Most salon managers or owners struggle with time management. It doesn’t matter how many hours there are in a day, we somehow never seem to have enough. Although your business card may say “Owner” or “Manager,” it’s most likely because there is not enough space to include shift-filler, accountant, in-house therapist, customer complaint department, employee conflict mediator, etc. In fact, with so many things pulling you in 50 different directions, you probably end up cramming a day’s worth of work into half a day’s time because of other things that just “pop up.”[gap height=”15″]
The main difference between being an effective manager and a frantic one is simple – time management. “The problem is that managers are frequently subject to the whims of forces outside their control,” says the author of You Can Compete: Double Sales Without Discounting (an awesome read!) “So, you’re either passive and a victim of all these demands on you, or you are proactive and the master of your day, and there’s a huge difference in the way you feel stress between those two. If you come into the store and all you know is how stretched you are and that there’s no time, well, guess what? You will be stretched and have no time. But if you can say, ‘I’ve got a handle on it – I know what’s most important to accomplish today,’ that’s going to make a huge difference.”[gap height=”15″][gap height=”15″]
The main difference between an effective manager and a frantic one is simple – time management.
[gap height=”15″][gap height=”15″]Make a list and check it twice – begin each day with a list of personal and professional tasks that need completion. If you build your day around those, you won’t be so subject to getting sidetracked by outside forces.[gap height=”15″][gap height=”15″]
Goal-setting
Setting your sales goal is a hugely important task. Check your salon’s schedule, and give everyone you’re working with their sales goals, as well. In the face of all the distractions that will inevitably pop up throughout the day, this simple step will help keep you focused on your primary job: hitting your sales goal. If you don’t give your staff something to work toward – they won’t work as hard, either.[gap height=”15″][gap height=”15″]
Prioritize Training
One of the biggest wastes of a manager’s time is answering mundane staff questions, such as “how do I ring this up?” Or “where can I find ____?” If you seem to answer a lot of routine procedural questions, it’s because your staff is not adequately trained. If this is the case, add “teach staff something new” to your daily to-do list. One thing we started for our staff at Devoted Creations is a book called the “Devoted Bible.” Before asking a question, staff looks in that book to see if they can find the answer. If not, then they ask – and they add the question and correct answer to the Devoted Bible, so it can be looked up next time.[gap height=”15″][gap height=”15″]
Give Praise
Staff who feel appreciated will always go above and beyond what is expected. Set time aside weekly or monthly to do something to make your staff feel good. It can be as simple as picking them up coffee on the way to the salon just to say, “you’ve been doing a great job.” Little gestures go a long way. People always remember how you make them feel – make sure your staff feels motivated and appreciated.[gap height=”15″]
Time management is hard. But, I believe if you incorporate some of the ideas in this article into your everyday life, you will free up more time to focus on what needs to be done, rather than just handling what pops up.
