Is it profitable to open a hairdresser: a step-by-step business plan

Fashion for certain types of business comes and goes. Vape shops open at tremendous speed, occupying all available rental space like an infection, and then close at the same speed. But there are services that people will always use, regardless of fashion. Today we will look at a business plan that will tell us how to open a hairdressing salon from scratch and avoid all the pitfalls.

Is it profitable to open a hairdresser?

The payback period for this business varies from 1 to 2.5 years, which is quite good indicators. One hairdressing salon can passively generate high profits, and in the future, creating a network of hairdressing salons, at least at the city level, can increase income even more.

However, like any other business, there are pros, cons and risks.

Pros:

People's hair and nails will never stop growing. Therefore, this business has stable demand and will generate profit even in a crisis. Of course, in a crisis people have less money, they will prefer cheaper services and you must adapt to your clients.
There is room to grow. You can always expand your existing hairdressing salon by opening additional rooms, for example, for manicure, or launch the same hairdressing salon in another area of the city.
If the business stays afloat for the first 3 years, then most likely you have hit the mark and it becomes a cash cow. Most hair salons close in the first year because entrepreneurs make mistakes. They make a terrible design for a room that you never want to return to, they make a mistake with the location or with something else. If you managed to survive for 3 years, most likely your business will continue to survive.
Regular customers can make up the lion's share of your profits.

Minuses:

Large upfront costs that may never pay off
Very complex business organization
Big competition
A nice design is important for this type of business, so you will have to spend money on renovations

Some aspiring entrepreneurs wonder Is hairdressing a risky business? The answer to this question will be more positive than negative. Any business is a risky business. A huge number of external factors can burn all your investments, or, on the contrary, increase them many times. The only question is how much money you are willing to risk.

Risks:

Unqualified employees. If you select personnel who do their work poorly, you will immediately destroy your business. Word of mouth will do its job.
Lack of clients. This can be caused by an incorrectly chosen type of hairdresser or an incorrectly defined target audience.
You may not have enough money. Very often, development eats up your savings. If you are planning to launch a large establishment and your budget is calculated back to back, you may not have enough money to break even.

Types of hairdressing salons

First of all, you need to decide whether you want to open an economy class hairdresser or a large beauty salon? Let's look at the pros and cons.

Economy class

These hair salons are usually located in residential areas, shopping centers or somewhere else. They do not differ in anything original from the gray mass of competitors, either inside or outside.

Pros:

Minimum investment
Easy to find staff

Disadvantages and risks:

Small profit
People have been living in their areas for years, and when you open your establishment next to their houses in a residential area, it is not at all a fact that they will come to you. Very often they continue to go to other trusted establishments. Therefore, it is very important not to make a mistake with the place.

Economy class hair salon

Beauty saloon

Elite hairdressing salons are already a more serious business and they require full commitment from the entrepreneur when starting up. You can’t just take a room with a leaking roof and a stench and raise the price tags. The client should receive positive emotions from everything: a beautiful sign, interior, comfortable chairs, well-groomed hairdressers and a sweet smiling girl at the reception. Only then will he be ready to pay a lot for a haircut and come back again.

Pros:

High profit
Loyal customers will come to you across the city

Disadvantages and risks:

Very complex organization
Large expenses for absolutely everything
You cannot hire unqualified employees without work experience
It is necessary to come up with a general concept and make a beautiful renovation
Without due diligence, there is a high probability of losing your entire investment.

Large beauty salon

Children's

If you want to sharply narrow your target audience and are figuring out how to open a children's hairdresser, then the essence here is exactly the same as in adult establishments.

You can open a cheap, simple and not very profitable one. Or you can invest a huge amount of money and launch an entire beauty salon for children.

The only distinguishing feature is that you need to find a place where a large number of children and their parents will intersect. It wouldn't make sense to open a children's hair salon in some office district. Your reference points should be kindergartens, schools and various children's clubs.

At home

Opening a hairdresser at home is a very interesting option for those who are tired of their bosses and want to start working for themselves. All you need is regular loyal customers who will regularly come to you and invite their friends.

Since you work from home, you won't have a big sign that will let people know that this is a hair salon. Therefore, you need to create profiles on social networks and try to promote them.

As for the official operation of the business and paying taxes, difficulties may arise here. The fact is that in order to operate legally, hairdressing salons must meet sanitary and epidemiological requirements. It is very difficult to do this at home.

What does it take to open a hairdresser?

First of all, to open a hairdressing salon from scratch, you need to register an individual entrepreneur. We recommend registering an individual entrepreneur because it is much faster and cheaper than an LLC. In the future, when things get better and you want to create a large chain of hairdressing salons, you can return to this issue.

To provide services to hairdressers and beauty salons, when registering, you must select OKVED 93.02.

