Profitable Salons: The Uncomfortable Truth

Building a profitable salon business requires investment of time, money, energy, mindset and willingness to embrace discomfort - it's not for the faint-hearted.

• Most salon owners want change but aren't willing to change themselves
• Profitable salon owners know their numbers and can communicate effectively
• Setting boundaries with clients and team members is crucial for business success
• Growth doesn't come from perfection but from imperfect action outside your comfort zone
• The right business mindset includes ownership, grit, and problem-solving abilities
• Your business is a reflection of you - you are the only one who can truly fix it
• Surrounding yourself with successful people forces you to level up
• Time and money must be sacrificed for growth - success requires restructuring priorities
• The 80/20 principle applies: 80% of salon owners aren't willing to do what the 20% will do
• Taking risks and being comfortable with discomfort separates profitable owners from the rest

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Transcript

Welcome to Beyond the Mirror

Daz 0:06

Welcome to Beyond the Mirror with your hosts, Adri Varga and Jodie Field. In this podcast, Adri and Jodie take you on an intriguing journey beyond the surface, deep diving into the world of business in the hair, skin, beauty and wellness industries. From business success tips and marketing hacks to industry insights and trends, it's all here. They leave no stone unturned. So get ready to unlock your full potential, evaluate your business, leave behind the limitations and embrace the endless possibilities that lie beyond the mirror.

Jodie 0:58

Hello and welcome everyone. It's great to be back. I'm Jodie Fielden and I'm here with my work wife and bestie and business partner, adrie Varga. During these podcasts, we share with you how you can leverage your passion into profit. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur, a seasonal salon owner or someone who's just thinking about starting out, you're in the right place because we've just about done it all, and we're here to share with you that you can too, because it's time to believe your salon can be everything you ever wanted.

Adri 1:28

Hi everyone and welcome back, and today we are having a real and a very honest conversation about what it actually takes to build a profitable salon business, and not just in theory, but in. And a little bit of a spoiler alert, it's not for the faint-hearted.

Jodie 1:49

Yeah, this one's a truth bomb episode. All right, Because while a lot of salon owners love the idea of owning a salon and making big bank, very few of them are actually willing to do what it takes to get there.

Adri 2:02

Yes, absolutely. So let's start here. You know, building a profitable salon doesn't just happen. Yeah, it's actually an investment of time, money, energy and mindset, and you actually have to show up even when you don't feel like it, and also you have to learn things that you've never done before, and almost you always have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Jodie 2:34

Exactly most salon owners we speak to want change. Actually all the salon owners we speak to. They want some change but they're not willing to change. They say they don't have enough time to work on their business because they're busy with clients, family, friends. They don't have enough money, they can't, you know, they can't find the money to do it. They want to make, you know, an extra 100k, but they don't want to put any investment into learning how to make that money. You know, they just want it to click and someone come and wave a magic wand don't charge me anything for it and transform my business yeah, yes, absolutely, and everyone has this really nice idea in their head.

Adri 3:18

But what they don't realise, you know like if you are not willing to sacrifice a few things today, like scrolling or downtime, or even late nights catching up, then you're probably not going to get to the next level. 80 percent of the people are simply just not willing to do what 20% are doing.

Jodie 3:46

Yeah, 100%. We've seen it over and over, like every time Salon owners who stay stuck because they refuse to change the things that aren't working and things like you know. They don't want to change their pricing because they're fearful, they don't want to let go of team members who are dragging them down in the culture, because they're attached to that team member you know, like they're friends. Or they don't want to invest in learning the tools that they don't have that's going to actually help them grow to the next level.

Adri 4:18

Yes, absolutely. And also it's almost like they like the idea of being more profitable, but they won't let go of the habits that keep them broke. And it's hard, you know, changing your environment, learning to lead, managing uncomfortable situations. We absolutely acknowledge that this is hard, but you can't grow and stay the same in the same time.

Jodie 4:46

No, I mean, and growth doesn't come from perfection, you know, like, growth doesn't come from you getting everything right and having all your ducks lined up in a row, like, all dressed up with bow ties, like some might be ducks, some might be squirrels, they're in a line. They might be, you know, half upside down, but at least they're in a line. They might be, you know, half upside down, but at least they're in that line right. So you know, it's, um, it's messy and it's imperfect action outside of your comfort zone. And you've got to move outside that comfort zone, um, to do that, you, you need the right mindset. So I guess one of the things I wanted to ask you, audrey, today in this session, was all around you know, what is the mindset that leads to success?

Adri 5:32

yeah. So this is actually a very, very aware mindset. It's ownership of where you are at right now, also being aware of it and become comfortable where you are at right now. And also you need to have a grit. So the grit is basically, you know, like uh, to be able to push through hard time and understand that, uh, creating a salon business or a profitable business is not going to be the straight line up to success. And also, what is very important, that where you are with your business is actually the reflection of you and your actions, and if something doesn't work, it's on you and also you can fix it and you are the only one who can fix it.

