Renting a room in a Hairdressers

[lolaw]

Hi

Im about to rent a room in a hairdressing salon. The shop is lying empty at the moment and a friend is taking on the hairdressers at the front and im renting out the room at the back to do beauty and nails. The room is really big (could easily be split into two). My problem is that I work full time as a sales rep at the moment an am not really in a position to give it up just yet (due to finances!!). I am intending on renting the room but only opening on a thursday evening, a saturday and a sunday as there is no client base at the moment.... Do you think this will be enough to start building up some clients, and covering my rent which is £150 per week?

I thought if I got busy enough I could split the room in two and sublet to another therapist but I dont want to run before I can walk. What do you think??

 

[crashell]

hi lola,
you sound like your head is as frazzeled as mine:lol:,
im kind of in the same predicament,
you feel like you carnt let this opertunity pass, but some times timing is a bit c*ap.
can you maybe sort out a trial period with the rent? like cheeper rent while your getting sorted for a little while,
i think this is fare as it will benefit the ower in the long run when you are busy and she may get trade from some of your clients also.
i would put it too her anyway, the worst she can say is no :lol:.
good luck and let us know how you get on.
:hug:x

 

[Deb Doyle]

Hi, I think that rent is quite high I pay less than that for my salon, I know I have heat and light on top of that, but I think you need to negotiate a better price or a bit of a rent free period maybe??. I started out 7 years ago and paid £50 a week for a small room and a nail table in a hairdressing salon.
It was a great start for me and I still have a lot of my old clients now even though I am a good 20 mins drive away now.
Will you make your money in those days all you can do is give it a go you have nothing to lose :green:
Wish you all the luck in the world, just get that rent a little lower :lol:

 

[number1kitty]

I would say its more of a burden than a bonus!

Wont you be tired working a full time job and then doing nights/weekends?

Also it wont look professional on the salon both hair and yourself if a client just walks in for a treatment and your not there or a client of the hairdressers wants an appointment but again the hair salon have to explain your not there! eventually they may get fed up making excuses and you will also lose potential clients.

Are you going halves on the entire salon with your friend? If your just renting 1 room that rent is far too high! You would work just to cover your rent and products, as well as stationary, insurance etc.

You could sublet to other therapists but it may end up being more of a conflict of interest.

If your comfortable on the money your on and would struggle losing that regular income I would give this a miss completly! You could always start mobile to begin with and build up your clients and then look at settling in a shop and leaving your job.

Kate

 

[lilly]

i started renting a room in a salon last week, its costing me £20 a day, i defiantly wouldn't pay anymore than that. hth

 

[Lavander Rose]

Hello there

I think the rent it very high, I only pay £100 a week and that includes the lighting, heating and water which if fantasic for me.

As far as the short time that you can commit too, i dont think its enough, i,m at the salon everyday for 8 hours and 10 on a Thursday which is late night and I am like you trying to build a new client base and its damn hard doing it full time.

Your constantly trying to advertise, contantly waiting for that phone call hoping its a client for you so you can pay the rent lol.

I think personally your biting more than you can chew, I gave up my job which was only part time to commit to what I love doing the most and that is being a holistic and beauty therapist, I would,nt want to do anything else now.

Think long and hard b4 you commit and sign anything. SEE if you can have to rent reduced for a short while until you get on you feet.

Good Luck

 

[GLAMOUR BEAUTY]

Cn you go part time doing the sales rep job

 

[lolaw]

Thanks for all the replys. My head is totally frazzled with all this. I would struggle to go part time on my sales rep job as I have asked for this before but they said no. Initially the hairdresser wanted £250 a week and I batted her down to £150 so im a bit worried.

Im soooo confused about it all.....

 

[lilly]

you poor thing, its a tough decision but to be honest i think 150 is steep, 600 a month, you've gotta go some to make any profit after paying out that sort of rent plus product cost hth :hug:

 

[lolaw]

Think your right. The only thing that keeps me interested is that it's citycentre Edinburgh and there is not much competition about. Im worried if I dont jump then someone else will and I'll end up regretting it. I've defo got a lot to think about. x

 

[donnac33]

I feel that the rent is way too high, i have just finished refurbing a salon for my wife, and we are having trouble letting a large room with all included for £100 a week,
it sounds like you may be paying all of the rent and the hairdresser wants a free ride. be very careful (ps husbands read this as well)

 

[Shopaholic42]

Hi Lola
I am currently working full time as an SVQ assessor, and have set up a room in my house to work nights and weekends from doing nails - this means no extra rent, and you dont have the added addition of travel time. I try to do a max of 3 nights and one day at the weekend (believe me some weeks there is nowt so not generally a problem), I do find it can be tiring, but working from home or being mobile gives your clients that flexibility, your not tying them to particular days - and lets face it your still paying rent the days your not there.
I agree with everyone else it does seem expensive for one room - even in the centre of Edinburgh - but there is always that fear that maybe you'll regret it if you dont give it a go. Would you be tied in for a set period ie could you give it a trial period and see how it goes?
Good luck hunni.

 

[joe90]

Sounds like a lot to me too. Where I am (in a fairly affluent area) you can rent a whole shop for £600-£800 per month so it sounds like you would be paying the hairdressers rent too!!!

 

[wowbb]

totally agree with the others that it seems quite a bit of money but if you think the location and the opportunity is good its easy to understand that you feel you would be missing out saying NO to that.

If you can only do such a small amount of time, could you not think about renting the room out to someone else on the other days? Maybe someone that does treatments you dont offer or as you said split the room into two treatment rooms? that way you would get a bit of rent back in whether you are there or not and if your treatments compliment each other you could be a good team and both earn money - especially if its near the city centre?

