How to create a salon business plan

Learn how to write a successful salon business plan with top tips from industry expert Elaine Beattie.

You have to start with a business plan, looking at the summary of the business, what the business actually is.

The name is key and it’s one of the hardest bits at the very beginning. I don’t mind saying I chose mine over a bottle of wine! I came up with the name All About You - Urban Beauty Retreat and now it’s followed into my consultancy business as well, which is All About You Salon and Spa.

It’s great to have a fancy name, but if it doesn’t state what you are or what you do, there’s no point. It could help to come up with your mission statement first.

A mission statement is always important because that defines who you are, where you want to get to, and helps your clients understand what you’re all about as a company. So, my mission statement is: “At All About You we are dedicated to creating a personalised oasis, which meets our clients’ expectations using premium products and a relaxing environment, ensuring every visit is all about you.” It’s a bit cliché, but it works. 

Business plan checklist:

• Company description

• Market research

• Salon services and products,

• Service offering

• Pricing

• Staffing plan

• Booking system

• Client journey

• Financial planning

Why location matters

My very first salon didn’t have great parking, it wasn’t very visible and I learned from that hugely.

I was downstairs in a hotel to begin with, and I didn’t have any branding outside, so I had to promote the business in different ways. My advice would be to make sure you’ve got good footfall, and also consider what type of businesses you want to be beside.

I’ve got two beauty businesses next to me, a nail bar and a barber, and that drives more footfall into my salon. Never feel scared of new competition, it’s healthy and it drives more people to the area as well.

How unique branding can set your salon apart

To stand out from your competitors, it’s important that you have a unique selling point.

That can really be down to choosing your pricing, for example, affordable luxury or cheap and cheerful. You could offer a full range of services or specialise. You could offer express services or focus on all the finishing touches.

There isn’t one or the other that’s right or wrong. It depends on what you want your business to be and how you want your business to evolve.

This USP should carry through into your branding, salon offering, even the operations and layout of your space.

The future of the salon industry

There are lots of options for looking at where you want to be in the future. You could be a sole trader business, a limited company, or multi sited.

In my experience, when you first start out, you want to offer everything, you want to have lots of different brands, offer a whole wide range of facials, loads of different manicures, loads of different massages.

After about six months to a year, you’ll probably find that you’ll have a handful of treatments that are profitable and are very popular within your salon and that’s when you can really evolve. Ultimately, you really need to understand who your client is and who you want to target.

You also might like:  How to calculate your treatment prices and when to riase them 
How to cut costs and increase profits in your beauty salon
How can a blog help your beauty business
Want to know what the best strategies to build a strong and scalable multi-site salon business are?