Spa+Clinic Team 
It’s not what the program costs. It’s what it will cost you if you don’t do it! This is a take on a famous self-help guru Jim Rohn quote, but it’s true.
In salons, spas and clinics today, owners are constantly being challenged – by staff, suppliers, by the competition and clients. The challenge is to be a better leader, a better marketer, a better provider of services and a better businessperson. It’s overwhelming at times. Owners ask themselves, ‘How am I supposed to do all this AND work in my business?’
The key: you need a great team behind you so that you can do all of those things. So that you take time out to really focus on making your business elite and preferred by clients who are willing to value what you do and what you are offering by returning, re-booking, referring and replenishing their home care.
To instil confidence in others so that they buy into your salon, spa or clinic and the goals you have, you must know how to read between the lines. Understanding where other people are coming from is the first step to getting them on your side. It’s the one competence that everyone needs – but the one that nobody talks about.
You can have the greatest ideas, but if you don’t know how to sell them to the people in your team and your ideal client then you’re going to fail. I call it political competence.
Political competence is the ability to read between the lines – to understand what you can and cannot control, when you need to take action, who will likely buck the system, who will be on your side, and how to build relationships and strong ties with people so that they support what you are trying to achieve.
Building up your political competence requires:
‘ Identifying your business culture – whether it’s traditional, holistic, cosmeceutical, paramedical, specific to a certain type of treatment or service.
‘ Evaluating your team – what skills they have, what they’re saying (or, just as important, what they’re not saying), and how you can earn their trust and build stronger relationships with them in order to grow your business.
‘ Figuring out who are the stars in your business – whether they are willing to champion your ideas and vision. Build relationships with those who have the insight to understand what you want to achieve in your business, and who are willing to invest in themselves to learn and develop personally and professionally. These are the ones clients also likely respect the most.
Until you know what qualities your staff has, you won’t be able to sell your ideas or build a business. You’ll just be spinning your wheels and wasting your breath, worrying when the next staff member is going to call up and tell you she or she is leaving the night before a busy day. That leaves you stressed, as well as having to potentially disappoint and annoy clients in rescheduling them to make it all work.
I so often hear the frustrations of salon, spa and clinic owners have about staff letting them down, leaving at the drop of a hat and often taking clients with them.
When I had my salon business, I allowed staff to walk all over me. Why? Because I didn’t know how to ‘read’ them. I didn’t appreciate the differences I was dealing with in relation to personalities, and what special gifts they had that I could really work with to turn things around.
It’s no fun being left high and dry without help and having to turn clients away. In fact it’s soul destroying.
Bottom line for your bottom line: When you truly know about your staff, what they are capable of, what they are looking for personally and professionally by working for you, they are far more likely to be reliable, happy and feel secure. Thus you stand a far greater chance of getting the best out of them to benefit your business at optimal levels.
It’s also not enough just to have great people who are good at what they do and are willing, hard workers. Yes, really! To be truly the best they can be for your business they must be skilled in the correct language, behaviour, etiquette and presentation. All of the things they need to build business, for themselves and you.
Think about what is it costing you to hold off investing in your staff, and your business. If you feel you don’t have a handle on this all what you have to do is take action by seeking professional advice. The short-term outlay will reap long-term dividends.
To your success!
Julie Hyne is a successful business owner as well as an accomplished trainer, public speaker and presenter. She has major qualifications and experience that spans more than 25 years working in industries where image and style are vitally important. She is the founder of Business 4 Beauty, which consults on image management for the clinic, spa and salon industries. www.business4beauty.com
