That time of year is here again and this time, we aren’t just celebrating a new year we are celebrating the beginning of the most successful year of our careers. Ring in the new year by setting a few intentions, like incorporating these 7 Habits of Highly Successful Salon Studio Owners.
One of the absolute easiest ways to change the trajectory of your business is to take a long hard look at your daily habits. You see, a lot of people have the misconception that big pay off comes from a specific thing or period of extreme hard work. When in reality, big pay off comes from small consistent action every single day!
Actually, you can probably look back on your life and remember a time when you had not the best habits and your life had one bad thing happen after another. You can probably also look back and notice the opposite. When you’ve been “more on your game” and felt growth.
When you are stuck in a cycle of bad habits your business and life tends to plateau or even decline. You tend to have clients that you don’t really get along with and do sales pitches from a place of desperation. Nobody enjoys that kind of salon experience…not even you!
When you have a collection of good habits, naturally people will be drawn to you because of the flow of positivity that will surround you. Likeminded people tend to stick together. So, when you are flowing with ideas and inspiration and motivation…you will naturally draw people into your salon that love that type of vibe.
In this post, I’m not just going to go over the positive mindset type habits but also some physical habits you can have in place that will make your job easier on you, endurance wise. Remember it takes 21 days to create a new habit in your life so there is no better way to start on adding these activities into your life then with my 21 Day Successful Stylist Bootcamp launching January 2023. More on this at the end of the article or fill out the form below for information when it launches.
Keep an intentionally consistent schedule
This is a successful salon habit that not only helps you achieve goals but it also help you create better habits when you are keeping an intentional schedule. You probably don’t even pay much attention or notice it but your current habits are already consistent. When you wake up, you reach for the coffee. When you get home, you put your keys in the same spot you always do. When you are short on money, you have your go to ways of bringing a little extra in.
What we are focusing on in this point is the INTENTIONALLY consistent part. When you set a schedule with intention, you are doing so with your goal in mind. You probably wouldn’t put “hitting snooze 5 times” down on your schedule if you were hyper focused on your goal of waking up earlier. Life can so easily be put off and split second conveniences will win.
Create a “Perfect Day” schedule for yourself. I like to do this when I am in a good mood and am feeling inspired. I love to do it in a clean house with a yummy essential oil in the diffuser, a glass of red wine and music playing. This is my happy place and my best self comes out when I am here. My best self wakes up knowing exactly what my day will consist of and I have crafted it by imagining I aim my future self, after accomplishing many of the goals I have today.
Write your Perfect Schedule out as if you were your best self.
Now compare your current schedule and see where you can put in a few of your new habits without completely shocking your system. Decide the frequency you will add one more in at a time and KEEP THAT SCHEDULE!
You can track all of your daily activities in the salon using my Complete Hairstylists Daily, Weekly, Monthly Planner Bundle.
Every day. Wake up and repeat!
Work out every day
This one is dumb!
It’s the truest thing on here and I hate it. I would never work out if I didn’t have to because, I hate it. The truth is though, when I do it, I feel like I can do anything. To be a successful salon studio owner as your best self, you will be pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. The confidence and energy that working out every single day will give you is what you need to push forward.
If you are very out of shape, this doesn’t have to mean you take up crossfit or become a marathoner. You can go for a walk or do some basic stretching and feel the extreme benefits of daily movement.
There is obvious mental benefits from getting 30 minutes of elevated heart rate every day BUT I don’t want to overlook the physical benefits either.
We are working in a VERY physical industry. Your body WILL start to hate you if you don’t give it the endurance it needs to keep up in this business. When you work out every day you are training your body to stand for 40+ hours a week while hunched over a bowl and blowing out a thick frizzy head of hair.
This habit isn’t just to build your confidence and give you the serotonin we need for the job, it is no different than an athlete that needs to hit the gym to run back and forth on the court. Your body needs movement to prevail.
Give it 21 days and see if your back pain doesn’t melt away!
Food is fuel
On this health note, let’s go ahead and get this one out of the way! All successful people in the world, are feeding themselves with actual nutrients. You are what you eat and if you want to be a healthy confident smart stylist running and successful salon that hits her goals no matter what, you better eat your damn vegetables!
Keep your immune system in tact thru flu season!
Give your body the fuel it needs for those long grueling days!
Make it a part of your intentionally consistent schedule!
I love to meal prep personally. Even if don’t actually cook everything in advance, I like to schedule out what I will have at snack time as well as meals. When you get hungry its not an issue of oh man all of a sudden I’m starving or what do I want, its ok here is my celery with almond butter (current snack obsession)!
