Multi tasking

Many hairdressing salon owners have aspirations of being a one-stop shop for beauty and hair. Many have tried, only some have succeeded. But if you’re seriously considering it, then you need to ask yourself some serious questions. Ellie van Baaren investigates.

The hair and beauty industries are very closely linked – especially in the mind of the consumer – which has led many hair salons to dabble in providing beauty services (and the other way around). While offering more services to clients can give them the perfect reason to spend more money with you, it’s not just a matter of turning the storage cupboard into a beauty room.

Salon business adviser Malcolm Gibbons understands the challenges and benefits from the inside – as a salon owner, he offered all manner of beauty, grooming and spa on top of his hair services. “We wanted to offer a one-stop shop so that we could say to clients come in for a couple of hours and go out a new woman.”

When the beauty clinic next door came up for sale, they bought it and set about renovating to bring them together, which meant both had to move out for six weeks. “That was pretty harrowing. The salon went one way and the beauty went to another place in the other direction. I wasn’t perturbed by doing that but it’s not for the faint hearted.”

The reason it didn’t concern Gibbons was that he’d done his homework – he had surveyed clients, looked around at what else was in the area and had done the sums. It turned out to be a successful move and it gave him a lot of experience to draw on when he’s advising clients in his current capacity.

“There are great crossover marketing opportunities for current clients, you can target a new market, plus you get purely beauty or hair clients, but don’t expect all your clients to automatically switch to you for all their services. There are lots of reasons they go elsewhere and sometimes they want you to earn their confidence.”

Mandy Grant always planned to offer both sides of the coin, but she started with hair. In a similar situation to Gibbons, when the beauty clinic next door came up for sale, she jumped on it. The business took off and got too big for the space so she bought Soma Day Spa in Howick about five years ago. Now they offer everything from massages and facials to hair, beauty, medispa treatments and IPL.

“We found that a lot of our clients came to us for everything, but for the past year and a half we’ve really focused on trying to get 100 per cent of our clients coming to us for everything. We’re sitting at about 75-80 per cent at the moment.”

One of the biggest pieces of advice Grant can give is to go and have a look at what other people have done. “I wish there were more people doing everything when I was looking at it, just to see what they did. You need a fair amount of space. Hairdressers are a noisy bunch. They like their music loud and they talk a lot, beauty needs to be tranquil and peaceful. You can’t just partition off a room to put your beauty therapist in.”

“When you think about it, what do beauty therapists do?” Gibbons asks, with his business adviser hat on. “They take clients into a room and close the door. Hairdressers are always listening to their stylists’ consultations, sharing advice, helping out. They’re training and keeping an eye on things without even realising it. My experience is that most people put a beauty therapist in a room and six months later ask why is this not working?”

Which is where a business plan comes in. Gibbons isn’t fussy, it can be written on a napkin, but as long as it answers a few simple questions, it shows that you’ve thought about the realities. Those questions are:

1.    What extra services do you want to offer?

2.    Why do you want to do it? What do you want to achieve?

3.    Is there a market for it? Are you surrounded by retailers offering the same sort of services?

4.    What is it going to cost you? Include refit, rent, extra utilities, product, staff and training.

5.    How many people are you planning to employ? Or are you looking at rent-a-chair?

Looking at what it will cost you involves being very honest. For example, just because you’re utilising space you’re already paying for, doesn’t mean it’s costing you nothing, the beauty part of the business needs to pay for the space it’s taking up. “You need to know how much it’s going to cost you and how many clients you need to cover the expenses,” Gibbons says.

If you have the space to provide beauty services, another option is renting it to someone. Financially this can be a good option, however, Gibbons says it’s crucial that you formalise the relationship – even if you know the person well. “You definitely need an agreement covering things like the hours the clinic is open, whether it’s busy or not, and what happens with any stock that’s left over.”

The most important part of this, and of employing any extra staff, is getting the right person. They need to fit with the personality of your salon. While that’s also important when you hire stylists, you won’t know what your beauty therapist is saying and doing whereas you can keep a close eye on what’s happening on the floor. Don’t forget that your reputation as a business is on the line.

Grant also says that, as a hairdresser at heart, she has to resist the temptation to funnel all the funds into the hair side. “There’s always one side that’s really thriving while the others aren’t. One week retail and beauty will be hopping but we can’t do a haircut to save ourselves. Then another week the beauty and hair are going well but the retail is abysmal.”

The key is to keep focusing on the big picture. Having said that, Gibbons says you also need to know your numbers. “If you’re losing money you need to look at why and then decide what to do with it. Decide whether it can be fixed or not.”

Despite the success of his original venture, considering today’s market, Gibbons is personally not so sure he’d do it now. He pinpoints to “niching” as the latest area for growth, becoming experts in what you do best. “I would put some IPL machines in and get a couple of nurses to get IPL training. It’s still niche, it’s still hair. Look at what you love doing and command a niche within it.”

Grant, on the other hand, says it’s definitely worth doing but adds that you need to have some idea about the services you’re offering. “I wouldn’t recommend not having any idea about the beauty side of things. You need to know and understand the basics, get as much experience as you can. You can’t have your staff being more informed than you are.”

Gibbons says if you’re moving towards offering different services look into providing some kind of organic product. “The public are interested in the planet and if you’re going into a new venture you want make it as easy as possible to sell it to them.” He advises you look for products that are not tested on animals, made with natural ingredients and try and score some kind of exclusivity.

You also need to make sure the products perform. Do a lot of research and find out what people are saying about it. Look for any consistent messages, not just someone with an axe to grind, and don’t forget that if you find people are saying good things about it then you can use that in your marketing.

“My best advice would be to get yourself a coach to run it past,” Gibbons says. “A lot of people do it on emotion, but you also need the logic to come into play. If it’s really going to work you need to ask yourself ‘why am I doing it, how am I going to do it?”