The online yellow pages have over 1000 listings for beauty salons in just about any of the top 20 cities. Needless to say competition is immense. That’s why we’ve created this document to give you some ideas. Hopefully it can inspire you to take actions that will help your business grow. The concepts here can assist a stylist renting a booth or shop owner.

1. Winter 2013
Building Your Beautician Biz
Simple Strategies To Increase Awareness, Clients & Profits
Image: Baby You Burn? By: Annie Lee
McMillan Consulting

2. McMillan Consulting
Building Your Beautician Biz
Simple Strategies To Increase Awareness, Clients & Profits
Summary
The online yellow pages have over 1200 listings for beauty salons in Baltimore. Needless
to say competition is immense.
That’s why we’ve created this document to give you some ideas. Hopefully it can inspire
you to take actions that will help your business grow. The concepts here can assist a
stylist renting a booth or shop owner.
Taking care of your business has to be the number one priority. Making sure that your
business is in good standing with local, state and federal agencies is a must. You
bookkeeping and tax situations are also critical.
Taking the time to establish and maintain policies, standards and awareness of your
customers’ safety, hair care and time will go a long way. Your customers are more style
and health conscious and are busier than ever.
Frequently shop owners don’t take the time to invest in creating a marketing plan. And
then implementing marketing techniques. If you’re a stylist renting a booth don’t just
rely on the shop owner’s marketing. Remember their goal is to promote the shop itself.
So other barbers may disportionately benefit from those efforts for various reasons.
Client acquisition is a very important strategy that can get you immediate results.
Contracts with businesses and the government are great ways to accomplish this. Make
sure your business is up to par before attempting to secure these contracts.
McMillan Consulting created this document to advise on strategies that can improve
your business. We’ll be happy to help with this tasks we can and help put together a
team to tackle the tasks we don’t assist with. Thank You.
410-775-6226 --- http://macadvises.com --- info@macadvises.com
1

3. McMillan Consulting
Simple Strategies To Increase Awareness, Clients & Profits
Taking Care Of Business
One of the best attributes a beautician can posses is
creativity. Like artists and some barbers, your clients
come to you for your uniqueness and ability. While there
are several main types of styles; being able to put your
own twist on it is one of the things that will keep your
customers happy and loyal.
But one of the best things any business owner or self
employed person can do is take care of the technical side
of their endeavor. Without properly setting up and
maintaining your business it will be hard to know where
you are and harder to establish where you’re going.
establish an entity: Your business needs to exist in the eyes of the government
and other entities you may work with. This means registering your business with
Maryland. Whether you want to create an LLC for your shop, or just register your
sole proprietorship take that necessary step.
finances: Probably the biggest reason attributable to business failure is improper
finances. It commonly means the business owner didn’t have enough money to
start or keep the business open. Not properly handling the existing finances in all
aspects. In addition to making and saving money for use in the business that
money has to be accounted for. This means you have to do bookkeeping and file
your taxes.
regulations: Make sure that you and anyone working in your shop have all of the
licenses, hours and other requirements. You’re not always sure who your clients
are. There could be a group home director sitting in your chair thinking of
offering you a chance to cut the boys in his facility. If a state board agent comes in
and gives you a citation for the shop or a barber not being properly licensed, the
facility director will change his mind.
2

4. McMillan Consulting
Simple Strategies To Increase Awareness, Clients & Profits
Safety & Time Management
One of the biggest concerns for salon patrons is safety. Many salons are usually filled
with women and don’t have male staff on the actual premises. Of course unisex salons
may have guys around. But often the beautician staff and patrons are there much later
than the barbers and their customers.
Safety is also about your client’s hair, nails, face etc. One of the main reasons customers
leave a salon after being a faithful patron or don’t return after an initial visit is the
protection of their hail, nails or face. These customers make comments such as I really
liked the way she did my hair. But I felt like she was not taking care of it, and it was
being damaged. Hair care is just as important as the styling.
Another huge thorn in the sides of salon patrons is time management. And it starts from
the appointment. Your customers don’t want to sit and wait for 30-60 minutes before
their service has started. One of the best things you can do for your clients is to start
servicing your client at their allotted appointment time. The main reason that stylists do
not start a customer’s hair on time is overbooking.
Your customers don’t want to wait for a long time before getting started. They don’t
want to be in the salon for hours while getting a routine style. While you justify to
yourself the long waiting periods as being busy. They don’t see it that way. They think of
stylists who subject them to long periods as bad time managers at best, and
inconsiderate at worst.
When your customers realize you honestly care about their care and safety they’ll be
much happier. They’re also less likely to leave in the event of something extreme
happening. They will see that you put effort into getting them in and out as efficiently as
you can. This will build up some capital for you. In the unfortunate event that they’re
one day for 6 hours when it should’ve been four they more likely to continue
patronizing. Versus, saying to themselves I knew this was going to happen one day
because she is so unprofessional and slow. The customer who says that is the customer
who is unlikely to return because they’re pretty sure it will happen again.
3

5. McMillan Consulting
Simple Strategies To Increase Awareness, Clients & Profits
Marketing
Unlike barber shops, salon patrons will drive 15-20 miles to get serviced. So while
barbers have to figure out how to get customers from within their neighborhood, your
challenge is more about getting your demographic. Word of mouth does wonders for
salons. A huge part of your marketing plan should include keeping your current
customers happy and rewarding them for referrals.
DON’T FORGET THE BASICS: Although people neglect the basics they still help
tremendously. Always have business cards ready to give people. Keep flyers in your shop
or on your station for you existing clients to share with others. And today a website is a
basic. Gone are the days when a minimum of $5K to setup and $200/mo to maintain.
Now there are places where you can design your own website and pay less than $50/mo
for hosting. You can also find web designers to create a basic but appealing site for $500
or less. They’ll create a site that’s even better for $1K.
After tackling the basics take advantage of other low cost tactics. Social media shouldn’t
be ignored because there aren’t fees associated with them if you don’t choose to pay.
Plenty of your current and prospective clients are on the sites.
Before participating in hair shows investigate it. Make sure your business can benefit
from it. You may do better by generating buzz for your shop by doing charitable work for
a shelter or others who may need you.
4

6. McMillan Consulting
Simple Strategies To Increase Awareness, Clients & Profits
Customer Acquisition
While the goal of marketing is to build awareness that
will eventually bring in customers there are ways to
directly bring in customers.
When speaking of client acquisition we’re referring to
methods that when successful will bring clients in to
your business immediately versus more time
consuming (but still necessary) marketing campaigns.
Getting ‘contracts’ with other businesses is a great way to directly acquire new
customers. Establishments such as group homes, daycares, public/charter schools, can
be a good source of customers. The group homes, and some schools can possibly pay you
directly so your money is more certain. Daycares and other schools may allow you to
come in weekly or once or twice a month. The parents may be responsible for paying you
and not the school. But its another chance to get clients and revenue.
An often overlooked area is government contracting. Most business owners think of
government contracting for security, real estate, construction, maintenance and related
services. But governments buy many services and products including those of stylists.
Think about the youth correctional facilities run by the state. The youths spending time
in those facilities need their hair styled. Many of those institutions create proposal
requests that lead to beauticians getting a contract to service the girls housed there.
Government contracts are guaranteed money once you’re contracted and as long as you
complete the terms of the contract.
Creating a product line is also a good way to get new customers. When someone sees a
product used by an existing customer they may ask where can the product be purchased.
When that person comes to your shop to make a purchase, you have an excellent
opportunity to convert them into a salon client. While others use products to make extra
money, you’ll use them to gain additional clientele.
5