She’s talented and the clients love her attitude, so I don’t want to fire her. Quarterly performance reviews are coming up and I’m not sure how to explain that she needs a lot of training without sounding like a total bitch.

I’m not good at these types of conversations. I don’t want the employees to hate me and I don’t want to cause drama. I like to keep my interactions with them positive because I know keeping them happy is really important. Plus, she’s pretty new to the business and I don’t want to discourage her. What do I do?”

NEW MANAGER ALERT! NEW MANAGER ALERT!

You’ve held your position for what? Four months? Maybe less? I’m willing to bet my left arm that this will be your first time conducting quarterly reviews. I can smell inexperienced management from miles away. You know how? It’s your soul—specifically, the fact that yours is still intact. (Enjoy your conscience while you have one. Eventually, it’ll start to deteriorate and you’ll be left a cold, hollow shell who lives and dies by the salon’s performance metrics.)

Effective communication skills are a manager’s most critical asset.

You’ll have to learn how to use language extremely well so you can have difficult conversations without flinching or destroying the morale of the employee you’re evaluating. Those conversations require confidence, tact, and a complete disregard for the employee’s personal opinion of you. You’re not at work to make friends, Madam Manager.

When conducting performance evaluations, a lot of managers use the “sandwich” method. They give good feedback, then bad, and then good, so the meeting ends on a positive note. I’ve never found the sandwich method very effective, mostly because it seems to trigger a condition I call “selective deafness.”

People tend to hear what they want to hear and not what they need to hear.

What this employee needs to hear is this: “We’re going to spend some more time refining your technique and helping you master the point-of-sale system.”

Notice the plural pronoun: We.
Not you.

What you need to hear is this: Your team’s shortcomings are an extension of your own.

As the manager, you are responsible for ensuring your team members are adequately trained. It’s your job to ensure they’re staying on task and that they’re confident in their product and service knowledge so they know how to upsell and retail.

In a perfect world, all of our graduates would come to us with these skills built-in, but the responsibility for providing critical job training often falls to us.

These issues sound as if they’ve been going on for a while, and you’ve been waiting until quarterly reviews to address them. That stops now.

To efficiently eliminate bad habits, address and correct them immediately.

From now on, you’re going to keep a clipboard. Clip some notebook paper on that bad boy—the college ruled stuff.

Do you have a daily agenda?

If not, you make one. If you’d like, you can download mine and adapt it to suit your needs.

Put that on top of your crisp notebook paper, then print out a fancy cover sheet like this one. Print it on decent card stock, though. (If you can see through it, that defeats the purpose.) Stick that cover sheet right on top of everything.

Now that your clipboard has been situated, grab a pen. Never again will you be seen at work without these two items in your hands.

Why do you need a clipboard as a constant companion?

Because you need to be writing things down when you see them—and walking around, typing notes on a phone or tablet looks unprofessional. Plus, it’s easy to forget the notes you’ve made on a device if they’re not physically where you can see them.

What kind of notes should you take?

All kinds. You will notate maintenance tasks (like paint chips and malfunctioning equipment), client and employee suggestions, and—most importantly—lapses in professionalism and performance that you will need to address before closing time.

Stop waiting until performance review periods.

If someone’s lagging behind, overusing product, not cleaning up after themselves, inciting riots, or otherwise stepping out of line, you’re going to be having a one-on-one with them that day.

Why is immediate correction so important?

• You want the behavior to stop before it becomes a habit. Bad habits are expensive.
• Negative behaviors poorly reflect on the business, equating to a loss in clients (and consequently, revenue).
• Product overuse can cost the salon a ton of money over time.
• Low productivity adversely affects profit margins.

If you don’t correct them fast, bad behaviors can infect the other employees like a virus.

You know the saying, “Not my circus; not my monkeys?” As the salon manager, you’re the ringleader. This absolutely is your circus, and those absolutely are your monkeys.

How does that other saying go? “Monkey see; monkey do.” If you think that doesn’t apply to grown adults, you’re wrong. Never let employees set precedents. Employees need to be told what your expectations of them are, and sometimes they need to be reminded.

The salon can’t afford for you to neglect your duties. Your job is to actively manage the employees. That’s what you’re getting paid for. Besides, by not addressing these issues in a timely manner, you’re only making your job more difficult. Don’t let undesirable behaviors slide. Always be swift and consistent with your discipline.

How do I address the problems with the employees?

You don’t get to go home until you’ve dealt with employee-related problems. Serious infractions (outbursts on the salon floor, for example) require emergency meetings on-the-spot, but if you’re routinely addressing problem behaviors on a same-day basis, those emergency situations will be few and far between.

When you have disciplinary discussions, place blame where it belongs.

A slow employee who fumbles through services and can’t work the POS has likely not been properly trained—and who’s in charge of training? You are. By not training this employee up to the salon’s standards, you’ve not only cost the salon money, you’ve tossed an inexperienced professional into the ocean without a life raft.

If you have set an employee up for failure, you owe them an apology.

Sometimes the most difficult conversations to have are the ones in which you have to admit fault. To learn how to apologize the right way, I recommend reading my article, “How to Admit Fault and Apologize.” You would think apologizing would be pretty simple and straightforward, but too few salon managers and owners know how to do so effectively. Communication isn’t always as easy as we’d like it to be, so do yourself the favor of developing the skills necessary to successfully navigate your relationships with everyone you interact with at work. Both the continued success of the salon and your management career very much depend on your commitment to continual improvement.

Should this be a recurring problem, evaluate the corrective measures you’ve taken.

• Why were they ineffective?
• Could you have done something differently?
• Could this problem have been avoided with better communication or more training?

If the answer to all of those questions is no, then you’ll have to straighten your spine, face the employee, and hold an accountability discussion. (If you feel like it might be time to have that discussion, my article, “How to Hold Others Accountable” will tell you exactly how to prepare for and conduct that meeting.)

You’re a manager, now. Tough discussions are going to be part of your weekly routine, so get used to them.

Don’t shoot for the moon.

Do you have any idea how far away the moon is? Or how expensive it will be to get there? Just thinking about the work required makes the task of getting there seem overwhelming and impossible. (Plus, “shooting” towards a natural satellite sounds like it has the potential to end pretty painfully.)

Instead of focusing intently on a major, long-term goal, devote your full attention to accomplishing a significant shorter-term goal.

What do you plan to achieve in the long-term? Do you want a twenty-location empire and a mansion on the beach? Write it out in detail on a piece of paper.

What part of that dream can you reasonably accomplish in the next three years? Maybe you can open your first location, or expand your existing business into a new area? Maybe you could also start renovating parts of your home to prepare it for sale? Write those things down on another piece of paper.

Now, you’re holding two pieces of paper, right? Tuck the major “short-term” goal page into your planner. (I don’t care what you do with your “long-term” goals written on it. Some recommend putting it in a visible place, where you can see it every day. I’d recommend keeping it at the back of a planner or journal and only looking at it when you need to reassess your short-term goals.)

Your short-term goals should only include tasks that are reasonable and attainable within the next 36 months.

Three years away seems like a lifetime (especially given the way some of us have had our perception of time thoroughly thrown off as of late), but it passes much quicker when you’re working in eager pursuit of something that matters deeply to you.

Create a timeline.

For each goal on your short-term page, list every step you’ll need to take to accomplish them. If you want to establish that empire, you’ll need to do some market research and scout locations. Then, you’ll need to negotiate a lease. Then, you’ll need to get started on the build. If you want to get that house ready to sell, you’ll need to deal with that green shag carpeting in your living room…for starters.

Now, estimate how much time each of those tasks will take. For example, how long will you take to scout locations and decide on a home for your new business? How many months will it take to get the rose tile replaced with something a little more modern in your dated ass bathroom? Be reasonable in your assessments, especially if you’re relying on third parties (like accountants, attorneys, state licensing departments, or contractors) for anything.

Keep your personal responsibilities in mind, too.

Think hard about how many hours per day you can realistically dedicate to your tasks. You may find that you have to make some sacrifices or delegate certain tasks to free up more time.

For me, that task was managing my social campaigns for this blog. By automating those tasks through the use of a social calendar software, I was able to free up five hours per week. I also sacrificed non-essential social interaction, for the most part.

You’ll also need to recognize and eliminate time-sucking distractions. For example, I had to severely limit my involvement in professional networking groups to an hour or less per day. In April of 2018, I left Facebook entirely. When I finished my taxes in January of this year, I found that my income had doubled. (I am positive that was not a coincidence.)

Now, you should have a rough outline of what your next 36 months will look like. Transfer all those dates and tasks to your calendar. Once you’re done, they won’t be goals any more; they’ll be plans.

Focus and Execute

Plan to make slow and steady progress. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted by other projects or opportunities. For many of you, this will mean learning how to say “no” more often. Anything that distracts from your goals, regardless of what it is, will push back your timeline.

Most of us are visual people, so maybe it’ll help you to think of these distractions this way:

You’re at the bottom of the ocean and you really want to get to the surface, take a deep breath of fresh air, and see the sun. So, you make a plan to get to the surface and you start executing that plan.

You start to swim upwards but an octopus stops you. He says, “Hey, can you help me with this thing? It’s a great opportunity for you and will only require a few days/weeks of your time.”

The octopus straps a weight to your ankle that’ll keep you at his depth until the task is done. Meanwhile, you can’t really do a lot of swimming, so your goal of reaching the surface is postponed.

You finish the octopus’s assignment, remove the weight, and start swimming again. You’ve made it another twenty feet closer to the surface when a dolphin approaches you. “Hello!” he says. “I have a great opportunity for you. It will only require a few days/weeks of your time…” He holds out another weight for you to strap to your ankle.

