As a salon owner with several chairs to fill, you have a major challenge. You must find, hire and keep great hairstylists and other salon professionals who share the same dream and commitment to professionalism as you do. That’s a 92% Train Wreck You Can Avoid! When you hire hairstylists and booth renters in your salon, you will have many distractions. Vacation days, maternity leave, maintaining the salon’s image and level of professionalism. Even if you are willing to deal with the distractions, the reality is the salon industry AVERAGES 40% yearly turnover. That means you will be replacing nearly half your staff – EVERY YEAR! At Salon Plaza, we show you how to hire and keep great hairstylists in our video – 7 Secrets For Salon Success. It’s fun to watch with a lot of really helpful business tips about hiring great hairstylists and getting more salon clients. Get Instant Access – It’s FREE! How Salons Can Build Strong Client Relationships
When you open a salon, here’s more to think about than just hiring great hairstylists. Strong relationships with clients make for a stronger salon. But when client relationships are built around salon professionals you’ve hired, you know what can happen. Your staff gets good at bringing in their own clientele… and then they leave to start their own salon! Especially if they take YOUR clients with them!! But who’s clients are they? That’s an important industry question. Most often, it’s decided by the client. Right now, if you’re thinking of leaving your current situation, that truth can work FOR you. But after you open a salon, if you have chairs for other stylists to fill, this can work AGAINST you. Will Your Stylists “Take Your Clients And Run?” That’s why, if you rely on your staff for cash flow, you must continually focus on building their loyalty. Then the challenge becomes, how can you pay your staff right so they remain loyal top performers and YOU stay profitable?
Designing the best pay system for your salon is a complex puzzle whose pieces must all fit together right. It will take plenty of fine-tuning as you go. For instance, will your salon rent booths or pay employee commissions? There is no one-size-fits-all payment plan that works for all salons. Advantages of Single-Chair Studio Salons For some salon owners, there’s just too much DRAMA in having other stylists work for them. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a highly profitable salon WITHOUT having to manage other stylists? Here’s what one of our Independent Salon Owners at Salon Plaza has to say: “I love the freedom of working for myself, without employees or someone else’s rules!” If you are ready to find out more about how YOU can be in business FOR yourself… but not by yourself, you’ve come to the right place. To discover more about what it takes to grow a successful salon, watch our 7 Secrets of Salon Ownership video. “7 Salon Owner Secrets” covers our FAQs – most frequently asked questions:
Now, more than ever, your ability to make a profit will get challenged – with heated-up competition to offer LOWER prices in a downward dance to the bottom. BUT… you can actually RAISE your prices without losing customers! If you have the right tools. In this article “Salon Pricing Strategies: What Salon Owners Don’t Know About Price… And if YOU knew, it would truly change your fortunes” – Salon Plaza gives you the tools you need to avoid competing on price… ever… no matter what city or town you work in.Hair stylists often earn commission based on their services and product sales. Medioimages/Photodisc/Photodisc/Getty Images Many salons have a commission-building system in place to encourage stylists to bring in business and compensate them for their work. While commission is common among salons, the type, amount and structure of the commission varies significantly from salon to salon. Some salons establish set rates for every stylist, while others increase rates for stylists with seniority or stylists who exceed certain monetary amounts.
The exact percentage of commission that a stylist earns can vary based on seniority, with junior stylists typically earning the lower end of the commission scale. Some salons use a graduated commission scale in which stylists who meet certain monetary goals receive an increased commission rate for the additional business they bring in above that amount. In 2012, hairdressers, hairstylists and cosmetologists earned an average of $12.88 per hour, including commission, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This comes to about $26,790 per year. Commission Structure Some salons pay stylists on a commission-only basis, meaning they receive no salary or hourly pay. However, this structure can be difficult for newer stylists who may not have a large customer base. Some salons offer a salary or hourly wages for the first few months before switching to commission-only pay. Other salons implement a hybrid salary-commission system in which employees receive a minimum salary or hourly pay, along with commission.
Stylists working within a hybrid system often receive lower commission rates than those working in commission-only salons. Commission-Earning Services Salons often give stylists commission for both styling services and hair-care product sales. Stylists are expected not only to attract clients for shampoos, cuts, colorings and stylings, but also to promote certain products and encourage their clients to purchase them from the salon. Some salons have different commission rates for salon services and product sales. As with styling services, commission from product sales may work on a set rate or a graduated scale. Booth-Rental Salons Rather than hiring employees, some salons simply rent out chairs in their salon to independent stylists for a flat monthly fee. In this model, the salon owner is effectively just a landlord, collecting monthly rent from each stylist. Booth-rental stylists do not receive a commission, but they are typically able to pocket 100 percent of the earnings from their services.