How to open a successful nail salon

Thinking of opening your own nail salon but not sure where to start?

Samantha and Samuel Sweet, co-founders and directors of Sweet Squared, which distributes pro brand CND, reveal how to launch a booming nail business – from knowing what kind of salon you want to be and understanding your client base, to price points and brand building.

“When starting a nail bar or nail salon, you really have to know what kind of salon you want to be – are you going to be more of a discount salon, medium range or are you super high-end,” says Samantha. “Once you’ve made that decisions, other decisions as to what you will use and charge falls into place.”

 

Samantha and Samuel cover three major points to consider when opening a nail salon:

 

• What are the important things to invest in?
  “So many times, people invest in a beautiful set-up, they even invest in a really great product, but they don’t invest in the systems and education, or the processes or procedures, and that lets them down,” explains Samuel.

• Who should my client base be?
  “There are always going to be people who want the cheap, and that’s fine. You can’t live without discount salons as there’s some people who don’t want a relationship with their nail technician,” says Samantha. “But there are people who really do want to have relationships, sometimes nail professionals become these peoples best friend.”

• How can I compete with value nail salons?
  “There are valuable lessons you can learn from watching a value salon, even if that’s not what you want to pursue. What is it that’s attracting the customer to that salon? To a degree, on some level, it’s price, to another degree a lot of consumers nowadays value the speed and value time,” says Samuel.
  
  “Time to them is precious – so it’s about the convenience of being able to pop in last minute and be seen to in a speedy and efficient manner.” 

 

For more helpful advice and tips, visit Professional Beauty’s YouTube page.