2022 is proving to be a unique year for the salon industry.

Sales in salons are up and then they are down, guest count goes up and then it drops again… the same has been true across the country. Lack of predictability. 

Although the last 2.5 years have prepared you for a world where things are uncertain from day to day, the conditioning still doesn’t take away the full stress load of handling uncertainty. 

Salon business is so much smoother when we can anticipate what is coming.

That is just not today’s reality though. It’s important to put your energy into the things you can impact. I want to invite you to think about how you are impacting the two most important elements of your business.

• Your team experiences
• Your client experiences

When the world feels chaotic and uncertain to us as business owners, leaders, and managers, we can fuel ourselves by focusing on making a positive impact on how we make people feel. After all, we are servants to our people and likely, it’s your love of giving service that landed you in the role you are in now. 

Things that contribute to experiences that cause people to lean in include:

• A sense of belonging
• Feeling understood
• Feeling valued

We want our teams and our clients to lean into our business.

So instead of worrying about the looming recession and how many people are going to quit or stop coming to your salon. Change that focus.

What are you doing to create experiences that will attract and endear people to you?

What will make them choose you?

Your team experience should be your first priority. Ask yourself how you want your team to feel when they come to work each day.

Then think about what actual experiences would cultivate those feelings. It’s easy to get stuck writing down our values and mission, without really thinking about the actions it takes to make those things true. 

If you want your team to enjoy coming to work, what are you doing to cultivate that? 

• Do you share a daily text feed joke with your team?
• Does the team play silly pranks on each other at work? 
• Do you have surprise team lunches delivered? 
• Do you make sure the salon’s closing duties are all taken care of one night, so people can leave earlier? 

We have to actively cultivate and create experiences that make people feel positive about work. This keeps them around because they feel a certain way about the business and you: they feel valued, cared for, and supported.

The same is true of our client experience.

The people who spend money in your business are living in the same stressful world that you are. They are wondering about the economy, the war in Ukraine, their health, and their jobs. As well as personal worries.

You own or lead a business that serves people. It is well primed to create a space that impacts how people feel.

So what are you doing to impact how they feel? To ensure that if their world starts to crumble because of a stressor, you are their safe space. 

We can worry all day about the things that could go wrong in the future. Or we could put our energy into cultivating experiences that impact how our team and our clients feel today. Plus, people feeling good is a contagious thing. When everyone you serve feels great, you will too. 

Xo

Stef