How to Write a Salon Business Plan in 2024

A salon business plan can help you grow your business and head in the right direction for continued success. These business plans are both a roadmap and an effective summary of how you want your salon to function.

Successful salon owners know that desire and experience (while wonderful) are not enough on their own to guarantee results. Starting a salon business plan will give both staff and business owners the direction they need.

It’s important to determine your salon goals and objectives and milestones that let you know your salon is on the right track.

This will give you a sense of achievement when you hit these targets, and it will make it much easier to create long-term business goals and a marketing plan.

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1. What Is a Salon Business Plan?
2. Why Does Your Salon Need a Business Plan?
3. Key Elements of a Good Salon Business Plan
4. Salon Business Plan Template
5. Conclusion

What Is a Salon Business Plan?

Your hairdressing salon business plan is more than just a hair salon description of the business.

It contains your vision, mission statement and hair salon strategy for promoting your company and growing your client base. Salons usually include a company description and vision for supporting staff, too.

The business plan of a salon should include both a salon executive summary (more on this later), as well as key steps that you’ll take as a salon owner and a company to start your salon business and establish your success.

It will give you (and any investors) a salon business plan market analysis, a salon budget sample, and an overview of your target market and the services you offer.

A good business plan for a salon will show everyone that your company is viable, whether your timelines and goals are “on track” for each period, and allow you to evaluate whether you need to make any changes to your budget or salon marketing plan.

It takes human error and “gut feelings” out of the equation and lets you make analysis-based decisions for your marketing, sales and financial plan.

Why Does Your Salon Need a Business Plan?

This isn’t just limited to the beauty industry.

Any successful company (including salons) needs a business plan to help them stay organized and track their progress.

Even a small hair salon strategy plan is essential for things like getting a loan, attracting investors, exploring markets for new customers, or analyzing your expenses and financial data.

It’s just as important as any staff or equipment you invest in.

In fact, this document will help you plan for your salon marketing strategies, organize your ideas, hold better staff meetings where you can show your progress, and even think through your expenses and marketing decisions.

It’s the backbone of your business and the best way to stay in touch with your values and target market.

Key Elements of a Good Salon Business Plan

Whether you’re starting a new salon or have been running a full service operation for years, having a good business plan is essential.

The salon business plan examples that you’ll see online all have a few things in common. They’ll contain details about your objectives, target customers, services, sales and revenue, as well as potential expenses, marketing strategy and overall financial plan.

It should be a roadmap containing your company description as it stands and a plan outline for the future. Where do you want to be five years from now, for example?

Here are some details that you’ll need to think about when you’re creating your own hair salon proposal and business plan:

How to Start a Hair Salon Business Plan?

If you’re asking yourself “how do I start my own salon business”, then getting your business plan ready is a key first step. It’ll help you when you’re thinking about how to open a salon, as well as keep you focused on your mission statement and long-term goals.

If you want to create a salon business, you’ll need to do the following things:

• Set Clear Quantitative Targets: Try to base these on market analysis and the profits you’ll need to balance out the expenses of your business.

• Consider All the Roadblocks: Do your research and list anything that could lower your revenue, impact your startup costs or make it more difficult to open your salon. Be prepared to include money for these in your financial plan.

• Gather Necessary Info: As well as looking at your own services, customer base and overall expenses, make sure that you are familiar with the market trends, client segmentation, and what your competitors are doing to attract and retain customers.

• Ask for Professional Help: If you’re unsure of how to proceed with some of the details, need help with your market analysis or mission statement, or just want someone to go over everything and break it down for you, consider hiring a professional consultant to give you a hand.

• Try Using a Free Template: A free salon business plan template can be a low-cost solution if you need a bit of help to get all of your research organized. You won’t have to create a statement or plan from scratch, but can customize one for free using an existing template. You can also find a salon business description sample online to get started.

Here are some examples of what you will need to include when you create a salon business plan:

• Cover Page

  Your cover page is your business’s introduction to potential investors, management staff and anyone with a financial stake in its success. Make sure that this page includes your:

  • Business Name
  • Contact Information

• Table of Contents

  A table of contents is especially helpful for longer documents with a lot of information about financial data, marketing or products and services.

• Executive Summary

  This is the all-important first impression. The executive summary should cover a few things, including:

  • Your Salon Mission Statement (your current objectives and how you plan to achieve them)

  • Your Vision Statement (where you want your business to be in the future)

  • An Overview (both of your salon itself and what this plan will cover)

  • Your Keys to Success (what you require to start and run your salon successfully)

• Business Description

  Include a brief description of your business and its services. This should cover:

  • Your Location

  • The Services Offered to Clients

  • Your Staff (or staffing needs)

  • An Overview of the Beauty Industry in Your Area

• Target Market

  Who will your customer base be? What’s their income level? Business owners need to think about:

  • Who is Your Target Audience?

  • Where are They Located? (Do they work or study in the area? Do they live nearby?)