Jodie 6:28

Yeah, that's it. You know, like, there's no one that can step into your salon, um, or skin clinic, or it doesn't matter if it's a construction, you know site no one can step in and fix it for you. You've got to fix it for yourself and you've got to be prepared to invest and go through that uncomfortable stage to fix it. You know like and it's funny like we're talking about how uncomfortable you have to be to find the solution, or actually you find the solution, but whether you commit to doing the solution and you and I, we had that conversation earlier this week, right, where we had to book an appointment, and so we're deciding, like, because we're looking for a VA at the moment, right, and so we're meeting with this company and and, um, they're going to uh, coach us how to, you know, like, put all the systems for a VA, because there's a lot of work into it, you know.

Jodie 7:27

And so Adriana and I are sitting there debating. They've said to us like, okay, we've got an appointment time at 12.30am, 2am, 3am, 4am, and Adriana and I are looking at each other going is it a 2am problem? Is it a 3am, like? How bad is this problem in our life for us to get up and have that meeting? And so we had to like find yep, all right, we're going to have to do it. You know and I'm the worst person Like Adriana can wake up really easily in the morning. She's on it, she goes and does her exercise, she has a green juice, she gets a coffee ready. I'm crawling to the desk with my eyes hanging out of my head, growling about having to be awake, you know. So you've got to do things that you don't want to do if you actually want to achieve the results.

What Makes a Salon Owner Profitable

Jodie 8:15

So I guess, it comes to the profitable salon owners, you know like what makes them profitable.

Adri 8:23

Yeah. So, apart from mindset, there are a couple other things too. Yeah, so definitely, they need to know their numbers. Yeah, because you only can grow or scale your business when you know where is your baseline, where is your starting point, and then you can have a look what works and what doesn't work. Yeah, also, you need to be able to communicate and stand up for yourself and set boundaries with clients and team. And this is really, really important because most of the salon owners they feel extremely uncomfortable to actually communicate things which are not right, which is not right with the team, not right with the clients, and they shy away. So what happens when you shy away is basically you just put everything at the back burner, everything at the back end, and after a while it's going to explore. So the communication part is very, very important. Setting boundaries is very important. Part is very, very important. Setting boundaries is very important.

Adri 9:27

And the next part, which is really the biggest part, what we can see is they know they are in trouble, they know something doesn't work, but they do not ask for help. So profitable salon owners they're constantly looking for solution, constantly problem aware, and also they know that there is a solution and when they find the solution, they ask for help and then they take really scary actions and they are risk takers because they understand, if I don't step outside of my comfort zone, when I'm pretty much risk-free and I take risk, you know like then they don't afraid of the consequences, yeah, so they have a forward thinking mindset. And yes, we know, you know like in business, we take risks and sometimes we win and sometimes we learn, but it's always something positive out of. You know the action, what we take, but we are, or the, you know, the profitable business owners. They are not tiptoeing around, yeah, no, they're not.

Jodie 10:35

And, like I had one of the salon owners that I was talking to just before we jumped into this podcast and she's been had the salon for a couple of years and she's just like we're talking, like I identified the areas that she needed to work on her systems, her kpis, like all the the business foundations that you were just talking about, that, um, most salon owners, because we're creative people, we don't focus on that area because it's one out of our preview.

Jodie 11:03

It's just not interesting and we get too busy. And she's like well, I'm going to have to do something, otherwise I'm just going to be here in the same place next year, still not taking a wage. And I said, yeah, pretty much, you know, like that's the story. You know you either do something about it or you're going to stay in that hole and you're just going to keep throwing money in it. So I guess it's kind of like you know what do the rest do they wait? They hope they blame. You know they blame everyone else because they, it's the staff's problem, it's the clients they don't want to spend. You know, like there's all this blame going around instead of saying, actually, that's a reflection of me.

Adri 11:42

Yeah, and really there is nothing new about, isn't it? That success isn't about working harder, it's about working smarter. We learn this, you know every day where everyone is saying don't work hard, work smart. And making smarter decisions are the most important part.

Sacrifices Required for Growth

Adri 12:03

But really, when it comes to the right business mindset, your environment is extremely important. You need to surround yourself with people who have already done what you want to achieve, because if you surround yourself with people who are struggling with the same thing, then they don't have the solution and you won't be able to learn. But that's a comfort zone because everyone has the same problem, so you feel comfortable. I'm not alone. Once you want to elevate and level up the people who you're going to surround yourself, they're already halfway where you want to be or they've already done it. So it's very uncomfortable because you are the little kindergarten age business owner who's trying to catch up.

