Skip to main content

How to Achieve Salon & Spa Business Balance

Achieve Salon Spa Business Balance

As leader of your salon/spa, how often do you find yourself trying to overcompensate when things are out of balance? You know exactly what I’m talking about.

  • It’s trying to lead when you keep falling short of monthly goals because your team lost its sense of urgency.

  • It’s when you take your eyes off the financial controls, expenses get out of hand and cash-flow gets scary tight.

  • It’s when team morale turns into a toxic stew that contaminates your once vibrant culture.


When the symptoms that your salon/spa business is even slightly out of balance, it’s imperative for you, its leader, to engage and restore balance.

Before you can do that, you must look at your own life. Do you have a sense of balance in your life? Are you calm? Happy? Have a clear sense of priorities? You need to have your personal house in order. If not, your staff will sense a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude that does more to keep it out of balance.

Salon/spa business balance can’t be seen — but everyone knows when it’s there.

Everyone has an interpretation of what a great culture is. A balanced business has a culture that fuels a sense of energy and momentum. Every team member and department is dialed in and synchronized. Your entire team shares and focuses on a common purpose.

So what does balance look like in business? That’s an interesting question, as balance can’t be seen. However, you can experience it and measure it.

Consider these business balance indicators:

  • Salon/spa culture is capable, confident and aggressive: The team of a balanced business enjoys pushing the envelope. They do so because when there’s a state of balance, the natural tendency is to compete and drive forward. An unbalanced business gets bogged down in its own internal issues.

  • The pace is fast and steady: If you exercise regularly and take care of your body, you know what balance feels like. You feel energized and have the endurance to go the distance and achieve your personal goals. An unbalanced business always seems to be running out of gas and having engine problems. A business that can consistently function at a fast and steady pace is balanced.

  • Execution at its best: Balance is like a football team that makes it to the Super Bowl. Every player and every coach is there to work together and win. A balanced business is disciplined, yet flexible enough to be self-correcting when things go awry.

  • The results are measurable: When a business is in balance, its critical numbers, from sales and profits to productivity and customer retention rates, will show it. If you want your business to fly high and fast, it’s your job to get and keep it in balance. Flying any other way is dangerous.


If you want to achieve a state of balance for your company, you’ll have to commit to what is essentially a no-compromise health and fitness program for your business. And just like any health and fitness program, some of this is common sense. It’s going to take discipline. So, just commit and begin.

Here are my five No-Compromise Leadership strategies to achieving and maintaining your salon/spa’s business balance:

  1. Know your purpose: Why does your business exist? People work for many more reasons than money. The most empowering reason is for a high and worthy sense of purpose. A bricklayer who thinks he’s just laying bricks is a lot different from a bricklayer whose purpose is to build a cathedral. Purpose pulls everything and everyone into balance. Purpose is the prime objective.

  2. Be persistent: You exercise for life. You get up every day and work out. It’s no different in business. Without persistence, your purpose will elude you. Just like people who jump from diet to diet, losing and gaining the same 10 pounds, it’s easy for leaders to jump from business fad to business fad. Funny, all those diets work; it’s the persistence that’s missing. Persistence is the energy of purpose.

  3. Stretch to grow: Complacency quietly and methodically destroys balance. Like exercise, a business must stretch to grow. Keep stretching for incremental growth. Each year, strive for one or two big business gains. Status quo is an invitation for complacency. Stretch.

  4. Measure it, and share it: Every goal has a starting point, which means that everything in between can, and must, be measured and communicated daily, weekly and monthly to everyone. A business stays in balance by charting its progress.

  5. Celebrate: All wins, large and small, must be celebrated in some fashion. Why do all the work if there’s no opportunity to celebrate and be rewarded? Celebrate to reinforce and maintain balance.


Here’s my challenge to you: Achieving balance in your personal life and business isn’t some warm fuzzy concept. If you’ve been struggling with your company’s performance, it’s out of balance. If you’ve been dealing with employee turnover, it’s out of balance. If you’ve been stressing over cash flow, it’s out of balance.

The signs that your company is out of balance are pretty easy to identify. The question is, what are you going to do about it?

Comments

No comments found. Start the conversation!