Nothing saps the energy, moral and confidence of a team then repeatedly falling short of goal.

Salon/spa owners get frustrated and, too often, the blame game and finger pointing spirals an already bad situation deeper into the fiery pit of hell.

An easy solution is to lower goal to make it easier to hit. But lowering goal to match current lackluster effort only reinforces more lackluster effort.

It's not where the goal bar is set ... it's setting the level of effort to meet or exceed goal.

Service and retail goals are revenue targets that your spending budgets are based on. (Revenue goals and spending budgets are non-negotiable. Got it?) Repeatedly coming up short of goal means fewer dollars to fund operations. It doesn't take long for cash flow to become tight and eventual financial panic to set in.

At Strategies, we coach the importance of having realistic monthly and annual goals. Monthly service revenue goals are based on the following formula:

Payroll hours for sale x projected productivity rate x service revenue per hour = Service Goal

The formula can be deadly accurate. However, its only flaw is the level of effort the team puts into achieving goal.

If your team gives 85% effort ... you're going to come up 15% short of goal.

When it comes to effort exerted, winning in the salon/spa business is no different than winning in sports. Give it 100%+ effort and you stand the best chance of winning. Give it something less than 100% and your chances of winning decrease exponentially.

1. De-funk your culture: Funk in your culture saps energy effort. Funk slows everything down. Salons and spas are fertile ground for growing funk, drama and emotional nonsense. As the leader, it's your responsibility to keep your culture funk-free. More importantly, it is your responsibility as the leader to NOT be the cause of creating funk. It's easy to do if you allow double standards, favoritism and operate your business more like a country club rather than a structured, focused ... beat your competition ... business. Lastly, if you have one or more toxic employees that you're keeping on payroll just because of the money they bring in ... you are allowing major funk to spread throughout your culture. Lead up.


2. Break it down: Monthly and annual goals can be intimidating to many employees. They just see this big number that does not compute as anything they can personally have an impact on. Monthly goals can easily be communicated as weekly and daily goals. That's why daily scoreboards and huddles are so important to a team's effort. What I don't recommend in a team-based culture is emphasizing individual goals over team goals. That's commission thinking. Using the service revenue projection formula above, communicate to your team where the goal came from. Understanding and clarity are the precursors to team buy-in.


3. The daily dial-in: I keep saying that there is no "set it and forget it" for anything in business. Everyday presents to new challenges; employees call in sick, cancellations, no shows, bad weather and all the other stuff the business gods throw at you to test your leadership tenacity. Keeping people focused, inspired and motivated is the daily work of the salon/spa leader. This can be a challenge for owners that service clients most or all hours in the business. It's hard to lead and dial things in between servicing clients.


4. Effort scoreboard: This may sound a bit crazy (I have my moments) ... but why not create a daily scoreboard where at morning huddle, the team decides on what effort level they played at the day before. If your team says their effort level was 105% and your assessment is 75% ... you and your team are not dialed in. This could be an indicator that performance reviews are past due and/or that your team needs some clarity on the real work that needs to be done. Remember, team effort is never a straight line. It's a wavy line that most often shows the level of engagement and effectiveness of the leader.


5. Can't win them all: Every month is a game. The business season lasts twelve months. It's really hard to have a perfect season by winning the business game every month. Winning ten out of twelve monthly games is pretty impressive for any business. Eight out of twelve is okay ... but less than that can be troublesome. Hitting goal six out of twelve is cause for concern and a clear indicator that the business needs more than just a little dialing in. No matter what, a losing season in business is going to be pretty painful if action is not taken.


6. The goal is rarely the problem: In most cases, if the goal is based on realistic data and not just number pulled out of thin air ... the goal should be achievable. (Please don't approach goal setting by just adding a percentage increase to what you did last year. There are too many factors that make that simplistic approach inaccurate.) A team can miss a really well-planned goal if the leader fails to adjust the effort level. Likewise, a team can blow away a well planned goal by rallying up their effort to 100%+. It all comes down to leadership engagement. (Check this blog post we wrote on How to Drive Salon/Spa Consistency with Leadership Decisions.)