Beyond Survival: The Critical Shifts that Transform Small Salons into Big Businesses

By Kym Krey

When we first go into business, we think it’s all about the hair. After years of honing our craft on someone else’s payroll, we’re finally ready to create fabulous hair on our own terms.

In our minds, it seems simple: post on socials, run a few ads, wow clients with our skills, and watch the referrals (and cash) roll in. Easy, right?

Reality soon hits - running a profitable salon is very different from being a great stylist! Talent alone doesn’t guarantee profit. Yes, the early focus is on getting busy and building a team, but if you want to scale without burning out, two key shifts must occur.

Shift 1: From Great Hair to Great Experiences

Stage 2 of my Path to Profit© framework is where stylists must evolve beyond “I do great hair” to “I create transformational, confidence-building, 5-star experiences.”

If clients only see you as hair-for-money, you’ll be judged on price and constantly compared to cheaper competitors. But if you’re asking clients to drive past dozens of closer, cheaper salons and pay more for you, it can’t just be for slightly neater foils. What they truly value is the experience: your prescriptive expertise, leadership, and ability to deliver an incredible outcome they didn’t even know to ask for.

Here’s the problem: our industry training emphasises technical skill while leaving diagnostic consultation, prescriptive advice, and problem-solving as afterthoughts. Yet quality-focused clients (i.e. those who’ll happily pay more for quality) are telling us - loudly - that great skills alone aren’t enough.

The solution is your signature Client Journey: a step-by-step process that ensures every service inspires and delights your clients, delivering on your marketing promise to clients, every time. It should be designed from the client’s perspective (to support their needs, not our comfort zone or convenience), then measured against their response constantly:

• Average Client Spend shows whether consultations go beyond “Same again?” to inspire and expand, bringing personalised recommendations and current trends/ technique to discover what could be possible for them.

• Retail % (Care Factor) shows whether staff actively identify and solve client problems with prescriptive solutions, rather than just making hair look good for a day (which they can get for far less). If you hear clients say, ‘It never looks like that when I do it’, pay attention. Your responsibility doesn’t end when they tap their card and leave the salon, and all of your knowledge is useless to a client until you freely give it away to help and educate them. This is an act of GIVING and responsibility, never SELLING.

• Rebooking % (Continuity of Care) measures their ability to wow and win a client- turning a one-off transaction into a long-term, trusting, profitable relationship through exciting forward planning (in the chair, cape on… NEVER at the desk!).

• Target achievement- is the outcome of doing each of the above things well. It’s never about working faster to ‘squeeze’ in more clients- it’s always about deepening the level of experience delivered to each client. (i.e. 25 clients a week with an av. $ spend of $360 is far superior to 40 clients a week with an av. $ spend of $120).

When your whole team consistently delivers the Client Journey (as evidenced by consistent target achievement, and solid KPIs) you’re ready to progress to the next key transition point.

Shift #2: From Stylist to CEO

The next leap is yours: from overworked Stylist to CEO – you must become the President of People & Performance- because that is what’s fuelling the growth of the business. This happens in stage 4 of the 5-stage Path to Profit© framework.

You have a kick-ass, documented onboarding program, are actively coaching & reviewing throughout probation and manage a consistent coaching routine of daily, weekly monthly and quarterly progress conversations that keep your team clear, focused, engaged and on-track to their goals.

But you’re also no longer hanging on to underperforming/unsuitable staff for fear of not finding anyone else; you’re coaching up or coaching out, knowing that not everyone is going to fit. You may have a little staff turnover but the staff you keep are profitable and excellent ambassadors for your brand. (And nothing is more demotivating for a high performer than working next to someone who just doesn’t care and seeing it tolerated)

If you just said, ‘I don’t have time for that’ and, instead, insist on remaining the main income generator on the floor, clinging to the identity of a Stylist, then be warned, because four problematic things will happen:

1. You become a bottleneck. Growth stagnates because you refuse to delegate tasks others could handle, creating frustrating holding patterns where everyone waits for your decisions or permission. Your limited bandwidth/availability suffocates growth opportunities.

2. Burnout becomes inevitable. Attempting to operate on the floor at full capacity while running the business means neither role receives adequate attention. Tasks slip through cracks, opportunities are missed, and your declining patience and enthusiasm fail to inspire your team. In fact, they’re walking on eggshells around you.

3. You destroy your exit value. High-revenue businesses that depend entirely on working owners aren’t attractive to buyers. Remove yourself, and everything collapses. Purchasers pay for reliable, consistent income that doesn’t rely on them having to do it all themselves. No buyer pays for your past effort or future potential (i.e. work they have to do). Learn to achieve results through others and you’ve built something of real value.

4. You lose top talent. Great people need growth pathways - or they’ll leave for other businesses that provide them- often just when they become consistently profitable. That means you need to be actively creating progression pathways and progressive income structures that give your best people opportunities to grow and to continually increase their income.

• Would they make a good future manager/2IC because they crave responsibility and are willing to manage the behaviour and performance of team members?

• Would they make an excellent Head of Education, not just delivering your training, but actively managing the progression of your pipeline of emerging talent to ensure that you’re growing the fabulous new senior/s you’re going to need in 18 months’ time. They track the progression milestones of all staff to ensure everyone is on-track and they prevent those disastrous problems of a 3rd year wage with a 1st year skillset, or a newly qualified senior who is unable to carry a full column and a senior’s responsibilities but is paid a qualified wage. All of these are preventable but if no one is paying attention, they can easily slip through the cracks.

• Do they have a clear pathway for building the capabilities required to join the 4% of employed Australian hairdressers earning >$100,000 per year, rather than remaining one of the 96% who earn barely $50,000$55,000 per year.

Build clear career paths and income structures so your best people stay challenged and rewarded inside your business - not someone else’s.

This process also means you’re building a support team that begins to lighten your load, getting important things done without you having to do them, while accelerating growth and increasing the value of your business.

The Bigger Picture

Our industry trains us to be skilled hairdressers with full books, not leaders of scalable, profitable businesses. But if your goal is to earn more and work less, you must evolve. This means reviewing and changing your approach when necessary, learning new business skills and abandoning the trap of “how we’ve always done it” thinking.

A business can only grow to the extent that the person running it grows.

And two key areas of growth that can completely change your business are shifting focus from delivering hair services to crafting exceptional experiences and evolving from busy Stylist to capable CEO.

Kym Krey is one of the industry’s most trusted voices, being an exceptional specialist business coach and leadership mentor. She’s been where you are and has the runs on the board to help you get real results. If you’re ready to turn your business around, become a better leader, take that next big leap, or scale to a milliondollar turnover and beyond, get in touch: kym@kymkrey.com.au; @kymkrey or www. kymkrey.com.au