5 questions for salon and spa success in the New Year

December 7, 2012 by

The holiday season is in full swing. More than likely, this means that your salon or spa is busy, the appointment book is full (at least for the next few weeks) and clients are spending money. It’s a good feeling, isn’t it? Of course! Who doesn’t like to a full cash register? But in the back of your mind, there’s a small, quiet voice that’s calling out to you. And, if you’re a proactive salon or spa owner, you’ll know to listen carefully for the one simple question that little voice keeps asking:

What are you going to differently in your business next year?

It’s a simple — yet extremely sobering — question. Can your business, family and staff survive and thrive if you continue status quo? Or, are you ready to really drive the business forward?

Here are five critical questions to determine if you’re prepared for a prosperous New Year:

  1. What’s your plan for growth? Even if this year was wildly-successful for your salon or spa, if you don’t shake things up and fine-tune your thinking, systems and/or culture, there’s a strong chance you won’t see much additional growth in the year to come. Where will growth come from in your business? Is it waiting for you right now? Are there areas in your company where you see inefficiency and potential for improvement? Get your plan in place NOW to start producing revenues from these target areas.
  2. Does your team know how to get there? It’s a simple question. Does anyone besides you, the leader, know where you plan to take the company next year? And if so, do they know how? Do YOU know? Communication is the key to success. Plan your attack, get it down on paper, and then relentlessly communicate that mission to your team. Get them involved in drawing the roadmap. The more they are involved, the more motivated they will be to reach the desired destination.
  3. Who will lead the way? Great communication starts with a great leader. You own the vision of where you want to take your company. You stand at the helm of this exciting adventure. Great companies are built around great leaders. Hold yourself and your team accountable. Cheer their successes and guide them through their shortfalls. Be the leader your company needs you to be.
  4. Where will growth come from? We touched on this point earlier but it bears repeating: Where is the untapped revenue in your business? Is it hiding behind inefficiency and poor systems? Or will it come from new opportunities that are yet to be discovered? The growth is waiting for you, the hard part is finding where it’s hidden.
  5. Are you doing what you love? It’s a powerful question, isn’t it? Do you come to work everyday with a positive attitude, or does your heart sink when you step through the front door? If it’s the later, you need to find a way to turn things around. As the leader of your company, your attitude and happiness level is infectious. Are you trapped behind the chair when you’d prefer to be working on the business? If so, then start researching ways to transition out from behind the chair (Strategies can help). Do you enjoy leading meetings, tending to the books or doing color applications? If not, it’s time to start exploring how others in your company can start taking on these responsibilities. Perhaps it’s time to hire new staff. Just make sure you it makes sense for the business and the bottom line.

I hope this little reminder to listen to that little voice in the back of your head has gotten you thinking about the importance of planning ahead for the New Year. You can do it — all you need is a plan.

 

 

Filed Under: Information Flow, Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Five critical elements to create employee loyalty

December 3, 2012 by

employee_loyalty

Every leader and company wants loyal employees. But what exactly is a loyal employee? The ultimate description is an employee who would, metaphorically speaking, “take a bullet for their leader.” Of course, I’m not necessarily talking about taking an actual gunshot – there are plenty of other ways employees sacrifice themselves for the leaders and companies they fiercely believe in.  These employees work insanely long hours; take on all of the “dirty” jobs that nobody else wants (not even the leader); clean up the messes that their leaders make; and fight alongside their leader in both the best and worst of times. Employees who work like this make great leaders appear even greater.

Loyal employees make you feel strong and confident.  They help you to push through the toughest situations toward that next level. You know that they have your back, and what’s more, you trust that they have your back. But when loyalty is compromised, deceit and distrust can take over. I’ve worked with many leaders who find it difficult to trust otherwise loyal employees because they have been burned so badly in the past.

Too often, leaders view employee loyalty as an expectation rather than an outcome. When viewed as an outcome, leaders shift their attention to the elements that ultimately lead to employee loyalty. 

