Are you endlessly busy in your salon, working all hours, but still feel like you're just surviving? Many salon owners pour their heart and soul into their business only to find it dictates their life, rather than supporting it.Phil Jackson challenges you to assess if your salon business is genuinely working for you, or if you've simply created a job you happen to own. This episode delivers a crucial framework to evaluate your salon's health and start building a business that serves your lifestyle.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎯 THE 5 SIGNS OF A WORKING SALON* **You Get Paid Properly:** Beyond minimum wage or 'what's left'. A deliberate, planned salary reflecting your value and risk.* **It Functions Without You:** Your business doesn't collapse if you take a holiday or a day off. It can operate, serve clients, and make money independently.* **It Grows Predictably:** Growth isn't accidental. You have a defendable plan for turnover, marketing, pricing, and team capacity for Q2 and beyond.* **Your Team Performs Without Micromanagement:** They take initiative, maintain standards when you're not watching, and you're leading, not firefighting every day.* **It Gives You a Life:** Your business supports your desired lifestyle, offering time off, financial security, and the ability to make choices, rather than demanding your every hour.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Is Your Salon Business Truly Working?0:40 - The 5 Things a Working Salon Delivers2:40 - Question 1: Are You Paying Yourself Properly?4:20 - Question 2: Can Your Salon Function Without You?6:20 - Question 3: Do You Have a Predictable Growth Plan?7:50 - Question 4: Does Your Team Perform Independently?9:40 - Question 5: Is Your Business Supporting Your Life?11:20 - What Your Answers Mean for Your Salon12:10 - When Your Business is Surviving, Not Thriving13:00 - Build a Business That Works For You━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#salonsuccess #salonowner #salonbusiness #profitablebusiness #lifestylebusiness━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.comPhil Jackson, your Queen of Salons, offers essential business tips for a business that just WORKS! Following a month of discussions on pricing, planning, team, tax, and profit, this episode helps you determine if your salon business is operating effectively. Discover key strategies for business management and financial analysis to ensure your salon is a profitable business.

Does the UK tax year end on 5th April fill you with dread? Many salon owners feel anxious, unsure what they owe or what they should have done differently. You've got 9 days to fix it.Phil Jackson shares 5 practical, immediate steps to get your salon's finances in order and sail through the tax year end with confidence.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:Get Paid Properly: getpaidproperly.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Introduction: Why Tax Year End Causes Stress0:50 - The Crucial Window: Why Act Before April 5th1:40 - Step 1: Update Your Income and Expenses4:10 - Step 2: Utilise Your Pension Contributions5:20 - Step 3: Check Your VAT Threshold Position6:40 - Step 4: Ensure You Are Paying Yourself Properly8:10 - Step 5: Talk to Your Accountant This Week9:20 - Setting Up for a Successful New Tax Year10:40 - How to Gain Ultimate Financial Clarity━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#SalonTax #TaxYearEnd #SalonFinances #BusinessAccounting #UKTax━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.comThe tax year end often brings anxiety for salon owners due to procrastination or uncertainty about their tax obligations. This episode provides timely advice and guidance to help fix these issues, emphasising that nine days can be enough time to get organised with proper tax planning. We'll cover crucial financial management strategies to ensure your small business achieves business success.

Dread that difficult conversation with a team member? You've rehearsed it, avoided it, and now resentment is building and standards are slipping. Putting it off is doing more harm than good, affecting your salon's culture and bottom line.This episode gives you a simple, four-part framework to approach these vital discussions with confidence and achieve clear outcomes.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHY WE AVOID DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS* **Fear of conflict:** As salon owners, we are people-pleasers, good at building relationships with clients and team members. We dread damaging those bonds.* **Guilt:** You haven't always been clear on expectations, so calling someone out now can feel very unfair.* **The damage of avoidance:** Resentment builds, standards drift, communication breaks down, and team members can become toxic to your workplace culture.PHIL'S FOUR-PART FRAMEWORK FOR EFFECTIVE REVIEWS* **1. Prepare with Focus:** * Know exactly the points you'll cover; you can even script key sentences. * Acknowledge what they're doing well genuinely. * Identify *one* specific thing to change or improve (not 47!). * Know what you want to agree on as the outcome. * Book a calm, non-threatening 20-minute meeting: "I want us to sit down for 20 minutes on Wednesday for a proper catch-up."* **2. Conduct the Meeting Directly:** * Start with specific, genuine recognition – not a hollow "compliment sandwich." * Address the *one specific behaviour* or performance area observed and its impact. E.g., "Your retail performance is declining, and it's impacting your take-home pay." * Give the other person space to respond and provide context. * Reach agreement on a concrete next step and a specific follow-up. E.g., "I want to see your retail numbers back on the incline in two weeks."* **3. Handle Pay Conversations Separately (If Applicable):** * If pay comes up, book a separate time to talk about money proactively. * Justify pay increases financially and to retain valued team members. * Tie pay conversations to specific performance expectations. * Remember: the cost of losing a good team member (recruitment, training, lost client retention) is always far more than paying them properly in the first place.* **4. Follow Up Consistently:** * Make brief notes (ideally something you'd be happy to share). * *Crucially*, revisit what you agreed. If you said you'd follow up, do it. * Acknowledge specific progress: "I notice you've been doing what you said you would, and it's making a huge difference." * Authenticity in your actions builds trust and makes future reviews much easier.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:Salon Spark: https://salon-spark.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - The Difficult Conversation You've Been Avoiding0:40 - Why Salon Owners Avoid These Chats2:10 - How Avoiding Conflict Damages Your Salon3:40 - Part 1: Prepare for a Focused Discussion5:40 - Part 2: Structure the Meeting Effectively7:00 - Address Specific Behaviour (Not General Attitude)8:50 - Part 3: Handling Pay Conversations Separately10:50 - Part 4: The Power of Consistent Follow-Up12:40 - Make Difficult Conversations Easier Over Time#SalonTeam #SalonManagement #PerformanceReview #DifficultConversations #SalonBusiness━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

