But where do you even begin? Choosing goods? Trying to find a vacant building to rent or paying for a beautiful website? Well, here’s what you need: a detailed beauty salon business plan. A beauty salon can be a reliable and lucrative business. However, even if you are skilled in styling, starting your own company can be a difficult procedure. Regardless of how much money you put into it, writing a business plan with the aid of a template or sample is a no-brainer.
What Is The Beauty Salon Business?
According to the National Hair & Beauty Federation, the UK’s 45,000 salon operators generated an estimated £8 billion in revenue in 2019. Meanwhile, between 2020 and 2023, the industry is expected to rise by 16%. You have two choices as a potential salon owner. You have the option of purchasing a franchise or going into it alone. A franchisee’s life, on the other hand, is more constrained. Having your own salon is a better alternative if you want to be in charge.
How to Start a Beauty Salon Business
There are some steps you need to take while starting a beauty salon business, and here are some of them:
#1. Capital
Without capital investment, no business can succeed. Even if it is just a dime. Therefore, you’ll need to invest some money if you want to expand your salon. It should be noted that the amount of initial money needed to open a beauty shop varies entirely on your financial resources. Therefore, if your investment capital is limited, you can start small and eventually expand the hair salon.
#2. Location
Location is essential because you won’t be opening a home service or mobile hair and beauty salon business. In essence, scan your surroundings for a prime position where your prospective consumers live.
Even better, if you don’t have much money to buy or rent a space for your new company venture, you can temporarily rent a shop. The fact that your target audience can always discover you in a specific area is extremely crucial. Without a thorough understanding of where to locate a hair or beauty salon business, your quest to learn more about how to launch a beauty salon business will fall short.
It needs to be near a lot of people and be simple to get to by automobile or public transportation. Additionally, make sure you are sufficiently away from other companies that provide the same services as your beauty salon.
#3. Research Your Local Laws and Regulations
Depending on where you reside and the kind of salon you’re opening, different laws and regulations apply. A salon that only offers hair services, for instance, will need a separate license than one that also provides facial or massage services.
These are some of the common licenses, regulations, and permits required for salons:
- Salon license
- Cosmetology license(s)
- Employer Identification Number (EIN)
- Building permit
- Sanitation
#4. Think of a Classy Beauty Salon Name
Choosing a name for your salon is perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of the process! It’s also one of the most crucial tasks since the name you choose will reflect who you are as a company and what you have to offer the market.
Think outside the box for innovative hair salon ideas that will really set the tone. You want your salon’s name to conjure up an image in consumers’ minds of the kind of environment and experience they can expect when they visit. Come up with a name that is distinctive and distinct, as well as easy to speak and recall.
#5. Your Beauty Salon Business Plan
Your first action when launching any business should be to write a business plan. It gives you a specific goal to work toward, explains how you’ll get there, and gives you a decent understanding of what you need to do to succeed.
The beauty salon business plan provides salon owners with a step-by-step guide and encourages business owners to think about all facets of their operations. Before investing a lot of time and money into a new beauty salon business, make sure you set up a metric for success and take the finances into account with a beauty salon business plan.
Make sure you have a thorough awareness of the beauty salon business that already exists in your area, including its size, if it is expanding, and the trends. This will aid in your ability to precisely plan how you will compete with rival salons with the existence of your beauty salon business plan.
#6. Get All the Needed Equipment
Your goal of opening a chic beauty salon is growing closer. However, you must first prepare all the necessary equipment. Basically, if you want to run a typical beauty salon, you’ll need to purchase a lot of essential equipment. However, you must also use your startup capital as a measure.
Here is some equipment you need when opening a beauty salon business:
- Dryers
- Sterilizers
- After shelve
- Comb and brush
- Towels
- Electronic Sterilizers/ sterilizer kits
- Standing fans/ Air Conditioners
- Cover Clothes
- Hair creams
- Sprays
- dyes Relaxers
- conditioners
- Head washing basin
- Waiting chairs
- Generator etc.
#7. Focus On Your Staff
The quality of the staff members you hire to assist in running your beauty salon is pretty important. Furthermore, because the beauty industry is so individualized, it is crucial to keep a talented, educated, and welcoming workforce. The success or failure of your salon will depend on how comfortable your stylists and technicians are upselling goods and other treatments across the entire brand.
Your beauty salon business will function more efficiently and keep up a professional image if you take the time to adequately train your staff.
What Is Beauty Salon Business Plan?
A business plan will assist you in determining what services you want to provide, where you want to take your beauty salon’s growth, who you want to cater to, and who you’ll be competing against. A beauty salon business plan is essential if you are seeking funding from private investors, banks, or other lending organizations, as well as government subsidies.
It’ll help you increase your beauty salon’s productivity by providing better control and direction, as well as allowing you to make more educated decisions. A well-developed beauty salon business plan can help you secure the financing you need to expand to other locations as your beauty salon business grows and gains clients.
#1. Create an Executive Summary
Here, you should list the main points of your company plan. A brief history of your organization, your ambitions over the next five years, and five to ten of your key corporate goals should all be included. Your executive summary should be less than one page. After you’ve finished writing the remainder of your business plan, it could be helpful to write the executive summary last. This will offer you an opportunity to clarify your objectives so that you may articulate them succinctly.
After you’ve written your goal and vision statements, create an Executive Summary to outline everything you want to accomplish with your salon. Whether you’re developing a hair salon business plan or a beauty salon business plan, you should have a clear understanding of your goals for the salon. This area of your business plan is the most crucial since it sets the tone for your salon and makes a good impression.
As you will be expanding on these themes in the next sections of your business plan, keep this section simple and to the point in order to provide an overview.
#2. Company Description
You will detail the type of hair salon you are operating in your company description.
