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10 Ways to Keep Salon & Spa Staff Busy During Slow Winter Months

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Yes, the winter months often bring slower times in the salon or spa. But, that doesn't have to mean you and your staff need to be unproductive. In fact, this is a perfect time for planning so you're prepared to crush it for the remainder of the year.

Here are 10 ways to keep your salon/spa staff busy during the slower month:

  1. Technical and product knowledge training: Learning is a lifelong journey. Use this opportunity to advance the technical skills of your team.

  2. Clean out inventory: Remove all slow or non-selling inventory from the shelves until you’re ready for a targeted sales promotion.

  3. Write blog content: Assign articles to staff for 1/3/6 month's worth of blog posts. Encourage people to co-write articles and staff spotlights. Remember, your blog is your knowledge hub to the marketplace. Showcase your expertise, and share those blog posts on social media.

  4. Offer additional skill certification courses: Use this downtime to ensure everyone’s skills meet your expectations. Now is the time to correct problem areas with specific re-training and coaching. Have senior staff mentor your newbies. Remember, this is different than everyone learning NEW skills. Instead, the focus here is that everyone is skill certified to provide the same level of service. This is critical when building clients that are loyal to the salon/spa.

  5. Plan product promotions: Ask staff teams to develop product (and maybe service) promotions for the next six months and/or upcoming holidays.

  6. Write and rehearse your scripts: Knowing what to say and how to say it are critical skills for any salon/spa that is looking to excel at the sales and client experience game. And the only way to guarantee your staff is speaking the language YOU want them to speak is through scripting. Get your staff involved. Map out every conceivable talking point and the appropriate response. Make it fun!

  7. Spring cleaning: When's the last time you looked around your salon/spa and gave yourself a cleanliness reality check? Did you even notice those air vents have seven years of gunk on them? Encourage staff to thoroughly clean stations, general-use areas. Breaking the work up into teams makes it quick and easy for everyone.

  8. Visit local beauty schools: Take an afternoon and meet with your future workforce. Offer a brief presentation with your staff as guest speakers.

  9. Plan out your social media strategy: Want to know the trick to winning the social media game? Give your audience meaningful content that will enhance their social media experience. Show them fun stuff like behind-the-scenes antics, staff secret talents, funniest salon experiences, etc. Believe it or not, these will go a lot further than just hitting your followers with offers and promotions (although there's a time and place for those as well).

  10. Software training: Does every member of your staff know how to run your point-of-sale software? Well, they should! Hold mini-trainings so everyone is prepared to jump in and help out a client if your front desk staff gets called away. Make sure to set your security parameters to restrict who has access to what (if applicable).


Now, if you're scratching your head wondering how you're going to get commissioned or rental staff to perform some of these duties, unfortunately, that is often the up-hill battle tied to a pay program that has conditioned service providers to think their pay is only based on what they produce in their chair.

If you would like to explore a proven salon/spa pay program that removes the "I/ME/MINE" mentality of commission and rental, and replaces it with a motivated team-driven culture, download Strategies' free Team-Based Pay White Paper report.

[thrive_2step id='4449']Team-Based Pay White Paper[/thrive_2step]

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