Are you staring at empty slots in your appointment book this spring, hoping social media likes will magically turn into bookings? Stop wishing and start doing. This episode gives you a no-nonsense, three-point spring marketing plan that delivers real clients through your salon door.

Phil Jackson, your Queen of Salons, reveals the direct, actionable strategies to fill your books NOW, without relying on Instagram.

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📊 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:

1. REACTIVATE YOUR LAPSED CLIENTS

* Your cheapest client to rebook is one who's already been in.

* Pull a list of clients not seen since before Christmas.

* Send a simple, direct, personalised message via text, WhatsApp, or even a phone call. Mention their name and usual treatment.

* Example: 50 lapsed clients, 20% respond = 10 bookings. At £50-£100 average bill, that's £500-£1000 revenue for an afternoon's work.

2. MAXIMISE THE PRE-EASTER PUSH

* Easter is a key gifting and treating moment, even if clients aren't religious.

* Use the two weeks before Easter to promote "get Easter ready" or "get set for spring" services.

* Push gift vouchers as Easter gifts for mums, partners, or friends.

* Use point of sale (POS) prompts in your salon; clients often book or buy vouchers if prompted on the spot.

3. MASTER YOUR REBOOKING STRATEGY

* This is the most powerful retention tool, but most salons use it inconsistently.

* Every client leaving in April should have a May appointment confirmed before they leave.

* Use reasons like "it's getting busy for summer" or "secure your preferred slot."

* Script it for your team: "Can I do this for you?" rather than "Do you want to book?"

* A 70% rebooking rate from 30 weekly clients means 21 confirmed appointments for the next month, generating easy, loyal revenue.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS A SUPPORT, NOT A DRIVER:

* Don't spend two weeks posting on Instagram hoping it fills your books.

* Liking a post isn't the same as a booking.

* Direct contact with existing and lapsed clients outperforms social media for short-term bookings every time.

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📊 RESOURCES:

Salon Spark: https://salon-spark.com

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💬 WORK WITH ME:

1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com

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🎧 LISTEN:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalon

Spotify: https://go.philjackson.me/Spotify

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP

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CHAPTERS:

0:00 - Introduction to Spring Marketing

1:05 - The Cost of Waiting Too Long

2:00 - Strategy 1: Reactivate Lapsed Clients

3:30 - How to Personalise Your Outreach

4:40 - The Power of a Phone Call

5:30 - Strategy 2: The Pre-Easter Push

7:00 - Leveraging Point of Sale Prompts

7:45 - Strategy 3: Master Your Rebooking Strategy

9:10 - What to Say for Effective Rebooking

10:35 - Why Social Media Isn't a Booking Driver

#springmarketing #salonmarketing #salonbookings #clientretention #salongrowth

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Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

