Tough love

With many salons struggling under financial pressures, Hellen Ward suggests it’s time to the perks that don’t serve your bottom line

As it’s a new year, I’m just going to get the elephant right out of the room. At the risk of sounding maudlin, it’s safe to say that our industry is barely recognisable from the one we knew pre-Covid. So much has changed that it’s easier to stop and examine what’s stayed the same. I hate to be negative but it would be remiss of me to paint a rosy picture when the reality is far from it.

Client behaviour, spending patterns, supplier costs, sky-rocketing utilities, pastoral team care… it’s a completely different landscape from the salons of old. Margins are squeezed, mental health is in tatters, salon owners are stressed to breaking point. And if you think I’m exaggerating, maybe the data we just gathered as the Salon Employers Association, as part of the Personal Care Sector Cross Organisational Group (PCCO), will be a sobering reality check.

The number of salon owners whose mental health is severely suffering has doubled in the last year alone, with half of our survey recipients stating that they are having lots of sleepless nights and feel close to breakdown.

We can’t gloss over these statistics. We owe it to everyone who feels the same but is suffering in silence to speak up. As a sector, we can’t send mixed messages either. We can’t be sharing upbeat figures suggesting all is well when the data is not representative of salons and the service side of our industry. That’s not just irresponsible but it could be devastating. Sales of cosmetics may be booming, but that doesn’t mean the beauty industry that we represent is. Far from it. Let’s just hope that Government listens to us (PCCO), whose collective organisations represent those working in services and not the retail side.

As a result, everyone in our sector is looking to make their business models work, and in doing so they’re having to make some very tough decisions. Take the manufacturers; premium brands seem to be going in one of two directions – they’re either re-inventing themselves as exclusively professional and limiting their supply or going in the other direction and taking themselves online direct to the consumer.

Diverse approach

The beloved salon-only brands we’ve all helped nurture and develop seem to be adopting these strategies and although I hate what they are doing, it’s hard to argue against it. One of our favourite beauty brands has withdrawn itself from sale outside of its native country and repackaged, reformulated and repriced itself and is now only really available in-salon to buy. It has taken a leaf from Chanel or Hermès (you can’t just buy a Birkin bag, even if you have the money. You have to be a valued client first). With such exclusivity, the price point is protected.

Alternatively, you could destroy the cachet and allure of a premium brand by sending it mass. If you could buy a Chanel bag in Debenhams it would hardly have the same je ne sais quoi, would it? Going mass by sticking a brand online with Boots or Amazon may mean short-term gain, but it won’t protect a brand’s exclusivity. As such, it’s a short-sighted move and a surefire route to brand oblivion. We’ve all seen coveted brands fall out of favour, and it’s a long way back to desirability (if they get there at all).

But when you are faced with the P&L and the difference between is developing into a chasm, you have to make financial and operational choices. Some may not go down well with clients but have crucial reasoning behind them.

We recently had to do the same when we abolished our rough dry area, which we first introduced for those clients who were in a hurry or en route to an exercise class and did not have time for a blow dry. This was many years ago, and although sometimes a bone of contention for the business, did not cause us severe losses. However, after Covid and our reopening, we were so limited in space and availability for stylist appointments that we were forced to continue it, even though we stated clearly that it was subject to availability. Our prices have never been all inclusive and this has always been explained on our website.

Business sense

Recently, however, the situation has got out of hand. It was never intended to be a fully stocked styling area available free of charge. In trying to meet some clients’ needs in supplying minimal brushes and dryers, other clients took advantage of our generosity and abused it. Products, dryers and brushes were stolen. Clients were even bringing in their own heated appliances and sitting in the area for hours, doing their make-up, painting their nails, and even demanding specific products were supplied. These clients clearly wanted to leave with their hair fully styled but did not want to pay to complete their service. The final straw was an increase in aggressive behaviour to the team, so when we asked them in a staff meeting, they voted to remove the area totally.

Nobody would take their own steak to a restaurant and ask the chef to cook it for them. Not only did we need the space to house our newly qualified technicians, but there is a technical requirement for our colourists to assess the finished result once hair is dry, so we did discuss as a team the possibility of charging a corkage fee type arrangement (like restaurants who don’t have an alcohol licence and invite guests to bring their own wine) but we all decided this would cause even more issues, and that if people were paying even a nominal sum, there would be even more expectation (demands for specific products, equipment, etc. and people staying in the area far too long).

It was a tough call to make and I knew it wasn’t going to be popular – I’ve had to deal with countless complaints – but I know it was the right thing to do.

My friend owns a restaurant near the salon and part of it used to be a deli/ café. We are near a school, and after several mornings watching the mums holding their PTA meetings for hours on end and ordering tap water and a few lattes, she closed it and freed up more lunch covers, despite the resulting outcry. Nobody remembers it now.

We’re in business to make money after all. We just need to make sure we aren’t suffering too much in the process.

Hellen Ward is managing director of Richard Ward Hair & Metrospa in London, vice president of The Hair & Beauty Charity and co-founder of Salon Employers Association (SEA). Contact her via pb.editorial@thepbgroup.com or on Instagram @hellenwardltd.