The pains of building a team in the professional beauty industry are not new, they are just different today.
The top two challenges I hear from salon owners are
- I can’t find the number of staff I need
- I can’t find staff that is the right fit
The exciting thing about these two problems is that they have the same solution. That means that you can put your energy towards one thing and see change happen fast! The key to solving these top salon owner challenges is for salons to get clear on their value proposition.
A value proposition is essentially what makes you attractive as a to visit and a place to work. You have to know it and you have to make sure that future talent knows it.
In the salon world, we have challenges because it’s a new way of doing things that not enough salons have adopted. But the ones who do are quickly seeing their hiring problems disappear.
One salon owner we work with at Talent Match could not hire a year ago. They were struggling to get any lead quality at all! Today they have a talent waitlist and roles filled with start dates covering the next 5 months! The owner and I had a good laugh on a phone call because she was sharing how she had nowhere to put anyone because they were making all of these hires AND “no one had quit!”.
In salons, our metric has always been to hire 2 to keep 1. Not anymore! This doesn’t have to be your reality.
You just have to get better at differentiating why you are unique and different so the talent who loves your kind of unique finds you.
Let’s look at an outside story to better understand what this means.
Mcdonald’s was founded in 1940 and Wendy’s was founded in 1969. If we just look at the quick information and say what they do we’d say they are fast food hamburger restaurants. But as consumers, we probably have a favorite that we choose and I would imagine it’s because we connect to something specific about what they offer.
While they both sell hamburgers (just like salons all have stylists jobs) they do it differently. Wendy’s tagline is “fresh, never frozen beef”. McDonald’s is known for its cheaper prices. They differentiate themselves by leaning into what they are known for with slogans and the products they offer. You know which one you want to choose even though both sell the same thing.
Salons are all offering jobs for stylists but how do stylists know which one to choose?
The better job you do at sharing who you are, why you’re different, and what makes you magical… the stronger you stand out from the competition and the more likely you are to catch the attention of your ideal candidate!
Start telling your story and start attracting future hires!