Treat yourself when you want and listen to your bodies cravings BUT if you body is saying just go thru a drive thru….you need to recognize that that is your bad habits mindset talking because nobody intentionally plans to go thru the drive thru last minute!
Keep a personal notebook
How is this a habit you ask? Well, the habit comes in utilizing it! A notebook can be whatever you want it to be. You want to use the notes section on your phone, buy a physical notebook or use a recording device and speak into it. Have somewhere that you put your thoughts down on so you can reference it later.
I am queen of driving down the road and coming up with my next big project. A notebook has been a staple of mine for as long as I can remember. I make lists in it, dart down ideas, plan out vacations, maintain a schedule. There isn’t a thing I have done in my life that isn’t written down somewhere in a notebook.
Why is this habit of a successful salon owner? A successful person has too much going on to remember everything. If you can remember absolutely everything you need remember about every little thing, you aren’t doing enough!
You need a place for notes. If not for your own thoughts and schedules and action plans, for the classes you should be taking and the new things you are trying!
Very clear vision of future
I touched on this above but let’s dive a little deeper. When you picture yourself in the future running and successful salon and when you are going through this list and setting up your intentions and goals, do this as if you are already that person in the future that has accomplished these goals already. You have the house on the hill! Once you get your mindset in that place…creating your list of way to get that house on the hill will become clear.
Nobody gets a house on a hill by maxing out all their credit cards and not having the best credit possible. You get a house on a hill by having excellent credit. You would probably dress your best if you had the confidence that that house on the hill brought you, why can’t you represent yourself with that same confidence now knowing that was your future.
These are examples. You should go through your own process of dreaming up your ideal future and what your truly want from it not what others are telling you that you should want from it.
You can accomplish anything so don’t think small. Remember that once in our past as a human species, nobody could imagine a big piece of metal flying in the sky. Now millions of people take flights all over the world without a second thought of how insane that idea once was.
Be bold enough to imagine crazy growth for your future and don’t let you talk yourself into anything smaller.
Daily accounting practices
We need to talk about this one because although it is low on the list, it’s actually my personal most important. Knowing your current business standings is like knowing your current standings in the race. Like we pointed out in the last habit, you have to know where you are going if you ever expect to get anywhere especially if you have a specific goal but knowing where you currently are is essential to the path there.
It is proven that if you feel like you are far off of your target, you get disappointed and begin to stop working so hard. However, if you are $50 off of your revenue goal for the day and you have 2 more clients on your list, its becomes much easier to recommend at home care to sell to them or a conditioning treatment if it means you will reach that golden check mark of yes I hit my daily goal!
I love to have a place in my day where I can celebrate my little wins as well as my big wins. That’s why when I created my Daily, Weekly and Monthly Printable Planner Sheets, I made sure to find the things we do in our day that add up to a successful salon business. Like pre-booking your clients next visit before they leave or selling retail. I have added a space for you to fill in your own personal goals as well. You can find all of these planner sheet in my Etsy Shop and instantly download and print them to start using them today.
Know how to take action
These successful salon habits are something you could incorporate as a whole all at once or slowly work into your regular routine to become a more successful salon. Maybe you already do one of these habits and it’s time to audit that daily task and ask yourself if you could be doing it a little more efficiently.
I am a one at a time girl because I feel like I get better results that way. My best friend though can only make complete lifestyle changes if she changes everything at the same time. Both work the same in the end but suit our individual ways of moving in the world. The real question is, which way is going to make you actually take action. Which way helps boost you out of your comfort zone and start doing the things that will inch you toward the life you envision yourself living in the future.
Looking for more posts on the topic of taking action? I put together a list of my favorite posts called 10 Blog Posts to Get Out of a Rut and Back to Growing Your Salon.
Whether you want to change your lifestyle completely like my friend or take small manageable bites sized pieces at a time, my 21 day Successful Stylist Bootcamp can help motivate you and keep you going until you are living in that house on the hill. It is less me giving you more habits and more about the accountability of getting it all done for 21 days, the length of time it takes to create a lasting habit in your life.
Every day in this bootcamp a new module will become available to you. Some of these days it will be a video to watch of me explaining more details on habits that will move your business in the direction we all want to be going (more money!) and other days it will be an article or written version of me motivating you to do something that day that you can’t forget to focus on, like taking care of yourself every once in a while. I also have some voice recordings in there from days when I was driving or hiking and I had a stroke of genius.
I know this Bootcamp is the perfect thing for you to focus on this January to get yourself going for the year. You can sign up to be notified on January 1st 2023 when it is live and for an exclusive launch price!
Cheers,
Rachel