Deb Farnworth-Wood’s 7 tips to help your business through COVID-19

1. Make sure your prices meet the real costs of your business

During this time, it’s important to analyse every treatment cost – including consumables, room overheads, and staff costs – and make sure what you’re charging gives you enough profit. 

You should make use of your data and reports, and look at what you’re losing by:

• Unproductive staff
• Free treatments
• Reworks
• Overuse of products

All of these things will erode your profits in a time where every dollar counts. For some helpful tips on strengthening your cashflow during this time, read this blog.

2. Consider the rent you pay – is it still feasible? 

There’s probably no better time than now to renegotiate your lease, because landlords won’t want lots of empty shops post COVID. If you do want to renegotiate your rent, be prepared and do the research on your area and flag any other rent decreases that businesses may have been getting around you.

3. Look objectively at your marketing spend 

Is it giving you a return on investment? Are you retaining clients that come through your door?  Do your staff understand that it costs money to acquire a new client and that if they don’t manage that first contact like a pro it’s money down the drain? 

Your clients already know what you do, what your services cost, and will most likely have asked Google (and their friends, if they were referred to your business) about you too. So, the only thing you have to do at that first meeting is;

• Demonstrate your professionalism and knowledge
• Present a great salon/clinic that’s clean and appropriate for the treatments you provide
• Build a rapport with the client, get them to like you!

Get some great marketing tips in this blog.

4. Adapt your ways of working 

Over time, ways of working change, even when there are written systems you’ve been following for a while. Are staff following your processes or are they cutting corners? This can lead to lost sales opportunities and reduced client satisfaction, so be sure to look into the systems you use and whether they’re still right for your staff and your business. 

5. Keep an eye on the important business stats

Monitor your rebooking rates, client retention, and staff booking rates, every day! You can use this information to see where you might need to make some changes. Rebooking rates low, or are clients forgetting to turn up? Try setting up SMS Rebooking and appointment reminders, and make use of the other great SMS messages for your business. If your client retention is low, look at your consultation process and consider how you can provide a better experience for your clients, to keep them coming back. 

Did you know that Timely can help you take your consultations to the next level when your business reopens? Take a look at the blog. 

6.Make sure your staff job descriptions contain performance measures 

It’s not enough to say “provide excellent customer service and treatments” to your staff; we need more detailed measurement capability, such as individual staff rebooking rates, expected hourly productivity, expected booking %, and financial targets.

7. Most importantly, you need to get your staff on board  

How you present the feedback to your staff, together with training and support, will have a big impact on their job satisfaction and performance. Each staff member will have different strengths, so make sure you take the time to work with each one to set performance, and even career goals. You can learn more about staff management in these free business guides.

Visit our COVID-19 Resource Hub for more helpful tips, tools and information for your business.