As a small business owner, particularly in the competitive world of hairdressing, profitability is not just a goal; it’s a necessity for survival and growth.
To ensure that your salon thrives, it’s essential to understand the ins and outs of managing your business effectively. This involves knowing your numbers by leveraging your salon software’s tools for reporting, optimising your team’s productivity through strategic rostering and motivation, and focusing on working ‘on’ your business rather than just ‘in’ it.
Let’s delve into each aspect:
1. Know your numbers
Understanding the financial health of your salon is fundamental to making informed decisions. This means regularly tracking revenue, expenses, profit margins, and other key financial metrics. Kitomba is an invaluable tool for this purpose, providing you with detailed reports on sales, inventory, and client data.
Kitomba’s Business Summary report contains all the key numbers you need to know in one simple report. From service and product sales, client retention rate, rebooking, new client rate, individual staff performance and more, this powerful report eliminates the need to run multiple reports to gain powerful insights into your business operations.
Take the time to analyse your reporting to identify trends, areas for improvement, and potential cost-saving opportunities. By having a clear understanding of your financial performance, you can make strategic decisions to drive profitability for your business.
You can customise the Business Summary report in Kitomba 1 to contain your favourite KPIs to make it easy to see where you’re at. Then, use this data to set up achievable goals in Kitomba Targets (Kitomba’s target tracking feature) and Kitomba will automatically track your progress towards achieving them in real-time—forecasting whether you will reach them by the end of the week or month.
Kitomba Targets will tell you exactly how much more you’ll need to make to reach your goal, removing any guesswork for you and your team or the need for ‘crunching numbers’.
Learn how to set targets for your salon.
2. Optimise your team’s productivity through rostering
Effective rostering is crucial for maximising your team’s productivity and minimising labour costs at your salon or spa. Optimise your schedules by taking into account staff availability, skill levels, and client demand.
Kitomba can help identify staff members that aren’t being well utilised in your business. For example, running the Staff Utilisation report in Kitomba 1 will give you insight into which days are busiest for each of your team members and which days they aren’t being well utilised. It shows their downtime, booked appointment value, client time and more, which helps you make data-driven decisions when adjusting rosters to maximise productivity. It also helps to identify which team members need support to drive more bookings for quieter days.
By scheduling the right staff at the right times, you can ensure that your business is appropriately staffed during peak hours while avoiding unnecessary overtime expenses.
Additionally, consider implementing or reviewing, your existing performance incentives to encourage your team to work efficiently and deliver exceptional service.
3. Motivate and empower your team
A motivated team is essential for providing excellent customer service and driving repeat business. Foster a positive work environment by recognising and rewarding your staff for their hard work and achievements. This can include incentives such as bonuses, commission structures, employee perks, personalised gifts, or extra time off.
It’s important to involve your team in decision-making processes about your salon or spa and encourage open communication, whether they’re an apprentice or a senior stylist, to make them feel truly valued and engaged.
Another way to motivate and empower your team is by investing in ongoing training and professional development opportunities. This will not only elevate their skills, and therefore provide a better service to your clients, but it will also boost morale and improve your team’s satisfaction.
4. Work on your business, not just in it
Finally, as a salon owner, it’s essential to take a step back from the day-to-day operations of your business and focus on the bigger picture. Make sure you set aside time to develop long-term strategies for growth, marketing, and customer retention.
Delegate tasks where possible and empower your team to take ownership of their roles. By working on your business rather than just in it, you can identify areas for improvement, implement innovative ideas, and ultimately drive profitability.
In conclusion, profitability for a small business like a hair salon or spa requires careful attention to detail and strategic planning. By knowing your numbers, using your software’s features effectively, optimising team productivity, motivating your staff, and working on your business, you can position your salon for long-term success in our competitive industry.
For more tips on increasing your salon’s revenue and profitability, download Kitomba’s free guide, 100 ways to grow your salon, spa or clinic.
By Tracey Hughes, Kitomba Salon and Spa Software Ambassador, Speaker, Educator and AHIA Hall of Fame Inductee.
