Answering Some Industry Questions [EP:182]

Solo Episode (I'm alone!): Answering Some Common Salon Business Questions

In this episode, Todd addresses various topics related to running a salon business.

Todd reacts to some common questions from social media posts. 

Topics covered include the elusive 'best salon software,' hitting a million-dollar revenue mark, the reality of fully staffed salons, misconceptions about booth renting, and thoughts on implementing membership models. 

Todd offers blunt but insightful advice from personal experience to help salon owners navigate their business challenges effectively.

00:00 Introduction and Episode Setup
00:57 Opening Take: Salon Software
03:58 Achieving Business Success
06:20 Staffing Challenges in Salons
12:55 Pricing Strategies and Misconceptions
15:50 Booth Renting and Business Ownership
17:46 Exploring Membership Models
19:01 Conclusion and Listener Engagement

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Transcript

182

Todd: [00:00:00] All right. What's up everyone? Happy Monday some.

Oh, getting situated. All right, here we go. Sorry. Happy Monday everyone. So solo episode today, we had just some scheduling conflicts and all sorts of fun things, it'll be just me. I'll keep it brief. Jen and I had Als Jen and I had gone through some. Like posts that we had found on, you know, different Facebook groups and things like that, and we thought it would be fun to talk about that stuff.

So we'll probably do that next week together. But I thought, you know what, I'll just grab a few random ones. I think I have like six or seven random ones here, and I'll just talk about 'em real quick by myself. It'll gimme something to yap about so that we could still get an episode out because we don't miss episodes.

I don't know why, we just don't. But the first thing we'll do is I'll start with an opening take. Why not? 

All right, let's talk about salon software. So I, I actually, [00:01:00] I see this pop up a lot. And this was the same thing that we had when I owned a gym. So you would see it, you would see it quite often where people would be like, what's the best software? What's the best software? I use this, but I'm looking at this.

Compare X to y, pros and cons. Go. Stuff like that. There's no best salon software. I'm just gonna throw that out there. I worked with a company, I didn't work with them, but I hired a company who was probably still is the leader in as far as like mentoring salons around the world. And I worked with that company for a while.

And what they did was, I think they spent like $40,000 and they tested the top like 10 quote unquote gym softwares. And there's a lot of carryover from gym software to salon software, right? You need to book appointments. You need people to be able to access accounts. You might need to book different services, things like that.

You [00:02:00] might have a massage therapist, so there's all sorts of things where there's carryover. Anyway, after like $40,000, their conclusion was there is no best quote unquote software, and odds are, unless something came along that was. Drastically better. It wasn't worth the hassle to switch. So whatever cons you were dealing with with your software, the pros on another software didn't outweigh it enough to make the switch.

Every software is gonna have issues. Every software company I've ever dealt with, and this isn't a knock, this is just software. Companies are gonna constantly come out with features and new things that maybe you'll use, maybe you won't. And nothing's ever gonna work 100%. That's just the reality of it. So my opening take is don't stress so much about your salon software.

Just you [00:03:00] need salon software. Get a salon software and just roll with it if it becomes such an issue where it's holding your business back. And I don't see how that would happen. Unless they're literally not giving you their money, the, the money that you owed, which that actually did happen in the gym world, but I digress.

Yeah, unless they're like putting a stop on your money, I don't understand. Like there's, there's not one that's gonna be great and another that's gonna be terrible. They're all gonna be sort of in the same sort of area. It's just what are your needs? Do they have that Yes or no? Get the software.

Alright, let's jump into. Some of these things that we found, and I'm not gonna be a jerk. I'm not, obviously, I'm not gonna say names, I'm not going to make anything obvious where people would be like, oh yeah, I saw that post. So try to like not talk word for word. Let's start with this one. What are some things you can do [00:04:00] that helped your business to a million dollars?

Interesting. So I don't know why a million dollars is a goal. I look at profit line, there's money coming into your business. There's money going out, and then you have your bottom line. So you have your top line, I think I said profit line, I guess profit line works, whatever. I'm not an accountant. So you have your money that comes in, that's your service sales.

So when you say, how do you do a million dollars? Well do a million dollars of service sales. That's how you do a million dollars. You can either divide that up amongst yourself or amongst team members or amongst the staff or whatever. That's how you do a million dollars. The trick is how do you keep a chunk of that?

If you're an owner of a business, you should be getting compensated for the risk that you're taking for the work that you're putting in, not behind the chair for all the other stuff, for the marketing efforts that you are hopefully [00:05:00] doing for all the backend, for keeping the technology for. Making sure the place is clean, making sure the place is safe, making sure the place is compliant, all those things, you should be getting rewarded for that.

That's the point of a business. So simply doing a million dollars in sales really does nothing for you. I know businesses I've, I've worked in businesses. I've seen businesses. I've talked, tried to help businesses that do well over a million dollars a salon, well over a million dollars operates at negative.

So the owners are losing money. The owners are paying 10, $15,000 a year to go to work. I don't know why this industry loves to do that, but it does. It's interesting too. Jen and I were talking recently about Booth renters. We were seeing people that are paying, or that are getting second and third jobs to pay for their booth rent.