Are you working flat out in your salon, always busy, but still struggling to pay yourself properly? It's a common trap: busyness doesn't automatically mean profitability. This episode reveals the four critical numbers every salon owner MUST track to turn their hard work into real profit.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:BUSY VS. PROFITABLE:* Busyness measures inputs (hours worked, number of appointments, clients through the door).* Profitability measures outputs (what's left after all the busyness and activity).* It's possible to be 100% booked and losing money if your pricing, costs, or service mix are incorrect.* The real question: "Am I busy doing the right things at the right price to generate profit?"FOUR CRITICAL NUMBERS YOU MUST KNOW:* **1. AVERAGE CLIENT SPEND (Average Bill):** * Calculate: Total revenue divided by the number of guests or appointments in a month. * Problem: If your average bill is too low, more busyness won't fix your profit problem; it just means more work for less return. * Action: Monitor monthly, know what it needs to be to hit targets.* **2. COLUMN UTILISATION:** * Calculate: (Amount of time booked / Amount of time available) x 100. * Sweet spot: 80-85% for most salon businesses. * Why 100% is not ideal: No elasticity, leads to frantic work, no buffer for running late or sick team members. * Below 70%: Indicates a demand problem or a client retention problem.* **3. WAGE-TO-REVENUE RATIO:** * Calculate: (Total wage bill, including yourself / Total revenue) x 100. * Target: Should typically not run above 40% of revenue for premises-based salons (includes PAYE, NI, pensions). * Above 40%: Profit will be squeezed. Above 50%: Profit is severely compromised. * Exposes problems of underpricing relative to wage costs.* **4. PROFIT PER TREATMENT:** * Problem: Your most popular treatments are not always your most profitable ones (e.g., a long nail service versus a quick brow treatment). * Action: Knowing this number changes what you promote, what you can afford to discount, and what services you might even phase out.WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR NUMBERS AREN'T GREAT:* **Average Bill Too Low:** Look at your service mix (promote profitable ones), review pricing, improve upselling or cross-selling.* **Low Utilisation:** Address marketing or retention issues. Start by rebooking lapsed clients.* **High Wage Ratio:** Focus on 1. Increasing takings, 2. Reducing hours, or 3. Repricing services. Often a combination of all three.* **Low Profit Per Treatment:** Don't lean into low-margin services heavily; reconsider their role in your offering.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:Get Paid Properly: getpaidproperly.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - The Difference Between Busy and Profitable1:05 - The Salon "Busyness Trap"2:05 - Why You Need to Make Friends with Numbers2:45 - Number 1: Your Average Client Spend4:10 - Number 2: Your Column Utilisation Sweet Spot6:45 - Number 3: Your Wage-to-Revenue Ratio9:45 - Number 4: Profit Per Treatment11:50 - What to Do When Numbers Are Low14:20 - Your Next Steps to Salon Profitability15:00 - Work with Phil on Your Salon Strategy#salonprofitability #salonpricing #salonbusiness #salonowner #buildyoursalon━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

Phil Jackson, your Queen of Salons, discusses the importance of effective quarterly strategic planning for salon owners. He guides viewers on how to properly map out actions beyond just setting revenue goals, emphasising that good planning is crucial for business growth. This video encourages salon owners to develop a clear strategy and focus on goal setting for a thriving business.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📊 RESOURCES:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💬 WORK WITH ME:1:1 Coaching: https://buildyoursalon.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS:0:00 - Introduction to Q2 Planning1:00 - Why Q2 is a Big Opportunity2:00 - The Problem with Reactive Planning2:50 - How to Set Your Q2 Revenue Target4:10 - Breaking Down Monthly Revenue Targets5:20 - Identifying Your Marketing Gap6:20 - Key Q2 Marketing Moments to Plan7:40 - Checking Team Capacity and Finances9:00 - How to Create Your Simple Q2 Plan9:40 - Next Steps: 1:1 Coaching with Phil#SalonBusiness #SalonStrategy #SalonPlanning #Q2Planning #BuildYourSalon━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

RESOURCES:Memberships Made Easy: the programme for building a salon membership that actually works. https://queenofmemberships.com

Falling out of love with the work that built your business is not failure. It is evolution. And a membership might be the most elegant way to make that transition without abandoning the clients you actually want to keep.

This week I am answering a brilliant question from Summer at Flourish Beauty and Academy in Devizes, who wants to use a nail membership to pivot toward skin treatments. The answer applies to any salon owner who wants to reshape their column without burning down what they have built.

WHY THIS INSTINCT IS RIGHTMost salon owners who want to change direction either do nothing and stay stuck, or go cold turkey and lose the clients they built their business on. Summer has found a third path. A membership is the bridge that lets you honour those long-term relationships while reshaping your column on your terms.

THREE THINGS A TREATMENT-SPECIFIC MEMBERSHIP MUST HAVE

1. ABSOLUTE CLARITY ON WHAT IS INCLUDEDTie it to one service or one group of services. One structure, no exceptions.The acid test: you must be able to describe your membership in one sentence. If it takes more than one sentence, it is too complicated. That is probably why a previous membership did not convert.
2. A PRICE THAT REFLECTS THE RELATIONSHIPThis is not a bargain basement discount membership. These are your best long-term clients and they are getting VIP access to a specific team member. Price it accordingly.A 10-15% loyalty reward makes sense. Beyond that, you are undervaluing what you are actually offering.Consider raising your standard prices at the same time as launching the membership.
3. A TRANSITION TIMELINE WITH BOUNDARIESLet your favourite clients hear about it first. Give them a reason to join: locked-in price, continued access, priority booking.Four to six weeks is enough of a launch window. Get your founder members in and locked in.Then hold the line. If someone has not joined the membership, they do not get to book those services. Do not be swayed.

