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What are the average utility bills for a hair salon?

How can I make worthwhile a business that doesn't work?

  • I have a relative who own an hair salon, she is working solely for paying the bills for now 3 years, and i want to help her make a decent amount of money out of it. I brought a book called The Personal MBA and started studying it, when i learned a lot of things about business in general, i don't know yet an approach, a method, to make remunerative or take decisions about a business who already exist and is struggling. The aim is to make the hair salon enough valuable to sell it for a good price. I hope someone can give me some advices, books to read or whatever that could help solve the situation

  • Answer:

    The successful small companies I have witnessed are excellent at 2 major building blocks: 1. Strategic Planning 2. Developing a marketing plan. STRATEGIC PLANNING Consider downloading the free Biz Info Library article entitled, "Are You    Prepared to Succeed in Business" from the second vertical,  "References"   Box Net Cube in the left margin of the site linked below. Here is an extract: "The long-term success of a business is dependent on its long-term strategies. It has been said that a company can overcome inefficient use of internal resources if its basic strategy is brilliant, but not likely to get by with the wrong strategies even with excellent production and distribution capabilities. Past success formulas might not work in the future. Therefore, a company must periodically reexamine its situation as objectively as possible and determine the best course of action for the future in order to meet its goals and objectives. Many companies get stalled on a flat growth plateau. Strategic planning methods can be used to realistically develop and evaluate growth options. Management needs to address the issues that affect long term growth, and position the company for outstanding performance. In order to be effective, planning should become an integral part of the   business' culture and needs to be a continuous process." http://www.smalltofeds.com DEVELOPING A MARKETING PLAN TASTE, TRENDS AND TECHNOLOGY What   does your research indicate is the trend in your field? Will it stay   the way you are currently offering supplies and services or will it   change? This item covers the developments you expect for the next few   years. Evan a 'perfect' business can become obsolete overnight due to   future developments. Specify a 5 year forecast of your field in your   area. SALES REVENUE FORECAST Have you developed these targets?  This section shows your estimates of future sales revenue for your  business. Your strategic plan, needs to spell out the specific actions  you will take to achieve your forecast sales revenues. DIFFERENTIATE YOUR BUSINESS FROM THE COMPETITION How   does your business differ from the competition's strong and weak   points. Again, remember to carefully look at your business from the   customer's perspective. If you're not sure how your pricing policies   compare to the competition, here are some guidelines. Most people   associate high prices with high quality and extra service, while they   associate low prices with low or average quality and minimum service.   Make sure you provide extra quality and service if your prices are   higher than your competition or make sure that your prices are lower if   your quality is average and your service is minimum. DECIDE HOW TO REACH CUSTOMERS Once   you describe your target customer, it's easier to create a list of   possible ways to reach that person. One of your jobs as a  businessperson  is to decide which of all the possible methods of  communication will  give you the most exposure for the least cost in  money or time. EVALUATE THE RISKS FACING YOUR BUSINESS       COMPETITION: Most businesses have competition. How will your business   differ in significant and positive ways from your competition? If your   competition is strong, don't minimize that fact, but figure out ways  you  will adjust to or use that strength. For example, if you plan to open a  restaurant next to an extremely popular one, part of your  strategy  might be to cater to the overflow. Another might be to open on  days or  evenings when the other restaurant is closed.       PIONEERING: If you anticipate no direct competition, your business   probably involves selling a new product or service, or one that is new   to your area. How will you avoid going broke trying to develop a market?       CYCLES AND TRENDS: Many businesses have cycles of growth and decline   often based on outside factors such as taste, trends or technology.  What  is your forecast of the cycles and trends in your business? For   example, if your forecast tells you that the new electronic product you   plan to manufacture may decline in  three years when the market is  saturated, can you earn enough money in  the meantime to make the venture  worthwhile?      SLOW TIMES: Every business  experiences ups and downs. Is your business  small and simple enough, or  capitalized adequately enough, to ride out  slow times? Or do you have  some other strategy, such as staying open  long hours in the busy season  and closing during times of the year when  business is slow.     OWNERS EXPERTISE: Nobody knows everything. How do you plan to compensate for the knowledge you're short on? Write your risk analysis by first thinking of the main dangers your business   faces. This shouldn't be hard, as you have probably been concerned  about  them for some time. Some of these may be on the list set out  above; others will be unique to your business. Once you have identified  the  principal risks facing your business, write out a plan to counter each.  But don't bog yourself down worrying about all sorts of unlikely  disasters.