That should be the other way around. There you, you're, [00:06:00] you should be making money. It's a business. You wanted to be an independent business owner, own a business. So again, not trying to sound harsh or anything, but if you're not making money as a business owner, something's wrong. You need to make a change.

Alright, let's move on. This question was interesting. So do you think we can ever get fully staffed salons? Again, so, hello here. We're fully staffed. I think there are 15 or 16 of us total. That's pretty close. Like we could fit more people, we could be creative with our schedules. We could do more things.

Sure. But for right now, we've put a hold on hiring. I, Jen and I like where we're at. We're trying to figure out what the rest of 2025 is. We have a lot of education lined up and things like that, but. I, if I was looking to staff to answer the question, or actually that's not the question. Do you think we can ever, or, or do you think we'll ever see fully [00:07:00] staffed salons?

Yes, I, I have one. Come look at it and you'll see it. So, I don't know. I think a lot of owners have just like become salty about, you know, people wanting to do their own thing. I think it's great. I think people should, if you want to do your own thing, go do your own thing. You want to go rent a chair or a studio, go do that, by all means.

But if you're gonna be the owner where you're trying to build a team, if you're focused on all those people, you're not gonna build your team. I think that's step one. So step one, I would recommend if you're listening and you're like, I really need to staff this place, step one, stop focusing on everybody that's not in your business.

In the comments of this question I saw we'll never see it again, no time soon. Chair renting screwed. The industry changed it forever. Why? This was a good one. Why would a, a hair pro give you half their money? [00:08:00] That's an interesting one. So, as a salon owner, as a commission salon owner, my staff doesn't give me half their money.

Jen and I, we pay their paychecks. They do a job and they get paid based on their performance, based on their service sales, based on retail sales. They, they get obviously tips, but we're not taking half of their money. We're giving the, so clients pay hello hair. They don't pay the stylist. So I just think that some of these owners are, that are just, your mindset is just fucked.

Sorry to be blunt like that. You're so concerned with everything else that's going wrong, that you're missing on all the great stuff, because I'll tell you, the world's not that bad. Get over it. I hate that whole chair. Renting ruined everything. No, it didn't. You just don't know how to be an owner. You don't know how to manage things, [00:09:00] and that's okay.

Get some help and fix it. That's why we do this podcast. We're trying to inspire people. We like it because it's creative outlet for us, and it's fun. We'd love to help people. We love helping people. And my approach has always been sort of like, here's what you need to know. And sometimes it comes across as blunt, but I'm sorry.

If you are worried about if, if you are somebody that's like, why would why would a hair pro give you half of their money when they can go rent, blah, blah, blah? Or your mindset's fucked. You're never gonna attract people. Not, not like that.

All right. Next question here was not even a question, but I guess this place is allowing, so, so it looks like a supply store is allowing anybody to purchase products, so you don't need a license in this particular state to purchase from stores. That's nothing new. I don't know why the hair [00:10:00] industry thinks that it's the products.

It's not the products, it's the individual. I don't care it. I've been to restaurants that serve, you know, fine dining and I've been to restaurants that serve sandwiches and, you know, chicken on a stick. You can have hospitality in either of those. So it's, it's not about what's being offered. It's about who's doing the offering.

It's about you. Again, it's a mindset thing anybody can get. What do you want? Developer? Hi, hydrogen peroxide You can get at the drugstore. You don't even have to go to a beauty supply store. You just have to know the percentage. That's it. And anybody with Google can figure that out. What else? Hair color.

You can go to a freaking Walmart or any grocery store and buy box color. I know people are like, oh, it's different, blah, blah, blah. It's yes, because it's, it's who's [00:11:00] doing the, the service. It's not necessarily the quality. I, I guarantee you that you could do a better job if you're somebody that does color, you should be able to do a better job, even with some box color from the store.

All color comes in a box too. Such a weird term, but box color from the grocery store, you are gonna do a better job with that. Then your average person just picking it up. But guess what? That doesn't mean that person shouldn't be allowed to pick that up if they want it. Why do you think that having products, I, I see this too, kind of playing off of this post, but I see people a lot of times in these forums that are like, I don't carry any products that you can buy as the public.

You can get pretty much everything. And I've seen people that are like, you can't get this line anywhere. And I found it on Amazon in 30 seconds. Again, stop worrying so much about like blocking people from getting stuff because that can be [00:12:00] taken away from you in a second. So say you find a brand that only sells to you, they'll only sell to one salon.

You are the lucky Willy Wonka, golden Ticket, Holden Fool. And now you have this. Exclusive product, only available only at your place. What does that do for you? What do you think that does? Does that bring in staff? Does that bring in clients? Does it keep 'em? Are they there? Just because you have a product, you can give crappy service, you can be a jerk, you can show up late, it won't matter.