THE ONE RISK TO WATCHThe membership manages the exit. Something else has to manage the entrance.If you launch the nail membership but do not actively fill that freed-up space with skin consultations and new treatment offers, you will end up with white space and panic. Get the new menu ready at the same time.

WORK WITH ME:1:1 Ultimate Clarity: https://tidycal.com/philjackson/1to1-enquiryFull details: https://buildyoursalon.com

LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP

CHAPTERS:0:00 - Evolving Away From the Work That Built Your Business0:24 - How March Is Going and the Listener Question1:12 - Introducing Summer's Question (Flourish Beauty, Devizes)2:51 - Why the Instinct Is Right3:39 - The Third Path: Memberships as a Transition Tool4:30 - Even Solopreneurs Can Use This Approach5:17 - Thing 1: Absolute Clarity on What Is Included6:06 - The One Sentence Test for Membership Clarity6:56 - Thing 2: Price That Reflects the Relationship (Not the Discount)7:38 - Thing 3: Transition Timeline and Holding the Line8:23 - The Risk: Make Sure You Fill the Space You Free Up9:13 - Memberships Made Easy at queenofmemberships.com

#salonmembership #salonbusiness #beautysalon #salonowner #saloncoach

Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com

The clients you are most afraid of losing when you raise your prices are usually the ones you cannot afford to keep. Here is how to put your prices up properly, before the spring rebooking window closes.

This episode gives you the maths, the method, and the exact three rules for communicating a price rise without losing the plot or the clients.

WHY THE FEAR IS WRONG

• Most clients will accept a well-communicated price rise without complaint
• Price-sensitive clients who leave were going to go eventually anyway
• Raising prices does not just lose clients at the bottom, it attracts better clients at the top
• An underpriced salon cannot afford to look after its clients, its team, or its future
• You are not raising your prices. You are correcting them.

HOW MUCH TO RAISE BYIf you have not raised prices in 12 months, you are already behind. A 10% rise covers inflation, wage increases, and product cost rises, and is small enough that most clients accept it without question.

The maths: if your average bill is 60 pounds and you do 30 clients a week, that is 18 pounds more per client. 540 pounds a week. 28,000 pounds a year. From a decision you are currently too scared to make.

Do not do it in tiny increments. Two price increases a year, done properly, beats six small awkward ones every few months.

THE THREE RULES FOR COMMUNICATING IT

RULE 1: BE DIRECT, NOT APOLOGETICWrong: "We are so sorry, due to rising costs we have had to make the difficult decision..."Right: "From 1st April, our prices will increase by 10%. Check our price list online."If you apologise, you signal that you think the rise is wrong. You do not. So do not apologise.

RULE 2: GIVE NOTICE, NOT AN ESSAYFour weeks is enough. Six weeks is generous. Any more and you are just giving people more time to object.You do not owe anyone a line-by-line breakdown of your overheads.

RULE 3: TELL THEM PERSONALLY BEFORE YOU TELL THEM PUBLICLY

• Brief your team first so they are not caught off guard
• Notice on reception before the prices go up
• Update your price list and online booking
• Do not post it on social media. Social media is for good news.

WHAT TO DO IF A CLIENT PUSHES BACKMost will not. For the rare one who does: "Our prices have not increased for X months. This brings us in line with where we need to be to stay profitable." If they threaten to leave, let them. That chair will be filled by someone who values your work.

RESOURCES:Get your pricing properly sorted with Get Paid Properly:getpaidproperly.com

WORK WITH ME:1:1 Ultimate Clarity: https://tidycal.com/philjackson/1to1-enquiryFull details: https://buildyoursalon.com

LISTEN:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuildYourSalonSpotify: https://go.philjackson.me/SpotifyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MZp6jP

CHAPTERS:0:00 - The Clients You Are Scared to Lose0:20 - How March Is Going and Why Pricing Still Matters1:08 - Why the Fear Is Real But the Logic Is Wrong2:06 - Breaking Through Price Barriers (and Who It Attracts)2:48 - You Are Not Being Greedy, You Are Being Sustainable3:36 - Why Now Is the Right Time (Even If March Feels Ropey)4:22 - How Much to Raise By (Do the Maths)5:57 - Do Not Do It in Tiny Increments6:44 - Rule 1: Be Direct, Not Apologetic7:30 - Rule 2: Give Notice, Not an Explanation8:16 - Rule 3: Tell Them Personally Before Publicly9:05 - What to Do If a Client Pushes Back

#salonpricing #salonbusiness #salonowner #hairsalon #salongrowth

Questions? phil@buildyoursalon.com