Did you know, that the Harvard Business Review did a study that found that 14% of people who set goals are ten times more successful than those who don’t? And we can apply the same concept to your salon business—that setting goals can bring you more success.

There are probably so many things you want your salon to achieve that it’s tough to choose just a few to focus on. To help you leverage the right data to create (and reach) clear and attainable business goals, use these tips to get started with the goal-setting process.

1. Review your salon’s performance.

It’s impossible to create realistic goals for where you want your salon to go if you don’t know where it stands now. Set aside time every day or week to review your salon’s performance metric reports. Look at metrics like your total sales, retail sold per client, service sold per client, and total clients for the time period you’re reviewing.

As you review your reports, make note of which areas you’re doing well in and where you can improve. This will help you set attainable business goals and put them on a realistic timeline for when they can be achieved.

2. Use your best-selling products and services as a blueprint for future goals.

Knowing your top-selling services and products gives you a lot of insight into what your clients like and want. Obviously, you want to continue offering these best-sellers, but you can also use them as a guide for predicting what else your guests would be interested in buying.

Take advantage of popular products and services to help sell new offerings or offerings that don’t get as much love. For instance, you can offer a deal or package that includes your best-selling shampoo when a client books an eyebrow wax, if you want to draw more attention to your waxing services.

Build one or two goals around upselling less popular or new products/services by packaging them with your top-sellers.

3. Ask for client feedback.

The most important part of your salon or spa service is client feedback. Clients want to be heard and like to be asked to share what they think, especially in the service industry.

This insight helps you make decisions about products, services, or specials they like least, or best, and offers a way to gather insight on staff or gaps in service options. As you’re setting your business goals, you can turn these gaps into opportunities.

4. Complete a social media review.

Social media is an essential tool for salons and spas to connect with the right clients. So, it makes sense that you should have some goals around your social media engagement.

Review your social media profiles and important social media metrics and evaluate your current performance. Do your pages need an overhaul? Are you leveraging the influence of the staff and current clients who love you? How can you change things up online and get more consistent with your social media presence?

Consider setting some goals around your number of account followers, level of post engagement, and how many social media leads you can get in a certain timeframe.

5. Consider whether to raise prices on a product or service.

Raising prices is a perfectly reasonable business strategy when it’s necessary. If your costs are going up or if you see a particular product or service doing well as a cornerstone, think about a client cost increase to boost your salon’s bottom line.

When considering price increases though, make sure you review at least one to three years’ worth of sales performance. Considering this year-over-year data will help you land on a price that bumps up your revenue but that clients will still be willing to pay.

6. Ask for your staff’s input too, and have them set personal performance goals.

Your staff is the heart of your salon or spa. Their happiness, performance, and overall enthusiasm contributes to the health and success of your business. To ensure their voices are heard and respected, ask for their input on big decisions before you make anything final.

It’s also important to be honest about how their overall contributions are impacting your business. We suggest conducting an annual review process and outlining a clear staff feedback loop they can take advantage of throughout the year.

Pro Tip: With the Stylist App from SalonBiz, your staff members have access to their personal performance metrics, goals, and forecasts right on their mobile devices! This way, they can keep tabs on how they’re doing and adjust their performance or goals as needed.

Set Goals & Evaluate Performance with Ease Using SalonBiz

How helpful would it be to have access to real-time data about your salon right at your fingertips? Well, with SalonBiz reporting, that dream can be a reality.

Our reporting features offer robust and easy-to-understand reports that tell you what you need to know about where your salon business stands at that very moment. Run reports at any time, compare data year over year, month over month, and day over day, and view forecasts of where your metrics are headed so you can make sure you stay on track.

Book a demo of SalonBiz to learn more about our powerhouse reporting capabilities!