I have a salon in Benin. It's almost a year now and I still am not making any profit. Thank God though that I am breaking even but I'd like to know how i can improve my profit. Any ideas? It's a Unisex salon.

1 hire more staff den tell them that u pay on commision basis.
2 try teaching barbing or some skills
3 promotions and marketing
4 get branded
5 think of new products such as 5 haircuts get one free.

As we all know, there are only two ways to make a profit if you are merely breaking even:
1) Increase your revenue. 2) Reduce your costs.

With the limited information you've given us, it's hard to select one, but I'll have to choose option (1).

To increase your revenue, you may need more customers. To get new customers, you need to go out and promote your business to potential customers. This may not work if you have to hire new employees to cope with them.

Another approach is to raise your prices, but this will fail unless your services are far superior to others in the area.

A third and possibly smarter approach is to provide additional services to your existing customers and charge them for those additional services. I don't have any specific example, but it could be anything that your wealthier clients will appreciate. For example, you might offer to make hair for your clients at home but charge them 100% more!

Hello me think you should add new business to your salon: Snacks and drinks would bring additional income , me think you can imagine customers sitting down for hours without something to cool off. Little rent big profit. GOOD LUCK

hire guys as hairdressers, u'll get a huge crowd everyday

Maybe cater for more needs such as nail extentions, eye lash extentions, manicure, pedicure and different other things.

take pictures of styles that can be done @ ur salon ,

tryin teachin ur stylist the fusion technquice ,
advertise online and NAIRALAND

1) Contact your customers on monthly basis to remind them of scheduled appointment.

2) Provide tea/meatpie/snacks served to your customers as they get their hair done.

3) Keep your shop very clean and fresh. Make is posh looking and enjoying experience when customers come in.

Provide unrivalled, excellent customer service

Contrary to Seun's capitalist view, reduce your prices at intervals i:e promotions, student discounts, elder-citizens discounts, regular customer discounts

Re-brand your salon i:e change its name to something pleasing to hear, preferably an english name

For instance, i would prefer to say i have my hair-cut at "Classy Cuts (Barbers)" compared to EmekaUgo barbing salon

If u can, redesign your space and improve interior decorations

Good luck

walelead:


For instance, i would prefer to say i have my hair-cut at "Classy Cuts (Barbers)" compared to EmekaUgo barbing salon

i hear you on that one. brand name/image says a lot!

I agree with Walelead

Good/ excellent customer service is essential, which leads to good word-of-mouth influence about your business.
If I go to a salon where my hair gets good attention and treatment as well as having a nice hairdresser that you can have chats with. You have a loyal customer in me. In this case, your employees have an impact on keeping your customers and attracting new ones. Especially, when the customers are satisfied with their hairstyles their surroundings will always say: your hair is beautiful and ask where did you do your hair? In which they will refer to your hair salon.

Try to focus on your existing customers and try to fullfill their individual needs, which will lead to long-term relationships. For example, if you have many young customers keep them entertained with current music (videos). Keep your place tidy and friendly!

You did not give us an idea of the type of salon we are talking about. Did you establish it with 25,000naira or .5M naira? What is the human traffic around the location? What class of people did you intend to serve when you opened? You did not even tell us if you were getting customers and you simply have a pricing problem, etc etc.

All the same, let's borrow Seun's idea.
" As we all know, there are only two ways to make a profit if you are merely breaking even:
1) Increase your revenue. 2) Reduce your costs. "

there are two ways to increase your revenue.
Option A - Increase your price , Option B - Increase your sales volume.
Option A will drive the little customers that you have away since they can always go next door to get the same service. (demand for your service is highly elastic and the market is competitive)
Option B is more challengng but that is the way to go. You will need many of the suggestions that people have mentioned here already but you need to balance the cost of the additional value and the additional revenue you expect to get from it. It's easier to just pull crowd - hire male hair stylists like someone suggested, call your customers to remind them of hair appointments. You need to fix the appointment first o. But truthfully, you may need to answer some of the questions in my first paragraph for you to really move ahead.

In addition to Seun's advice,

Segregate the male section from the female section. maybe you need to just concentrate on one aspect. Ladies need some privacy when they do their hair (for their gossips etc). Same goes for guys too.

Also improve on your customer relationship. Treat each customer as you would Tyra Banks or Usher if either should walk into your shop.

You are running a service-providing venture. Customer satisfaction is key. This is one factor that lacks in most service-providing outfits in this country. And it costs dearly to win back a customer you lose, if at all possible.

in additon to
arike77' s idea:
[list]
[li]offer free "hair wash day" or "nail cleaning"( some kind of isub service but seem like a service on its own)[/li]
[li] use referral bounus e.g. bring your friend and get free wash"[/li]
[/list]
Also i agree with upgrading your brand and also your service quality.

