Hairdresser’s revenues (turnover) double
in 2-months …

There’s only one reason to be in business. To create profit.
-Brad Sugars -

The Business
Name: Live It Up Hairdressing, New South Wales, Australia
Owners: Vance Fitzgerald and Renee Stuart
Business Sector: Service

The Challenge
Hairdressing has got to be one of the most “difficult” or fickle businesses around today.

Let me explain what I mean …

Generally speaking, youngsters who train as hairdressers do so because they either had no interest in anything else while at school or they didn’t get high enough grades to pursue a different career path. They then learned all the stereotypes and prejudices about the business from other hairdressers during their apprenticeship. And being a technical business, their training focuses on the HOW of the business – how to cut hair, how to style it and how to color it.

The one thing they aren’t taught is how to run a business.

Here’s another difficulty they’ll run into pretty soon — they’ll need a shop front.

You see, unlike other novices, hairdressers generally can’t practice “behind the scenes” until they’ve developed the necessary skills and confidence levels to “go public” by opening a shop. Accountants can, lawyers can, and so can public relations consultants and electricians.

But not hairdressers.

Of course, the young hairdresser can work for someone else, but I’m talking here about those who are a little more ambitious than that. I’m talking about those who want to run their own salon.

So, our aspiring business owner opens a salon and suddenly finds herself having to employ other people because she has rent to pay. Doing all the work herself usually won’t cover the rent and other overheads.

She also finds herself working long hours, often without being able to draw a wage.

“I’ll work hard for the first few years to get the business established,” she tells herself, thinking it’ll all pay off somewhere down the track.

Trouble is, there are a few more surprises in store for her. You see, she’ll find hairdressers come and go. And because they tend to build up an individual relationship with their clients, when they move on to work at another salon, so too do their clients. You’ll have noticed how often salons run ads in the papers saying, “We’re pleased to announce that Julie now works here.”

This is a subtle way of ’stealing’ the other salon’s clients.

Our young business owner consequently finds herself slaving away IN the business herself instead of working ON it. She finds the latter impossible to do because it’s such a technical business and besides, it’s what she’s been trained at. Her mentors and teachers all did the same thing and have reinforced this perception during her apprenticeship.

So she burns out, decides to sell and is surprised to discover she gets offered nothing for the business. Not an ideal situation, is it? No wonder she bails out with a terrible impression of what being in business is all about?

Now I know this may be a stereotypical situation, but it needn’t be.

Here’s a great example …