redlottie13
JUST BE NICE
She isn't of mediocre standard.
And out of curiosity, as a new business how can you/I justify paying over NMW when they aren't even bringing that in?
Busy beautician but still not covering her wage?
- Thread starter redlottie13
- Start date
Help Support SalonGeek:
And out of curiosity, as a new business how can you/I justify paying over NMW when they aren't even bringing that in?
I completely understand your predicament, it’s so tough... but I really do believe that if you pay minimum you get minimum effort back. We are all skilled specialists and to think you can earn more doing unskilled jobs in the supermarkets, waitressing and cleaning is insulting.
This is one of the reasons I don’t employ ppl, I only take on self employed. Xxxxx
From the figures provided you have a therapist with four years experience, earning 6.83 p.h. You're getting 60 bookings per month with an ATV of £32, therefore bringing in around £5-6k per month.
Firstly give her a pay rise and commission base that takes her up to £10 per hour at least, if she hits her targets or she's going to be leaving soon. This will hopefully make her feel a lot more involved and engaged with her work and valued as an employee.
Teach her about the power of client retention and good customer service skills. Get a reading resource for the salon, get books on sales, pathology, A&P, psychology anything that helps people to grow in their work.
Send monthly newsletters with an offer, give refer a friend vouchers, create add on offers book "this" and add "this" for only X amount.
Are you checking in with her treatments regularly to see where her standards are and what extra training she may need?. I book in with all my staff every six months to check their treatments and add to their skill sets. Send her on training courses to expand you offering, pregnancy massage was a huge boost to my business. Find out where her skills gaps are.
There is a plethora of sales and promotion advice on here make a coffee and have trawl!.
You are only 18 months old, you'll get there.
Firstly give her a pay rise and commission base that takes her up to £10 per hour at least, if she hits her targets or she's going to be leaving soon. This will hopefully make her feel a lot more involved and engaged with her work and valued as an employee.
Teach her about the power of client retention and good customer service skills. Get a reading resource for the salon, get books on sales, pathology, A&P, psychology anything that helps people to grow in their work.
Send monthly newsletters with an offer, give refer a friend vouchers, create add on offers book "this" and add "this" for only X amount.
Are you checking in with her treatments regularly to see where her standards are and what extra training she may need?. I book in with all my staff every six months to check their treatments and add to their skill sets. Send her on training courses to expand you offering, pregnancy massage was a huge boost to my business. Find out where her skills gaps are.
There is a plethora of sales and promotion advice on here make a coffee and have trawl!.
You are only 18 months old, you'll get there.
I used to do Calgel and its a very expensive product to buy in comparison to other soak off gels.So your profit margin there is very low.
Do you retail anything at all,cuticle oil is pretty easy with Calgel.You could put her on commission for retail to encourage her to sell.
I think your treatment menu is probably just too small,if you are relying on nails and pedis then your prices for cost of service are way to low.Especially when using a product like Calgel.
Do you retail anything at all,cuticle oil is pretty easy with Calgel.You could put her on commission for retail to encourage her to sell.
I think your treatment menu is probably just too small,if you are relying on nails and pedis then your prices for cost of service are way to low.Especially when using a product like Calgel.
FlawlessBeauty
Well-Known Member
Are your figures right because 60 clients with an average spend of £32 is £1920 so her wages would be covered.
Maybe have a look at upping your prices by £1-£2 and also talk with her about working together to ensure a full column.
Does she ask her clients to rebook every time? Does she upsell? Are there products to retail?
You could try giving her a bonus whenever she hits a certain target to see if it motivates her x
Maybe have a look at upping your prices by £1-£2 and also talk with her about working together to ensure a full column.
Does she ask her clients to rebook every time? Does she upsell? Are there products to retail?
You could try giving her a bonus whenever she hits a certain target to see if it motivates her x
redlottie13
JUST BE NICE
Can I ask how you have come to the figure of 6k please? X
redlottie13
JUST BE NICE
I tried and unfortunately didn't work..... I won't go into it but I have experienced theft , poor standard and unprofessionalism so I only employ now. At least then I am able to 'manage' them. X
redlottie13
JUST BE NICE
Yeah it's very expensive but i found it was a way of getting people away from the vile acrylic nail shops that saturate my area.
Personally I believe we charge too low for that service given the profit margin is really low!
We do ALL beauty services apart from facials and massage.
3 types of nails , 3 types of lashes as well as tinting and LVL, HD brows, makeup, all waxing.