Always ask, “What’s in this for me?”

You’re allowed to be selfish, shrewd, and cynical. You’re allowed to expect a tangible return on your time and effort, especially when you’re being asked to put your goals on hold by someone else who’d rather you spend your time in pursuit of theirs. Many “opportunities” I’m presented with aren’t actually opportunities that would ever benefit me—at least not enough to make up for the loss of time I could have spent on my own goals. Be willing to say no to anything that doesn’t move you closer to your destination. Remember, you’re on a schedule.

Outside projects, in addition to robbing you of your valuable time, will tire you out. The longer you postpone your own goals, the easier it gets to postpone them further. Go long enough without working on your goals and they’ll eventually start to look like unattainable pipe dreams. You’ll get frustrated and resentful and will may never resume your work towards that goal again.

The only thing worse for your progress than the interference of others is your inability to commit to a singular focus.

Sometimes, we’re the ones strapping weights to our own ankles. We can set ourselves back when we start twenty different projects and never actually complete anything.

A few of my consulting clients are like this: eager, driven, motivated, but ultimately they’re too impulsive. They haven’t opened their first location before they’re asking to tour empty units in neighboring towns as part of a sudden expansion plan that materialized on a whim.

In this scenario, you’re swimming to the top, but you can only really use one arm (most of the time), because your other arm and your legs are preoccupied managing your other projects. Try not to think too hard about how that would work from a logistical standpoint—it’s a mediocre analogy, the point is…

Successful, productive people commit and follow through.

Don’t sabotage yourself by spreading yourself too thin or set yourself up for disappointment by taking on far too much. Your timeline serves as a guide but also a reminder that big goals sometimes require big time investments. You might get there sooner, but if not, you shouldn’t feel discouraged. Keep checking off tasks one day at a time. As long as you’re moving forward, it doesn’t matter how fast (or slow) you’re going.

Self-Assess

The lists, calendars, and detailed plans go a long way to curb those impulsive behaviors, but daily self-assessment is an absolute necessity.

When you start your day, do the following:

Check your calendar. Ask yourself:

• Am I on track to hit my deadlines?
• What do I need to be focusing on today to ensure that I will stay on schedule?

Check your to-do list. Ask yourself:

• What can I fully complete today?
• What extraneous tasks can I outsource or postpone?

Hold yourself accountable. If you can’t, have someone else hold you accountable.

Once you accomplish one of your short-term goals, revisit your long-term goal. Ask yourself:

• Do I still want this, or have I found a new long-term goal?
• Have new opportunities presented themselves that could get me closer to achieving this goal or help me progress more efficiently?
• Can I add a new short-term goal now or should I buckle down and clear the ones I’m working on first?

I hope you found this approach helpful. Personally, I had a hard time following most popular goal-setting techniques. This strategy works for me, but I encourage you to also be flexible. When something isn’t working, try something new until you find something that works, and don’t get too discouraged when you experience delays or setbacks.

Our rights, freedoms, and political/personal agendas have no bearing on that fact.

Promising vaccine candidates are currently being tested, so we have hope that we will eventually return to normal. In the meantime, be aware that you cannot control the behaviors of others. Your policies can help teach customers how to act in your salon, but they won’t stop ignorant, defiant people who are hell-bent on endangering others from violating them. Regardless of the policies you write and the precautions you take, you will be putting yourself at risk daily.

In this article, we aren’t going to talk about which measures you can take to protect yourself and your clients. (I already talked about that a bit here, and I’m going to leave it up to you to decide what works for your salon and your specific situation.) Today, I’m walkink you through the process of creating, communicating, and enforcing your policies.

How to Create COVID-19 Policies

Start with your state requirements. At a bare minimum, you are required to comply with your state’s social distancing guidelines, whether you like it and agree with it, or not.

Take whatever additional measures you believe are best to protect public health, even if they go beyond what the state requires. If you feel your state is not taking sufficient measures to protect you or your customers, you’re allowed to design your own.

You are a business owner. So long as you are complying with state requirements, the government has no right to interfere in your operations.

For instance, if you decide to eliminate high-risk services (like facials, waxing, and lashing) until further notice, no state or federal authority can force you to reverse that decision.

Write the first draft of these policies alone, using the knowledge we currently have about how the virus spreads and how best to prevent infection in the workplace. You can run them by others if you’d like later, but ignore opinions that run counter to those facts.

Opinions based on feelings and theories with no basis in fact aren’t valid in the midst of a global pandemic.

If people don’t like or approve of your measures, too bad for them. A loud, obnoxious minority shouldn’t deter you from doing what you feel is necessary to protect yourself, your business, your family, and your community. In this respect, the “it’s a free country” argument works both ways. You’re free to take whatever precautions you feel are necessary. They’re free to keep their happy asses out of your salon if they disagree with them.

Until the day comes when we stop discovering new things about the virus, we should operate on the assumption that we aren’t as knowledgeable as we believe ourselves to be, and design our protocols and policies accordingly.

Consider enforcement. Whenever we write policies of any kind, we have to think about how we’ll enforce those policies effectively and consistently. For every policy you decide to introduce, make a detailed, step-by-step enforcement plan and run it by your friends, family, and colleagues. Outside opinions are important, as they may point out flaws in your enforcement plan that you hadn’t considered. (Just remind those you ask for feedback that their opinions should be limited to the feasibility of the enforcement plan only, not their opinions on the measures you’re taking or your approach to creating a safe working environment.)

The person bearing the risk also bears the responsibility. If they can’t be listed as a co-defendant in your salon’s legal proceedings, their opinions on your tactics don’t matter.

How to Communicate Your COVID-19 Policies

Once you have your policies written and your enforcement plan prepared, you have to figure out how to phrase them and where/how to present them.

Make the information visible everywhere. Your website should have a noticeable alert, as should you online booking system. Any emails that come from the salon should include the information for as long as the policies stand. Post notices inside the salon as well, starting with the front door.

Let clients know what to expect form your business, and how to behave while visiting.

The more places you share the information, the better. (I personally enjoy Todrick Hall’s method, but few of us can ever hope to be that fabulous.)

Be clear and concise. This isn’t the time to use nice words or flowery customer service verbiage. Your language should be sharp and effective at communicating your point.

Bad Policy: “We politely request that all customers wear face masks in accordance with CDC guidelines.”
Good Policy: “All customers and staff are required to wear face masks at all times.”

Bad Policy: “Please wait in your vehicle until your appointment time. We ask that you not bring friends or children with you.”
Good Policy: “Clients will not be permitted into the salon until their scheduled appointment time. No guests or children will be allowed inside.”

Bad Policy: “We would appreciate your cooperation with pre-entry temperature checks and handwashing upon arrival.”
Good Policy: “Every person seeking to enter the salon will be subject to a temperature scan upon arrival and will be required to wash their hands.”

Include enforcement measures. In any situation where policies are introduced, we try to also include enforcement information where it makes sense to do so. (For instance, with regards to late-cancellations and no-shows.) During the pandemic, it will be essential that you include enforcement information for each and every policy.

To illustrate this, let’s use our prior policy examples:

• “All customers and staff are required to wear face masks at all times. Refusal to cooperate will result in immediate dismissal.”
• “Clients will not be permitted into the salon until their scheduled appointment time. No guests or children will be allowed inside. Our doors will remain locked and any request to gain early entry will be denied.”
• “Every person seeking to enter the salon will be subject to a temperature scan upon arrival and will be required to wash their hands. Those who refuse will be turned away.”

Just as clients should understand your expectations of them, so too should we communicate what they can expect from us.

Whatever you say, don’t say, “Sorry.”

You might feel compelled to “apologize for the inconvenience” when you communicate your policies. Do not.

Protecting your community during a pandemic isn’t an “inconvenience.” It’s a necessity.

We don’t say sorry for things we aren’t truly sorry for. You can thank people for their cooperation, but don’t apologize for doing what you believe to be right during this unprecedented time. Furthermore, don’t give people the impression that they’re entitled to an apology for being expected to show consideration for others by complying with common-sense infection control procedures.

How to Enforce Your COVID-19 Policies

Hopefully, you won’t have a problem with compliance at all, but you need to have a plan, just in case you do. With a subset of people making social distancing compliance A Thing™, there’s a strong possibility you’ll encounter some kind of resistance.

Be cautious about making exceptions. Even pre-COVID, I didn’t recommend making policy exceptions of any kind, and I’m inclined to strongly discourage them during the pandemic. As we’ve seen, some people aren’t above exploiting the ADA to avoid compliance. The stakes during the pandemic are much higher than they’d be in normal circumstances, where an exception to a policy (for instance, waiving a late-cancellation fee) wouldn’t impact anything aside from the salon’s revenue. An exception to a safety protocol at this time has the potential to kill someone.

Think about which situations and people would warrant an exception and plan for how you’ll accommodate them.

If you plan to make exceptions, establish the criteria in advance. For instance, you may offer to exempt eligible clients with actual, verifiable breathing difficulties from wearing a face mask during their service by serving them at their home rather than in the salon (if that’s permissible in your state). Clients who don’t have reliable child care to speak of might be given an exception to the “no guests” rule if one of your employees is available to supervise the child outside or in an area of the salon the public doesn’t have access to, like a break room or office. (Before you scoff at that idea, remember that many parents–especially single parents–are likely desperate for a short break.)

Any exceptions you grant should go to those who meet your criteria and deserve to be exempted, not whomever complains the loudest.

Focus on your responsibility to your community as a guardian of public health. As an industry, we have always been responsible for ensuring the safety of others. Our business and professional licenses are contingent upon our willingness and ability to adhere to disinfection and sanitation protocols.

