John Harms on Being a Salon Owner

Q:  Oftentimes, salon owners aren’t just owners; they are also busy behind the chair. So, what should owners focus on to prevent losing control of what’s going on?

A:  As a salon owner, whether working behind the chair or not, it’s easy to get sidetracked and lose focus of the overall health of your business. It’s your responsibility to find the time to work on creating a path for employees, identifying and strengthening areas of weakness, and supporting healthy growth. Some of the most important and commonly overlooked areas that you can start improving upon today are:

Implementing and maintaining a weekly front desk action plan. Your front desk should be a profit center, which means that it should be driving revenue. In order to ensure that your front desk is functioning as a profit center and not a cost center, you must implement a front desk action plan. Assign specific tasks and realistic goals to each day of the week, then, communicate and review those items to your front desk team on a weekly basis. For more information and to download a helpful front desk action plan for your staff, use this free guide.

Creating, maintaining, and reviewing employee goals. Create employee goals to keep your team inspired and motivated. This is easy to do, but it often falls to the side. It’s not enough to just create goals for your team; you need to review them on a weekly/monthly basis. Consistently reviewing the status of your employees’ goals will help you determine where your team stands in retail and service sales. Knowing where your staff stands will help you reach your monthly and yearly business goals. It will also help employees stay on a positive track of hitting their goals. Download this free weekly goal tracker and progress report to help keep your staff motivated and on pace for success.

Using a report scheduler to have daily, weekly, monthly reports sent directly to you via email. Staying on top of your business and employee goals can seem like a timely task whether you are on the go or busy behind the chair. But, it shouldn’t be. Using Millennium’s report scheduler, you can be in the know at all times. Have your favorite, or most commonly run reports, automatically emailed to you. This allows you to monitor not only daily business revenue, but also growth statistics as well.

Ensuring that your computer system is secure to prevent security breaches and data theft. Theft, it happens; and it doesn’t necessarily have to do with your products. Theft can happen in the form of a data breach—your precious client information. To ensure that your system is locked down, employees must be assigned to proper security groups. You should also have alerts set up, so if any suspicious behavior occurs within your software, you will automatically be notified; whether at the business or on the go!

John Harms
Millennium Systems International, Founder and CEO

About: John Harms, Founder & CEO of Millennium Systems International, creator of Millennium Software, has been designing industry leading salon scheduling software and educating the beauty & wellness industry since 1987. Today Millennium is utilized in thousands of businesses in over 38 countries and operating with approximately 150+ employees worldwide.  Millennium currently runs its corporate headquarters out of New Jersey and its international office is based in the U.K.