In April 2025, my accountant (ever so kindly!) told me that I needed to find an extra £32k in my business. It was from this moment onwards that I started doing everything differently…
Whilst I knew I had to keep my high-performance, results-driven approach at the centre of my work, I realised it was my own mindset that needing shifting – by basically just not being a mug! When I sat down and poured over the numbers with my accountant, we uncovered the specific areas where we were literally giving away money. Like our toners, for example.
Being forced to look at the black and white facts and figures like this was not easy, let me tell you. I think the majority of hairdressers (and I definitely speak for myself here), simply exist to make our clients happy – and this is where we can get a bit lost. Deep down, I fell into the belief that offering clients free services just felt like ‘the right thing to do’. I felt like if I charged for certain things, other salons maybe wouldn’t, and my clients would go to them instead! I think these are fears that most (but not all) hairdressers grapple with at some point in their careers.
So, this is where I had to look at shifting my business mindset – to go from a salon that relies so heavily on interpersonal goodwill and working friendships, to a salon that still incorporates those friendly values whilst simultaneously valuing our own skills, team and business. What I realised was that these two things did not have to sit separately, and I think for most of my career I thought they did.
The change is always the hardest bit. Once I’d had this ‘Eureka!’ moment (that was the easy bit), the real work was getting our heads around it as a team. In fairness, the team had largely bought into my previous skewed thinking of not wanting to ‘ask’ clients for more.
I couldn’t blame them, it was me who had set the tone (forgive the pun) from the top! However, together we had to shift. I presented the facts and figures to the team, which I visually demonstrated by doing a special, ‘creative’ application – instead of toner, I put £25 in notes on the model’s head! This represented what we were all doing… giving away cash.
Once I’d got their attention from that, we worked hard together and listened to each other – the worries, the ideas, the solutions. We practised some ways we might communicate certain things, such as charging for a previously gifted product. (I cringe when I write this because it sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud!) There was a bit of resistance, but I bluntly put it two ways:
You can either charge the client for this product or you can carry on gifting it and cover the cost through your own salary! I was half joking, but I think the point hit home.
Advice for Other Salon Owners:
All in all, this experience taught me that you can’t just be passionate; you’ve got to be practical too. That’s what makes the business of blonde work. Above all, you need to be fair to yourself, your team and your clients. You need to charge proudly for your value…