If you wouldn’t allow a client to bleed all over you, your customers, or your professionals on the off-chance that you may contract a bloodborne illness, why would you allow them to breathe in their faces during a pandemic?

When enforcing your policies or answering questions about them, draw focus to your role as a responsible licensee. You owe it to your community and your team to do whatever you believe is necessary to prevent the contagion from spreading. This is an objectively intelligent position to take and anyone who argues otherwise doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously in any respect, especially if they aren’t legally invested in your business.

If you alone retain the risks of business ownership, you retain the right to make and enforce your own rules.

Don’t allow anyone to politicize the issue. Everyone in this country has the fundamental, unalienable right to life. As Americans–and as a species, really–we agree that we have a profound responsibility to protect the lives of others as well, to the best of our abilities. You can try to argue this in the comments, but before you do, remember that involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide are considered criminal acts for a reason and that premature deaths (particularly those that were avoidable) are generally considered “tragedies”…also for good reason.

People have the right to live how they please. They do not have the right to force others to accept the same risks they’re comfortable taking. Customers who are willing to put themselves and others at risk will likely have a variety of non-compliant salons to choose from, just as before. Remind them of that fact as you show them out of yours.

COVID-19 doesn’t care about your ideology, and loud opinions aren’t an adequate defense against a viral pathogen.

Equating a business owner’s protective measures during a pandemic with a political stance is outright ignorant. Issues of public health (and frankly, potential liability) have absolutely nothing to do with what we personally believe the government’s role to be. Anyone who treats your cautionary procedures as a political issue should be immediately corrected and redirected to another topic of conversation. Your measures are about keeping the public safe and keeping your salon’s names out of the headlines. They aren’t political and they aren’t up for debate. That’s all there is to it.

As we navigate this weird new normal, remember that this will likely be a temporary period of our lives. There will be an “after,” and your behaviors and actions will be remembered. You get to decide whether you (and your business) are known for having exacerbated and extended the crisis or having done the utmost to curb it. I plan to be among those salon owners remembered for our integrity and dedication to protecting others, regardless of the financial cost or potential backlash from those who would prefer to see us all ignore the data and return to business as usual, with no consideration paid to the immunocompromised people who have to try to survive until we come through the other side of this, or the lives that will be needlessly ended prematurely.

I also plan to do everything I possibly can to avoid landing in court, attempting to defend my business against accusations that an outbreak originated in my facility. Our personal feelings about the media, the government, the WHO, and the CDC aside, I think we can all agree that from a liability perspective, extreme caution during this time is more than warranted. Do what you have to do, and don’t apologize.

A Note for the People Pleasers

So many of the professionals I know and work with are relentless people pleasers. They live to serve, which is why they’re such beloved and successful professionals and salon owners. However, these people are also the most likely to be run over repeatedly by both clients and colleagues.

Those of you who have a hard time asserting yourselves and saying no–now is the time to break that habit. Your professionals and customers need strong, decisive leadership right now.

You’ve been forced into an unenviable position, especially if you’re in a state that has lax (or nonexistent) social distancing orders. It falls to you to ensure your facility doesn’t become part of the problem, and that will likely require you to be more firm and insistent than is natural for your personality. Unfortunately, the only way to become comfortable asserting yourself is to practice by doing it repeatedly. It will get easier every time, I promise.

If you need a pep talk or to decompress after an incident, email me. Five kids ago, I was just like you. Growing out of that People Pleaser phase was the best thing for my business (and my sanity). I’m wiling to be your cheerleader, if you need one.

How do we, as professionals who have no choice but to interact in close proximity with the public, protect ourselves and our communities? How can we close the gaps in our revenue? Will our state board regulations change, and if so, how? How will our salons change?

Why Things Can’t Go Back to Normal…Yet

Even after we’re allowed to go back out into the world, COVID-19 will still exist. It will remain a threat to everyone, including you. (Remember, healthy and young people are also being affected.)

Until we have a vaccine, we will likely still be expected to follow some measure of social distancing protocol. If we want to see what that might look like, we can watch what’s going on in other countries as they also ease their quarantines, but we shouldn’t assume that Americans will be as compliant with mitigation efforts as the citizens of other countries. As with social distancing, what worked there may not work here (at least not as efficiently or effectively) because our cultures and our governments are so different.

We’re wild, sometimes defiant individualists who don’t often take kindly to being told what to do, especially when the people doing the telling are politicians. As individual Americans, we may have our differences but do you know what we all have in common? We are nobody’s bitch. Our lawmakers understood this too, which is why only a few had the courage to order shutdowns early. These politicians risked their careers in an effort to protect their citizens.

From the outside, it can seem frustrating to watch leaders struggle to make what seems like the obvious (and inevitable) choice, but it’s hard not to sympathize. The decisions these leaders had to make were not easy ones. Even now, we don’t know which among them made the right decision, if any. We may never know whose approach was the least damaging and most effective. As much as I believe every American should have been mobilized months ago to do whatever would be necessary to protect each other and their income, I can understand how impossible the situation must have felt.

We’re all finding ourselves in impossible situations these days, but maybe this time we can prepare for the challenge we’re all going to face before we suddenly find ourselves neck-deep in it. Moving forward, we should anticipate how these lawmakers will ease society into a lifestyle that resembles what we had before while keeping COVID-19 under control. At a bare minimum, what can we expect to be required to do? Will our protocols need to change? Furthermore, will salon owners be at risk of being held liable for local outbreaks if they don’t comply?

How Salons May Change in the Wake of The Curve

Employer-Provided PPE
Employers are already expected to provide adequate PPE to their employees but these are different circumstances. Professionals who ordinarily wouldn’t require PPE will likely now require a steady supply of masks and gloves that salon owners will have to make room in their budget for. This will be something clients will absolutely expect from estheticians and lashers but will probably also demand from all professionals who work within their breathing zone (hairstylists and massage therapists).

Handwash Stations in Reception and/or Service Areas
Some nail salons have these already, but I anticipate they’ll become far more common as professionals put pressure on their employers and legislators to keep them safe.

Occupancy Restrictions & Distancing Rules
We may be told to grant additional square footage between each station and/or to limit the amount of people in our salons simultaneously. These changes may put salon owners in a position where they must eliminate positions or scale back employee hours. Should this come to pass, salon owners who take out PPP loans may have their eligibility for forgiveness compromised. (More information on the PPP’s forgiveness rules can be found at the end of the post.)

Service Restrictions
While I don’t consider this super likely, we may be temporarily prohibited from performing services that put us face-to-face with clients, like lashing, manicures, facials, and permanent makeup.

Periodic Mandatory Closures
Hopefully, breakthroughs in testing and tracking will pay off so we can avoid being ordered to shut down during local outbreaks. If not, then salon owners can expect to be required to close along with all other nonessential businesses when new infection counts start rising.

New Client Policies
I know I’m not the only salon owner preparing to communicate some new protocols to my clients. I can’t speak for those owners, but my salon will be requiring clients to wear face coverings until a vaccine is readily available. (We already require them to wash their hands upon arrival.)

Salon owners who do not want their brands tied to a local outbreak will ensure both their employees and their clients are following proper distancing and disinfection protocol at all times.

Until we know more, we have no idea what those social distancing protocols will look like for us. However, you should expect that failure or refusal to comply will come with hefty legal and/or financial consequences. Speaking of consequences…

Potential Problems for Salon Owners

Let’s talk about liability. I have so many questions and you should too.

• If your salon is deemed responsible for an outbreak, could you be held legally responsible for deaths, hospitalizations, or lost income?
• If a client or employee who contracted COVID-19 at your salon dies, can their family sue you for poor infection control?
• What happens if an infected person intentionally conceals their symptoms so they can return to work and ends up infecting others?
• If an immunocompromised employee doesn’t feel safe returning to work at the salon and is then fired for it, will it count as an ADA violation and will the employee have any legal recourse?

Before you comment that these questions are ridiculous, remember that Just a few weeks ago, we had idiots coughing on produce. Those idiots were charged with felonies for terroristic threats.

If you missed the produce debacle in the deluge of news, you don’t have to believe me. Proof provided. Here’s another one that happened last week. As a matter of fact, lawyers are already discussing how to prosecute purposeful exposure. Here’s an excerpt:

“On March 24, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen sent U.S. attorneys and federal law enforcement agencies a memo informing Department of Justice officials that they should consider prosecuting certain “purposeful exposure or infection of others with COVID-19” under federal terrorism-related statutes.”

Here’s more:

“The Rosen memorandum lists several federal statutes that may be relevant. The most important is 18 U.S.C § 2332a, which criminalizes the use of weapons of mass destruction. The statute makes it a federal offense to use, threaten, or attempt to use or conspire to use a “weapon of mass destruction” against persons within the United States. Section 2332a(c)(2) defines that term to include “any weapon involving a biological agent, toxin, or vector,” as those terms are defined in 18 U.S.C § 178, which in turn defines “biological agents” to include viruses “capable of causing death, disease, or other biological malfunction in a human.” Hence, using a weapon involving a virus capable of causing death would be a federal offense.

Unlike many federal terrorism statutes, Section 2332a does not require the government to prove that the offense contains a transnational or foreign element—so an infected person who maliciously coughs on someone else might be charged even if she is not doing so as part of a campaign to, for example, support the Islamic State. The individual need not have the specific intent to kill the victim to be found guilty of a violation of § 2332a. A person found guilty of a violation of § 2332a faces imprisonment for any term of years or for life; if the offense causes death, the person could face the death penalty.”

Read the bold print, then click into the actual article and read the whole thing. (I highly recommend adding “coronavirus exposure + terrorism” to your Google Alerts if you want to keep up with that conversation.)