Here are the five critical elements that no-compromise leaders must focus on:

  1. It’s not the money: Chances are you’ve already blown through a fortune hiring high-priced talent or getting stuck in crazy-expensive pay arrangements with existing employees. When the key element to an employee relationship is centered on the money, the loyalty factor is compromised. There is a measurable difference in the performance and contribution of a loyal employee versus an employee who stays because of the money. The money quickly morphs into an entitlement as the buzz from the pay deal wears off. In such cases, “loyalty” goes to the highest bidder. Your best strategy may be to let the superstar drain your competition’s cash flow dry. True loyalty is an emotional bond that cannot be bought.
  2. Pride and ownership: Fiercely loyal employees and coaches have always surrounded me. “I love my job” is one statement that I am grateful to hear on a regular basis. I often write, “It’s always about the dream – the vision.” Employees don’t really work for you; they work to be part of your dream. You’re simply the visionary and their guide to achieve something extraordinary. There is an inherent sense of pride found in being a part of something extraordinary. It doesn’t matter if you make bagels, sell carpeting, manufacture surgical instruments, or cut hair; if you can’t articulate and inspire others with your dream, it’s hard to create pride in your work. Ownership in achieving the right outcome comes with pride. Together, they fill the emotional elements of loyalty.
  3. Respect and gratitude: The only time I have had issues with loyalty is when I’ve compromised as their leader (Hey, even the guy who wrote No-Compromise Leadership slips up every now and then). I took a call this week from a person seeking my counsel on a career change. This leader has been with the company for ten years.  He’s had enough of cleaning up the owner’s messes and taking blame for everything that goes wrong. Most importantly, he feels he is taken for granted and often the last to be acknowledged for a job well done – if acknowledged at all. Respect and gratitude balance out and polish those rough edges that exist in every employee/employer relationship. Respect and gratitude can move a mountain simply because they need to be felt and heard. In the absence of respect and gratitude, you get, “Why should I bother – what’s in it for me?”
  4. Company attitude: I prefer to use the term “attitude” instead of “culture.” Everyone talks about creating great cultures but falls short on defining what that great culture is all about. In contrast, you can walk into a company and feel its attitude. I once took a tour of Zappo’s corporate offices in Las Vegas – the company’s infamous “happiness” culture was everywhere. You could feel it in the environment, hear it in the employees’ voices, and see it on their faces. Happiness is Zappo’s company attitude. Now, what attitudes do you, your employees, and your customers feel when they walk into or interact with your company? The right company attitude has everything to do with employee loyalty. Work on it.
  5. Authenticity: In my no-compromise leadership presentations, I am always asked, “But what do you do when your leader is the one who’s compromising?” Leaders are notorious for having inflated egos, being masters of double standards, and casting blame in all directions except where it belongs. The phrase, “Employees quit leaders not companies,” speaks volumes on the importance of being an authentic leader. It means being dependable, trustworthy, and genuine. It means that employees can respectfully call you on your own nonsense and trust that you will listen and that they will be heard.

 These five elements are massive topics that deserve attention and dialogue in your company beyond the casual reading of this MMWU. Consider having your employees score you and members of your leadership team on each of the five elements. Make it interesting by using a rubric scoring system of five, four, two, and one. A five is excellent. Four is above average. There is no three. Two is below average, and a one is poor. The scoring system eliminates the ever-popular “average.” You’re either above the line or below the line. No compromise.

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Please share your thoughts with me about today’s Monday Morning Wake-Up. Click above to comment.

Pass this e-mail on to your business colleagues, managers and friends. They’ll appreciate it.

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5 ways to boost summer sales in the salon or spa

July 19, 2012 by

Ah yes, the lazy days of summer. Often times, those lazy days seap into the atmosphere in the salon/spa — and you can tell things at the salon are little too slow, or just too quite. You walk on the floor and you feel as though you are being watched, and it looks like the staff is lacking energy or urgency. Is it because its summer and we are all chilled and relaxed? In the end, it doesn’t really matter what it is — we need a mood shift!

