Dear beauty salon and spa owners, let me ask you a question. Do you actually do your job? And I mean really - do you fulfil your daily duties… or do you go that really unnecessary extra mile and perform things you shouldn’t be doing? It’s understandable that business owners tend to go overboard with the number of responsibilities they undertake. They want to make sure everything goes smoothly and conclude that if they want something done right, they should do it themselves. Although it may be bearable in the early beginning when you are assembling the team and have only a handful of clients, every next step your business takes, it’s going to get harder and harder. Why is it so important to learn how to assign tasks and share your duties? What’s at risk when you are not doing so?
The more things you have on your plate, the less attention you can devote to each of them. It is brutal to say, but it’s true - if you spread yourself too thin, you are basically focusing on everything and nothing at the same time. What’s the problem? Firstly - the tasks you want to accomplish vary from minor ones that can wait a little longer (not to mention - could be done by someone else) to ones that really, really need your full availability and attention right now. If you continue treating them equally, you may end up completing minor tasks, but with no time left to finish the important ones… and you're irreplaceable. This is why it is so important to at least prioritise your most important duties. Secondly, directing your efforts into small things takes your involvement away from what affects your salon's effectiveness in the long term. Basically, if you are focusing on choosing the prettiest type of roses to decorate your reception area, when you should be checking financial reports, in a few months you may end up with the prettiest bankrupt salon in town.
Having so many tasks on your shoulders, you are constantly living in the present moment. You simply don’t have time to sit down and analyse reports thoroughly, adjust your strategy or plan anything new. Everything you do, you do halfway - your social media fan pages are mediocre at best, your marketing is rather dull and your advertising lacks energy. Hosting salon events or networking? You don’t even think about such things. Organising in-house education, staff meetings and integration parties? When in the world would you do that? At the end of the day, you are glad you survived another one instead of wondering how to make the next one even better.
When you are trying to be a one-man band, you are probably coming back late, waking up early, taking your work home, not taking lunch breaks (or any breaks at all), and so on. For now, you run on pure adrenaline and excitement, but soon enough you’ll start getting more and more unorganised, frustrated and tired. With such a frame of mind, even a petty inconvenience can easily tear you apart. Adding that doing everything yourself makes you feel very lonely, as you have no one to share your concerns with, you are very likely to quickly fall into crisis and even give up completely.
Do you know who else suffers when the boss keeps paddling their own canoe? The employees. They gain no experience outside of their scope of practice, as they are kept away from even the smallest management tasks. Moreover, they don’t feel trusted or valued, which over time makes them less and less motivated and prone to leaving your business altogether.
Firstly, you have to change your frame of mind. There is no way around it. If you want your business to develop, you have to deal with giving a part of your precious decision power away. If you are not okay with it, you can either step back to running a very small business, or start buying boxes to pack your things - your business won’t survive the winter. Secondly, you need to sit down and create two lists - one consisting all of your employees, and the other made up of your daily tasks. Then it’s time to take a look at your responsibilities and decide which one of them you can (and should) give away. It may be very difficult for you - but be honest with yourself. You know that it shouldn’t be up to you to fold the towels, or to waste energy on calculating product levels. And constantly babysitting your staff shouldn't be on your list of responsibilities either. Go through all of your duties and reflect on how important they really are. Lastly, it’s time to look into the second list. The less important tasks should be distributed between other staff members, depending on their experience and skills. As for the more important ones - do you have a really qualified and capable employee you can count on? Are they patient, hard-working and strong-willed? If so, you may want to ask them whether they would like to become your manager. Prepare a (realistic!) list of duties for the employee - and an appropriate wage raise as well. If the employee agrees, keep a careful eye over their performance, but try your best to show them your trust and support instead of forcing your ways onto them. Set clear guidelines but let the manager perform their new duties in peace. Now, no matter if you were able to choose a manager or not, it’s best to invest in another kind of salon assistant as well. Many tasks can be automated and handed over to beauty & hair salon software. Booksy holds customer records, delivers reports and statistics, gives tools to track employee work activity, allows you to manage appointments, communicate with clients, send reminders, control inventory, and so on. What’s best, you get all of these features without the risk of human error or data leaks. You know, what is the worst part of troubles with task delegating? You are really running out of time. The longer you stay in your masochistic comfort zone of being the Alpha and the Omega, the more difficult it will be to finally break the wheel. If you don’t start delegating tasks right now, nothing will change - and sooner or later you will be consumed by the number of responsibilities you have taken upon yourself. Don’t let it happen - give yourself the break you deserve and your employees the trust they have earned. And don't forget to get the most advanced salon software around and start growing your salon like never before!
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