5-Day Salon Reset – Day One

 

Gooooood MORNINGGGGGGGGGG!

Welcome to Day One of the 5-Day Salon Reset!

This week is all about switching on and gearing up for success.

And if you make it to the bottom of this page you can WIN $1700 worth of training

Lockdown is over, Summer is coming (I swear) and the idea is that we do the work NOW so that we are primed and ready when the warm weather returns to receive bazillions of new clients with open arms.

I’ll be sending out one lesson a day every day this week and they ALL disappear on 31 July so set aside some time to make the most of them while they’re here.

You’re going to have the best success not only this week but with your business in general if you have a clear goal (or two or three, no more than four) to work towards – a description of the transformation you are going to undertake when you RESET your salon.

We’re after a SPECIFIC outcome that you’re going to strive for, and I highly recommend that you start with a vision of your perfect day or lifestyle. Dream BIG!

Unless you are planning on retiring, your perfect day should include a certain number of hours of admin and client-facing as well as personal development, exercise and hobbies.

The more specific you can be, the better, so ideally you will end up with specific working hours described within your perfect day, e.g. start work at 10am and finish at 3pm, Tuesday to Saturday.

This perfect day is the basis for your Mission, or everything that you want to achieve by resetting your salon. Some examples that have been added to Missions already include –

  • “Set my ideal hours for 5 days a week, including 1.5 hours admin and at least 4.5 hours of clients but no more than 6.5. Stick to them like glue!”
  • “Achieve a Perfect Day – Waking at 8am, starting clients at 10am and finishing work – computer CLOSED – at 6pm with 2 Hours of scheduled admin in the middle”

To add further goals to your Mission, start with watching this video, from our ‘Creating a Business Plan‘ Module –

Now, unless you are fully booked (which you might be, and doing this workshop to further build your brand or opportunities – congratulations!), a lot of your Mission will be financially based.

If that’s the case, I highly recommend that you answer these questions.

Just write the answers down in a notebook for your own reference –

  1. How many clients did you see in each of the last 3 months? Eg January 33, February 27, March 45
  2. How much money did you make in each of the last 3 months? Eg January $3000, February $2800, March $3900
  3. How much was the average amount of revenue per client in each of the last 3 months? Divide revenue by number of clients. Eg January – $3000 divided by 33 clients is $90.90 per client
  4. How many hours did you spend on admin in each of the last 3 months?
  5. How many hours did you spend with clients in each of the last 3 months?
  6. If you add those together, how much was the average amount of revenue per hour you worked in each of the last 3 months? Divide the amount of money you made by the number of hours (admin AND clients) that you did, eg January – $3000 divided by 67 hours is $44.77 per hour worked

Knowing this information is imperative to being able to stride forward towards your perfect day and lifestyle. You can’t change what you can’t measure!

Now let’s get a couple more goals added to your mission. The idea is to end up with 3-ish bullet points that you can measure and work towards over the next 6-12 months.

Here are some examples of SMART Goals that could be included in your Mission.

I would recommend you include at least one of these, editing the numbers and dates to suit your own goals –

  • Increase my clients from 5 per month to 20 per month by 31 December
  • Increase my revenue from $35 per client to $50 per client by 31 December
  • Increase my revenue from $55 per hour of work to $80 per hour of work by 31 December
  • Increase my retail sales from an average of $2.40 per appointment to an average of $5 per appointment

Secondary goals could include – 

  • Save $5000 by 31 December (affected by client numbers and average spend)
  • Find a rental space for $2000/month or less by 31 December
  • Start a Waiting List – be fully booked in the quiet season and require a waiting list in the busy season (affected by client numbers and average spend)
  • Save 20% of all revenue for tax
  • Save 20% of all revenue for charity, debt, to buy a car
  • Reduce spending on products to 20% of revenue
  • Complete How to Set Your Prices and implement a Price Increase by 31 December
  • Complete XYZ Training Course by 31 December
  • To employ a staff member AFTER I reach my primary goal of XYZ
  • To reduce my hours from 50 per week to 30 per week, or to quit my other job – these are fantastic goals, but again are impacted first by those set hours you worked out at the start and second by number of clients and their average spend, so don’t forget those as a priority.
  • To attend X number of hours of training to improve my quality/efficiency/speed in my PRIMARY service. These training hours need to be additional to the hours you have set aside for clients, or your revenue will be affected.

Some goals that I don’t recommend (This is important!) –

  • ‘Increase my total revenue from $2000 to $5000 per month’. Why? Because that’s not in your control. Total revenue (the amount of money you make overall) is controlled by number of clients and spend/revenue per client, so think smaller and focus on client numbers or how much they spend. The end result will still be increased total revenue, but you will have better control over making it happen.
  • ‘Be fully booked’ – What does that mean?! How many clients? How long are those clients there for? Is it 30 x 15 minute clients? 10 x 2 Hour Clients? A mix of clients but no gaps between 9am-2pm, 5 days a week? Knuckle down.
  • ‘To have a profitable business’ – What does that mean? How many clients do you need to cover costs? How much do they need to spend? Complete How to Set Your Prices and come back to me with numbers that are specific, and that result in a profit.
  • ‘To buy my first home/to be financially stable/to support my kids/to make more than my husband’ – How? How much more money do you need to do this? How many clients will it take and at what average spend per appointment, to be able to save the extra? Make the goal about the number of clients and average spend, and base the goal on how much you need to get that house. Make the house a bonus 4th goal – ‘4. Buy a house once I achieve the above goals’
  • ‘To add an entirely new service/skill’ if you already have one you’re good/fast/confident at. Jack of all trades and master of none makes YOU stretched too thin and poor. Let’s focus on the skills you have now. If you want to add new ones, do this completely separate to your business. Make the training and practice a thing that happens outside of your business hours.
  • ‘To have a consistent part-time income/to have this as a full-time career/to bring in a full-time income’ – What does this meeeeeeeeeean?!

