breaking things down. By breaking down your BIG goals into manageable, realistic and bite-size chunks, you will clearly see what needs to be achieved – and how exactly you’re going to achieve it all – in 2025. Break down next year’s goals into manageable and realistic bite-size chunks and you will be surprised at what you can achieve in growth.

 

Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. And then there are those who wonder, ‘What the hell just happened?’ – Carroll Bryant

 

Fail to plan, plan to fail

 

Let’s talk about your plan. Then, let’s break it down.

 

What is your BIG goal this year? To grow financially? Hopefully it’s slightly more in-depth than that, but let’s say your BIG goal is to financially grow your business (for help on how to plan better goals, see How to bake the perfect salon business  and It’s a numbers game. Are you counting?). These are some of the points you need to think about when beginning to break down your BIG goal:

 

• How did your company perform this year? And what was the overall percentage increase in profit from last year? How much increase in profit would you like to make in the new year?
• Do you know how many extra sales you will need to make and where the sales will come from in order to hit your target?
• Does your team know what new services, products and changes are being introduced in the new year? Do they know how the company performed in the previous year?
• How did each team member do with their own goals? Were the goals you set SMART goals?
• Learn how to make your goals SMART: How to bake the perfect salon business

 

To succeed and achieve your new goals you must break them down into bite-size chunks so that you and your team can clearly see where they will come from. It’s no good just plucking a figure out of your imagination without concrete evidence as proof: It’s a numbers game. Are you counting?

 

 

When is your company’s Annual General Meeting and review?

 

What’s that you say? You don’t have one? Well why not? They’re not just for the big players you know. An Annual General Meeting (AGM) – no matter the size of your business or team – screams professionalism, determination, belief in your salon and competence in your field.

 

Every year at B.O.B Salons, our team of 9, has an AGM that takes place at the beginning of the New Year. It’s held away from the salon and takes up the whole day. Just like the large corporation ones do. And while we generate no sales or income from the day itself, it does allow us to reveal our ‘road map to success’ to all of our team so they can clearly see our vision and understand the motivations, desires, ambitions and, most importantly, the WHY behind what we are doing as a group and as individual team members.

 

Begin your AGM with the end in mind

 

We begin the day with our salon philosophy, mantra or mission statement (or whatever you may call yours). Do you have one? We really recommend you do as its your blueprint behind the WHY you are doing what you do. At those times when you may suffer from uncertainty, doubt or a lack of direction, one quick glance at your mission statement will bring back the guidance and reassurance you need to carry on.

 

This is our salon mission statement:

 

“At B.O.B Salons we are committed to on-going education and will have a desire and passion to learn to be the best we can. To serve our customers to be the number one salon in the area that is profitable and creates security for all employees.

 We have a culture of caring, giving back and want to go above and beyond our guest’s expectations so that we stay in the heart and minds of our customers.

 Passion is at the heart of everything we do and our love and enthusiasm for hairdressing is the fabric of our culture.”

 

Your mission statement should provide the values and beliefs for your business, encompassing the WHY of what it is you are working to achieve. It should guide the actions of your business, spell out its overall goal, provide a clear path, and guide all decision-making.

 

Next, you want to see where you’ve come from

 

We then review the previous year against our targets and goals.

 

• Did we succeed in achieving our aims, ambitions and goals set?
• How close did we come?
• Did we win or loose?
• What lessons can we learn from mistakes and what successes can we celebrate?

 

We can’t change the past but we can certainly learn from it. By studying the what’s, how’s and why’s of the year, we become more wise and nimble for the success of the new year and beyond.

 

Lastly, you want to show your team where you’re headed together

 

Then we share our goals for the New Year and how we foresee achieving these by breaking them down into bite size chunks.

 

For example

 

You plan to increase gross sales by £61,000 next year. Here’s a breakdown of how that may be achieved:

 

1. You plan to introduce a new part-time stylist and predict they will bring in an extra £24,000 in gross sales over the next 12 months (24,000 divided by 12 = £2,000 per month. Divide this by 4 weeks = £500 per week in gross sales)
2. You decide to open six days a week. Let’s say you are usually closed on Mondays but want to now open on these days. You expect this will bring in an extra £15,000 in gross sales over the course of the year (15,000 divided by 47 (the number of Mondays – 6 UK Bank Holiday Mondays = £319 extra for every Monday opened)
3. You introduce a new extensions service that is predicted to bring in £12,000 in gross sales (12,000 divided by 12 months = £1000 per month. The extension service costs £500 = 2 services per month)
4. You may decide to introduce a 5% price increase that will add an extra £10,000 for that year (say your salon made £200,000 in gross sales in the year. 5% of £200,000 gross sales = £10,000)
5. Or you may decide to simply focus on increasing the average bill or increasing the frequency of visits, both of which again will increase the overall sales you want to achieve in the New Year.

 

Can you see that when you break down a BIG goal into manageable, measureable and realistic bite-size goals for your business, you can clearly see where the money can come from and how it will be achieved? The examples we have given you are realistic numbers that can add £61,000 in gross sales. Would you like an extra £61,000 next year?

 

Work out your own goals and share them with your team and have your own AGM no matter how small a company you are. By thinking BIG, dreaming BIG and getting your staff involved in the process, you will see your salon grow allowing you to have the business and motivated team you deserve.

 

By the way, NO CHANGE = NO CHANGE

 

You must consistently do new things, bring in new services and products, and create new campaigns to actively achieve new growth. After all, if you are not pushing your salon’s boundaries, then who will?

 

For further tips on growing your salon business, be sure to read our other blog posts, or for a one-to-one session with BOOST in which we can show you how to increase your stature in the industry, gain more clients, and to take advantage of the right kind of marketing opportunities for your business; contact us  today for a FREE no-obligation business and marketing audit.

 

 

Happy BIZness

 

Carey