[00:00:00] Antony Whitaker: Welcome to the Grow My Salon Business podcast, where we focus on the business side of hairdressing. I'm your host, Antony Whitaker, and I'll be talking to thought leaders in the hairdressing industry, discussing insightful, provocative, and inspiring ideas that matter. So, get ready to learn, get ready to be challenged, get ready to be inspired, and most importantly, get ready to grow your salon business.
[00:00:27] Antony Whitaker: Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Grow My Salon Business podcast. I'm your host, Antony Whitaker, and it's great to have you here with us today. Thank you for all the compliments regarding the podcast. I really do appreciate it. And if you're one of those people who haven't yet left us a review for the podcast, I would love it if you did.
[00:00:48] Antony Whitaker: Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful. They do matter in the rankings of the show and it helps other people to find the podcast. I also genuinely love to hear what's been helpful to you. So all you need to do to leave a review is go to the Apple podcast app, search, grow my salon business, scroll to the bottom of the page and leave a review, which will make us very happy.
[00:01:11] Antony Whitaker: So, with that said on with today's show. As a salon owner, you will have many responsibilities, but they can all be summarized by saying that you are the person that is ultimately responsible for the success of your business. And that takes more than just being good at doing here and having a great location and a column of your own clients.
[00:01:33] Antony Whitaker: Now, obviously those three things are important and they will help you to get out of the gate, so to speak, but in reality, they are just the beginning. In my experience, the three biggest challenges that most salon owners will face, once they're up and running, will be that first, the business is dependent on them doing all the work.
[00:01:56] Antony Whitaker: Now, whether that's producing revenue behind the chair or dealing with a leaky pipe or some other maintenance issue, either way, the business is far too dependent on them. Secondly, there'll be a degree of chaos or a lack of organization, whether that's with inventory management or training or managing the appointment book and the productivity of the team.
[00:02:20] Antony Whitaker: And I suppose that in any new business that there is a degree of inevitability that there will be a lack of organization. At least in the early stages. But if you're serious about building a team and growing a profitable business, then you need to get organized. And the third challenge will be about the culture that is developing within the business.
[00:02:45] Antony Whitaker: Because unless it's a culture that you have consciously defined and nurtured, then it will be a culture that has just happened over time. And therefore, it's probably a culture that's based on what is most convenient and easiest for the individuals that work there. And that isn't always what is best for the business.
[00:03:07] Antony Whitaker: As the owner or manager, it is your job to develop a culture that is best for the business. A culture that reflects the values that you want the business to have. And that will also usually be what is best for the people that work there. Now, I understand that defining what is meant by culture can actually be hard to pin down, but essentially culture is a result of or a reflection of the accepted actions and behaviors that exist within the business.
[00:03:44] Antony Whitaker: And as the owner, you probably want a culture that is based on teamwork, a culture that is fun, a culture that is professional. And a culture where the clients, the team, and the owner all have a great experience. In other words, you want a culture that is a win-win for everyone. But regardless of which of these three challenges, whether it's the business being too dependent on you, or getting your business organized instead of being chaotic, or creating a great culture, none of it will happen if it's just left to chance.
[00:04:19] Antony Whitaker: And so, if you don't intentionally address each of those issues, then the problems will continue to happen. And as a result, the experience that a lot of salon owners are left with is that they feel frustrated. They feel disillusioned and they can't pay themselves properly for all the work they do and the risks that they've taken as a business owner.
[00:04:40] Antony Whitaker: And inevitably they start to feel resentful and trapped in their business. They start to miss out on family time and time with loved ones which in turn puts pressure on relationships. They can't meet their financial goals or financial commitments and they start to feel that maybe they just don't have what it takes to succeed at salon ownership.
[00:05:02] Antony Whitaker: And so what they typically do to try and fix the problem is work harder behind the chair in the mistaken belief that if only they had more money to throw at the problem that that would be the solution. Or they employ a manager in the hope that someone else can sort out the problems that come with business ownership.
[00:05:22] Antony Whitaker: And more often than not, that doesn't work because the manager they employ doesn't have the vision, the authority or the knowledge needed either. So then they find a coach. But the problem is that most coaches don't address the root causes of the problem. And they're just firefighting the effects of what the real problem is.
[00:05:43] Antony Whitaker: And that is what's at the crux of it. You have to address the causes of the problems, not just deal with the effects. Because you can't solve a problem with a short-term band aid solution. You have to look at the cause of the effect, which is the deeper problem that needs to be addressed.
[00:06:04] Antony Whitaker: And as much as you might hate me saying it, the real causes are usually a lack of vision. A lack of planning and a lack of leadership on your part. And until you address those things, you're stuck in this pattern that keeps you and your business from moving forward. So, what's the solution? Well, you need to start by thinking of your business as an ecosystem.
[00:06:29] Antony Whitaker: So, what do I even mean by that? Well, if you google the term ecosystem, the majority of answers will be describing the ecosystem in an environmental context and how every part of our environment is linked to everything else within the environment. And that if you take just one piece away, that it can and will have a huge impact on everything else.
[00:06:53] Antony Whitaker: But I want to talk about an ecosystem in a business context. And so perhaps a better word for ecosystem is to use the word infrastructure, meaning that everything within the business is in some way connected to and even depends on everything else within the business.