It can be any of the following:
- Hair salons focus strictly on hair cuts and hair styling
- Hair salon offering other salon services (nails, skin)
- Hair salon offering products
- Combination of the above types
Consider your company description to be your elevator speech; it provides details about your beauty salon’s history, the services you provide, and what makes your salon special.
Give specifics on what makes your salon unique.
You can include these in your company description:
- How does it appeal to the local population?
- Why did you pick this place?
- How will it benefit the neighborhood?
- In the upcoming five years, where do you see it going?
#3. Mission Statement
It explains the current goal of your beauty salon business. You can list all of your salon’s short-term objectives here that you hope to accomplish during the next six months to a year. The hardest and most crucial part of your beauty salon business plan template is probably your mission statement. Every element of your salon may be controlled by a compelling mission statement.
Your mission statement should, in a few phrases, summarise your whole business philosophy, from day-to-day operations and staffing to the items you carry and how you interact with clients. Of course, it’s easier said than done to write one. But once you’ve written it down, it will serve as your guide for all subsequent decisions. It will also direct your staff members, who ought to be familiar with, supportive of, and committed to it at all times.
#4. Market Analysis
The analysis and creation of a target market for your salon are crucial since they support its expansion and outreach. All sexes and age groups can be served by a beauty salon. Your target market may consist of working adults, college students, young adults, homemakers, future brides, and even kids. Additionally, each group will need a distinct kind of service. Therefore, be sure to describe each distinct segment of your target market along with the services that segment would need.
Try to segment your target market based on their psychographic and demographic characteristics. Include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the customers you hope to serve in your demographics section. Such demographic data is simple to locate on government websites because the majority of hair salons serve clients who live in the same city or town.
The demands and wants of your target market are described by psychographic profiles. The better you are at attracting and keeping clients, the more you can comprehend and identify their needs.
#5. Management Plan
This section is dedicated to everyone involved in the creation of your company. What does your management approach entail? This is your chance to establish your management structure, specify the duties and obligations of each employee, and decide on compensation. Owners, hairdressers, receptionists, and service providers should all be included in this.
Furthermore, as the beauty salon business owner, you must properly clarify the following points:
- The Company Structure (depending on the size of your company, this will be basic or complex).
- (Your primary objectives, where you want to be in five years, and the high-level steps you’ll take to get there)
- Information on Your Personnel (an overview of the staff you will hire and their roles)
- If you have a large team, it’s a good idea to include a section for significant team members, such as managers, team leaders (if applicable), and employees with special skills.
#6. Marketing Plan
What is your plan for reaching out to clients and expanding your business? This section is when you think about your target audience and competition more. It’s a good idea to start with a SWOT analysis. SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is a method of identifying internal and external concerns. Internal Strengths and Weaknesses can be developed or changed by hard work, but Opportunities and Threats can be strategically exploited or avoided but cannot be changed. It’s critical to recognize and name them so you can develop a thoughtful, effective marketing approach.
This part should include:
- Target market research
- Competition and market research
- Marketing channels to be used
- Marketing budget
Furthermore, your marketing strategy will be built on the results of your market analysis. First, decide what kind of customers you want to draw. Draw up a thorough profile of your ideal clients, including information on their age, gender, income, way of life, jobs, desires, and wants. You can include these:
- How will your salon attract those clients?
- Will it be positioned as a trendy, upscale salon or a laid-back family salon?
- How will you achieve your desired position?
- What sort of advertising, products, events, or even interior decor will you need to attract your clients?
#7. Financial Plan
For your salon, you must have a sound financial plan. Because you need to be exceedingly careful while balancing your revenue and expenditure budget optimally, this is perhaps the most challenging component of drafting a salon business plan.
However, by charging extravagant charges for the services, you don’t want to terrify or alienate your clients, but you also don’t want to bankrupt yourself and drown in debt. Not to mention, reducing spending on aesthetics could lower the level of service. You may improve your cash flow, anticipate challenges and problems, and gain insight into your salon’s month-to-month and year-to-year growth by creating a thorough financial strategy. Additionally, a bank or other organization may use your financial plan to assess your eligibility for a loan if you apply.
#8. Appendix
You should include any additional pertinent information that you believe may be useful in your appendix. Resumes, licenses, permits, and leases are examples of this. Although this area is optional, having all of your documents and ideas in one location may be helpful. Yours will surely be different from the beauty salon business plan you have, so, therefore, create yours TODAY!
Final Thoughts
If you want your beauty salon business to progress as you had imagined, you must put your business plan into action. Make sure the marketing methods required to expand the beauty salon business are included in your beauty salon business plan. It might be different from the beauty salon business plan you have, create yours! Also, pinpoint your target demographic’s location as well as how your beauty salon business may help them.
Additionally, make sure there are backup plans in place in case your organization faces difficulties. However, writing a beauty salon business plan might seem confusing, or if you’ve got a lot on your table, you don’t need to worry! We have one for you with the only requirement; that you have a business name ready!
FAQs
How much does it cost to open a beauty salon UK?
Start-up costs for the smallest salons relocating into a location that is largely already furnished can be as low as £5,000. However, the majority of salon owners would likely spend much more than that, perhaps even £50,000, and it can be much more depending on the scale and sophistication of your company.
Is beauty business profitable in the UK?
These specialists typically make between £50,000 and £70,000 each year, depending on how their cards fall. With annual sales exceeding £100,000, a salon proprietor can earn tremendously on their own.
Is beauty salon a good business?
Salons typically have a profit margin of 8.2 percent, which is higher than the 7.7 percent average for all businesses. Naturally, salons with the greatest management can make significantly more than this average. Typically, you should strive for a profit margin of at least 10%, though this can go higher depending on how well you can handle your salon’s finances.