I would focus on the things you can control, and I would stop worrying about so much about what the public can get. It's a hair license. This is hair. I think a lot of people need to chill out. It's hair. The next one I found was, I, I think we're kind of wrapping up. I got a couple more. So the next thing I found was somebody was asking about how to price and in the comments, [00:13:00] this was really interesting that people said It's your location.

Obviously you need to make what you're worth, but your location dictates what you can charge. Disagree, hard disagree. Someone else in the comments, what you charge primarily depends on your location. False, it does not. There are people that charge the highest price, and there are people who charge the lowest price in every geographical location in our area.

I'm not a hundred percent sure, but we may have the highest haircut price, I'm not sure, but we have $160 haircut. Okay. Not everybody. Maybe there's people that charge more than us. That's cool. There are definitely places that charge less. It's irrelevant. You can charge what you [00:14:00] wanna charge. Again, you are foc if you, if that's your mindset.

What you're doing is you are focusing externally. You are focusing on the business across the street and the business, down the street and the business in a smaller town than you and a business in a larger town than you. And you are going, I have to charge somewhere in that range. When in reality you should have sat down with somebody that understood math.

An accountant, a business mentor, a business coach, I don't care what you want to call it. Your bank probably has a small business developer that can help you. Every state has a small business development center that's free for owners of small businesses to use. You need to sit down with somebody and figure out what you should be charging and.

I'll give you a pro tip right now. It has nothing to do with your location except for when you factor in your lease and what you need to make. Even that's gonna be wildly different. [00:15:00] Just because you're in a city doesn't mean you're necessarily paying more than somebody that's not in a city. 'cause I've had that before.

I've had people who have complained about our price and say, I've, I've get my hair done in New York City and I don't even pay that much. Great. Go to New York then. I don't care. There are plenty of clients that are happy with us and that's what I'm focused on. I'm focused on what's in our freaking business, not everything that's outside.

I'm not gonna change my prices 'cause some lady yelled at me and told me and told me that she can go to New York City for cheaper. Go ahead. Cool. Fun fact. Fun story lady. So I, I don't really think your location has much to do with it at all, except for the fact that you've got a factor in your lease, which is obviously gonna be a location thing to consider.

All right, here's a comment I saw. This is about owners and it says the truth about owners. Salon owners have systems that keep you controlled, controlled as in quotes too they charge you. [00:16:00] Per week. So this is about booth renting. And then they tell you what to charge. So if you're booth renting, they shouldn't be telling you what to charge.

So right there, that's false. There's no way to grow in booth renting. Well, I guess if that's your mindset, sure there should be. I, there's growth everywhere. If you're choosing to think that you can't grow in a situation, then that's your decision. So I guess you're right. As soon as you get good, they start going up on the rent.

Okay. I mean, it should be an rental agreement and you should have maybe signed it per year. Like I know when my lease goes up and it's not because we do more in sales year over year. It's because I signed a lease agreement that says this lease goes up after three years to this price, and then at year four, year five, year six, year seven, whatever.

Yeah, that's how EL should do. So it's, it's on you. Again, people wanna own a business, but they don't wanna operate a business. They just [00:17:00] wanna own it. They just wanna say they own it. I guess. You need to have your own plan if you want to grow, or you're gonna spend the rest of your career working for someone who had a plan.

The whole point of renting is to learn how a business is run. False, disagree, hard. I thought you were running a business. I thought rental was a business. So it's not now. It's only when it benefits you to say it is ah yi y. I retain all the clients you can and then start your own business. I thought again, booth renting was your own business, so this person I think is just confused.

Or maybe they work in a shitty scenario, but that makes no sense. All right, moving on.

All right, this is the last one, and then we'll end. So this person's looking to do memberships monthly. They wanna do monthly services for clients, monthly offerings. So I, I've seen this and this is sort of the Netflix subscription sort of model where people are trying to figure [00:18:00] out their way through.

Offering monthly subscriptions. So I, I've seen this done a few different ways, and actually I'll talk about it more with Jen 'cause this would be an interesting topic to do. But what these people are suggesting is that they're doing money off of services or small discounts on retail. So by doing a subscription, I don't know why you would discount it.

Like why are you discounting your services? It doesn't make sense. You're discounting it because they're paying upfront. Is that what you're thinking about? I don't know. I want to talk to somebody that does this subscription sort of model, because what I've seen so far is the majority of people are just offering a discount.

So you're basically like buying all your haircuts up front so you get money off. Why would you do that? That makes no sense to me. I, yeah. Anyway. [00:19:00] I think that's good. I think that's enough for now. What are we at? We're at like 20 minutes, so sorry again that you had to listen to. Just me ramble. Hopefully something came out of this.

Hopefully if you're still listening, you liked what I had to say. I would love and appreciate Jen would too, a review. So if you went on Spotify or you went on Apple, or you shared the podcast with somebody, we've noticed a, a bump in growth over the last couple months. We've saw, we've seen our our views and listens and stuff like that, sort of go up substantially.

So thank you everyone for listening and I will see you next week with Jen. I was gonna say, I promise, but I can't really promise I, anyways, thanks for listening. Bye everyone.