“John, I’m a little worried that I am not on track for my 2016 goals. What’s the best way to make sure I finish out the year strong?”
Goals are necessary for the growth of your salon or spa. Goals provide focus, increase employee motivation, and provide measureable milestones for your business. With the year more than half over, it’s important to regroup to ensure that your fourth quarter is successful and helps you to achieve all of your 2016 milestones.
To finish out the year as strong as possible, it’s important to reflect upon and assess the goals that you set at the beginning of the year. Take the time to look at your business from not only an in-depth perspective, but also from a broad overview. Both perspectives will give you the full picture of how your business is performing compared to your goals. A clear understanding of your current status will allow you to create the best plan of attack for the last part of the year.
Whether you are on track or have fallen short, there are many ways you can still achieve or even surpass your goals:
- Teamwork. Brief your employees on the action plan for the remainder of the year. With all of your team on the same page, you can better work together to motivate one another to reach your goals on retail and services sales.
- Small and achievable milestones. Instead of creating one big goal for the end of the year, create small and achievable stepping stones that will incrementally get you to that final goal. Check-in with your team each week to motivate and provide feedback on how their hard work is contributing to your growth. Small goals allow your employees to better see the impact of their effort and assess what it takes to achieve the end goal in a more tangible way.
- Marketing. With kids going back to school, and several holidays packed into the end of the year, there are plenty of marketing opportunities for your business. Take advantage of these times by considering new marketing initiatives such as holiday specials, social media campaigns, referral and loyalty programs, gift cards, and special events.
- Be proactive. Use the last part of the year to proactively increase your revenue. Up-selling, cross-selling, and suggesting add-ons, will not only steadily increase your cash flow, but will also help to strengthen client relationships and increase their frequency of visit (FOV), further helping you to achieve your goals.
If your numbers are completely off-track from your goals, it is best to assess whether certain factors contributed to these losses, or if your goals were set unrealistically. The end of the year will provide you with the best insight to create an entirely new set of milestones for 2017.
In the end, it’s important to remember that growth does not happen overnight. It is your goals that will help to keep you motivated, and help you measure the continued success of your business. I hope this helps you to stay encouraged for the rest of the year and finish 2016 with a bang.
John Harms
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.