You done? Good. Let’s continue:

• What constitutes gross negligence in the post-curve, pre-vaccine period?
• When does carelessness become recklessness?
• Will we be required to carry some kind of infectious disease insurance now?

We need to have the answers to these questions before we even consider opening our doors to the public again.

I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t ever want to end up in a situation where the only thing a group of local COVID patients has in common is that they visited my salon, nor do I want my brand associated with a legal precedent.

How Do Salons Survive the Post-Curve, Pre-Vaccine Period?

The answer to this will be different for every owner and depends highly on their personal and professional circumstances. Those who knew they weren’t strong enough to financially weather a two-month shutdown, let alone an 18+ month shutdown, have worked with their landlords to make a smooth exit so they can conserve their resources and hopefully return strong later. We’re not talking about them, but the owners who have decided to take the risk and weather the storm for however long they can. From where I sit in the industry I see three camps, each with different strategies. I’ll present them in order, from those I consider most viable to least viable.

Camp 1: “Buckle down, switch focus, and serve the community however possible.”

Instead of considering yourself a “salon owner” during this time, consider yourself a “business owner” and serve people however you can. This is what we’re planning to do by providing low-cost grocery delivery and errand running for our clients, the vast majority of whom are at-risk seniors.

How you choose to serve your community is up to you, but start thinking outside of the box many salon owners are stuck in.

Selling press-ons, Zoom tutorials, and gift cards will only get you so far for so long, so get creative.

Camp 2: “Stay closed and plan for a new future.”

Many owners in this camp are experiencing analysis paralysis, unable to decide whether to switch their focus or close until things improve. The ones I’ve spoken to are in financial situations that aren’t yet critical but will be soon if they don’t make a choice.

Now that we’re starting to see what the next year will look like, we can start changing our practices to accommodate social distancing mandates the best we can, but I don’t recommend taking a “wait and see” approach for long. If you’re capable of doing more to serve people than sit at home on that fence and write new service and operational protocols, do it. Start today.

Camp 3: “Enjoy the two-week vacay and wait for the busy bus.”

Back when everyone in the White House was holding up the “15-days to slow the spread” poster (over 30 days ago now), someone commented this on one of my articles and it horrified me. It has been echoing in my head for the last month. I often wonder if that commenter is still “enjoying the vacay” and waiting for that busy bus to arrive. (If so, congrats on the privileges your wealth has provided, I guess?)

Honestly, I don’t personally know a single business owner in this camp. Not a single one of my consulting clients is kicking up their heels right now (to my knowledge) and I’d argue that they’re a lot more successful than most as many of them have multiple profitable locations in major cities that aren’t easy to compete in.

If the successful people in this industry are taking this seriously, perhaps you should also.

I continue to stand by the opinions I shared in the article I posted last month, because the wait for that busy bus will be too long for most people to bear. Pride, ignorance, complacency, and a refusal to accept reality during this time will bankrupt people.

How the Beauty Industry May Change

In this shitshow, I have found one bright ray of hope, and it’s in our next ten years.

Exploitative salons will crumble, and with them, the business practices that have undermined and compromised the legitimacy of our industry for decades.

Nothing educates an entire workforce about why their employment classification matters quicker than having to file for unemployment during a pandemic only to be told you’re ineligible. Every tax season, my inbox is flooded with emails from individual professionals who learn what their status really means when they file their annual returns, but the pandemic has accomplished in two months what I spent the last 10 years trying to do.

I was hesitant to share any positive speculation for fear of being accused of being insensitive or blind to the devastating extended consequences for many individuals. Before I move on, let me say that this is serious. I’m not at all making light of the situations misclassified workers are finding themselves in right now. However, I’m considering this a net positive outcome in the long run, as many of our industry professionals would have only discovered their misclassification after years (sometimes full decades) of wage theft. They would have had to handle their cases alone, without financial assistance of any kind.

Now that everyone understands exactly what the consequences of misclassification are, they’re likely not going to accept it. Salon owners who refuse to change their practices will have a real hard time finding professionals willing to work for “commission-only” as so-called “independent contractors” in the post-COVID economy.

Salon owners who act as legitimate employers stand to gain tremendously.

For years, I wondered what could possibly bring our industry back together. What could balance the scales so less than 85% of the industry was considered self-employed? What could drive wages up and eliminate the tradition of unlawful employment practices? What could get professionals to see the value of steady, legitimate employment over the freedom of rental?

This. This is that thing.

As salons that were already weak start to close and renters begin to crave predictable paychecks, salon owners who comply with wage and labor laws will reap the benefits of a massive talent pool, full of professionals desperate to get back to work doing what they love. The return of large employers to the non-corporate salon sector (“big” small business owners) will make it easier for us to organize and ensure the legitimacy of our profession—if we can get it together before legislators start calling for employment barriers for broad swaths of industries to be lowered, or for them to be deregulated entirely.

These are the fires that forge outliers.

On days that I spend consulting with my clients, helping them weigh a variety of non-ideal options, I like to think about the outliers this historic tragedy will inevitably produce. Somewhere, a quarantined person who would have spent their life doing something ordinary is discovering something extraordinary—whether that’s a talent, a passion, or an interest—that will change the world. An entire generation of kids will have the course of their lives completely altered by this and a handful of them will become exceptionally remarkable in some way for it.

Outliers are spectacular people. The child refugee who becomes a billionaire, the impoverished immigrant who builds an empire, the Black girl who goes through hell only to become one of the most beloved (and wealthiest) women in the world. (I’m finding a lot of comfort these days watching Oprah interviews. Don’t judge me.)

Diamonds are created under extreme pressure. Do I like that a ton of normal people—who were perfectly fine being normal people and want nothing more than to be average again—are going to be crushed under that same pressure? No, because I am also a normal person (and intend to continue being mediocre at best, thanks) but thinking of the potential this quarantine holds for the people who will be triggered to shine after this makes things feel less bleak.

…somewhere, a fed up nail tech is hunched over her stove developing a magical liquid that removes hard gel instantly. That’s all I’m saying.

Honestly, I’m not mentally in a place to paint rosy pictures of the future and prefer to devote my time to finding solutions to our immediate problems. Entertaining these possibilities feels counterproductive and unhelpful when so many people are struggling.

Whatever good comes of this, the ends don’t justify the means. They never will.

That said, I’m allowing myself to be hopeful that when all this is said and done, we’ll emerge a much stronger industry overall.

A Quick Note about PPP Loan Forgiveness

Before I wrap up today, I want to share these links I found. While I refuse to write anything about the PPP until my clients who have applied are approved and the terms are made clearer, this article from the legal news website, JD Supra, explains the forgiveness conditions in plain English. This overview from Forbes is also helpful. If you’re considering a PPP loan, read those first.

While (so far) the PPP looks like a good option for some salon owners, it is still a loan. Treat it as such. It only becomes a grant if you can meet the requirements for forgiveness, and many salon owners won’t be able to.

I have long advised against signing contracts you haven’t read or don’t agree with, so it should go without saying that I advise against committing to a “forgivable” loan whose forgiveness terms haven’t yet been written in stone by the SBA. After all, you can’t win a game if you don’t know the rules.

The only “numbers” we’re going to talk about today are those that are relevant to your salon.

First, let’s empower ourselves with some knowledge! Even in a good economy, salons have the second-highest failure rate of all small businesses, with most closing their doors before their second anniversary. While nearly every small business struggles to get off the ground through their first 12-18 months of operation, you shouldn’t still be floundering beyond that. If you are (or are suddenly finding it much harder to generate a profit), stick around. In this article, you’ll learn how to diagnose and correct your salon’s financial troubles by performing a comprehensive evaluation of your salon’s efficiency, spending, pricing, marketing, and services.

You didn’t take the risk of going into business to break even—or worse, lose money.

I’m going to type a ton of words here, providing you with direct instruction and suggestions, but don’t be intimidated by the wall of text. All of it distills into a single basic math equation:

REVENUE – EXPENSES = PROFIT

Simple, right? Before we can talk about how to increase revenue and decrease expenses, we have to diagnose the issue(s). However, salon owners are often not be the most qualified person to evaluate their business, so you’ll need assistance.

As a management consultant, I’m frequently retained by struggling salon owners who are too emotionally invested in their salons to see its flaws. As a neutral third-party, my judgment isn’t similarly compromised. When it comes time to make budget cuts and/or change service protocols, don’t recruit just anyone—enlist the help of your most brutally honest friend to help you make difficult choices. (You’re also welcome to book an appointment with me, just be warned that if you ask me whether to cut your refreshment budget or your magazine spending, I’m going to tell you to completely eliminate both.)

Perform an Efficiency Audit

Time is money in the salon. Our first step will be to learn how well our billable hours are being spent.

• Are your professionals completing services within a timely manner?
• Are staff levels and employee hours appropriate for the volume of clients?
• Are appointments being booked to maximize revenue and minimize downtime?

Every second counts. Even small changes add up.

Analyze Salon Expenses

To complete this step, total the salon’s bills and routine expenses.

• What products/services does the salon spend money on?
• Can any be eliminated or replaced with more affordable (or free) alternatives?
• Are products being portioned correctly?
• Most importantly, what percentage of gross revenue does the salon’s labor cost constitute?

Where does the money actually go?

Evaluate Service Pricing

• Were the prices calculated as part of a deliberate process that accounted for the products, materials, labor, and operational overhead—or were they copied from a competitor’s brochure or pulled from thin air?
• Are the service prices consistent? Do they make sense?
• Does the pricing appeal to the salon’s target market?
• Is the pricing high enough to generate a profit if the service is executed within the protocol time constraints?
• Can service protocols be revised or can new services be introduced to satisfy the budgets of cash-strapped clients and generate a profit?

