I’ve been running my salon for years now and I can honestly say that I love it more today than I ever have. Three years ago we were all faced with the same terrifying idea…the recession. It was looming around the corner and the sense of panic was a little ridiculous. I knew that I wanted to keep my business and for me that was the turning point. I’ve always been a great therapist; I don’t mind admitting this because it’s the truth…but I may not have always been the best business women.
I made a decision that I was not going to be a victim of the recession. We can always make excuses and the recession seemed like just another thing to blame our problems on. I am not going to pretend it was easy. I probably work harder now than I ever have…but if you love what you’re doing it’s worth it. What I decided was that I would do everything in my power to make my business work. I try everything. I read all of Phorest’s blog, I go to seminars and workshops, and I test the water with anything suggested to me. If anyone makes a suggestion or I see something that worked for someone else then I try and make it work for me. The biggest thing with trying new things is to realise that there is no one size fits all. If it’s not working for you, then maybe you need to take a harder look at what you are doing and tweak it. Often a few small changes, a quick revamp and suddenly you have the magic code.
The best example of this that I can think of is my Facebook page. My team and I attended seminars… We knew how to use it. I wasn’t bombarding anyone with special offers and it was primarily about the customer and not us! We gave special offers occasionally…and we got very little response. About 2 to 3 months ago we started doing competitions. I cannot believe the difference. We now have just about 1600 fans and growing. It was such a small tweak and we are actually giving my customers less. But it works for me. You see rather than simply letting Facebook get the better of our salon we changed how we were using it to suit our clients.
You can never stop learning and evolving and I hope you follow us on our journey to the new premises. I hope that you enjoy this post and if you have any ideas or tips for the girls and I as we move forward with our expansion. We would love to hear them :) xxx
Sue Carter is the owner of Image Salon in Ipswich Suffolk which has been going for 11 years. She has been using Phorest Salon Software for two years.