Here are few tips to recharge your team’s morale — and boost those summer sales:

  1. Identify who in the salon need an uplift, get them to go to hair show or class.
  2. When times are not so busy, bring in a motivator to come for an ” hour of power” (stand up comedy theaters often do team building sessions), or just play a game every morning to boost moral.
  3. Change the music.
  4. Have a sale contest with a team goal. This will hike up the urgency and, if you add elements that make it fun and engage clients, now you’ve created buzz!
  5. Great game: Give your staff an opportunity to do great things, and reward them for their efforts. Example: Each member has the opportunity to “wow” the client. The best “wow” gets a reward. Give a budget of up to $25.00 a person to wow the client, although you don’t have to use money for it’s not in the budget — everybody can get creative .

Create fun and it will change the atmosphere.

Have some fun times to beat the summer blues in your salon or spa? Share them with us below.

Filed Under: Leadership, Productivity, Staff Retention Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Inside the mind of the entrepreneur

June 26, 2012 by

Entrepreneurs are definitely a special breed. I like to say that being an entrepreneur is both a blessing and curse. We think and move at lightening speed, we aren’t afraid to take risks, and we can virtually see into the future. In fact, our vision at times seems so crystal clear that we often wonder why no one else can see what we see. We implement change and then it’s quickly on to the next initiative. We add and subtract, we move this here and that over there. Employees in our companies who resist change hate how we operate, and find it hard to keep up with our pace. The only time we’re really comfortable (and understood) it seems is when we are around other entrepreneurs.

Just recently, after a string of bad hires in my company which cost us dearly on so many levels, we decided to re-engineer our recruiting and hiring strategy. Okay, who am I kidding? I decided to re-engineer our recruiting and hiring strategy. There it is again, that pesky entrepreneurial attitude that rears its head like a race horse ready to bust through the starting gates at the sound of the gun.

I’ll keep going, so bear with me. The basis of our new strategy was to simply slow down and be more thorough in our interviewing, creating a six-step process to carefully evaluate candidates and find people who share our core values and company purpose.

Since we have strong relationships with area cosmetology schools, we literally interview hundreds of applicants from these schools every three to four months. To support this new approach, I had this brilliant idea to utilize one of my favorite apps to date, Evernote, to help us facilitate our efforts every step of the way. I remember it so vividly, standing in my shower where it seems like most of my ideas come to me. Like a bolt of lightening, this new vision of how the whole thing would work struck me out of nowhere. Everything was crystal clear. I knew exactly how it was going to work. Amped up like I had just had five cups of coffee, I made it into work later that morning and immediately started changing everything. I created the new system in Evernote, and I started telling everyone on my team how it was going to work. I expected everyone to be onboard, totally engaged and excited about my new idea. Almost immediately, everyone was confused. Not only were they frustrated, but so was I! I kept asking myself, “How can something so simple, be so hard to understand?” “What’s wrong with these people?” “Why can’t they see what I see?” These are the questions that entrepreneurs grapple with when implementing change.

I almost caused my Human Resource manager to have a nervous breakdown without even realizing it. It wasn’t until I saw her emotions in a very exasperating conversation that I realized that I was trying to ram rod this amazing idea I had into place without taking into consideration other factors for the process to work. Here’s what I learned out of all of this. Allow me to share four key points to consider when implementing change in your company:

  1. Slow down and allow others to catch up
    What we owners typically forget is that we’re usually six months ahead of the rest of the pack. We’ve already had time to think and process the changes that we want to happen. When we introduce our ideas and change initiatives to our teams, we have to allow them time to process the information and catch up.
  2. Share and then listen to what others have to say
    Just because we think we have an amazing idea doesn’t mean that it’s the only idea that should be used. Tap into the brain power of your team. Often times they might share your vision but have an even better way to execute. When this happens, you might be surprised how fast your vision becomes a reality because you now have team members who are just as excited as you.
  3. Frustration is often part of the process
    Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Change is hard. It’s human nature to want to stay comfortable. Understand that when we initiate change, it requires energy. Part of the change and learning process is frustration amongst those that are involved. Think of it as a type of sorting process where we must “sort” through the information, process it so we can figure out where it needs to go and where we fit into the new model. If you go into it knowing that there will be frustration, you’ll be better prepared to handle the process.
  4. Be prepared to communicate your vision over and over again – Why? What? How? and What if?
    This ties nicely into #3. To overcome frustration, be prepared to communicate your idea to those who will help you make it a reality. This is where we must put our sales hat on and sell our team on what we’re trying to accomplish. Help them see how it will benefit them, the clients and the business. If it’s a better way to do things, communicate how it will look. Paint a picture for everyone to see. If you can answer WHY this important, WHAT it is that you’re trying to accomplish, HOW the whole thing will work, and IF we do this, then we will enjoy these things; you’ll move much more quickly and with less resistance.

Your turn: What was the last entrepreneurial “Ah ha” moment you had? How hard was it to implement the change or idea that you had? Where did you get stuck? How did you overcome objections?

Filed Under: Leadership, Staff Retention Tagged With: , , ,

Six ways to know what is really going on

June 11, 2012 by

Scenario One: A key employee leaves your company. As you begin to assess the work and status of various projects the individual was responsible for, you begin to discover things that are disturbing and quite different from what you thought was being done. Projects were far from complete. You learn of conversations that undermined your leadership and created division within your team. You scratch your head and wonder how all this was happening under your nose.

Scenario Two: You have some long-term employees who have become increasingly and openly resistant to change. In fact, they’re outright ignoring change initiatives. You see it. Everyone sees it. It’s been going on for some time and has become the norm. You feel as though they’re holding you hostage. Your frustration hovers near the breaking point. Then, they quit without notice and open a competing business. You feel blindsided and as you discover the elements of their plot, you wonder how all of this was happening under your nose. [Read more...]

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Creating a foundation for salon and spa growth

May 3, 2012 by

You’d never open a salon without the proper tools — state-of-the-art scissors, top-of-the-line blow dryers and, of course, fabulous, effective products. Similarly, no one would try to run a spa without massage tables, pedi chairs and wonderful scrubs and lotions.

Unfortunately, many owners do try to run their salons and spas without the proper business tools needed to be profitable and successful.

Many salons and spas struggle with cash-flow and figuring out what’s coming in (and going out). Without a clear financial picture, it’s impossible to plan for steady growth, as expenses always pop up. Many owners (maybe even you) start using their personal credit cards to pay the bills — even to cover payroll. It’s impossible to build a strong business without a realistic cash-flow plan.

Numerous other owners and managers grapple with staff concerns, from hiring to pay design to performance evaluations. Some owners have leadership issues, uncertain how to translate their vision to their employees so that everyone is working toward the same goals. Proper communication is one of the first steps in building a successful business, yet it is one of the basics that many salon and spa owners believe they don’t have time for. A culture where employees want to do their best, stay and grow is one of the hallmarks of a thriving, profitable business.

Providing consistent customer service is also difficult for many businesses. As you know, customers expect more — just doing the minimum is no longer effective in today’s super-competitive environment. Surpassing customer expectations in every area of the business is a requirement to develop a loyal customer base that will recommend a salon or spa to their friends.

Do these challenges seem familiar? While perhaps not as glamorous as offering a great cut, a photo-worthy up-do or a creative manicure design, solid business practices are what every salon and spa need to be successful.

The path to addressing these issues starts with you — the leader. Start coordinating your game plan for change now. Now is a good time. And you can find the time to make it happen. The alternative action — putting it off again — will only leave you in a declining holding pattern. If you want change, do it now.

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Looking for the best place to start?

The Strategies Incubator is designed to jumpstart the business side of your salon/spa. In four intense, exciting days, you will learn the basics to grow a strong business, including financials, leadership, teamwork, communication, compensation, employee retention and customer loyalty.

Without a proper business foundation, a salon or spa cannot grow in a healthy way. It may appear to be doing well, but it’s no more stable than a castle built in the sand.

Start building your foundation for success at the Strategies Incubator, June 10-13. Find out more here.

Filed Under: Customer Loyalty, Financial Literacy, Information Flow, No-Compromise Leadership, Productivity, Profitability, Staff Retention, Teamwork Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Three keys to creating the ultimate salon or spa experience

March 29, 2012 by

A friend and fellow entrepreneur once told me when it comes to going to a salon, it’s important that the stylist get the cut and/or color right every time. If you don’t get that part down, you can forget about everything else. However, when you consistently get the cut and/or color right, then it becomes about everything else, the experience.

Salons and spas throw the word “experience” around like nobody’s business. “We charge higher prices because our clients pay for the experience.” “Our clients come to us because of our great salon experience.” What the heck does that mean? While every salon/spa has their own way of doing things, many owners and managers have no clue what matters to their clients.

In my salons, the experience starts with the initial point of contact. How the guest-care coordinators greet our clients is important, including their words and tone. We often tell new team members to “smile through the phone.” When a client comes into our business, we have a two-second rule. That means that when clients walk in the door, they are warmly greeted within two seconds.

Next, we offer a complimentary stress-relieving treatment. After a thorough consultation, we begin the service ritual with a scalp massage and stress-relieving shampoo. We also give clients a hand massage while their hair is blown dry. We expedite the checkout process by offering to reserve the next appointment while our guests are “in the chair.” We finish with a quick makeup touch-up, before we escort our guests to the front.

We’re often asked how we’re able to incorporate so much into the salon visit and how we deliver this experience to every guest, every time.

It comes down to three things: culture, accountability and systems. As a team-based business, our staff understands the importance of team service. They understand that everyone is responsible for taking care of the guest. Period. From the guest care coordinators to the salon interns. That’s our culture.

Next up is accountability. Everyone is responsible for ensuring our commitment to the customer is kept. It’s that simple.

The third thing is systems. Systems create the foundation and the support to create consistency. Consistency breeds loyalty. With systems in place, we can always focus on the client.

We all like to think that we provide superior salon and spa experiences for our guests.

Can you answer “yes” to these two questions?

  1. Would I pay full price for the services we offer?
  2. Is the experience worth the price every time?

I can answer, “Yes” and “Yes.” If you can’t, start thinking about culture, accountability and systems.

Your turn:  How does your culture support your vision? Let us know in the “Speak your Mind” field below.

Filed Under: Customer Loyalty, Information Flow, Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When long-time top performers drop

November 23, 2009 by

It’s a reality that every leader must face. Top performers are those exceptional employees that get the work done. They’re self-starters. They’re loyal. They’re mentors and role models for their teammates. They have stood by you in both the good times and bad. Simply put, trust and appreciation flow both ways. But time, business evolution, the economy, and shifts in personal behaviors and priorities, bring leaders face to face with the toughest of business dilemmas: what to do when top performers begin to drop?

A dilemma is a situation where the possible solutions are undesirable, difficult and challenging. Long-time top performers were a joy during their quest to reach the top. They established new performance benchmarks for others to strive for. They brought consistency and predictability to the company. In the process, top performers become top income earners. The dilemma for leaders is what to do when the performance of top performers drops and/or the company can no longer afford or sustain their high incomes. Like it or not, you need to find a solution. In these economic times, avoiding or procrastinating can and will jeopardize the financial integrity of the entire company. [Read more...]

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Employee Challenges: When do they end?

September 14, 2009 by

challenges1While discussing leadership responses to employee challenges at a recent Strategies seminar, a business owner asked, “When does it end?” The entire room could feel the frustration and anguish in her voice. “It’s like a battle that never ends,” she continued. “You nurture, coach, inspire and discipline, and just when you think you’ve got everyone on the same page, it starts all over again. Doesn’t it ever end?” These statements were not coming from a naive business owner. She clearly understood that the answer to her question was, “No, it doesn’t end.”

No doubt, employee challenges can wear you down. From behavioral issues and performance problems to simply following the policies and procedures of the company, leading people can be like a game of “what are they going to throw at me next?” Likewise, leadership can be an incredible journey of discovery of your own ability to grow a company by harnessing and orchestrating the abilities of those you lead. Simply put, only you can decide how you want to perceive your own leadership journey. [Read more...]

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