Starting a business is becoming easier and easier. But there is always the other side of the coin; with things becoming easier, competition becomes higher and higher. Therefore, opening a new business, today doesn’t always determine a secure success.
Why do some businesses succeed and others fail? Of course, there are many factors at play, but one of the main reasons why many new businesses fail is a lack of planning.
To help you launch your new beauty salon, we’d like to focus here on the importance of business plans. We’re about to discuss why you need a business plan and how to write your beauty salon business plan.
What is a business plan?
A business plan is, first of all, a written document. Planning your business can’t be all in your head: you need to write down your strategies, budget, and goals not only to have it all clear but also because you may have to share this information with collaborators and possible investors.
The goal of your beauty salon business plan is to describe your business project in detail. You need to dig deep into the details of how you want to transform your project from the initial idea into an actual and profitable business.
Opening a beauty salon: business plan, why do you need it?
There are several reasons why you need a business plan for beauty salon and they are all equally important.
1. Organize your idea
As we’ve mentioned, writing down your business plan helps you clarify your ideas around your project.
When you have your goals in your head and nowhere else, you are risking underestimating a lot of factors: budget, knowledge, time, practicability, and more…
2. Make decisions
The best decisions you make are the informed ones. Having everything written down helps you make the right decisions when it comes to purchasing, hiring professionals or employees, contacting investors, and more..
3. Find investors
When you need to find investors for your beauty salon, a business plan will help them evaluate the potential of your business idea and it will also communicate your professionalism and serious commitment to your project.
When you ask for financing, showing a beauty salon business plan will increase your chances of obtaining it.
4. Optimize your budget
Even if you have the biggest budget, you still want to optimize it. Your beauty salon business plan will help you make the best decisions when it comes to where and how much to spend.
How to write a business plan for salon with ease
Each business plan for salon is, of course, personalized according to each project's aims and characteristics. However, they all show the same structure: this is why it is possible to learn and know how to write your beauty salon and spa business plan.
In this section, we’re going to describe this structure in details so that you can use it as a base to write your own beauty salon and spa business plan.
These are the sections that comprise a beauty salon business plan:
- Cover page
- Table of content
- Executive summary
- Market analysis
- Company description and history
- Mission statement
- Management Plan
- Marketing Plan
- Budgeting
1. Cover page
It seems unimportant to discuss the cover page for your business plan, but keep in mind that your cover page is your first impression. Make it professional, make it clean, and be sure to include your beauty salon name and address and your and your partners’ (if there is any) name and contact information.
2. Table of content
The table of content helps the reader find the information they need with a glance. It must include the list of the business plan’s sections with the page where they can be found.
3. Executive summary
This section summarizes the content of the entire business plan. While it can help to write this section at last (when you’ve written all the sections it is easier to summarize them in an executive summary) keep in mind that this is the first content readers, including possible investors, will read. Make it clear, professional, and also attractive: your goal here is not to convince them to invest in your project, but that your project is interesting and it’s worth it to keep on reading the business plan.
4. Market analysis
Even if you don’t need or want to write a beauty salon business plan, still we recommend running a market analysis before making any decision. The market analysis can be considered one of the most important steps in the creation of a new business.
What does it mean to run the market analysis? What kind of information should you seek?
There are tons of information and data that can be useful to make decisions: who is most likely to attend a beauty salon? What are the businesses active in the area? What kind of services is trending in the beauty sector? What do people think is lacking in most beauty salons? Do people more often drive or walk to their beauty salon?
You need to collect as much information as you can and organize it into a report. How can you gather information? These days, social media can give a great help: run surveys and collect data. Then, organize your data and the takeaways you’ve taken from them in a market analysis.
5. Company description and history
If you already have any expertise in the beauty sector, this is where you can speak about it. You can narrate your previous experiences and how they led to the launch of this new business.
Then, you can move on to describing the structure of your new company, what kind of services you offer, and - most importantly - what makes your beauty salon unique. The market analysis - see above - can help you find niches that lack a response from the market: if your business is born to fill such a gap in the market, this is the time to highlight this aspect.
6. Mission statement
This is probably the most challenging section of your beauty salon business plan. Here you need to state and describe your mission, but what is a mission in business?
Your mission is your approach to business: how will you treat your customers? What can of identity do you want to build for your business? How many people would you like to hire? How will you run daily operations?
As you write down your mission statement, you are forced to think and plan things in advance: this is another of the many advantages of writing a business plan for beauty salon.
7. Management plan
In this section, you can map out your business hierarchy. If you have collaborators, you can establish each one’s role and responsibility. If you’re planning on hiring people, you can write down what kind of professionals you’re going to add to the team and why.
8. Marketing plan
Marketing is one of the main cores of business. You don’t have a business and can’t hope for any profits if people aren’t aware that your business exists and what it has to offer.
It’s never too soon to start thinking about marketing, even because it will require a big chunk of your budget. In this section, not only you’re going to describe your marketing strategy, but also how you’re going to use your budget for marketing purposes.
9. Budgeting
Speaking of budget, nothing can be left to chance. This is the section where you are going to describe in detail the budget at your disposal and how you’re planning to spend it.
Expenses are one side of the financial plan, the other is made by expected profits. Yes, you need to write down the profits you expect in the short and long term.
Opening a beauty salon: bonus tip
When it comes to budgeting for a beauty salon, a big part of your initial investment will be dedicated to the equipment. For this reason, one of the most important recommendations you can receive is about a salon equipment supplier.
Omysalon is a company that is entirely focused on providing beauty salons with anything they need, from equipment to products, from furniture to accessories.
Being aimed at professionals, Omysalon only provides professional equipment and products. Their catalogs include anything that goes under the beauty sector umbrella: skin care, massage, spa, barber, and more…
They are also focused on providing only durable and professional products that are also affordable and fairly priced.
Conclusion
If you are opening a beauty salon, you’ll need to write down your beauty salon business plan. It’ll be helpful throughout the entire process but - even more importantly - you can use it as a business proposal for possible investors. Furthermore, business plans could be required at any moment: for example, when you pick a location for your business, the owner could require a business plan before renting the place to you.
If you want to increase your chances of success, write down your beauty salon business plan before anything else!