Find ways to offer service that require them to return on shedule; like dandruff or breakage treatment

[list]
[li]Then record their telephone number at least and send them monthly "hi hope you are good?" kind of message( use bulk sender its chaeper)[/li]
[li]Be competitive and consider looking at your target market : if your clients are high profile your pricing can't be the same as the "mama onidri" next door.[/li]
[/list]



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_{offtopic: i must say that am glad to read comment like this on the forum -it shows we got some smart people out here and we can all learn too wel done all!}

charge people a lot more its a business

firstly i want to congratulate you for even having your own business. way to go!
that said, you have to realize that in the hair salon business you have to be able to evolve with the times. by that i mean that i hope you are not focusing all your energy still on washing and setting? (which by the way is so eighties!) you cant give someone's hair all that attention only to be paid peanuts. i think its a waste of time. you should be thinking of the big league not people who still set their hair. (no pun intended)

girls these days are into weaves and braids. so in order to survive hair salons have had to focus less on washing and setting and giving the girls what they want. im essence im saying turn your salon into weave- on central. get a bunch of young girls who can seriously hook up a good weave. buy lots of weave ons and start selling . in no time your salon will be the place to be. and seriously other salons near you will be washing your clients hair for N20 (hehehe  ) after which they'll run back to your salon for the real thing.

im not kidding you. you'll make crazy profit.
thats what my friend did and now her salon is known to be the best place to do your hair in the area and you have to wait hours to get to your turn. good luck.

Depending on how many costomers you get per day you can start selling cold drinks and water using cooler and ice block to reduce cost on electricity also sell biscuites, ground nuts and whatever you think customers will buy also include weaveon to the list. improve on skill in styles that dont need electricity such as braiding, Fixing etc as this will reduce running cost and inprove your profit.

hannydarl:

Depending on how many costomers you get per day you can start selling cold drinks and water using cooler and ice block to reduce cost on electricity also sell biscuites, ground nuts and whatever you think customers will buy also include weaveon to the list. improve on skill in styles that don't need electricity such as braiding, Fixing etc as this will reduce running cost and inprove your profit.

selling ice water and groundnuts ke? what kind of salon are we talking here?

@ spoilt

it might seem strange to you but here in nigeria people sell cold drinks and water bottled or otherwise to customers who need to quench thirst while waiting their turn and also people from the neighbourhood might patronise them i see no harm in it.

and thats why they make no profits. she should be focusing on trying to become a big player not a kpankara salon battling with groundnut, biscuit and pure water with ice block. what the hell!

how you potray your salon will determine the kind of people you attract!

There is no need to argue with you over this i have given her my own idea and its what i will do if i had one i see that you dont believe in innovation you are the straight jacket type sometimes big things start small i believe when she starts having more customers she can chose what more to add or remove.if you had read what i posted you will notice i made other sugestions in addition to the ones you despise so much and i noticed i gave same ideas like you and more so what is kpankara if that your friend has a fridge in her salon to sell drinks?you limit yourself my sister open your mind small things can give pocket money at times.

No arguments please. Otherwise, we shall be banned. Your respective points have been taken, thanks!

i have salon equipments for sale in PH, any interest please email me @ ndiumuowa@yahoo.co.uk

Depending on how big your salon is you can have two or three sleek computers with fast internet connections
your other girlfriend can surf the net instead of reading those old magazines

_{Guys wont be too reluctant to take their wifey to the salon then since they have something to play with (chat up other girls online who are not too bothered about frying their hair)}

LOL !!!! omg that is a good idea

Dis Guy:
_{Guys wont be too reluctant to take their wifey to the salon then since they have something to play with (chat up other girls online who are not too bothered about frying their hair)}

or get a TV suck on sport channels on all day!
lol!

Set up a stand where you sell designer fragrances and cosmetics.

Check http://www.fragrances.fm/felicia for details.

Schedule some time to do sales,

with that people will flock to ur company to make and buy their hair ingredients.

By added value and service extensions e.g adding a spa services, Body steam and saun bath, facials etc

There are portable machines that are cost effective and durable for this http://www.nairalist.com/lagos/forsale/8973/portable-full-body-steamer

Never add soft drinks and groundnut sale to your salon. it makes it look untidy. you can add cosmetics and jewelry sale

@Poster,

Add a designer cosmetics and fragrances stand in your salon. It will give your salon class and attract high class ladies.

FM fragrances and cosmetics needs distributors in Nigeria for their designer products and you stand a better chance of making good money since you are already in beauty business.

For details contact me on chynweod@yahoo.com  or 08034708929 or visit my website http://www.fragrances.fm/felicia 

All the best.

spoilt:

firstly i want to congratulate you for even having your own business. way to go!
that said, you have to realize that in the hair salon business you have to be able to evolve with the times. by that i mean that i hope you are not focusing all your energy still on washing and setting? (which by the way is so eighties!) you cant give someone's hair all that attention only to be paid peanuts. i think its a waste of time. you should be thinking of the big league not people who still set their hair. (no pun intended)

girls these days are into weaves and braids. so in order to survive hair salons have had to focus less on washing and setting and giving the girls what they want. im essence im saying turn your salon into weave- on central. get a bunch of young girls who can seriously hook up a good weave. buy lots of weave ons and start selling . in no time your salon will be the place to be. and seriously other salons near you will be washing your clients hair for N20 (hehehe ) after which they'll run back to your salon for the real thing.

im not kidding you. you'll make crazy profit.
thats what my friend did and now her salon is known to be the best place to do your hair in the area and you have to wait hours to get to your turn. good luck.

i feel you. you are damn RIGHT