Revisit the Business Plan

• Does the salon’s target market actually exist in the area? Are there enough of them to sustain a business?
• Have you spoken with people in your community (not just your customers) to determine whether your business appeals to them?
• Are you tracking the effectiveness of your marketing?

Assess the Services

• Are there too many services on the menu?
• Are the service descriptions too wordy or complicated for inexperienced clients to understand?
• Do the services have enough points of differentiation to be considered completely unique?
• Can unpopular services be eliminated entirely?
• Does your menu lack services or options your customers would expect from your facility? (For instance, if you’re a lash salon, your clients likely also expect brow services. If you’re a hair removal salon, your clients might expect more options than hard wax.)
• Can protocol steps be combined or eliminated without compromising the service outcome?
• Can service protocols be enhanced with low or no cost features that clients would consider upgrades? (Adding aromatherapy by using an oil diffuser, for example.)

Your analysis should point out some areas for improvement, so tackle those first. Once you’re done, you can attempt to increase your profit margin by following the instructions below.

Top Troubleshooting Tips: Do This First

Narrow Your Focus. Sometimes, salon owners feel the need to be everything to everyone. As a result, they end up building facilities and service menus that are too large to efficiently manage.

Which would you rather be—a jack of all trades or a master of one?

Full-service salons require more of everything—equipment, product, staff, and square footage. Their service menus can grow to intimidating sizes and they run the risk of being lost in a sea of competitors. In online reviews, their excellent professionals and departments run the risk of being obscured by their less impressive counterparts. If more than three-quarters of your “full-service” salon’s revenue is generated by a singular department, you’re probably better off cutting the other departments and specializing.

When a salon with a narrow focus positions itself properly, it will be the first name most people consider when they have a specific need.

Schedule Strategically. I highly recommend against advertising “flexible hours” under any circumstances. You might have fashioned yourself a laid-back boss when you hired your team, but that’s unlikely to always be the case. For you to have true control over your business, you must have control over the schedule.

Schedule supremacy requires you to follow these five sacred rules:

• The salon’s needs are more important than your employee’s preferences.
• Employees who spend significantly more time sitting than working shouldn’t be on the schedule.
• Professionals should not be eligible to perform a service until they can consistently execute it within protocol times.
• Only your highest performers are eligible for full-time hours.
• Nobody does overtime. Ever.

Dismiss Unprofitable “Customers.” You hear that sound? That’s a legion of veteran professionals shrieking, “BUT WHAT ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE?!”

What about it?

A client who costs your business money isn’t a customer; they’re a financial liability.

That client who turns up at least 15 minutes late, requires at least three smoke breaks, and who no-shows every other appointment? Boot them, along with that client who insists she shouldn’t have to pay more for your manicures than she did in 1992 because she’s been “so loyal.”

Many in our line of work confuse acceptance of abuse for “good customer service.” Instead of doing what’s best for themselves, their employees, or their salon overall, they allow a loud minority of impossible-to-please clients to bleed their business dry…and thank them for their “support.”

Ask yourself: Are those clients really supporting your business if you’re the one paying for the services they enjoy?

Keyboard warriors, please spare me the noble rantings about how you’re “passionate” about your “calling.” Unless you’re independently wealthy or your salon has been registered as a 501(c), I’m pretty sure we can both agree that profit matters. With that in mind, eliminate anything that doesn’t help accomplish that goal. If you didn’t balk at cutting your expenses, you should have no problem enforcing your policies and price increases with unprofitable customers and dismissing those who fail to respect your business.

Increase Average Ticket Value. I know, it sounds like a no-brainer. “If you want to widen your profit margin, make more money! Duh!” Don’t worry, I come bearing implementable solutions.

• Cross-sell compatible services and products in affordable bundles. Every salon owner does this, but few know how to do it correctly. When bundling, choose low-cost products/services with a high price/value equation. (For instance, a brow wax and eye treatment with a full set of lashes.) Successful service bundles are those that trick our brains into thinking we’d be wasting money if we didn’t take advantage of it, so ideally, the difference in price will be slight enough to justify purchasing it instead of the lower-priced alternative.
• Consider membership pricing. If you had told me two years ago that I would be recommending membership systems, I’d have pushed you out of a window, but times have changed. I’ve researched these systems as they’ve risen in popularity in all kinds of salon businesses, from nail salons to lash studios. I’ve watched how they’ve performed in the salons of my consulting clients and here’s what I’ve learned: Membership programs are fantastic when they’re structured properly and definitely do increase sales through repeat visits.
• Train employees to upsell. Again, this seems obvious, but in the bustle of our everyday routine it can be easy to forget the basics. Professionals must be trained to make appropriate product and service suggestions by informing and educating their clients. Don’t assume clients will ask what’s new at your business. Don’t assume employees will instinctively know how to best explain services and products in ways that won’t intimidate an average consumer. Start holding short sales demonstration training sessions so every professional knows how to properly explain each technique, tool, and product they’re using, and how to teach their clients how to care for themselves between appointments.

Professionals don’t have to pitch to clients to sell things to them. Train them to educate and inform their paying customers, and sales will follow.

Last Ditch Efforts

If you’ve done your analysis and taken the above steps but still aren’t closing that gap, it’s time to consider broad, significant changes. More likely than not, your analysis can point out what needs to change. For instance, maybe your target market doesn’t exist, or your brand isn’t resonating with them. The solution could be as simple as repositioning yourself and rebranding. The following solutions are not simple and are only considered when every other option has been exhausted.

Increase prices. Clients hate it, but when there’s nothing left to cut, it means your prices must be raised. (If you haven’t taken on any recent, significant expenses, odds are good they were too low to begin with.) If you want to automate the process, The Salon Pricing and Compensation Megakit will do the work for you. Plug in your numbers and it’ll calculate everything.

When you increase prices, try not to be alarmed when you lose a portion of your clientele.

Consider this a renewal. Some clients will not have room in their budgets for your services after you increase prices, but new clients should quickly replace them if the experience and outcome justify the new cost so long as you’re continuing to invest in effective advertising.

What do you do if those new clients never come?

Revisit compensation. If you’re paying more than 40% of your gross sales out in payroll, you need to reevaluate your compensation plan and the size of your team. In some situations, roles can be combined, allowing you to eliminate unnecessary positions. In others, the entire compensation system has to be restructured, resulting in pay cuts for everyone. Most of the time, salon owners in financial distress have to do both.

Scale down. Either the market has spoken or you took on more than you could chew—whatever the reason, the only remaining solution is to scale down until your performance justifies scaling back up. After all, you’ve already cut your overhead as much as possible. The only thing left to cut is rent. Find a more affordable location.

As I write this, we are beginning our steep descent into the scariest parts of the 2020 pandemic. In the face of extreme economic uncertainty, many salons will be forced to permanently close through absolutely no fault of their owners. If you were not in a strong financial position before the pandemic, it’s possible that no amount of cost-cutting or increased efficiency will save your business right now. I hate being the person to say it (especially since I stand to make a ton of money and earn a bunch of praise by proclaiming the opposite), but our industry suffers more than others during economic downturns and will suffer even more due to the cause of this one.

On the plus side, salons that were strong to begin with stand to do even better if they can hold everything together for the next few years. Weak competitors will close and displaced clients who still want to enjoy services will continue to seek them out. If you want to take a shot at becoming the big fish in your local pond, you couldn’t pick a better (or riskier) time.

It may not feel like it today, but there will be an “after” for our industry, just as there will be an “after” for chiropractors, acupuncturists, dentists, and the hundreds of thousands of professionals whose work requires them to be in close proximity to their customers.

Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing when that “after” will be. Everyone will make their own decisions. Some will be far better positioned to survive this than others, but all should ask themselves to evaluate two possible versions of their future—one where the economy “bounces back” and one where it doesn’t—and ask themselves what they’re willing to risk, how many sacrifices they’re willing to make, and if they’re prepared to handle the potential strain of that financial burden indefinitely.

If you want an efficient, stress-free tax season, you need a system that streamlines your recordkeeping throughout the year.

Salon professionals need to stay ahead of the game when it comes to handling their taxes. Here’s how to make it happen. 

1. Use Bookkeeping Software That Syncs With a Mobile App

If you aren’t using bookkeeping software, what decade are you living in? Don’t get me wrong, I’m the kind of person who carries a physical planner and must hand-write things if I hope to remember them, but I refuse to go back to the days of keeping a manual ledger.

As careful as we are, we’re not perfect.

Working in our industry often involves a lot of cash changing hands, which doesn’t always have a paper trail. Around this time of year, I spend a lot of billable hours helping build that trail for salon owners and renters who stuff cash in their pockets throughout the day and fail to record their transactions. Every point-of-sale app facilitates cash tracking and nearly every single platform comes with mobile app synchronization, making recording sales of all types as easy as opening the app and tapping a few buttons.

If you’re not interested in an actual point-of-sale software, you can create a document on your phone and track transactions there throughout the day. I recommend saving this document to the cloud (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox—take your pick) so it saves automatically and is accessible from multiple devices.

No matter which method you choose, your transactions will sync with the cloud. You can classify it as a business transaction, and with a log kept every day, your taxes will be easy once it is time to file. 

2. Make Expense Tracking Part of Your Purchase Process

I’m not willing to stoop so low as to include gifs in my posts, but I’ll link them. This is me, talking to you right now. This is you, next tax season and every season that follows.

If you have time for Instagram, you have time to snap your damn receipts.

Create a folder on your preferred cloud-based storage system and call it “[YEAR] Receipts.” Whenever you spend money on a business expense, snap your receipt and save the picture to that folder.

