Successful salon teams are the ones that make time for regular meetings- as teams and as individuals. However, finding the time to organize meetings can be difficult, sometimes making them scarce and disjointed. Communication within your salon or spa is one of the most important aspects of a smooth business operation. Let’s look at why it’s important and some of the best practices to implement in your future meetings.
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Avoiding Salon Meetings: The Typical Excuses
When it comes to scheduling salon meetings, there can be pushback from team members and management. When not being conducted correctly, the following excuses can start coming up:
1 – Salon meetings are time-consuming
2- The team is established, they know what is happening
3- I send a newsletter to my clients and give it to my team
4- The same people always get praised
5- I don’t know what to talk about
Do any of these excuses ring a bell?
Why Bother Meeting Up?
Reason 1 – Procedures
Sure, meetings are time-consuming. However, they are the best investment you can make to create a winning team. They allow you to iron things out before they get out of control. They are informative, educational, bring everyone together, and set standards. But most importantly, meetings allow the team to be aware of your procedures, ensuring no one can come back and say ‘they didn’t know’.
Reason 2 – Motivation
Managers of well-established teams often think they don’t need meetings. Things run smoothly. There are processes in place. However, meetings are essential for keeping your team motivated. You can make the meetings fun, innovative, and creative. For example, I had a manager in a hair salon who used to take his team for a breakfast meeting every month. They loved it and appreciated their time out.
Another manager only did this if the targets were met. Another one had their team salon meetings in their salon, with everyone baking a cake for it! Personally, I used to get each team member to present something to the team, whether it be a product they loved or a treatment they were good at. This way, everyone feels valued and involved in the meeting, making it naturally more motivational.
Reason 3 – Updates & Brainstorming
The importance of ensuring your team knows what is happening in your business is crucial for achieving set targets. Most great ideas come from the staff. They are the ones working with the customers and know what they want. Encouraging your team to discuss marketing ideas or new treatments not only gets them involved in your business, but in the areas in which they have chosen to talk.
Best Practices
Take Your Yearly Diary And Plan Your Meetings
Individual meetings are quarterly
Team meetings are monthly
Individual Meetings Are For Setting The Tone
This is where you give your team their required targets, plan their individual journey within your business, and talk about training or interests they have. But most importantly, get them to understand and know what you expect from each of them. Your time with them should be no longer than 1 hour, sometimes ½ an hour will suffice. This allows them to have a relationship with you and improves communication which ultimately makes everything smoother.
Team Meetings Are More Business-Oriented
1- Talk about results from the previous month, and any incentives won. If you feel it’s always the same people that win, why not praise someone else for their work? For example, cleanliness of their room, peer support, or amazing client reviews. You can easily find alternatives to ensure everyone receives praise at some point.
2- Talk about finances and results for no longer than 30 minutes Otherwise, it gets boring for everyone. You will be very surprised how much the team expects this and how they love to know whether they achieve their targets or not.
3- Think of organising educational workshops from outsiders, like the brands you hold. Or even get a therapist, mentor, or speaker who has a particular talent in a given area, to talk about that to everyone.
4- Go through your salon’s marketing, results, and what is coming up. To keep employees focused, give them information for the month ahead only. And go through the targets or incentives you have set for these activities.
5- Get the team to have their say, during team meetings, it’s important to allow the team to get things off their chest, but adopt the Hot Dog Method of communication to keep things focused: positive, negative, positive. Even if an issue occurs that cannot be resolved, finish on a positive note. Explaining why something cannot happen ensures transparency and can diffuse the situation.
Be Consistent in Team meetings
If you think you make no impact with these meetings, think again.
Regular individual and team meetings are crucial to the smooth running of the business. But they need to be consistent. Sporadic team meetings will not help you get things done. Consistency is easy once you plan ahead. So go on, get that calendar, and implement your changes now!
Thanks for reading! Togetherwegrow
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Valerie Delforge is a Commercial Trainer and Coach for the Spa, Beauty and Hair industry. Valerie specializes in creating specific workshops to support managers. Founder of Delforge + Co, she is keen to support the industry in achieving its best. For a list of procedures and coaching, visit Delforge + Co. or contact valerie@valeriedelforge.com. Also, Delforge + Co is proud to announce the modules available in The London School of Beauty & Make-Up, which you can sign up for here!