Adri 12:48

But if you have an open mindset, this is actually a great environment because just naturally, we level up to our environment or we level down to the environment, and it's exactly the same Very interesting when we work with business owners and team members when a new team member comes to the salon, to the environment, if the team member lacking sales skills, retail skills, rebooking skills, but the salon is really good, that team member will level up. But many times we saw that the salon owner employed an excellent team member, almost like a little star, not even fitting in the environment because they are more advanced. What will happen after a while? They will drop down to the salon level and the salon environment. So it's very, very important for us to understand that if you want to move up, if you want to become successful, we want to be surrounded with successful people.

Jodie 13:54

Yeah, it's your reflection of the people that you're around and the people around you are a reflection of you. Yeah, it's that whole in the mirror, um, but it's. I was. I can't even remember. It was some sort. It was a show the other day that I was watching. I can't remember, but, um, they were saying you know, if you're the smartest person in the room, you need to find a different room.

Adri 14:20

And it's so true.

Jodie 14:22

Yeah, so that really resonated with me. I'm like, oh yeah, like I need to find a room where there's someone smarter than me so I can do better.

Adri 14:33

Yeah, and the other thing is what I wanted to touch on very, very quickly is the willingness to giving up things. Yeah, and many times you speak to salon owners who want to come on board and you know like you work them through the numbers and everything and you know like they know this is the right thing for them, but then where they stop that they don't. They say I don't have time to go through all this or I don't have money to go through all this. So those are the two big objections which are holding you back, because time and money is what's going to take you further. And if you're really serious about improving your business, if time is a really big element, then you need to really think about what I just said in the beginning. That all right, how can I elevate things which are not serving me?

Adri 15:32

One of the very, very good example one of our one-on-one coaching clients couple of years ago now, when we went through the time tracker, uh, anniko just realized that, uh, she's spending hours and hours front of the tv and when she told me I don't have any time to finish my tasks. Then we went through the time screening and when she realized how much time she spends front of the tv. She unplugged the tv and she put it in the storeroom because she got so angry. But I'm wasting my time in here. So time you always like, it just depends how much you want to change. Really, you always can't find the time and if you don't find the time you're going to pay, staying the same and struggling.

Adri 16:23

And when it comes to finding the time another good example lately all of our coaches in america and sometimes we do have to get up at midnight to do a workshop because it's an american time and again, as jody mentioned, we just basically have a look is it a 12 o'clock problem? And if we get up and if we do it, does it going to solve our problem? We used to have a three days at night marathon coaching session or master class or whatever. It was boot camp, and every single night for three nights we had to stay awake, plus during the day we were working, so our sleeping pattern was out of really the rainbow yeah, it was bad, but like, the reward, like of the investment of our time, but like, even more so in front of that is that people say I can't afford it.

Jodie 17:28

Right, they've waited until they've got their business in such a hole because they're investing money into areas that they shouldn't be investing their money into, because they haven't gone to research and learn where they should be investing their money before they jump into it. And we spoke about this in our one of our earlier um podcasts about, you know, um, investing in image or in profitability. And so people come to me and they've like you know, three or seven years into business and they've invested all this money. And they're like you know, three or seven years into business and they've invested all this money. And they're like, okay, I know that you can solve this problem, I know that I need to learn how to do this, but I can't afford it anymore. And I'm like, well, let's have a look at what your budget is Like. What do you prioritise? You say you can't afford it, but are you going out?

Jodie 18:15

Like when we do what's called an open wallet and we look at their budget, they're spending money on coffee. They're spending money on going out with their girlfriends. They're spending money on wine. They're spending money on, you know, taking expensive holidays overseas. Whoops, sorry, that was my alarm. Guys Taking holidays overseas and stuff like that was my alarm. Guys, um, taking holidays overseas and stuff like that, and then they're like, oh no, I don't have any money to invest in my business. Like, well, obviously your business isn't a priority for you if you're not willing to sacrifice something to be able to, um, make the business profitable or to save the business. Yeah, so they're not willing to take that awareness and go, okay, I have to make fundamental changes in what I do to save my business.

Jodie 19:07

And that's the difference between. You know, like, one of our clients that we have at the moment, she's got two salons that she's running and it took her to have like a major accident to realize she needed to make change. But she's gone through, like our program, eight weeks well, seven or eight weeks worth of program, she's done in three weeks. You know like, and she has kids, as well as the two sons, like 90-hour weeks. She works and she's still finding time to show up and sacrificing things so that she can afford to pay for it too, you know, and in the long run, that small investment at this end it's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the business.