While the cashier does their thing, I’m waiting with my phone, card, and receipt envelope in hand. I grab a quick pic of the receipt and toss it into the envelope. (I prefer to buy this pack of 12 and use one each month.) When I purchase something online, I immediately print, snap, and store the purchase order.

At the end of the month, print out your business bank statement and fold it like a letter. Slip the receipts inside. Write the total revenue on the left side of the folded statement and total expenses on the right side. Put that statement/receipt bundle into your receipt envelope and toss that envelope into the battered shoe box you’ve been using to store your collection of crumpled, faded receipts up until this point.

Every time you fail to deduct a business expense, you’re losing money. Stop that.

The better you keep track of everything that you spend, the better prepared you will be to handle the tax write-offs for your business. 

3. Pay Your Estimated Taxes on Time and in Full

If you’re self-employed, pay your estimated taxes each quarter to avoid potential fees, penalties, and big tax bills.

Self-employment income isn’t subject to withholding. What does this mean? If you don’t withhold and remit taxes quarterly (breaking your annual tax due into a quarterly payment), you’ll likely end up with a really large annual tax bill come April.

You must pay at least 90% of your estimated annual taxes to avoid penalties and fees.

Sign up to use the EFTPS (Electronic Federal Tax Payment System) through the IRS. Paying quarterly is quick, easy, and free. Payments can be made immediately. If you like getting money back from the IRS or hate the idea of a large tax bill more than you hate the fact that the government will be earning interest from your overpayments, contribute more than you anticipate owing.

You can download The Salon Professional’s Guide to Quarterly Tax Payments here.

4. Encourage Digital Payments

Apps allow people to use credit and debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, and other services. Give your customers as many ways to pay digitally as possible. These services link payments to your bank account, giving you cleaner transaction records.

businesses that don’t accept digital payment options will fall behind.

Just as cards replaced checks and cash, digital payment options are quickly rising in popularity, replacing cards. In the next ten years, people will increasingly use smart devices (phones, watches, etc.) to process transactions. This is a trend, not a fad. Get ahead of it.

Contrary to popular belief, business owners actually aren’t required by law to accept cash. If you want to fully automate your transaction tracking process, you can get real radical and stop accepting it altogether.

I quit taking cash years ago for a variety of reasons. Primarily, I consider the possession of cash a liability, and I really didn’t like the tedious process of tracking cash transactions.

5. Choose an Entrepreneur-Friendly Bank

Be selective about the banks you do business with and don’t be afraid to switch when a better opportunity presents itself. Every bank offers special programs and incentives to lure business owners. Take advantage of them.

If you don’t have one already, immediately open a business checking account.

I can’t express this clearly enough—nothing annoys me more than having to go line-by-line through a client’s monthly personal bank account statements to determine which transactions are business-related and which aren’t. I’m willing to bet you don’t want to endure that torture so do yourself (and/or your accountant) the massive favor of separating your business finances from your personal. This, combined with the envelope/snap system, will turn your tax filing into an hour-long data entry task instead of a nightmarish week-long hellscape.

6. Keep Informed of IRS Changes

The IRS makes changes to the law each year. Some will be inconsequential, while others will directly affect the type of business you do. The IRS has social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook, but they also have an email newsletter. The newsletter is written for tax professionals, but anyone can sign up and receive updates.

7. Rectify IRS Issues ASAP

Often, consulting clients tell me they’re scared to file taxes because they’ve failed to file for so many years and/or have a lot of unclaimed income. As much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, filing your taxes isn’t optional and constitutes a big part of your responsibilities as both a citizen and business owner.

Each year you delay resolving outstanding IRS issues, the worse the consequences will get.

All is not lost if you run into tax trouble. Late filing penalties and payments aren’t ideal, but they are not the end of the world. The IRS works directly with taxpayers to create realistic payment plans.

If you’re hiding from the IRS, contact an Enrolled Agent to advocate on your behalf. They’ll represent you in your dealings with the IRS to help you get the best outcome.

8. Hire a Tax Pro to Assist You

If you’ve read this entire post and have determined that you aren’t a “tax person” or an “accounting person,” find someone who is.

People who struggle to keep records and stay organized should seek help from a tax professional immediately.

In addition to keeping your records in order, tax professionals can help you put together a tax strategy to minimize your tax responsibility and maximize your deductions. Let them handle the heavy lifting. 

Whether you are a hairdresser, nail technician, massage therapist, or another sort of beauty professional, putting in a little bit of effort every day will result in a quick, simplified filing process. Stop putting off for (a long, miserable) April what can be done easily today.

Your financial management system should be simple.

You are not a child. You don’t need 15 different bank accounts, labeled cash envelopes, complicated formulas, or a device that delivers electric shocks every time you reach for your wallet.

You need exactly two bank accounts: business and personal. Your personal account belongs to you. The salon account does not. Why?

The salon’s money isn’t your money.

Don’t think of the salon account as your personal piggy bank. You’re putting your revenue into a separate account for good reason. That money belongs to the business that employs you. Just because you own the shop doesn’t mean you personally own its revenue. Tattoo that into the folds of your gray matter: The salon’s money isn’t your money.

A well-functioning system is an efficient, straightforward one that requires very little upkeep.

Establish a minimum balance.

Your “minimum” balance will vary depending on the scale of your business and your expenses. For microsalon owners, I recommend having a minimum of $5,000 dollars in your business banking account at all times. Depending on the size of your operation, rental and employment-based salon owners may want to maintain a minimum balance of at least $10,000. Building this balance takes time, but once you’ve established it, you should never dip below that minimum unless an emergency situation warrants doing so.

Your minimum balance should be considered your emergency fund. That balance will be your defense against debt, downturn, and short-term financial crisis.

Plan ahead.

If you have plans to expand in the future, start saving now by increasing your minimum balance in accordance with your timeline. Even if you don’t have grand, long-term plans, I still recommend increasing your balance over time—especially if you want to be in business for a long while.

You may not have plans to expand or renovate soon, but in ten years (when your furniture and floors are dated, beaten to hell, and in desperate need of replacement) you’ll be grateful to have the money to cover it.

Calculate a reasonable salary.

Nobody likes hearing this, but salons are high-overhead businesses with slim profit margins. Those are the facts for all but those lucky few who own their buildings (or slipped into uncommonly sweet leases) and can charge the prices necessary to support their operational costs. When you decided to become a salon owner, presumably you accepted the realities of what that means for you and your lifestyle.

Am I saying it’s impossible to live comfortably? Absolutely not.
Will you be living the glamorous, jet-setting life of a billionaire? It’s highly unlikely.

While plenty of dubiously qualified “financial gurus” preach this “pay yourself first” bullshit, salon owners who live and operate in the real world know that you only get paid once you’ve paid the salon’s bills, otherwise you won’t have a salon for long.

The most successful salon owners I’ve consulted with are those who put the salon and its employees before themselves.

Prioritize your work lifestyle over your personal lifestyle. Instead of paying yourself and trying to operate the salon with the leftovers, do the opposite. Salon ownership can be intensely stressful, not just because of the personalities we work with but the financial pressure. You’re trying to create a profitable operation that will provide you with a sustainable income for the long-term, right? You’re spending every day of your life working towards that end. For the love of god, make it easy on yourself by establishing a solid business account balance—even if that means driving that busted ass Toyota another year or two or renewing the lease on your modest apartment.

…but don’t feel hopeless or like you need to sacrifice endlessly. You may never own a Farrari but you won’t be dining on Ramen until you retire either. A little later in this article, I’ll share the personal finance tips that have made me debt-free and provided a really comfortable lifestyle but I’m going to warn you right now—it requires hard work, sacrifice, and discipline. The process sucks.

There is no rosy shortcut to financial stability, no matter what the gurus say. (If there were, I’d have found it and we would ALL be loaded.)

If you’re breaking even, make changes ASAP.

Running in place will get you nowhere, but what do you do if you’re barely scraping by—to the point that budget cuts are literally impossible?

I was there once too—during the recession.

I worked 80+ hours per week.
I kept my A/C off (in Florida) to save on electricity.
I lived in a 500 square-foot, one-bedroom apartment, sleeping on the couch in the living room so my daughter could have her own bedroom.
I traded my ‘04 Civic in for an ’88 Buick LeSabre to eliminate the payments and lower my insurance.
I bought my groceries on sale and hardly ate to save money.
I went without internet and cable.
My cell phone (if you could even call it that) was a Nokia brick fueled by a $20 prepaid card that I only used in emergencies.

Even still, every month was a challenge to break even. There wasn’t one thing I could cut from my monthly expenditures to move forward but running in place wasn’t an option.

What pulled me out was the understanding that nothing short of drastic action would improve things. So, I aggressively searched for a new job in an area that could pay beyond what the salons in my sleepy, seasonal hometown could afford. I decided that any move that wasn’t a step forward wasn’t worth my time. When I finally found the position I desperately needed, I commuted 40 minutes to and from work each day and continued sweating, starving, and coveting my prepaid minutes until I could afford to move closer.

Poverty made me aggressive, professionally. It made me realize nobody else was going to look out for my best interests. Nobody was going to fight for me. So, I cross-checked my pay stubs to ensure I was receiving every penny of my wages. I kept my resume online and kept my options open. I worked hard, ensuring my boss knew I was worth my salary and far too valuable to replace with a cheaper candidate.

For me, these things worked. While you may have your back up against a wall and may not have the ability to pull yourself through a breakeven situation at this very second, I urge you to keep your eyes open for opportunities, and don’t be scared to fight for yourself. Don’t accept lowball offers. Don’t sacrifice for anyone else’s benefit. Don’t be timid when you ask for a raise. Don’t allow an employer to take advantage of you.