  • What do They Want? (This will influence your income, sales and services)

  • Why Them? (Why do you want to market your services to these clients and not someone else? Deciding on your clients will influence a lot of other details in your business plan, including the equipment, location potential cost and financial needs of your startup)

  • Why You? (Why do your target clients need your services? What are you providing that will make the customer choose you over the competition?)

  It’s helpful to conduct a salon SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) at this point to understand exactly what you need to plan for with your hair business proposal and plan.

• Competitive Analysis

  You’ll need to know that and be prepared to briefly explain the following things:

  • Who are your existing local competition?

  • How do you compare to them?

  • Will you be fighting for the same customers?

  • What sets your hair and beauty service apart from the crowd and makes it unique?

• Management Plan

  Create a salon management plan for your salon that shows how your business will be managed. As the salon owner, you’ll need to explain the following details clearly:

  • The Company Structure (this will be simple or more complex, depending on your business size

  • Management Strategy (your major goals, where you want to be in five years, and the high-level actions you’ll take to get there)

  • Details About Your Staff (an overview of the staff you will hire and their roles)

• Products and Services

  Putting these in the document will help show your planned revenue sources, as well as help calculate your salon expenses later on. This includes:

  • Any products you will sell or use

  • Each service that you plan to offer

  Make sure to list these in detail and break down prices for each service and retail item.

• Marketing Plan

  What’s your strategy to reach your customers and grow your business? What kind of funding will you need to carry it out? How much will it cost? You may not include all of these things in your final document, but you’ll still want to do your research.

  Make sure to outline your:

  • Promotions and Sales Strategies

  • Overall Salon Marketing Plan (how will you find and bring in your ideal customers? Is your market a local one? Will your location help with this? What service promotions and loyalty programs will you use?)

  • How You Will Reach Your Target Audience

  • Salon Branding (especially if you’re expanding an existing chain of salons)

• Sales Plan

  Remember to think in terms of both retail product sales and services. Outline these things in your statement:

  • How You Will Present Your Services and Products

  • How You Will Market and Sell Them

  • What Makes Your Services/ Products Unique and Appealing?

  • Your Sales Goals

  • Projected Income From Both Sales and Services

  • Costs and Financing for Any Extras (additional professional or sales training, for example)

  Here, do not miss our article on How to Increase Salon Revenue and our guide to Salon Expenses.

• Financial Plan

  How much does it cost to start a salon business and how do you plan to make a profit as soon as possible?

  In a salon business plan for investors especially, it’s important to get these details nailed down as accurately as possible. You should be prepared for this and gather details about your:

  • Financial Statements

  • Assumption (these include detailed forecasts for costs and expenses)

  • Projected Profits and Losses

  • Your Break-Even Point

  • Balance Sheets

  • Loans and Debts Involved in the Business

  It’s a good idea to have a financial advisor or professional go over all of the money details and numbers in your financial plan before you create the final copy later on.

• Operating Plan

  Make sure to outline the details of running your business, including:

  • Where You’ll Run Your Business (especially if you have a central office for multiple local salons)
  • How You’ll Run It (what will your management structure look like, for example)

• Any Extra Information

  This includes anything else that you think investors, leadership staff or anyone handling funding should know. This can include things like:

  • Additional Documents
  • Statements That You Consider Relevant

  These documents and details can be included on the last page or pages of the business plan. Consider adding an appendix to your table of contents for these items.

We recommend you to check out our post on hair salon for sale.

Salon Business Plan Template

The professional hair salon business plan cost might not be the only thing stopping some salon owners from creating one. The fact is that the whole process can sometimes feel intimidating.

Even veteran owners and managers of large salons don’t always have the time or the resources to create the perfect business plan from scratch. Don’t worry, if you need a hand, then you’re not alone.

By using a premade template or salon business proposal sample, you can save time and money, customizing it where needed and filling in the blanks.

We’ve put together an easy-to-use template to help you get started.

Conclusion

Starting up a new salon can be a very intimidating process. Along with finding your customer base, you’ll need to consider competition levels in the local market, how much funding you’ll require, staffing needs and what products and services to offer.

If you want to welcome those all-important first clients, have a solid sales plan in place, and attract investors or secure a loan, then you’ll need the right business plan. Your plan is what you’ll show to new leaders, financiers and investors, so you want to get it right.

Using salon business plan software can help you with this, along with many other things.

Whether you’re creating a booth rental salon business plan, a mobile hair salon business plan, or you want to break down the costs for a loan on your existing, large business, the best thing that you can do is conduct enough research beforehand.

Your salon business plan is your roadmap to business success, so make sure to take your time and pay attention to the details.

Remember, this guide is only meant to help inspire you and get you started, it’s not definitive for legal or financial purposes. Always use your own good judgement when making financial decisions for your business and consult a professional when needed.

Citations

How to write a great business plan
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel3/46/14446/00660335.pdf

What do investors look for in a business plan? A comparison of the investment criteria of bankers, venture capitalists and business angels
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0266242604042377

Anatomy of a Business Plan: A Step-by-step Guide to Building the Business and Securing Your Company's Future
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id