Jodie 19:50

But that awareness, especially in this industry, they don't. They they're not kind of taking that high level view of okay, if I invest five thousand dollars here in doing this, how much money does it make me in 12 months time? If I invest twenty thousand dollars into this machine, how long is it going to take me to pay that back and then for that machine to be profitable? Or which one should I invest in first that's going to give me the fastest return on investment, so that, therefore, I can afford the next thing and grow beyond that? You know like it's got to be strategic.

Adri 20:31

Yeah, absolutely and honestly. The bottom line is, yeah, you either need to sacrifice time and that's probably the luckiest when you're sacrificing time because you have the cash you can invest or you're going to sacrifice money and, knowing out of our and my personal experience, when I really wanted something, even if I had to sell stuff, I made it happen. And many times, as Jodi mentioned salon owners or business owners in general they just don't willing to sacrifice or they don't understand that if they restructure certain part of their life just to be uncomfortable or live poorly, you know which is not poorly living, but you know like you cannot go on holiday, you cannot buy food.

Jodie 21:24

Just be frugal for a little while so that you can get a return on that frugal investment. Because you know, at the end of the day, frugal investment because, yes, you know at the end of the day, if you don't like invest it now and spend that time, you can't keep the doors open. They end up closing, so then you end up losing everything. So it's like what do you want to do here?

Adri 21:47

yeah, and then honestly, you know like uh to to enter into an uncomfortable uh part when you take a risk, and then you know staying where you are, you know like it's a huge difference. But you're either going to be disciplined and work through, like the salon owner, jodi just mentioned, and you can speed it up and you can make it happen, or you're going to have regrets Years and years later. I guarantee you you're going to wish that two years ago you would have make a decision, because two years ago probably you could afford if you make very, very strict decisions. And now, two years later, you are in such a deep hole that there is really not much you can do about it, or it's going to be extremely difficult to move the needle.

The Call to Action: Look in the Mirror

Jodie 22:42

Yeah, it's going to take a lot of time, it's going to take even more money and there's no guarantees Once they're like below a certain line. There's only so much we can do to help them get back, yeah, yeah. So I guess that brings us to a challenge. You know, like I guess our challenge to ourselves and our listeners is you know, take an honest look in the mirror and what are you avoiding that's keeping you from achieving your goals? So, for salon owners, let's say, profitability, um, you know. For for us, you know, what are we avoiding at the back I know what I'm avoiding or the back end of the crm, yeah, we're finding the solution. We're getting a va yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Adri 23:33

And and it's not just finding the solution because you know like the back end, you know like you're trying to avoid the CRM, but because we are growing quite fast. What we do, you know like we do a growth, a path, and then we have a little bit of a stagnation when we implementing things. And right now our implementation is to keep up with the good work and everything. We're going to bring in 2va and dot 2va is going to help us to elevate again. So again, it's an investment, is an investment from everyone.

Adri 24:07

But we just learned over years how business works and how are're going to do it smartly, because many times you know businesses are growing too fast and then you lose everything or the good work, because the client satisfaction is the satisfaction is not there. So really, you know, like, if you want to look into the mirror, I would suggest just ask yourself. So, if you want to look into the mirror, I would suggest just ask yourself. So, if you want something different, what are you really willing to do differently, starting today? Because you must do something differently, because if you keep doing the same thing, you're going to get the same result yeah, so what is that?

Jodie 24:56

my favorite quote from henry ford if you do um the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. I can't even remember what it is now yeah, um something like that.

Jodie 25:06

It's along the same lines yeah, I was looking at the time going oh god, god, my alarm's going to go off. Bryn's going to come running in the house, so we'll leave it there for today. Yeah, so I guess we'll leave everyone with this. If profit doesn't come from wishing, it comes from working on the right things, and if you're ready to do the work, we're always here to show you how for you. So on.

Adri 25:33

Yeah, and just remember you can always book a free demo of our Salon Accelerator program. And also just remember we guarantee results in 90 days or you don't pay. That's it.

Jodie 25:45

All right, that's it from us today, guys. We've got to run off before the rowdy ones get home. So if this episode gave you a wake-up call, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Follow us on instagram and facebook. I will try. The handle it is at focus gdt. See you next week and next time exactly. See you next time. See you, guys. See you next time. Bye, guys, bye-bye. Just how long can be everything you've ever dreamed, guys? Bye, bye.

Daz 26:20

Well, that was Beyond the Mirror. Thank you for being a part of this exhilarating adventure. Join Andrea and Jodie next week as they continue to help you unlock the true potential of your business so you can leave your limitations behind and embrace the endless possibilities that lie beyond the mirror. And if you have a burning question that you'd like to feature as a guest on this podcast, just leave us a message at the podcast page at FocusGDTcom. So until next time, keep pushing boundaries, keep thriving and always remember that your success is right here, right now, beyond the mirror.