Any step forward, no matter how small, is a step in the right direction.

Develop a strong hatred of debt and eliminate it.

Can you afford to light money on fire? Probably not, but even if you can, why would you? I’m going to need you to get a little high and mighty right now.

You are too smart to be burning money on interest.

When you’re paying interest, that’s exactly what you’re doing—lighting money on fire. Every penny spent on interest keeps you further from your goal of being truly free. Take a machete to those binds and pay off your debts as fast as possible so you can start putting that money where it belongs: in your pockets.

The method you use to eliminate debt will come down to personal preference.

Choose one:

• The traditional method, debt stacking, requires you to make list your debts by interest rate in descending order. You hit them from highest to lowest—making large payments on the cards with the highest rate and paying the minimums on the lowest rates. You repeat this process until you clear the list. Debt stacking saves you the most money in interest, but since some of your cards with higher balances might take a while to pay off, you’ll have to wait for that feeling of gratification that comes with crossing debt off your list.
• The debt snowball method requires you to list your debts in ascending order by balance—not interest rate—making large payments on the cards with the lowest balance and paying minimums on the others. Again, repeat the process until you clear the list. This method reverses the pros and cons found in the debt stacking method; the interest costs more, but the psychological payoff is higher.

If you hate interest as much as I do, then the debt stacking method will appeal to you. However, if you need the morale boost that comes with crossing a debt off your list for good to keep you motivated to clear them, go with the debt snowball method. You could even switch up your strategy when you grow bored with one or the other—so long as you’re paying off your debts, the approach doesn’t matter.

Whatever strategy you choose will be the right one if the end goal—a life free of debt—gets achieved.

For me, debt stacking worked best. I couldn’t stand seeing how much of my loan and credit payments were getting burned on interest, so I paid them all off as fast as possible, diverted the money I had been spending on payments into my savings account until I had a five-figure balance and became a “payment-in-full” kind of bitch.

Paying for things with your own money introduces a new level of spending discipline. Trust me, you’ll think twice about how “critical” those new lighting fixtures are and how acceptable the cost is when the full amount comes directly from your account immediately rather than being paid off over the course of several months or years.

Creditors profit by manipulating us with low monthly payments. $180 a month for three years sounds a lot more appealing than $5,000 right now, but most consumers aren’t seeing what that $5,000 balloons into once fees and interest are applied over that three-year period.

If we assume an 19.2% interest rate (average for most credit card companies) and no fees, that $5,000 debt turns into $6,500.

…and that’s only if you never miss a payment.

I recommend using an interest calculator before making major purchases on credit. Would you be willing to pay the inflated price on the item just to have it right now, or can you wait until you can afford to buy it outright?

Keep focused.

Train yourself to see that light at the end of the tunnel, because you will reach it much faster if you exercise financial discipline. What does the end of that tunnel look like?

Once you secure your minimum balance—assuming you have no plans for growth—anything above the minimum balance can be reinvested into the business or become part of your salary.

Do you have any idea—ANY FREAKING IDEA—how awesome the end of that tunnel looks? I do, and so do many of my consulting clients. Staying disciplined can be hard, so if you need help from a friend or professional, ask for it.

Set calendar reminders to reconcile your accounts every week.

I recommend creating an immovable appointment with your bank account every week. I do my accounting every Thursday morning and I follow the same process every time. Your process will likely look different than mine, but here’s what I do, so you can see an example:

Step 1: Transfer Paypal funds to business checking.
Step 2: Pay business bills (if any).
Step 3: Verify account transactions line by line.
Step 4: Transfer salary to personal checking.

How much do I transfer to myself? Typically, $1,500 a week. Sometimes I’ll transfer more but I rarely feel the need to because I’d rather be debt-free and have financial freedom than a difficult to manage “luxe” lifestyle and the stress that accompanies it.

Learn to love the possibilities.

Can I afford a luxury car? Yep. Instead, our family has exactly one vehicle—a 2014 Honda Odyssey (that we paid off a few years ago).

Can I afford a housekeeper, a nanny, and a personal assistant? Totally, but our family can handle all of those things ourselves.

Can I afford a boat, an RV, a motorcycle, and a pair of jet skis? You bet, but I’d rather have a 5-figure balance, thanks.

Knowing you can afford things can feel better than actually owning those things.

Reject flex culture—and if you can’t, redefine it. When you have money in your account, you have endless possibilities. You have endless freedom. You might not be a Mercedes driving HBIC who spends the weekends yachting up and down the coast—but you fucking could be, and that’s enough.

VIP Members now have access to exclusive and free VIP Downloads. If you want to put my system to work for you, download the Financial Freedom System and run your numbers!

It will never be a true friendship. Friends are typically equals, right? That won’t be the case in a workplace when one of those friends holds a position of power. You have the authority to make decisions that affect the livelihood of your employees and their experience at work. Because of that fact, you can never be certain if your so-called “friendship” is genuine or a manifestation of your “friend’s” desire not to be penalized, or part of their strategy to advance in the salon.

You might make them uncomfortable. Some professionals don’t want to be friends with the boss. They understand how complicated that relationship could get and how that could negatively affect their future at the salon. Don’t put an employee in a position where they feel pressured to play along.

The sharing of personal information and gossip is tremendously inappropriate—and it will happen. Friends vent about work, especially when they work together. They also talk about their personal lives. Anything you say to your employee/friend may be used against you in the future.

Even if you somehow manage not to talk about your personal life or work, the existence of the friendship gives the employee/friend a degree of credibility they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Anything your “friend” says about you will likely be taken pretty seriously, whether or not it’s true.

They may lose respect for you as an authority. A person’s behaviors change when they become friends with another. This may result in situations where your “friend/employee” rolls their eyes, groans, or snaps at you when you instruct them to do something. Other employees will see this behavior and emulate it themselves.

You may be accused of (or pressured to show) favoritism. Your “friends” may expect special treatment, but whether they do or not, the existence of your workplace “friendships” alone will become a lens through which employees evaluate your management of the salon. Employees will question their performance reviews, promotions, demotions, and terminations—among other things.

Your friendship with your employee (or employees) gives your team the ability to question your impartiality and therefore the validity of your decisions.

Some may feel excluded or may consider you disingenuous. You aren’t going to hit it off with everyone you work with. Should you not pursue friendships with every employee, you’ll leave some professionals feeling dejected and possibly resentful. If you do pursue friendships with every employee (including those you normally wouldn’t be friends with), those employees may see it for exactly what it is—an insincere gesture.

It overcomplicates everything. For some managers, disciplining or terminating an employee can be awkward and difficult. When that employee has become a personal friend, it can be agonizing. Why would you introduce even more stress to your job?

Your responsibilities are too important to compromise with childishness. There’s no nice way to say this, but even if there were, I’m of the opinion that lessons like this aren’t effective unless they’re delivered like a kick to the sternum. If you’re so desperate to be liked that you’re willing to risk losing respect and credibility, and possibly becoming completely ineffective in your position, then you’re not cut out for management.

Understand your role in the salon. You are there to work. You are not there to make friends with your subordinates any more than the employees are there to make friends with their clients.

Personal friendships with employees are inappropriate—period.

Employees may try to pursue a personal friendship with you at some point. Sometimes, these relationships develop naturally, but the possibility exists that the employee will be motivated to “befriend” you for professional gain. Err on the side of caution and assume that is always the case.

How can I keep my employees from pursuing a friendship with me?

To keep employees from crossing any lines:

Never discuss your personal life. While you should try to get to know your employees so you can manage them better, there’s absolutely no practical reason for your employees to know anything personal about you.

Never engage in or allow controversial discussions (on religion, politics, sex, etc.). It can be easy to believe that others share our opinions, but often, we live in self-constructed bubbles by curating our news sources and social groups, creating echo chambers that aren’t representative of the real world, where opinions and lifestyles vary wildly.

Assume that any opinion you share will offend half of the people who hear it. Then, stay on the safe side by keeping those opinions to yourself.

Never participate in social events with employees outside of work (excluding work events the salon organizes). There may be instances where your employees want to grab drinks after work or hit the club to celebrate a coworker’s birthday. Decline those invites. Social events, especially those where alcohol will be consumed, create the potential for serious lapses in judgement and boundary-crossing.

Never give or accept gifts or favors (obviously, performance bonuses and discretionary rewards you may distribute for job performance do not count). Look—I’m a mom. I’ve been a mom from the time I was twenty-two years old. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve been tempted to accept an offer of help from an employee? I would have killed for a night out. However, as the employer, you never want to put yourself in a position where you owe an employee anything. Remember, there’s a power dynamic at play here. Don’t complicate things.

Never allow inappropriately familiar social interactions (i.e. hugging). Some employees are natural huggers and cuddlers, but you should maintain personal space—even if it means having a discussion with that employee. Not a single “touchy” employee I worked with has ever had negative intentions or sinister motivations for putting their arm around my shoulders or pulling me into an embrace on a rough day, but that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable behavior.

Should any employees continue to pursue a friendship with you, speak to them privately about their behaviors. Be straightforward about where your boundaries are.

Your employees need a leader; not a friend. Strive to foster an honest, respectful, and trusting relationship with them. You don’t have to create an inappropriate relationship with your professionals to be liked—simply give them the guidance and support they need. Care about their job satisfaction and show them that their contributions are valued.

Not everyone will like you. We learn this as young children. We also hear that we should “kill them with kindness,” but it’s best to promptly reject that lesson the second you consider a career in any kind of management. Certainly, you can be courteous and kind, but as a leader you’re required to be fair—not to bend over backwards to earn the approval of others.