The above menu was just an example as mentioned.
We retail all Hollywood aftercare for lashes.
Cuticle oil? Is it a big seller? I feel we struggle to retail beauty as we don't do facials [emoji51]
redlottie13
JUST BE NICE
What kind of bonus would you suggest?
I think I have got the figures off to be honest, only slightly though....I think, sorry I'm dyslexic [emoji87]
...Thank God I have an accountant for the big stuff eh!
But the average client foot fall has increased from 32 (first month) to 102 (December )
I have a smart system and can tell you her retention rate is 96%
redlottie13
JUST BE NICE
Love the idea of pregnancy massage , there's not many in my area that offer this. I know as I am pregnant x
You may ask and I will be shame faced!!! I was in a rush and hadn't cleared a previous calculation from my crap touchscreen calculator! That'll teach me to be a little miss smarty pants!.
She would probably have to do a course though... which may mean spending more before getting it back xxxxx
redlottie13
JUST BE NICE
I was going to say if she was bringing in 6k then she could have any wage she wanted [emoji23]
redlottie13
JUST BE NICE
That's totally fine, she's done two training courses already. I like to invest in my team x
Martin Duffy
Well-Known Member
Massage can be a great earner. I charge £1 a minute for massage on average, i.e. £30 for a 30 mins back massage, and £60 for an hours body massage. Indeed, massage and facials (which I charge at around the same rate), are the two treatments that have earnt me the most over the last 20 years I have worked in this industry. Moreover, the demand for massage and facials aren't really fashion-led, and so these treatments are less susceptible to the vagaries of what look is or isn't in fashion.
Morning Redlottie
I feel for you I really do, the problem here is that you can't expect to pay NMW and buy yourself an entrepreneur who will build her column and make both her wage and your overhead plus profit. No-one is going to run your business for you, except you. You are the one confident you can build a successful business, not her.
It sounds as though you have a good employee who is doing everything that you could hope, she's providing good quality services which have clients returning to her. She needs careful coaching and managing to deliver your £ requirements on a daily basis.
You need to give her a daily target and each morning you should go through bookings and discuss these so that she understands how to hit her target. So for instance every brow shape booked you should be patch testing so that they can think about adding a tint "next time". You can ask if she is offering additional facial hair removal services, "there are just a few hairs on your chin, would you like me to remove them for you, or leave those for next time, it's an extra £x to include them today".
You should discuss promotional activity that she is going to be doing between clients. Look at your hair bookings - are you looking to upsell and cross sell for the beauty side? Are you targeting yourself for brow shapes added to hair services? Who is your top seller? I'm guessing it's you. Are you building your beauty column?
You need to check in with her a couple of hours before the end of the day. How are the takings? Where is she against target? This is the time to praise all upselling and notice the new service bookings she has made.
You also need to spend a bit of time analysing your beauty business. You've asked about client nos. You are well down on where you should be. Instead of looking at client nos look at occupancy rate. Target should be 80% occupancy.
Next you need to do some sums. You need to charge 3x salary plus product costs plus VAT as an absolute minimum.
You need to price to cover the industry salary expectation whether you are actually paying this amount or not. Howver bear in mind that increasing a therapist salary will increase your prices by 3x plus VAT so £3.60 per hour for every £1 salary increase. It might be sensible to price at a salary rate of £10 just so you can build some future proofing into your costings.
Your pricing should look something like this
34 hours wages @£10 = £340
Multiply by 3 for overhead, product costs, holiday pay, training, etc and profit, then add VAT. =£1224
If you need £1224 per week as gross earnings, you need £306 per day based on a 4 day week.
At occupancy rate of 80% this is £45 per hour. (6.8 booked treatment hours per day)
At occupancy rate 60% this is £60 per hour. (5.2 booked treatment hours per day)
I suggest you charge chair treatments at around £45 ph and couch treatments at £60 ph. You need to look at your treatment costs and make sure you can do a calgel and a lash lift in 30 mins.
So at present you are too cheap in your pricing, under occupied and underpaying your staff. If you knocked an hour off your therapists day and kept her take home the same, that would put her on £7.70 per hour which is a bit more respectful. It sounds like you can easily do this without losing bookings.
You need to stop charging shellac prices for calgel. You wouldn't do this for a hair service would you? Stick your prices up 10%, charge £28 for calgel, £35 for a lash lift and tell your customers that you've given your lovely therapist a much needed pay rise which she richly deserved. Tell your clients how great she is with a 96% client retention rate. Say that you've been a bit shocked that she didn't get more tips and you'd set your prices low so that clients could tip...
