Specialise or one stop shop?

My salon, Nailspa, has been open now since 2001, 24 years of fairly consistent business, sometimes in ‘survival mode’ I have to admit ( recession, Covid 19, staffing highs and lows, etc….).

Many salons come and go, especially once the reality of salon life and running a business hits, and some have to adopt self employed strategies, becoming little more than a landlord ( a topic for another day) to keep going.

If asked the secret to our success I’d say there are many, all combining together to make it work, however, one thing does stand out, and that it is that I truly believe we could not survive as a nail only business.

The reasons? To start we need to recruit less clients if they have more treatments. Whilst they are in the salon they may also have waxing, a facial, lashes, all added on to their nail appointments, all keeping columns full and reducing white space.

The second reason is that many beauty treatments are actually more profitable than nails (not all of them I know, I’m not trying to be controversial) so it pulls up your low profit margin for nails, making the average higher.

It also stops clients going else where for a treatment you don’t offer, and being tempted by that salons nail services whilst there, thus, losing the client.

It gives the team a break from being sat at the desk all day, offering a change of scenery and a different working position which posture wise can be really beneficial.

If you are currently offering nails only and would like to add other beauty treatments, I would really suggest looking at brow services, these work really well as an additional quick treatment and many clients will go for it. It’s not such a high price point that people won’t try it, you can also add lash lifts quite easily with great courses and products available with just a little research.

Just how much difference can it make? If you do a set of gel polish in 40 minutes and charge £35-£40 you aren’t always turning over £1 per minute, whereas adding brow and lash services can take you over that with little outlay.

The other great news is that beauty treatments do seem to encourage a little more retail than nails, there are lash serums for example that give real results, brow make up, lash cleansers and so on.

In this time starved world we are doing more and more side by side treatments, by that I mean whilst one therapist does someone’s nails, they also might be getting lashes or brows done by another therapist, so the client can be in and out as soon as possible. They love that.

So here’s the thing, there really isn’t anything to lose, if you have white space fill it with new treatments and see how it boosts your business (it also gives you even more social media content so win win!).