[00:07:13] Antony Whitaker: So whether it's a thing, a process, or a person, nothing exists in isolation of everything else in the business. And so that is what I mean by the term business ecosystem. I always think that a good visual representation of a business ecosystem is either a brick wall or a jigsaw puzzle, because in both cases, whether it's the bricks that make up the wall or the individual pieces that make up a jigsaw puzzle, they're all important in their own right, but they're more important or more useful in the context of being part of something much bigger
[00:07:53] Antony Whitaker: and face it, A brick wall with a missing brick will eventually start to crumble and then collapse, just as a jigsaw without all the pieces is annoying and you'll probably just discard the whole thing. So, if we put this in the context of your business, I'm sure you could list lots of different components of what is needed to make the business operate successfully.
[00:08:18] Antony Whitaker: And as you develop that list, it will quickly start to overwhelm you until you start to organize the pieces in a way that begins to make sense. Now, a good way to start getting some clarity in organization is first of all to think of the four main components of the business. And like every business, those four main components are management, finance, marketing, and HR, meaning human resources or the team.
[00:08:48] Antony Whitaker: You might want to add a fifth one, and that would be operations. Now, the only reason I haven't listed operations separately is that I include that as part of the management function. Now, back to my jigsaw metaphor for a moment. Just like with a jigsaw puzzle, sometimes you'll have a 50-piece puzzle, and other times you might have a 500-piece puzzle.
[00:09:13] Antony Whitaker: So, when you think of your business and how many pieces of the puzzle there are, a lot of it depends on how big your business is and how much detail you want to drill down into. So obviously a small business with two or three team members would have less pieces to the puzzle than a big puzzle with twenty or thirty people on your team.
[00:09:34] Antony Whitaker: Simply because the bigger the business, the more moving parts there are. And therefore, the more layers of complexity there are in order for the business to function smoothly. So if you took those four functions of business, meaning management, finance, marketing, and HR, you could combine them to make one big jigsaw puzzle, or you could make four separate jigsaws. 
[00:10:00] Antony Whitaker: One for management, one for finance, one for marketing, and one for HR. And then you could flesh out everything that comes under each of those headings. So, for example, under management, you could brainstorm and come up with a list starting with vision, and systems, and goal setting, and job descriptions, and maintenance, and defining the client experience, and training, and onboarding.
[00:10:25] Antony Whitaker: And under financial, you would have things such as pricing, and pay systems, and inventory management, and budgeting, and banking, and bookkeeping, and tax. I'm sure you're getting the idea. The point is that each of the headings that you come up with represent another brick in the wall or another piece of the jigsaw puzzle.
[00:10:45] Antony Whitaker: And within each piece, it then opens up another level of detail. For example, if you took training as a title of just one piece of the puzzle of the ecosystem that makes up a successful business, you could break that down into technical training, Product knowledge training, client service training, training for assistants, training for senior staff, management training, and on and on it goes.
[00:11:12] Antony Whitaker: Very quickly, you start to see that building and growing a business and managing a team is more complex than it might first appear. And it takes time, it takes patience, and it takes a different set of skills than the skills that you have as a technician. And when I say technician, I'm meaning the person who does the work behind the chair.
[00:11:35] Antony Whitaker: The technician has the skills of doing hair, cutting hair, coloring hair, product knowledge, consultations, color formulations, etc. And they're not the skills that are needed to open and manage a salon, build a productive team, and create a profitable business. To do that, you need the skills of management.
[00:11:56] Antony Whitaker: And if you are the business owner, then you need to develop those skills within yourself and perhaps your leadership team. And if you don't, then your business won't succeed. 
[00:12:07] Antony Whitaker: But the good news is that once you understand the concept of your business being an ecosystem made up of all these individual pieces that collectively make up the whole, then you start to see what it is that you're doing and what it is that still needs to be done. If we use a jigsaw analogy as a metaphor.
[00:12:28] Antony Whitaker: The box that the jigsaw comes in has a picture on the lid. And that picture represents what the puzzle will look like when all the pieces are put together. Your business doesn't come in a box with a lid or a picture of the end result. But that is what the vision for your business represents. And only you can define what that vision is.
[00:12:48] Antony Whitaker: And in many ways, that is the first step of leadership and management. Having a clear idea of what you want the business to be like. But unlike the jigsaw puzzle, when you're assembling the ecosystem that makes up your business, it is a never-ending puzzle. Meaning that because your business is effectively a living and constantly evolving thing, it will never be finished.
[00:13:14] Antony Whitaker: It will always need refining, tweaking and updating to reflect the changing times that we live in and how you and your business choose to respond to those changes around us. So, as we start to wrap this episode up, hopefully you recognize that your challenges and frustrations are not unique to you.
[00:13:34] Antony Whitaker: Hopefully you have more clarity now about what your role really is in building a better business. 
[00:13:41] Antony Whitaker: And if you're in any doubt, it's not about being the busiest stylist in the salon. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. Your real success will be determined by your ability to create a business that doesn't run because you do everything, but instead runs without you having to do everything.
[00:14:01] Antony Whitaker: And when that happens, that is the point at which you cease being a business operator and start to become a business owner. Now I have a free masterclass coming up shortly titled four essential lessons in salon management to set you up for success. You'll see dates and times and a link to register in the show notes of today's podcast.
[00:14:26] Antony Whitaker: So, if what we've covered today resonates with you, then make sure you register via the link in the podcast show notes to attend the free live masterclass, where we will dive in deeper about what it takes for you to get the success that you deserve. So, to wrap up, thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Grow My Salon Business Until next week, be safe and take care of yourself. 
[00:14:50] Antony Whitaker: Thank you for listening to today's podcast If you'd like to connect with us, you'll find us at growmysalonbusiness.com or on Facebook and Instagram at Grow My Salon business and if you enjoy tuning into our podcast make sure that you subscribe like and share it with your friends Until next time this is Antony Whitaker wishing you continued success