Every stylist or therapist dreams of starting or buying a salon and one day selling out for a fat payday. Few achieve the goal. For most, owning a salon is run as an income model. If and when it gets sold, it’s usually for little more than small change, with not much more to sell than fixtures and fittings, and what’s left of a lease, the owner only too happy to get out from under a pile of debt, the on-going bills and the stress of being the main income-earner.
Only a tiny percentage build their business with an equity model – a deliberate strategy to turn the business into an asset worth selling.
But there IS a formula, a process that can turn the dream into reality. It’s called
starting with the end in mind.
Nicki Nolan sold her Garaldton (WA) hair salon after 3 years in business – “Very happy with the price – the buyers didn’t even quibble”
The young lady you’re about to meet followed that formula to a ‘T’ – and reaped the rewards.
Nicki Nolan built her business in the remote West Australian country town of Geraldton.
Notably, Nicki sought out an appropriate mentor – joining up with Worldwide Salon Marketing very early in her business life – and actively, aggressively used the marketing and other business tools that came with her membership. She followed a plan, took massive action, and persisted, rather than giving up and throwing her hands in the air at the slightest hurdle.
So how did she ‘live the dream’ when so many never even get close, after 20 or even 30 years in the business? For 95% of people who own and run a business in the beauty and hair industry, it will never be much more than a poorly-paid job. Few take the trouble to educate themselves on business and marketing. Instead, they plunge into business ownership on little more than a wing and a prayer, assuming that because they are merely good at cutting hair or applying skin treatments, little else is required.
To build equity – something you can sell – you need systems. Written and implemented systems for raising leads, converting them to sales, re-booking them over and over again, up-selling products.
You need written systems that manage staff, systems for stocking products, systems for managing accounts.
Having documented, rigidly-enforced systems gave Nicki the confidence and the know-how to create that ‘Holy Grail’ of salon owners the world over; equity, something she could sell to an interested buyer.
Just this week, Nicki walked away from her salon in the mid-west town of Geraldton with a pile of cash.
Any salon owner can follow this formula. It is NOT rocket science. Nicki had no special opportunities, no advanced education, no lucky breaks; She just did what worked
