Personal care and pampering is something we all need. If you’re an entrepreneur, the world of the beauty salon has some surprising advantages. To begin with, it’s largely immune to the trend toward ecommerce since beauty salons provide hyper-localized personalized services. Secondly, if you provide great service, you will quickly develop an excellent reputation that will lead to repeat bookings.
Finally, there’s a trend toward buying “experiences” rather than “products,” and the beauty salon fits very neatly into this newway of thinking and purchasing. All that said, starting up a beauty salon business can be tricky. There may be local competition, and you'llneed to invest in finding skilled workers and developing an excellent brand.
In this guide we’ll explore everything you need to do to set up your beauty salon business and maximize your chances for success. We’ll cover:
If you want to run a successful beauty salon, you need to build your entire suite of services around customer needs. When it comes to offering beauty and hairdressing services, that means providing a great range of services at an extraordinarily high quality combined with reasonable pricing.
Your beauty salon will rely on word-of-mouth marketing, so you want to help customers become an advocate for your business. You can do this by offering personalized service and ensuring your staff provides extensive beauty treatments that leave your customers feeling pampered and wonderful.
When it comes to providing beauty treatments, you will want to ensure you’re providing the right niche of services. You have plenty of options:
Hairstyling and hairdressing
Hair removal and hot wax treatments
Manicures and pedicures
Massage
Tanning
Facials and skin care
When it comes to skill sets, you need wide-ranging expertise to be a successful beauty salon owner. These skills should include:
Finding, interviewing and hiring great beauty salon employees who can provide awesome beauty treatments and hairstyling services
Dealing with staff schedules, coverage, internal issues and other people management areas
Promoting your beauty salon business against a competitive field; local marketing expertise is essential
Working with employees to create luxurious treatments with good profit margins
Setting up the salon in the first place, which includes finding equipment, furniture, fixtures and fittings
Ensuring customers are served well and beauty treatments are provided to the standards you expect
Sorting out profits, payroll, financial management, accounting and all the other areas that go into running any successful business
Your main challenges will be finding the best beauty treatment therapists, local marketing and creating good profit margins for your business. You will also need to focus on creating extraordinary customer experiences so your customers become advocates for your salon.
Before you start your business, there are a few key areas you need to focus on. You will need to establish whether there’s a demand for your beauty salon services, look at potential benefits and pitfalls, understand how your business finances might look and ensure everything is in order.
In short, you need a business plan — here’s how to think about your business idea.
Before you launch your beauty salon business, you need to understand if there’s a demand for what you’re selling. That means carrying out market research and “validating” your products and services. Here’s how to go about it:
All businesses need a business model, which is how you will generate sales, provide services and make money. Think about your business model now, because it’s better to have that in place so you can start acquiring customers and generating revenue from day one.
You will also need to look at financial projections for your beauty salon business. What are your expected sales and revenues? What is your profitability? How much money will you keep in the business to grow it? How much will you pay yourself and others? If you can, try to plan your revenue for the next month, three months, year and two years.
You might start by just offering one or two high-demand beauty treatments and then expanding later as you build your reputation and clientele.
Finally, you should put your business plan together. Business plans do vary slightly, but they should cover the following areas:
Now that you have all the background information for your beauty salon business, it’s time to make it into a reality. Starts by choosing the right structure or “legal entity” for your business. In the U.S., there are five main business structures. They are:
This is the "default" business
structure and is what your
business will be if you decide
not to create a more formal
structure.
We don't
recommend this type of
business as it doesn't give
you the legal protections you need.
The most common type of business entity. An LLC is fast, simple and inexpensive to setup and maintain. It protects your personal finances and assets and is a great way to start your real estate
This is a special type of LLC entity that's only available in certain states. It allows you to create "mini" LLCs, each with their own limited liability and separate assets, under the umbrella of a master LLC.
This is a more complex type of
business and isn't generally
recommended for smaller
organization.
These are the largest and most
complex types of businesses
and are far more than the
average entrepreneur or
business owner will need.
Once you've legally created your beauty salon business, you’ll need to get some other things in place.
A great location is essential. You will want to be in an area with lots of foot traffic and accessibility, preferably around other businesses who are targeting the same type of clientele as you.
You will need equipment, furniture, fixtures, consumables and inventory to sell. Think about any hardware and transportation you might need. Make sure you understand exactly what you need to spend so you can write it off against business expenses.
Local marketing and strong branding will be essential to your success. You will likely need a website and a strong social media presence too.
There are many types of beauty salon management software solutions that can help you manage your business much more efficiently and effectively.
You will need to hire skilled, approachable employees. This is probably the area of the business you should spend the most time on — your people are the face of your beauty salon, and customer advocacy will be driven by how well they treat your clientele.
What kind of bank account will you get? Do you need a business credit card? How will you pay your business taxes? These are important questions to consider so your beauty salon business stays in the green. Here at Incfile, we can even help you file your taxes.
Most states require businesses to file an Annual Report once a year. You will also be expected to pay estimated taxes on what you plan to earn in the current business year. Your federal, state, regional and city business licenses and permits may need to be renewed on a regular basis, typically once a year.
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