Are you planning to open your own hair salon? Here, we've created a step-by-step guide on how to craft a winning salon business plan in just 8 steps. It's a clear roadmap to boost your salon's success with expert tips and strategic insights.
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Passionate about hair styling and cutting?
If yes, you might have thought of starting your own hair salon business.
But it takes more than just an artistic talent to give cuts that suit different hair types and styles. It also requires a solid business plan in place to make it thrive, as there are 952,909 hair salons in the US.
Need help getting your plan? Not to worry; we’ll help.
This hair salon business plan will help you get started and guide you every step of the way, from crafting your business idea to evaluating your salon’s financial success.
Ready to begin? Let’s dive right in!
Hair salon business plan is a professional, living document that outlines your business ideas, goals, and strategies to achieve them.
Whether you’re starting a new salon or aiming to expand an existing one, you’ll need a business plan. It serves as a strategic roadmap for your entrepreneurial journey.
Here are several key reasons why having a hair salon business plan is essential:
Once you’ve decided to start or grow your hair salon, writing a business plan helps you think about all the details of your business. It outlines your business concept, vision, mission, and its core values. Also, it enables you and your team to understand your business’s purpose and ensures everyone is aligned.
Investors often request to see your business plan before investing in your business. At that time, a good business plan helps you demonstrate your business strategies, realistic financial forecasts, and potential for success. Also, it shows your idea is viable and convinces them to raise funding.
A well-thought-out business plan allows you to consider your short-term goals and long-term objectives. It also summarizes the strategies & steps to reach them, as well as how long it will take to achieve those goals. Further, with specific benchmarks and milestones, you can measure progress and keep track of your goals.
A business plan helps you estimate the funding required for your salon. It includes detailed financial projections and clarifies how much money you’ll need to raise and how you’ll use those funds in different areas. This means you can ask for realistic funding needs to grow your business.
Learn more How to create a financial projection for a startup?While preparing a business plan, you can identify the potential risks and challenges that your salon might face. By knowing these threats earlier, you can develop effective strategies and contingency plans to mitigate them. This ensures your business is safe and improves your chances for success.
Now that you know the importance of having a business plan, let’s explore how to create a successful business plan for your salon.
here is the simple step by step guide on how to write hair salon business plan.
An executive summary is the first and foremost section of a business plan that provides a high-level overview of your hair salon business.
In fact, it might be the only section that potential investors or stakeholders will read and get a better idea of your business, including its concept, core values, objectives, and growth plans.
If your plan summary isn’t interesting or compelling enough, they won’t read it any further. So, ensure you keep this section simple, crisp, yet effective.
While writing an executive summary, consider including the following key elements:
Though it is the first section of your salon plan, it’s typically written at the end once all the other sections are drafted. This is so because it summarizes all the most important aspects of your business.
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As you will provide a quick business overview in the executive summary, this section will expand on it and give detailed information about your salon.
So, here, explain your salon concept in detail and give readers a better understanding of your business, including what your hair salon business is all about.
For instance, you may ask yourself a few questions to plan this section:
In addition to that, you may highlight your salon’s short-term goals and long-term objectives that every potential investor or lender needs to know.
The market analysis section presents your external business environment. Generally, it involves in-depth research of the specific industry or sector in which your business intends to operate.
This means you’ll need to conduct comprehensive market research and analytical work to start a successful salon venture.
It also helps you get valuable insights into the salon industry, market size & growth potential, target customers, market demand, competitors, and opportunities.
Here are a few essential components that you may include in your market analysis:
Here, you may provide details of the target market you serve or expect to serve. This will help you identify your target customers and create a buyer’s persona, along with the psychographic and demographic details.
It’s a very important aspect of market research that helps you identify and analyze all other salon businesses nearby. It will cover direct and indirect competitors, including their strengths & weaknesses, and explain your competitive advantages.
As a salon owner, you know that the hair salon industry is dynamic and continuously growing. So, you’ll have to explore the current and emerging trends (technological advancements, adoption of sustainable products, etc.) in the indus try and explain how your business will cope with them.
Conducting a SWOT analysis helps you easily identify the internal strengths & weaknesses and external opportunities & threats in the salon industry.
The organization and management section introduces the key personnel responsible for running the salon, including the salon owner, managers, hair stylists, and other staff members.