You will rarely be capable of pleasing everyone and you’ll never be capable of pleasing someone who is determined to be miserable, no matter how hard you try to be their friend. At some point, a toxic employee will bypass your new hire screening safeguards, fool your gut, and will make you question your ability to judge a person’s character. (Fun fact: An estimated 10% of the population are sociopaths.)

Some managers and salon owners go into “panic mode,” doing whatever they can to earn the employee’s favor again. Some will allow those toxic employees to influence their decisions.

Don’t go down that road.

Your decisions should always be made with two things in mind: what’s best for the business, and what’s fair to your employees. Not all of your decisions will be popular ones. Don’t complicate your life and undermine yourself by adding avoidable difficulties.

Have you ever crossed the line with your employees before? How did it go? Tell us in the comments!

When you’re fully booked, an absence can throw your entire operation out of whack. This article will help you prepare and provide you with helpful templates and scripts, so you can slide through any expected or unexpected absence (whether short-term or long-term) unscathed.

Salon owners, we’ll address your solutions first.

Salon Owners

Understand the Law

You knew we were going to have to go here first, right? Understanding the law gives you a clear idea of how much time off a professional is entitled to and for what reasons.

Employees have certain rights when it comes to taking extended leave. (If you read Salon Ownership and Management, you can probably skip this part. If you haven’t, read on.)

The Family Medical Leave Act has different coverage criteria. As a private-sector employer who owns a salon business, the FMLA will only apply to you if you have 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year. Employees are only eligible when they work for a covered employer for at least twelve months (accumulating at least 1,250 hours of service for that employer during that period) and at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles. The twelve months of service do not have to be consecutive.

Employees of covered employers may be eligible for up to twelve workweeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period for one of more of the following reasons:

• The birth of a child or placement of an adopted or foster child;
• To care for a spouse or immediate family member who has a serious health condition;
• To recover from a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job; or
• For any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that a spouse or immediate family member is a military member on covered active duty or call to covered active duty status.

Employees must request leave following their employer’s usual and customary requirements for requesting leave and must provide enough information for their employer to determine whether the FMLA may apply to the leave request.

Renters do not have any basis to claim leave under the FMLA. They’re self-employed tenants and must abide the terms of their lease agreement. It’s up to the landlord whether to allow them to suspend their lease without consequence or to hold them to it.

Cross-Train and Empower Your Employees

The first salon I worked in required every licensed cosmetologist to be cross-trained and to routinely rotate between departments. This strategy ensured every professional could competently perform every service on our menu. When two employees left on the same day to open their own salon, this approach paid off immensely (for obvious reasons).

Get your employees accustomed to playing more than one role.

Qualified professionals should be trained to perform every service their license empowers them to perform. This allows people to step in and pick up the pieces whenever one of your employees quits or must be absent.

Additionally, cross-training can help prevent extended absences from happening in the first place. For instance, a stylist with a sprained ankle or lower back injury that makes it painful to stand can still perform sit-down services like facials or manicures.

Cross-Train Yourself

One of the first things I tell aspiring salon owners to do is to obtain their professional license. Not only does this ensure they’ll be qualified to provide hands-on training and properly evaluate the technical performance of their employees, it guarantees at least one extra set of professional hands if the salon requires them.

You owe it to your business to have a professional license.

A salon owner without a license will find themselves dependent on their professionals, creating a situation where their employees have the leverage to essentially hold the owner hostage. More than that, an owner who lacks a license will be utterly powerless to handle an unexpected employee absence or mutiny. With a license, handling a last-minute employee illness will be as simple as taking over that employee’s appointments until they recover. No biggie.

Get Meticulous About Your Scheduling

You don’t have to be a psychic to see the future—or plan for potential outcomes before they come to pass.

You likely know when your busy periods are, and if you don’t then I’ll be happy to provide some insight. There are no hard and fast rules, but generally, you can expect a spike in walk-ins and bookings during the following times:

• The two weeks before major holidays,
• Late-April through May, and
• Whenever it is least convenient.

You can count on employee absences and departures during the following times:

• Fall/Winter (Flu Season),
• November-January (“F*#k this job” season),
• June-August (“My kid is out of school and you don’t pay me enough to cover outrageously expensive daycare costs” season).

It’s always better to be under-staffed than over-staffed, but ideally, you’ll have an employee whose book contains a bit of breathing room and a part-timer or two whose schedule can be expanded when circumstances necessitate it.

Solo Professionals

I’m not going to candy coat this for you, microsalon owners: you guys have it really rough when it comes to absences. Preparing in advance would benefit you tremendously, so let’s talk about how you can do that, starting today.

Utilize the Buddy System

If you don’t have any trusted friends in the industry in your local area, make some immediately. Ideally, your “buddy” will be someone who works in the same facility you do, but if you have to choose between a person whose skills are on-par with yours and someone who’s convenient, you’re better off going with the skilled professional.

You and your buddy (or buddies) will agree to accommodating each other’s clients when necessary.

Everyone involved should understand the risk inherent with this system. Remember, clients have the right to choose their professional. Every time your client sits in another professional’s chair, you run the risk of losing that client. However, your buddies should be trustworthy professionals who aren’t likely to actively poach your clients from you. Should your client choose to stay with them, you should feel confident that the client made that decision on their own, not due to your buddy’s powers of persuasion.

You can learn more about how the buddy system works by reading this post.

Have a Backup Assistant on Standby

Whether your absence is foreseen or unforeseen, you should have an assistant on standby to help efficiently handle the inevitable client overflow. You’ll need those extra hands when you’re working 12-hour days for a week straight (before the foreseen absence and after the unforeseen absence) to make up for missed appointments.

Be Ready for BS

I don’t know about you, but when I was on my own, some of my clients would catch an attitude when I had the nerve to take off work. It didn’t matter if I was taking a much-needed vacation or recovering from the birth of one of my children—I could count on whining, begging, bargaining, and a handful of guilt trips.

You are allowed to take care of you.

Some of these clients do these things to express their fondness of you without realizing how anxiety-inducing it can be for those of us who work in the service industry. Don’t feel obligated to accommodate the client who “simply must” get in while you’re out.

Your clients come first when you’re willing and capable of working. when you’re neither of those things, you come first.

Don’t allow clients to make you feel indentured to them. You’re a professional and a solo business owner; you are not their servant.

The following scripts should keep pushy client behaviors to a minimum, but if they start pushing you too hard, don’t be afraid to draw a hard line. Plan out how you’ll respond in advance. You don’t have an employer to step in on your behalf, so you must establish and enforce your own boundaries. The last thing you need to be worried about when you’re recovering (or chilling on a beach in Mexico) is Becky’s meltdown over her weekly blowout.

Scripts & Templates

These notifications can be used over the phone, in person, or via email or social media, whether you’re a salon owner, employee, or microsalon owner.

Foreseen Extended Absence

I will be on leave from [DATE] until [DATE]. In the interim, I recommend booking your appointments with [NAME]. While every professional here has the qualifications and training to perform exceptional services, [NAME] has specialized in [SERVICE/TECHNIQUE] for [X] years. I’ll introduce you before you leave today, if you’d like.

Foreseen Temporary Absence

For the next [X] days/weeks, I will be away. We’ll schedule your next appointment right before I depart. If that’s not possible or if you need to come in while I’m gone, I recommend booking your appointments with [NAME]. While every professional here has the qualifications and training to perform exceptional services, [NAME] has specialized in [SERVICE/TECHNIQUE] for [X] years. I’ll introduce you before you leave today, if you’d like.

Unforeseen Extended Absence

Use this script when calling clients to inform them of an unforeseen extended absence. Typically, the salon owner would be making these calls. If you’re a microsalon owner, however, you may want to entrust a friend or family member with the task.

Unfortunately, [NAME/I] will be absent from work for the next few [WEEKS/MONTHS] [and your appointment will need to be rescheduled]. Please consider booking your appointment with [PROFESSIONAL]. [Provide contact info.] [NAME/I] will keep you updated and informed [VIA EMAIL/TEXT/SOCIAL] so you’re among the first to know when [NAME/I] will be available again.

Unforeseen Temporary Absence

Unfortunately, [NAME/I] will be absent from work from [DATE] to [DATE] [and your appointment will need to be rescheduled]. We can schedule your next visit for [DATE], but if that’s too far out, I recommend booking your appointment with [PROFESSIONAL] [Provide contact info.]

Should I disclose the reason for an absence?

Employers should never disclose the reason for an employee absence unless the employee grants permission, especially if that absence is due to a sensitive personal or medical issue. It’s one thing to give the client a vague reason—it’s another to tell them the intimate details of an employee life.

Use your judgment.

“She’s out sick today.” = Okay.
“She’s been struggling with depression since her cheating husband left her.” = NOT okay.

Microsalon owners should determine for themselves whether it’s appropriate or wise to disclose the reason for an absence. When in doubt, remember that you’re much better off keeping your personal life  personal.

As industry professionals, it’s important to remember what clients are actually owed.

Clients are not owed a detailed explanation for an absence, nor are they owed access to our personal lives. They are owed timely notice and gracious accommodation. They are also owed a clear understanding of what it means to be a customer of an in-demand, fully-booked professional whose schedule doesn’t contain much (if any) flexibility. They’ll need to be told that missed appointments are incredibly difficult–if not impossible–to make up. This can result in situations where the client may end up waiting weeks or months to be seen again if they’re unwilling to accept service from another professional.

Do your best to provide those things the clients are actually owed, and don’t feel obligated to sacrifice more of yourself than is necessary or appropriate. We are human people with needs and lives outside of the salon. Anyone who doesn’t understand that or can’t respect it isn’t worth losing sleep over.