21st September 2025
Competition is fierce from every angle in the hairdressing world. A new salon seems to pop up every day wanting to take your clients away from you! A hairdresser you trained decides to open up their garage as a salon to entice clients away from you. Product suppliers look at every possible avenue to sell their products, with some taking their professional products into mass market channels (if you read blogs on this site you will be well aware of this fact and my views on it).
Sometimes it must feel like a constant uphill battle with no end to the challenges in sight.
What should a salon owner do?
Don’t be beaten into submission! Look at all the opportunities that can come from facing adversity head on.
New salons opening. What do they offer that might make a client of your salon decide to go there? Think about what you have available that makes you always be the salon of choice, your history, your relationships, the services and products you provide. All the special nuances of your business that make it a natural choice for your existing and potential new clients to choose. Perhaps a little fresh look around the salon to make sure everything is looking shipshape and fabulous, because that’s what clients expect alongside their services they receive.
Staff leaving to open up their own business. Once upon a time you did the exact same thing, a point was reached in your career where you felt the time was right to go it alone. No doubt you did what any potential member of your salon team plans to do; start telling clients, gathering phone numbers and email addresses, it’s kind of par for the course. But if you suspect this might be happening, deal with it head on and see if there is a compromise in the working relationship to be had that keeps the stylist with you. If there is, great; but if it’s a no go, make sure you have secured all confidential information, remember, taking personal information is a law breaker, you, as the salon owner are responsible under GDPR regulations and as such, potential leavers could be heading down a dangerous path.
Product suppliers in the mass market channel. Move away from them, in a competitive world, you simply cannot beat the deals that the giant retailers are offered that they pass on to their customers. However, thank goodness, there are salon professional brands that are committed to supporting hairdressers with their products, including colour! The beauty of stepping away from brands that are freely available in big retail stores is the point of difference your salon then has to offer clients. None of your customers are going to purchase something from you that they can get at huge discounts with free gifts from that well known chemist! But, if the products you have for retailing are salon exclusive, then the opportunities for retail growth are there for the taking.
Of course, all products can be found online these days, that’s just the way it is and it isn’t going to change. I always advocate salons have their own e-commerce platform to help counter potential online purchases from other outlets, but the best and most successful route is to carry products that create a more bespoke and unique feel to the salons vibe.
Oh, and that thing about loyalty, as I’ve stated before it needs to be a TWO WAY STREET, so if your suppler is looking after the big boys first and you somewhere further down the line, ditch them, and yes that does include the colour you have used for ever and a day, because, believe me, that’s going to be the next step in their mass market manoeuvre! Find brands that will help you grow your business in this every challenging competitive world, and COMPETE every step of he way.
As always, I’m happy to chat about brands that offer a point of difference that will give you the upper hand in the constant challenging world of hairdressing.
#SalonPro #ProForPro #SalonExclusive #CompeteDontBeBeat
