Opening a Hair Salon: Your Step-by-Step Guide
Thinking about opening your own hair salon? Here are the steps you need to take and the tools you need to get started.
Written by
Mackenzie TaylorHow much does it cost to open a hair salon?
Location
Size
Type of salon
Level of experience
- Rent and utilities: $1000-$5000 (per month)
- Equipment: $10,000-$50,000
- Inventory: $5,000-$15,000
- Licenses and permits: $500-$1200
- Insurance: $1000-$2000 (per year)
- Marketing and advertising: $500-$2000 (per month)
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- Lease or rent some of the equipment instead of buying it upfront
- Buy used equipment when you can
- If you have a versatile space, look into letting others rent the space from you once a month
- Use free or low-cost marketing like social media and advertising to help build up your clients
How to open a salon in 6 steps
Write a business plan
- A summary and description of your business. In this, you’ll want to highlight your salon’s objectives, who your target audience is, and more.
- Management and organization. Figure out exactly what your salon needs in terms of stylists, other management roles, and more. In this section, you’ll want to outline what kind of business entity you want your salon to be—LLC, corporation, sole proprietorship, etc.
- Marketing your business. How are you going to market and get new clients through your door? Explain here any costs that might go into marketing your business.
- Products, equipment, and services you may need. Your salon is going to need a fair number of items to get started. Write down everything you think you might need (and any items you might need in the future!).
- Financial planning. Create a full financial plan for the salon, including income, rent, balancing sheets, and more. This will help you track money in vs. money out and how your salon can scale in the future.
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Determine costs
- Rent
- Training
- Insurance
- Inventory
- Your charges
- Equipment
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Find a location
- Parking
- Foot traffic
- Size of the space
- Rental price
- What other businesses are in the area
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Licenses and permits
- Business license: This is required for ALL businesses. Contact your local government office to figure out all the steps to obtaining your own!
- Certificate of occupancy: This will show that your hair salon meets all the building and safety codes for the building of the business. You need to contact your local building department to get this certificate.
- Health department permit: As a hair salon provides personal care services, you need to have a health department permit. Contact your local health department to get this permit.
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Market your salon
- Start with the local community. Go to the other local small businesses around you and see if they would be okay with you leaving out flyers for your business.
- Host a small opening party to welcome the new neighborhood in and get the word out about your new salon. Take advantage of a flyer maker to craft stunning, eye-catching flyers that highlight the date, time, and special offers with vibrant visuals that grab attention for your event. Invite your clients and have them invite people they know and offer a referral discount to anyone who books an appointment.
- Share your experiences on the opening on social media. Have people like and share your salon online to start spreading the word.
- Work with local influencers. See if someone local to you is interested in getting their hair done by you and share it with their followers to help spread the word.
- Endless content and caption ideas in seconds
- Auto-generated hashtags tailored to your caption
- Captions are written completely in your brand voice
- Repurpose your long-form content
- FREE caption generator
- Schedule your content at the best time for your audience inside Flick in a single click
- Brainstorm various post ideas from a single keyword
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