Necessary stack of documents

To officially open a hairdressing salon, you need to obtain the following documents:

Certificate of registration of individual entrepreneur
Certificate of ownership or lease agreement
Conclusion on sanitary and hygienic requirements from the SES
Permission from Rospozhnadzor
Permission from the local administration
Project documentation with communication systems
Agreements with utility organizations

Sanitary and epidemiological requirements

Hairdressing salons are under the control of the SES, so to start our business we need to pass certain sanitary and epidemiological requirements. These requirements can be found in document SanPiN 2.1.2.2631-10, which was approved by Resolution of the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation dated May 18, 2010 No. 59.

Requirements, availability of separate premises for:

Storage of equipment and waste
Bathrooms and rest rooms for staff
Equipment cleaning room with hot and cold water

Linen that is used more than once, for example, towels, capes, rags, must be washed. To meet the requirements of the SES, dirty linen must be handed over to the laundry under an agreement, or you need to equip a separate room for laundry in your hairdressing salon.

You can download the official document of the sanitary and epidemiological requirements of the hairdresser from our website.

List of services provided

In order to open a small or large hairdressing salon, we must clearly understand what services will be provided to visiting clients.

The larger your establishment, the more services from this list you will provide. It should be understood that there is no point in organizing hair spa treatments for an economy class hairdresser. And the lack of opportunity to wash your hair will clearly not be a plus for an elite beauty salon.

Standard services that ideally should be provided even in an economy class hair salon:

A haircut
Model haircut
Laying
Perm
Manicure
Shaving

Hair salon services for middle class clients:

Cosmetologist services
Pedicure
Beautiful nail painting
Braiding
Modern haircuts
Lamination
Bioperm

Services of large beauty salons:

Stylist services
Creating an individual image
Author's haircuts
Professional make-up
Hair spa treatments

Step-by-step instructions on how to open a hair salon from scratch

Below you can see the approximate plan for launching your own hairdressing salon. Business planning is influenced by many different factors: the city, your budget, competition and others. Of course, the few steps presented below are not some kind of paradigm. Always go beyond and do not strictly follow other people's plans. Ours will show you only an approximate route.

Step 1 - defining the type

The first thing we must do is decide what audience we are counting on and how much money we have in our pocket. We have two options: an economical hairdresser or a large beauty salon. Based on your budget, strength and self-confidence, you need to make a choice.

Step 2 - IP registration

We have already talked about this above, so we will not focus too much on it. Registering an individual entrepreneur
with OKVED 93.02.

Step 3 - choosing a location and premises

You need to select a room for a hairdresser taking into account that one workplace takes up about 6 sq.m. Therefore, you need to think in advance about how many employees will work for you.

Economical hair salon	Beauty saloon
It is usually located in residential areas and does not require large expenses. A small room of about 50 sq.m. will do. Also, some minor cosmetic repairs and a fresh sign are needed.	Before selecting a room, you first need to think through the general concept and approximate design. This is what we will base our choice on. It is best to locate somewhere in the city center so that people from different areas can get to you relatively quickly. The ideal option would be a room with parking. Expensive repairs will be required.
Rent 30,000r/month	Rent 150,000r/month
Repair RUB 70,000	Repair RUR 1,500,000

One workplace occupies 6 sq.m.

Step 4 - purchase of equipment

The larger the hairdresser we open, the more equipment we will spend.

		Economical hair salon		Beauty saloon
Name	Price	Qty	Total	Qty	Total
Chair for client	7.000	4	28000	20	140.000
Mirror	4.500	4	18.000	20	90.000
Washing	10.000	2	20.000	4	40.000
Tool shelf	3.000	4	12.000	20	60.000
Tools	100.000		100.000		500.000
Administration desk	25.000	1	25.000	1	25.000
Sofa in the waiting area	16.000	1	16.000	3	48.000
Coffee table	5.000	1	5.000	4	25.000
Hanger	8.000	1	8.000	5	40000
Total:			232.000		968.000

After preliminary calculations, the cost of equipment for a small hairdressing salon will be 232,000 rubles, and for a large beauty salon 968,000 rubles.

In our calculations, average indicators were used. In some cases, the cost, for example, of a mirror can be 15,000 rubles for an elite salon, or 1,500 rubles when purchased on Avito for an economical establishment.

Step 5 - recruitment

Your employees are your most important asset, after your customers, of course. Many clients choose approximately the same hairstyles, the same hair salons and the same hairdressers from year to year.

It is important for you to do everything to ensure that the client returns to you a second time. It might even be worth holding promotions “First 5 visits with a 20% discount”

But that’s not about that now. Your employees have the biggest impact on your customers. Therefore, before hiring a new employee, you need to understand what emotions the client will have after communicating with him.

For both expensive beauty salons and economical salons, it is important to hire the most professional, positive and sociable employees.

Hairdressers' salaries are usually 20%-40% of revenue

In the future, it is necessary to monitor which specialists are most often booked for an individual appointment and draw certain conclusions.

In addition to the craftsmen, you will need a couple more employees.

Cleaner with a salary of 11,000 rubles
Administrator with a salary of 25,000 rubles

Step 6 - advertising and attracting clients

At the last step, you need to turn on your imagination to the maximum and try to remember what you read in books about marketing.