Ken Larson at Quora Visit the source

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She needs to market to her current customer base. I am working on making something to make this a lot easier. Don't think about business strategies. Concentrate on learning how to market to existing customers and get them to generate more business through referrals and selling them more goods and services. To begin with, have her obtain email addresses of every customer and start a loyalty program. Every 10th haircut is free, for example. Refer two paying customers and get a free cut or credit equivalent to the free cut toward your more expensive services.

Leonid S. Knyshov

Selling even a successful business is tough because the buyer has to run it successfully as well. If that is the goal, work on finding someone who is a good salon operator but doesn't yet have the resources to open his/her own salon and bring them in on space sharing basis. If the person is good, he/she can both reduce the burden on your relative, and when the time is right, can take over the business.

Stanley R. Wigglesworth

Identify why the business is struggling and fix that, then add more profit streams. I) Identify why the business is struggling and fix that. Until you do that, anything else you do will just cause more stress and problems. Most likely her business is struggling for one of the following ways (NOTE: this is not a comprehensive list):   A) No clear vision of where they want to be vs. where they are now.      1) Vision is not communicated effectively      2) Vision is not compelling enough to get people to act on it   B) Not enough sales. This breaks down to:       1) Not enough traffic       2) Not high enough conversion rate of visitors to customers          a) Message doesn't match the market          b) Traffic is not targeted properly          c) Message is confusing or untrustworthy       3) Offer is not compelling enough          a) Doesn't match what people want          b) Value doesn't exceed the price (price is both monetary and the amount of effort required to implement)          c) Prospects don't believe you can deliver in a timely fashion   C) Not enough profits on the sales she is making     1) Prices are too low     2) Costs are too high     3) Hidden or unaccounted for costs are making things unprofitable     4) Note enough repeat business for the amount of money, energy, time, and other resources spent to acquire the customer   D) Not keeping and reviewing good records. If you don't measure something how can you improve it? If your records are not accurate, how do you know what is really going on? If you don't record the right things,   E) No documented systems in place. The more you can document, systematize, and automate your businesses processes the better. You save time as you don't have to think things up on the spot, are more likely to get things done faster and with less errors, so you aren't distracted as much or having to redo things. Also your business is more valuable as it makes it more turn-key, meaning a new buyer/manager wouldn't have to have quite the same skill level you have in order to still be successful.   F) Not outsourcing what should be outsourced      1) The owner is trying to do too much themselves and not paying themselves what they are really worth (extra hidden costs), or what the task is worth. In other words, the owner should document all the tasks they are currently performing, then see how much it would cost to hire someone else to perform those tasks. Any task that the owner is doing that could be done by someone else for less robs the owner of the time they could be spending on making the business more profitable, and robs the business of the difference in wages between what the owner makes and what they could have paid someone else to get the job done.       2) Some tasks are better performed by individuals hired in-house as employees, and others are better performed by outside firms. Usually, the more that one can hire outside firms rather than employees the better as the business gets the leverage of all the resources of the outside firm as well. This can help a business grow faster with less scaling or political problems.   G) Not delivering the product/service as promised.     1) Production problems       a) Supply procurement problems       b) Manufacturing process problems (for services this is whatever you do to satisfy the customer)    2) Delivery problems       a) Not shipped to right address       b) Shipped late       c) Lost in shipment    3) Customer followup to make sure that things are satisfactory   H) People problems     1) People who are supposed to get the job done don't       a) Absenteeism       b) Incompetence       c) Insubordination     2) Work is not up to standard     3) Attitudes   2) Add more profit streams based on the intellectual property inherent in her business My book "Profit the ExpandoVision Way" which you can download for free at http://expandovision.com details a number of different ways one can easily do this. Hope this helps, and if you need more help, just ask. May all your days be profitable!

Donald Kubelka

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