Feeling like a failure

[toonangel]

Hey everyone..

I bought a salon in March using money I had made from my other (successful) business... the reason for buying was to help my little sister.. her job was making her depressed and anxious & I knew how much she wanted to run a salon of her own. I've never been in the beauty business myself & never owned a salon before.

My sister is qualified in most beauty except nails, we employed her as a therapist & the salon manager... my neighbour was a self employed nail tech & asked if she could rent a space, perfect I thought, so we bought the salon.

We estimated around £3000 would need to be spent on doing up the salon... it actually ended up costing £9000 as problem after problem kept arising (my fault for not looking into things properly maybe..) my nail tech then dropped out a week before our launch day & I panicked! My close friend messaged me to say she would love to work at our salon but she couldn't afford to rent the space & would want to be employed.. stupidly & out of desperation I employed them both rather than getting them to rent spaces.

Now I am in a pickle as we are losing so much money, the girls aren't in need of clients coming as they get paid either way so lots of the time they are sat about chatting & I can't be at the salon all hours as I'm so busy with my other businesses... the salon isn't busy enough to pay two wages out, we aren't even covering the rent (when I bought it there was just one lady working there & she was the owner but was only doing sunbeds & nails so I assumed by offering more services we would make more money.)

My sister is currently training up to do nails... I'm now not sure what to do with my nail tech friend.. I feel terrible letting her go.. maybe I should tell her she can rent the space instead? If I did this how much would you charge a nail tech to rent a space per day?

Sorry for the essay I just feel as if I'm drowning & feeling very naive at the moment!

 

[AcidPerm]

Hey everyone..
I bought a salon in March using money I had made from my other (successful) business... the reason for buying was to help my little sister.. her job was making her depressed and anxious & I knew how much she wanted to run a salon of her own. ....
Now I am in a pickle as we are losing so much money, the girls aren't in need of clients coming as they get paid either way so lots of the time they are sat about chatting

Do you mean your sister, who was desperate to run her own salon, is sitting around chatting when there's no clients???

Have you involved her in running the business, doing the books, devising a marketing strategy or is she simply playing at being a beauty therapist?

I agree that you shouldn't be employing 2 people if you can't afford to. Daily rents vary but as a rough estimate, £20-30 a day is reasonable outside of major cities.

 

[FleurNails96]

(I've never run my own business and I'm in no way an expert!)

Have a read of a thread on the business forum on here it's called "More ways to promote your business". It's really long but definitely worth a read as it has so many advertising ideas! Especially as we're coming up to Christmas which is one of the beauty industries busiest times!

Consider donating some gift vouchers to local Christmas raffles/charity events. A Christmas giveaway of some treatments and/or beauty goodies might drum up some more business or interest in your social media. To clients that are having treatments in December consider giving them Christmas cards with 10% off vouchers which are only valid in January.

In the salons I have worked it it's been 50/50 with my employers providing all of my tools and equipment. You could try offering her a basic minimum wage with some sort of commission based income from the treatments carried out? Not sure of the legalities and employment terms of this - but just a thought!

 

[toonangel]

Thanks so much girls - we are located on a very busy road but not in a main town/city its more of a village.. I definitely need to get more business savvy, as my other businesses are so different from my salon I feel very out of my depth & so really appreciate any help. I will read the promotions thread now & yes I agree I was thinking £25 per day to rent the space. xx

 

[rippersroo]

You said your nail tech friend wanted to be employed as she couldn't afford to rent a space? Can she afford it now then??
It may be difficult to let her go but she must be able to see the business is quiet and understand that you can't afford to employ 2 people.
I also started from my own premises in march, I have the odd quiet spot but am generally busy but I couldn't afford to employ someone no way! I hope you can work something out, let us know how it goes.x

 

[toonangel]

I've arranged a meeting with them both on Monday to talk through a few things - we will then speak to nail tech privately after. She works within my other business & has started making more money from that & she did say she wanted to drop hours within the salon to work harder with the other one anyway but I still don't feel comfortable employing her at the salon as we need to pay out wage & holidays etc & I really don't think it's feasible. At least if I give her the option to rent the space rather than letting her go it won't seem as unfair? Will update Monday. Thanks again xx

 

[RED STAR]

Employing is Soooooo expensive.
Folk have NO IDEA!
Nothing rattles my cage more, than the assumption that salon owners are 'raking it in', and paying their poor staff peanuts.
They are obviously oblivious as to what it costs to run a business.

I feel for you... but you have to get your business head on.....and pull up those 'big girl pant's!
If they can't cover AT LEAST their wage...get rid.
Offer a rental....you will see a BIG difference when they have to run their own show.

Sadly, if you give an inch, some will take a mile.

 

[toonangel]

I know, I wish I'd known or at least researched before. My other business has zero overheads as I work from home so I make lots of money from that with little expenses.. I definitely wasn't prepared for the shock of traditional business! xx

 

[BannerPenguin]

Running a salon is hellishly expensive. You need to work out a USP. Offering more treatments isn't enough. The market is over saturated with Salons. To make this business work you need to dedicate a reasonable marketing budget and devise a marketing strategy. It's a long hard slog to get people through the door.

You did a really nice thing helping out family but I feel she doesn't have a clue what's involved judging by what you said. I'd say maybe try to discuss with her this is HER salon, and you're not covering any the expenses anymore, it needs to make money. Then do a percentage between you 2 and she will have to get her arse in gear as she will no longer have a wage to rely on. It's easy to be lazy with guaranteed income. No need to push one's self when getting paid.

It will lose money generally for 6-12 months traditionally so if it was me, I'd look at selling. That's just my personal opinon. Have to think business and not personal unless you want to be bankrupt

 

[CFBS]

It takes a couple of years to even get one therapist running at a profit. Gathering a client base is a hard slog and costs money.
You need to devote a lot of time to developing a new business so this venture may not fit with your other schemes.
Sorry to be hard but in thirty years I've never seen a successful salon where the owner is not qualified in hair or beauty. There is too much to know and you need to be there everyday.

My harsh advice would be to sell up to your current staff or someone else appropriate.

 

[redlottie13]

Yeah I agree with everyone here. I have worked with people for years who are happy to sit around chatting when they don't have clients in and then there are people like myself who have been walking up and down streets just to find clients /leafleting / Facebook posts and that was while I was employed! It's so hard to find people who want to help build a business, when it's not theirs they don't care as long as they get their hourly wage. If it were me I would lay your cards on the table then allow 3 months for your sister to prove she can run a business. Even if you just take a back seat and help her. She should do everything to build the business such as Facebook /marketing/finance/stock Everything! Then she will understand how hard it is. I don't mean to be rude but she needs to think herself lucky she has been given this amazing opportunity! I would bite someone's arm off for this opportunity! X

 

[toonangel]

Hey everyone, meeting went well, we discussed everything that was spoken about on here. Nail tech is more than happy to go self employed now she's making more money from my other business that she works with - what a weight off my mind! Can't thank you all enough for your kind words & suggestions. Going to get things implemented straight away & new opening times start next week xx

 

[AcidPerm]

Well done.
I'm glad you took decisive action rather than just waiting for things to improve. Hopefully, now that you've cleared the air, both of them will start to put serious effort into making the business profitable.