How to Start a Hair Salon? A Guide on Opening a Salon

Things to Do Before Opening a Salon

Initiate with Salon Business Plan

No business starting is possible without proper planning. The same applies to salons, and before starting them, you must have a clear analysis of services, their cost, and other things. In the case of the salon profession, the business plan should include industry analysis, target market, marketing plan, financial planning, and management strategy.

Register Your Business

For salon business, register your business details with the IRS and file with the secretary of state. After that, an Employer Identification Number is received. Trademarking your salon’s name is another thing to consider. A proper business registration process helps your business run smoothly. Neglecting this action could bring misfortune to your beauty salon business.

Select the Right Location

It matters a lot when you select the right location to establish your salon business. It can make or break your salon business. You can also evaluate the interior shape. Choose the right location and an easily approachable location for your customers.

As a salon owner, you can either choose malls or other high streets. This will enhance the maximum profit of your business. Think twice or thrice before finalizing your location.

Order Salon Equipment

Your salon is an incomplete place without the right equipment. Salon owners get a list of equipment ready before thinking about how to open a salon. You can buy some gently used items and easily save money. Also, the equipment should be of high quality. These are the primary pieces of equipment for a hair salon.

• Mirror, chair, and space to keep beauty and styling products
• Shampooing desk, shampoo bowl, and space to keep products
• Small reception area
• Styling products
• Cleaning products
• Washing machine

Recruiting the Right Staff

You must have a list ready of how much staff you need to run your business efficiently. Hiring experienced or skilled staff is necessary for your beauty salon. This is because it will enhance customer satisfaction and make a strong customer-centric approach.

Make sure you have an Employee Identification Number (EIN), which is also known as a Federal Tax ID number or Federal Employer Identification Number.

Select Your Salon Software

Every business is adopting technologies, so how can a salon lack a race? Adopting the right software like Moon Invoice, will be highly fruitful for your new salon business by offering. It makes everything easy from accepting a payment to creating a salon invoice. Choose the correct hair stylist invoice template and prepare the invoice quickly and with accuracy.

You should also choose the high-performing spa & salon POS system to streamline your business sales and transactions. This will also help to make a fast and secure payment process. Fortunately, reputed platforms like Moon POS provide advanced features oriented Point of Sale to run your business transaction efficiently.

Obtain the Licenses and Permits

When it comes to how to open a hair salon, don’t forget to consider licenses and permits. You might not be required to obtain a cosmetology license, or its requirements vary from state to state. In general, you would need to complete a number of cosmetology schools.

Some other required licenses are as follows.

• Certificate of occupancy
• License for business operation
• Retail license
• Building permission

Additionally, you need to clear the safety and sanitation inspection. Electrical and fire safety practices and regular disinfection of equipment come under aspects of the inspection.

Business Insurance

Adopting business insurance is a great step in a new salon business. It assists you in covering losses that may arise due to losses during mishaps. A General Liability Insurance Policy is the basic insurance that you can choose. You can also choose more than one type of salon insurance for your business because many policies are available.

• Business property insurance: It covers salon equipment.
• Business owners policy: It combines various policies (business interruption, business property insurance, and general liability) together.
• Workers compensation: It is associated with your employees and protects you if any one of your employees gets injured while working.
• Business interruption: Business interruption insurance will assist in supplementing the lost income when you shut down your business for any reason.

Hire the Right Hair Stylists

When you think about how to start a hair salon, hiring the right hair stylist is in its prime state. You must thoroughly check their hair styling skills and experience. Might be the hired person is not a fully skilled person, so in that case you can provide some training. However, in this case, you must check their learning skills.

Figure Out Pricing

Setting a price for each service in your own salon is important. You must be careful while deciding on the price because you need to earn a profit at the end. To determine the price, you can check your competitors’ prices and current market costs. The price of your salon service may depend on the following factors.

• Location of your salon
• The level of service quality
• Clientele demographic

Set Up Your Space

You will run a hair salon business, and it is a public relations type of profession where customers will come. So it is highly crucial to keep your salon spacious. Additionally, you can choose smart storage to keep all your equipment safe in less space. Also, multipurpose furniture is another great option.

Market Your Business

This is also another crucial step in starting a hair salon business. You can choose traditional and online marketing to promote your business because both marketing types will contribute a lot.

For traditional marketing, you can place advertisements in newspapers and local business magazines.

For online marketing, you can develop your business website and promote it through SEO and PPC. Moreover, the other option is social media marketing which will help you to capture new customers.

To win the marketing game, you can either hire a freelancer or take an online marketing service from a reputed agency.

How to Develop a Salon Marketing Plan?

A salon marketing plan is crucial to establish a successful salon business. Acquiring customers without proper marketing is not possible. Strong marketing is a gateway to gain new customers and retain old customers. That is why professionals should follow a proper marketing plan that includes –

Website Marketing – Create a website for your salon and promote it wisely. You can go for organic SEO or paid campaigns to let your website acquire a position in search engines.

Social Media Marketing – Social media power is not untouched by any business. Create business profiles on social media platforms and regularly post content related to your business.

Print Advertisement – If you have a budget to spend over the paid advertisement then it’s a good choice to go for it. You can perform Facebook ads to reach new customers.

Email & SMS Marketing – Let your customers be aware of new updates about your salon. Keep sending emails and SMS at regular intervals and create a strong customer bond.

Print and Brochure Sending – Printing and distributing brochures of your business will let people know about your business. This is a general and old marketing strategy, but still, alive to spread business awareness.

Promotion and Discount – No customer would like to miss a discount. Offering promotions and discounts will attract customers and help encourage old customers to come back.

How Much Does it Cost to Open a Salon?

The total expenditure of opening a salon depends upon the location, plumber work, storage space, and furniture work. The average expectation is $125 to $200 per square foot of space. One must have good savings before opening a hair salon because there are many expenditures.

Final Words

We hope this blog presents you with an informative answer to how to start a hair salon. Opening and starting a hair salon is a challenging task. You need to think in a 360-degree way to achieve success. It’s not rocket science, but it’s still not an easy game. With proper planning, investment, experience, and knowledge, you can run a successful business. Keep providing beauty and confidence to people.

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