If you do that just make sure that the rent is still in your name so that you can decide to take it all back over if you decide to quit your rep job and do it full time, but it might just work to get you started and give you a feel for "doing it" more than just a few hours.....

 

[champagne]

I started renting a room in a hairdressers on Saturday just gone, mines free for the first 3months and then £60 a week, to inrease over time to a max of £100.

I am in that salon day after day in case i get any drop ins, if your not there they will go elsewhere.

I stay late at night and have just printed off 1000 leaflets, i think the rent is too high for you and i think you will be hard pushed to make that amount of money in the hours you have allowed for your work.

Its a tough decision but if you want to build a business there is only one way to do it and thats to go full time unless you can go mobile or cut your hours at work.

I have gained 4 new clients in the first 5 days, i have a few clients of my own that i have taken with me and have taken approx £170 .....Nowhere near what i would need to make if i had to pay full rent as well.

Its very hard work and needs complete dedication, which would be very hard if you have another job as well.

I dont mean to put you off but without a large client base it is very difficult.

Good luck x

 

[dete101]

HI, I know you have lots of replies on here so I thought I'd stick my oar in too!!! I started renting a room in september above a hairdressers, there was 2 rooms, one was quite small, the other really big but a real mess! I started out with the small room, and he wanted £50 a week but as I didn't have any clients he didn't take any rent from me, then a friend of mine who does complementary treatments was losing her room where she worked so I decided to decorate the big room, which we've done and she has taken the smaller room. the big room is only £80 and its massive.... I think personally you are paying a huge amount, and its really difficult building up. You have alot to pay out, getting stock etc, leaflets, getting people to know your there. Mine is still slow although this week I've had 14 clients in and I only work 3 days a week, so really chuffed with that. when i first started I was only getting in maybe 1 or 2 clients, then it went to 3 or 4 some weeks I didn't have any... its worrying, but you gotta stick at it. I think the rent you are going to be paying is very high especially when you won't be earning much to begin with. I was earning about £30 week, and some weeks nothing. My landlord now has put us on a sliding scale, so we pay a bit extra each month eventually reaching the maximum which is £50 for the small room and £80 for the big one. good luck with it,

 

[BeckyH]

I think to save arguments about how much you are paying you should call in to your local commercial estate agents and just ask them how much you should be looking to pay, u could just say your enquiring to locate premises in the near future. After only recently leaving my job as a commercial estate agent I can tell you they will be able to give u a rough estimate. We always told people they should be looking at paying between £- per sq ft & £- per sq ft just to give people an idea. Ive seen beauty salons go for much higher rents and they wernt particularly big. One thing to bear in mind though is whatever they tell you should probably lower this figure as because you have a back room you have no shop frontage therefore the room is not worth as much.
Let us all know how it works out either way. x

 

[jax]

Hi Lola

Initially when I read your post, I thought £600 a month was rediculous!! But then finding out it is a big room in Edinburgh city centre in what I presume is a busy up market hair salon I'm not sure it is really that outrageous. Bearing in mind Princes Street is one of the most expensive locations to rent on.........but is also one of the most lucrative in the UK (including London) - there's definately money to be made in Edinburgh city centre!! However for £600 you would expect to advertise on the outside of the building or at the very least have a window space. Will you get access to the client database? Will you be able to tie in promotions to the hair salon clients? Will they take your bookings and look after your diary?

£600 per month means you'd have to do about 35 re-balances a month to just cover your costs of rent/products and promotions roughly. Making a minimal salary on top of that would mean having about 85 re-balances a month. Thats one person working about 150 hours a month with back to back clients. Sounds scary but these rough figures presume a £20 re-balance charge which is very conservative and they dont take into consideration retail or one off new sets which could really make a huge difference.

Still - just an opinion but I dont think it is possible to meet that rent working only part time. Paying that level of rent means really working the shop for all its worth. If you cant be there full time, you'd have to have someone else there for the rest of the time. Ideally you would want 2 therapist there full-time to maximise the opportunity. When rent is at a premium you need to make every square foot of the shop count for as many hours in the day as you can.

xx

 

[chinadoll1]

Even though it is a lucrative area the rent for a room is expensive. I would say even if they offered to do your appointments for you as part of the deal you are actually better using a mobile number only and taking your own bookings. If the hairdresser doesn't answer the phone or a trainee doesn't know the answer to the question you've lost the appointment anyway.

I work part time at a salon that I share with Therapy(Donna). We work on different days in the salon and together if required for pamper parties. She rents the room from the hair salon below and I pay her for the days i'm in there. I have my own keys so can come and go whenever I need to.

I'm lucky in the respect that I have a well established Wedding Cake business that ticks over nicely and this means I can work round both jobs nicely-I do whatever hours I need to build up my client base and I work some very weird hours sometime! but if a customer wants an appointment on a specific day of the week then the other one does their appointment. We have one box of client cards between us.We have a base of treatments then each of us has specialist treatments so we cover a wide range which is good for the clients.

We have only worked together since January but we compliment each other perfectly-a big thing when we both carry stock and equipment in our room. I would say that we trust each other which is brilliant.
It will be very quiet for possibly weeks of which you will still have to pay the rent. I would look at trying to negotiate a sliding scale with an upper limit. Try not to go down the percentage route as it may be hard to change over once you have a good client base and the salon would make more than your upper limit.

Sometimes you close one door and suddenly a better one opens. I was holding out for a room for ages then Donna found my old post on the Sheffield forum.

Keep your chin up and it will work out for you if it's what you really want to do.
Emma:hug: