This article, How to have the ultimate salon staff meeting, was written from the 2021 kickoff video message that Ronit shared with her Salon Cadence clients.
Being a salon business owner has its challenges, and at the same time, its rewards. On the one hand, you get to be your own boss, meet lots of people, and help boost your clients’ self-confidence. On the other hand, being in charge also means that you are solely responsible for motivating your entire team. As such, you must find creative methods of keeping not only yourself but also your staff as motivated as possible.
One of the best methods of doing so is by holding a periodic salon staff meeting. No matter how often you choose to have them, your staff meetings should help you address areas to improve, while also promoting the positive aspects of your business. Above all, everyone who attends your meeting should leave feeling more motivated than when they came.
You need a salon staff meeting to kick off the new year
One of the best times to have a staff meeting is right after the New Year. This is because the New Year is often associated with new resolutions and goals. This is a great time to get your entire staff together, assess the present state of your business, and make new goals for the future.
With that in mind, Ronit spoke to her clients at the beginning of the New Year about having the ultimate salon staff meeting. As always, she leverages her own experience as a salon owner and industry expert to help others. Over the years, she has motivated many salon industry professionals to take control of their lives and their income. In this article, she will teach us some great tips on how to use these motivational skills to empower your employees via staff meetings.
How to have a successful salon staff meeting
Keeping all levels of your salon staff motivated is key to have a more lucrative year in 2021. So, if you are a salon owner who needs help motivating your staff, these tips are for you.
Set Your Salon Financial Goals
Above all, you need to have a major agenda. You should be clear about what you want to discuss and exactly what your goals are. In particular, for the New Year, Ronit suggests getting candid about your financial goals. Be clear about how you plan to achieving those goals. For instance, depending on the amount you made in the previous year, you will likely want to increase that by 25-35%.Then, break it down by quarter. This will help to visualize the goal in smaller, more attainable, amounts. Take the time to plan out exactly how much you will need each quarter to achieve this goal. From there, you will start working towards it.
This is something that needs to be gently communicated to your team. Discussing goals can become intimidating to some staff members. It is important to remind your staff that these are simply one aspect of the business. They should be encouraged to aim high but also feel comfortable enough to make mistakes. Moreover, ensure that your staff members are engaged with these goals. Discuss setting up a system of accountability. In fact, be prepared to set up staff meetings every month to track your process. You must not be afraid to aim high and encourage your staff members to do the same. Even if the odds are stacked against you, you never want to lower your expectations. If anything, you want to raise them even higher!
Create a Shareholder Mindset with Your Staff
I want you to learn how to create a shareholder mindset within your company. A shareholder mindset is having your team think about the salon almost as if they were actual part owners. You can achieve this by creating a vision board and having everyone participate. They will become more invested in your team goals. You can create one shared vision board or have everyone create one individually. Either way, you should encourage your staff members to consider what their true goals are within the salon. This will allow everyone to understand one another and leave the meeting with a similar vision in mind: growing your salon business.
Create Shared Values with Your Staff
You also need to create a foundation that includes shared values. For instance, since everyone wants to be successful for one reason or another, you will want to use success as a common value. In other words, since everyone is using their income to improve their lives, you can use this as a starting point to encourage everyone to work together to create better results for everyone. Using these values, you can start developing a more solid plan.
Renew Your Focus on The Numbers
Next, you want to focus on the numbers. Based on what the collective and individual goals are, you will need to get candid about how much work it will take to achieve these goals. Based on these goals, you can create an actionable plan with solid numbers that will allow everyone to move forward with solid quotas.
You will want to keep track of three key numbers each and every time you meet with your staff. These numbers are the total sales, new and regular client retention, and pre-booking rates (or any other area your salon may be having trouble in). By periodically taking the time to assess these numbers, you will be able to ensure that you are constantly working towards your goals. Moreover, if you manage to bring one area up while others are struggling, you should start focusing more on the challenging areas. For instance, if you focus on your pre-booking numbers and manage to raise them, you may choose to shift focus to new client retention or any other area you may be struggling in.
Check out this article to learn more about salon numbers and profits.
Provide Your Team with Tools They Need
As a salon owner, you should be providing them with the tools to achieve these goals. For instance, you may need to help them with things like increasing your prices, creating new services, staying on schedule, providing lunch breaks, etc. No matter what, you need to be leveraging your power and resources to provide your staff with the tools required to achieve your collective and individual goals.
Incentives for Hitting Your Goals
Try offering an incentive program to reward your employees for helping you achieve your goals. For instance, if you are tracking testimonials and one employee manages to get a wide variety of great reviews, you will offer them some sort of financial incentive. These incentives should be commission-based, to ensure that they are working towards boosting profits. This is how you can help them remain focused on helping your salon to continue to boost profits.
The bottom line
Keeping your staff motivated is one of the most important things any salon owner can do to drive business. Although some may argue that passionate salon workers are self-motivated, it is still the job of the owner to make sure everyone stays on track. By having periodic staff meetings, salon owners are able to assess the mindset of individual stylists as well as the collective. This can also be a great way to bond and genuinely become a unified team with your staff. This is especially important when you are trying to plan how to boost profits for the New Year. No matter how big or small your salon may be, these tips are bound to work wonders and will ensure your salon is headed into a much more fruitful year!