Successful salon owners are always looking for new ways to grow their business. Once you have an established client base and an incredible team on your side, you can then look at ways to grow your business and expand your offering. Using high quality salon software like Salon Iris is a great place to start. It will help you to understand your current position, so you can see where you want to be. And once you know where you want to be, you can start building a strategy that will help you get there. Not all salons have their sights set on opening multiple sites. And not all salons are purely focussed on making as much money as possible. Some owners will be motivated by profit, others by prestige. Some will be motivated to provide the best possible service. If you’re hoping to expand your salon in 2020, read on to discover 15 ways to grow your business. You can also read our advice on how to increase profits through the winter. Table of Contents If you want to bring more customers through the door, a great place to start is by offering more services. This might mean tapping into a niche market and being the first to offer a new service in your area. Look for worldwide trends and see if you could be the first to bring a new salon treatment to your town or city. Reward schemes are excellent for encouraging repeat custom and for building strong client relationships. By offering a physical card with stamps, this will also serve as a visual reminder that your clients will carry around with them. Alongside a reward scheme, you could also run a referral scheme. When customers are happy with the results of their salon appointment, they often want to shout it from the rooftops. Offer them a referral code and they’ll be able to spread the wealth around their friends, family and colleagues. They can receive a small discount on their services and you get to enjoy a huge influx of new customers. Everyone loves a good deal. If you’re experiencing a slow spell and want to drum up some interest, consider running a promotion. This could be money off services, a free gift, or simply an event. Think outside of the box in order to land on something that your customers really want. If you would normally only offer treatments to women, consider offering a men’s weekend. You could also focus on NHS workers, students or parents. This would be a great way to give back to your community. For some ideas, see here. Do your staff instinctively upsell to your customers? When done correctly, upselling can be a great way to boost profits. And it doesn’t have to be obvious or annoying. The best salespeople can upsell without even making it obvious. To the customer, it just looks like they are trying to be helpful. If you haven’t already, set aside some time for upselling training so that everyone in your salon is on the same page. If you’re only stocking a few hair care options, consider expanding your range. You could offer electricals, gift baskets and even gift vouchers. While you might need to invest in some stock, you can always start small and see if there is a demand for your projects. Before you expand your lines, do some research to see what is already available in the local area. If you can be the first and only person to offer a particular range, you could tap into a potentially lucrative market. This is perhaps the simplest option for increasing your salon profits. Increasing your prices can help to establish your salon as a luxury destination. If you’ve been charging the same amount for years and years, then people might see your salon business as a little stale. Make sure you increase your prices in line with what you know your customers can afford. You might lose a few of the more price-sensitive customers, but they could also be tempted back with promotions and loyalty cards. When booking salon treatments, it can often be easier to bundle them together. No one wants to have to get their nails done in one place, their spray tan in another and then go somewhere else for false lashes. Bundle services together and you could soon become the go-to destination for pampering and prepping. If you also offer a mobile service, this can be an easy way to tap into the bridal market. You’ll never grow your business if you can’t listen to your customers. Make the time to ask your customers what they like, what they don’t like, and what they want more of. It can be as simple as offering them a feedback card at the end of their appointment. You could also follow up with a text or email asking them to fill in a quick survey. This can save you the anguish of launching a new service or treatment that falls flat. Your staff are the heart and soul of your business. Without them, you would be back to square one with a single chair. Make the time to reward your staff and invest in their ongoing learning and development. You might be concerned that you could invest a lot of money in them and then they could just leave. But this is far better than investing no money in staff development and then having them all stay. Email marketing can be a natural progression for busy salons. It will help you to connect with your customers and find out what they love. You could send them your latest blog posts, promotions, information about loyalty schemes, or your latest success stories. Video content is booming at the moment, and people love a good makeover video. They also like to see what goes on behind the scenes. Giving your customers a sneak peek behind the scenes so they can see the work that goes into training and development can also help to establish your salon as an industry-leader. Social media offers a free and simple way to reach your customers. Since so many people head to social media to share their everyday successes, it makes sense to maintain an active presence on a few social media platforms. You can also pay to promote your business to a highly targeted audience. Putting a little bit of money into small campaigns can reap big rewards. You might think you have enough on your plate with running a salon, but blogging can actually help you to plan and realise your dreams. Blogging about your profession helps to establish you as a thought-leader and other salon owners will look to you for guidance. You could share success stories, customer transformations, feedback on training programmes or simply look at the trends that are shaping your industry. Writing a regular blog can also help you to rank better with search engines. Getting more traffic through organic search can be a much-needed boost. If you don’t have to in-house capabilities to offer more services, you could consider partnering with another salon. Cross-selling your services or offering a discount in one if you book with the other can be a great way to share the wealth. Do a bit of competitor research and see who else is operating in your local area. Look for companies that offer complementary, not competing services. You can then approach them and see if they are open to the idea of a partnership. If you run a hair salon, inviting a mobile nail technician into your salon once a week could allow you to offer hair and nail packages without having to train or hire your own staff. As a salon owner, you should always be networking with those in your industry to discover ways you can help one another. You don’t have to see everyone as direct competition. If you really want to grow your business, you could consider expanding to a new site. Once your business is financially stable and self-sufficient, you might set your sights on literally expanding your reach. This can be a great option for salon owners who have had to choose a less than ideal location due to budget constraints. Once you’ve made the first location work for you, you can then set your sights on your dream location and grow your offering. Expanding your salon to an additional site will mean you will need even greater oversight of your business. This is where salon software like Salon Iris can help you to shine. It will give you the confidence to expand your business, safe in the knowledge that the administrative side is completely under control. Get in touch today to request a demo and learn how we can help you grow your salon. Introduce new services
Offer a reward scheme
Or a referral scheme
Run a promotion
Train your staff in upselling
Expand your merchandise range
Increase your prices
Offer bundled services
Ask your customers what THEY want
Invest in your staff
Try email marketing
Get social
Explore blogging
Partner with complementary services
Open a new site