I feel for you I really do, the problem here is that you can't expect to pay NMW and buy yourself an entrepreneur who will build her column and make both her wage and your overhead plus profit. No-one is going to run your business for you, except you. You are the one confident you can build a successful business, not her.
It sounds as though you have a good employee who is doing everything that you could hope, she's providing good quality services which have clients returning to her. She needs careful coaching and managing to deliver your £ requirements on a daily basis.
You need to give her a daily target and each morning you should go through bookings and discuss these so that she understands how to hit her target. So for instance every brow shape booked you should be patch testing so that they can think about adding a tint "next time". You can ask if she is offering additional facial hair removal services, "there are just a few hairs on your chin, would you like me to remove them for you, or leave those for next time, it's an extra £x to include them today".
You should discuss promotional activity that she is going to be doing between clients. Look at your hair bookings - are you looking to upsell and cross sell for the beauty side? Are you targeting yourself for brow shapes added to hair services? Who is your top seller? I'm guessing it's you. Are you building your beauty column?
You need to check in with her a couple of hours before the end of the day. How are the takings? Where is she against target? This is the time to praise all upselling and notice the new service bookings she has made.
You also need to spend a bit of time analysing your beauty business. You've asked about client nos. You are well down on where you should be. Instead of looking at client nos look at occupancy rate. Target should be 80% occupancy.
Next you need to do some sums. You need to charge 3x salary plus product costs plus VAT as an absolute minimum.
You need to price to cover the industry salary expectation whether you are actually paying this amount or not. Howver bear in mind that increasing a therapist salary will increase your prices by 3x plus VAT so £3.60 per hour for every £1 salary increase. It might be sensible to price at a salary rate of £10 just so you can build some future proofing into your costings.
Your pricing should look something like this
34 hours wages @£10 = £340
Multiply by 3 for overhead, product costs, holiday pay, training, etc and profit, then add VAT. =£1224
If you need £1224 per week as gross earnings, you need £306 per day based on a 4 day week.
At occupancy rate of 80% this is £45 per hour. (6.8 booked treatment hours per day)
At occupancy rate 60% this is £60 per hour. (5.2 booked treatment hours per day)
I suggest you charge chair treatments at around £45 ph and couch treatments at £60 ph. You need to look at your treatment costs and make sure you can do a calgel and a lash lift in 30 mins.
So at present you are too cheap in your pricing, under occupied and underpaying your staff. If you knocked an hour off your therapists day and kept her take home the same, that would put her on £7.70 per hour which is a bit more respectful. It sounds like you can easily do this without losing bookings.
You need to stop charging shellac prices for calgel. You wouldn't do this for a hair service would you? Stick your prices up 10%, charge £28 for calgel, £35 for a lash lift and tell your customers that you've given your lovely therapist a much needed pay rise which she richly deserved. Tell your clients how great she is with a 96% client retention rate. Say that you've been a bit shocked that she didn't get more tips and you'd set your prices low so that clients could tip...
beautyldn87
Member
You are charging way too little for a lash lift and tint and that takes at least 40 mins. As the saying goes...Time is money!
redlottie13
JUST BE NICE
Wow, you're advise will for sure be used thank you so much!
Can you reiterate what you mean by knocking an hour off her Day though?
Also are 30 mins for lash lift and CalGel normal service times?
She takes her time in a lot of therapies, which unfortunately is why our occupancy rate looks good and takings are low (along of course with many of your points too)
For instance this is what she has set her timings as:
*Lashes (classic) -1 hour
*Lashes (Russian & individual) 2 hours
*Lash lift and tint - 1 hour
*Massage - back, neck and shoulder
*Gel and CalGel- 1 hour
*Brow tint and shape -30 mins
*Brow Shape, lip wax chin wax ect - 15 minutes & under
*Spray tan- 30 mins
*Waxing (brazillian,Hollywood,leg,arm) -30 mins.
Please feel free to chip in, but judging on what you said I think this maybe our issue (not earning enough ph)
Thank you again @thedutchess
xxx
Hi I’m not a manager, I am just employed but thought I would comment, hope that’s ok. LVL lashes if you are using Nouveau brand I would charge minimum £35/40. Can be done in 45. Spray tan £20 in 15/20 mins. Apparently a therapist should be making three times their hourly rate for the employee to make a profit properly. X
