How to nurture your team and develop leaders

Our businesses are nothing without our teams. As director of Virgo Beauty in Goring on Thames and lead therapist of its award-winning team, I know this to be true.

The problem many of us face is that we spend so much time making our clients happy that we forget our business is only as good as the therapists it employs. If staff feel happy and valued, then clients feel that too.

To achieve this, you must recruit the best – not necessarily in treatment or retail skills but in personality. I look for therapists that are kind, empathetic and have a willingness to learn as these are the key elements to my salon’s success.

How to nurture and develop your team

Our therapists provide excellent treatments and understand through a range of methods how to meet each client’s needs. One powerful tool is one-to-one mentoring with mirror training – not only with myself but with all the therapists in my team.

Working on client courtesy, body language and consultations, as well as combining all our knowledge on treatment and retail techniques during group sessions, also bonds the team for lasting results.

It helps build the therapists’ confidence, gain their trust and unlock hidden talents. I know allowing time for this type of training in the diary is often difficult but it’s essential you do this.

It’s important to say thank you

Every summer I take the team on a day out to a business of excellence in the industry, often winners of Professional Beauty Awards such as Chewton Glen Spa and Pennyhill Park. It’s a great way to say thank you for their hard work, but I also use the day for training.

My therapists are young, so to understand and identify excellence it’s important they have experienced what it is like to be a client – to feel treatments from other therapists and receive a five-star service.  If they’ve never experienced these things then how can they give it? 

Sarah Virgo-Harris is owner of Virgo Beauty in Goring on Thames, which won the Professional Beauty Regional Award South West & Wales Boutique Salon of the Year 2017.

See the full list of winners from the Professional Beauty Regional Awards 2017.