You may start by describing their roles and responsibilities, educational qualifications, industry experience, and expertise that help you grow your salon.
Then, consider discussing the employee benefits, compensation plans, and business operations, as well as outline the organizational structure, including reporting lines and how decisions will be made.
Furthermore, try to highlight advisory board members (if any) and explain how they can contribute to the salon’s overall success.
If your team is lacking and you’re planning to hire, mention whom you’ll hire and clarify how they will manage day-to-day operations, what type of work experience you’ll need, and how you’ll address training practices.
Keep reading How to Write Management Team SectionAs the name suggests, this section illustrates all the different types of services or products your salon will offer to its customers.
For instance, you may include a wide range of services, such as haircuts, styling, coloring, hair treatments, manicures, pedicures, etc. Also, describe each service in detail, along with the pricing plans, techniques used, and expected results.
For easy understanding, you may take the below as a reference to craft your offerings:
Platinum Hair’s Services
1. Haircuts: Classic Haircut
Price: [$40] per session
Description: A timeless haircut tailored to your preferences, ensuring a polished and stylish look.
Specifications:
2. Coloring Services: Highlights
Price: [$110] per session
Description: Partial or full highlights, to add dimension and brightness to your hair, enhancing its natural beauty.
Specifications:
If you’re running a hair salon that offers a great selection of products, like, hair care products, skincare items, or beauty accessories), mention them as well.
This will help investors better understand how you plan to satisfy all your customer’s needs & preferences and what value your salon brings to the market.
Your marketing and sales strategy decides how you plan to draw new customers and retain existing ones for your hair salon.
A well-written sales and marketing plan can help you keep track of the marketing budget and maximize ROI while developing online and offline marketing or external promotional campaigns.
Consider including the below information in this section:
You may define your unique selling points to distinguish your salon business. For example, consider presenting holistic hair care services, sustainable & environmentally friendly products, and highly skilled stylists.
Using online channels such as social media platforms, email marketing, and professional branding can help you target certain audiences and build trust among them. You may also create visual ads and content to showcase all your offerings.
You may partner with local businesses to expand your brand’s visibility and reach a wider audience. This will draw new customers and increase your growth opportunities.
You may organize workshops or events at your salon and invite the local community to explore your space. Ask them to engage in live demonstrations of hairstyles and treatments. Also, don’t forget to collect their feedback and preferences.
Giving special discounts helps you attract new clients and retain existing ones. So, try to offer discounts to the new consumers or introduce a loyalty program to reward regular clients.
A financial plan is the most crucial aspect of the hair salon business plan. It offers a comprehensive overview of your financial projections for the first 3-5 years.
However, the startup financial plan includes several critical statements and reports, such as income statements, cash flow statements, and balance sheets.
For your hair salon financial plan, consider providing detailed financial projections, including sales forecasts, revenue projections, initial startup costs, funding requirements, break-even analysis, or even sensitivity analyses for different scenarios.
This will help you demonstrate the long-term growth and profitability of your salon and allow potential investors or financial backers to make informed decisions.
In the appendix, you may attach any supporting documents that might complement your business plan.
It includes market research data and surveys, licenses & permits, equipment leases, salon layouts, resumes of executive members, and many more.
In short, you can place additional information or attachments that don’t fit into specific sections, but readers might use them for reference.
So, prepared to draft a hair salon business plan but need more assistance? Well, here you go; download our hair salon business plan template pdf now and get started.
This expertly crafted template has been designed with hair salon businesses in mind. With step-by-step guidance and examples, this template assists you in developing your own plan.
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Now that you have a detailed hair salon business plan outline, it’s much easier to kickstart your plan writing process.
However, preparing a comprehensive business plan from scratch can be an intimidating and daunting task. But not to worry; Upmetrics could be a great companion here!
It’s a modern business plan software that enables new entrepreneurs and small business owners to create investment-ready plans quickly and efficiently.
From easy-to-follow guides and 400+ business plan examples to financial forecasting software, Upmetrics offers valuable resources to streamline the entire business planning process.
So, wait no longer; start preparing your plan!
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The following are the most important financial projections for a new salon:
It’s necessary to review and update your hair salon business plan regularly, at least once a year, or more often whenever there are significant changes in the business environment or market.
While writing a comprehensive business plan for your salon, consider including the following essential elements:
About the Author
Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more
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