Some of your goals may also be around branding or recognition

These are all real ones from our current Salon Success: Marketing students. They aren’t necessarily following the SMART guidelines but as add ons to a couple of SMART goals they’re great for keeping focus –

  • To build a brand people recognise, respect and look to for guidance and support
  • Focus marketing on showing refinements, on educating people. So post a photo of an eye before and after and speak about what made the natural eye beautiful and what you did to refine it without making it almond
  • Focus marketing on day time clients to eventually shift my hours 1 hour earlier
  • Focus Marketing on a wider area to future proof your location
  • Focus on bringing people along on a journey through your steps towards achieving your goals
  • Focus your marketing on services you are confident in AND that make a decent profit – what will these be?
  • Document the journey in your marketing, building loyalty and interest through personal achievement stories
  • Produce Social Media content based on Client Education, Quality and Hygiene
  • Turn myself into a Need, not a Want through scarcity, exclusivity and urgency.

Achieving Achievability

Part of SMART Goals is them being Achievable, so if your kids are too young and you can’t achieve your BIG goal until they’re in school in 3 years time, then now is not the time for that goal. What CAN you achieve in the next 12 months?

You can also break some of your goals down further – what needs to happen between now and getting going on this? E.g. research, purchases etc.

One of our current students said “I think my BIGGEST struggle right now is the actual placing of my home salon. I literally don’t have anywhere else I can be (for now), and so it can be challenging when my husband is on kid duty but they come and have a chat/disrupt me. I really need a place that is away from the family.” – Ok but what CAN you do?

I said to another student “What has to happen between now and this happening? Financial, bookings-numbers-wise, etc?” and her reply was “[My] kids are too young, [I’m] financially not able to [do it] plus finding the right place in [my area] with a reasonable rent price is hard”. Tough love time, I said back “Those are a lot of can’ts, but I asked, what has to HAPPEN before you can achieve your goals? Eg. Kids in school, $5000 in savings, 40 clients per week, $10000 per month, locate a space for $2000 or less per month, buy furniture, etc etc… Don’t tell me why it can’t happen, tell me how it CAN”

An extra note from a conversation with one of our current students about her goals for balance – 

“We don’t want to be adding more clients and you working 60 hours, we want to be losing some clients who aren’t right and adding new clients that are right so we can limit your hours. We’re on the right track to having a clear plan, sticking to the plan, and having more ‘me’ time. But to make the right amount of money IN that time, we need to a) make sure you’re charging correctly, b) refine your services to specialise in the things that make you money and c) market in a way that weeds out the dead weight and attracts customers to HELP your goals not hinder them”

An extra note from a conversation with one of our students about recognition – 

Student: “I’d also LOVE to be a brand ambassador (I think that’s what they are called?) and have my own YouTube channel”

Me: “Why do you want to be a brand ambassador? Why do you want a YouTube channel? (These aren’t sceptical questions, these are like when we do client consultations and we say but WHY do you want Acrylics so that we can better help the client achieve the PURPOSE. The why before the what!”

Student – “I guess when I see brand ambassadors/YouTube influencers/techs with their own channels I think ‘success’. Like they’ve been recognised for their talent.”

Me: “Ok, so bugger brand ambassadorship and YouTube for now, ok? Brand Ambassadorship is lovely, and I’ve done it for years. It has its pros and cons for sure, I hate that if I ever use anything un-Artistic, it’s seen as disloyal rather than just being a Nail Tech. The opportunities I’ve been afforded from it are great. But let me be clear – it doesn’t make enough money for it to be something you strive for. It’s a fun bonus, and you’ve got more important things to do.

YouTube is fun, I do it for fun, if you think it sounds fun, do it. But it takes me an hour to film a <10 min video and 3 hours to edit it and I don’t make a cent off it, with 4000 subscribers. You have to have a minimum of 1000 subs and 4000 hours of watch time per year (I’m at 3700 for the last 365 days) to get any money. I did it because video does really well on Facebook and if I’m going to make a video I may as well chuck it on YouTube. Just don’t underestimate the work that goes into a channel, the Kirsty’s and the Suzy’s – it’s a full-time job and it’s their income. It IS their job.

Again, do either of those things as passion projects but instead of putting all that effort into making a different brand famous or into promoting yourself to random viewers in the US who are never ever going to give you money, let’s focus on you finding your definition of success within your reach FIRST and then adding those later.”

My recommendation now is that you choose 1-3 (ideally SMART) goals – one Perfect Day, one financial, one branding, one secondary, or a different mix that suits you.

WIN! WIN! WIN!

Post at least one of your goals in our Facebook Group with the hashtag #SalonReset and you’ll go in the drawer to win our ENTIRE suite of Salon Success courses, valued at $1705*

You can enter once per lesson, so five possible entries, but we’ll give you additional entries for posting on social media about the 5 Day Salon Reset if you use the hashtag #SalonReset and tag @MonacoNailAcademy.

The winner will be drawn next Friday 31 July after enrollments close and everyone has had a chance to watch all the videos.

*Or an equivalent coupon value for other courses if you already own these!