How to Train Your Salon Team and Be a Better Spa Manager
If you’re planning on opening a salon and hiring staff, have a salon team already, or are expanding your business with new hires, there is never a wrong time to learn how to train your staff and be a better spa manager. Your team is a critical factor in growing or breaking your business. Having them trained is a BIG way to maximize your efforts while building positive relationships with your people. In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of different spa and salon education programs, give you ideas on how to go about it, and share how your salon education will make you a better spa manager. We’ll also give you a sample training checklist on waxing techniques and salon protocol and dive deeper into what your salon manager duties should look like when striving to create an unstoppable team.
THE BENEFITS OF CREATING A SALON EDUCATION PROGRAM
Some of us already have a salon team filled with loyal (money-making) staff but are bringing on new talent; others are starting fresh and don’t know where to begin. But no matter where you’re at with your team, there is no time like the present to create a spa or salon education training program that increases sales, consistently translates your brand and brings in repeat business.
The benefits of salon education training are:
- You fast track new talent and keep long-time staff on the ball
- You keep previous employees accountable, challenged and engaged in their/your business
- Even new, highly experienced hires will be on-boarded into your spa brand’s philosophy and integrated into your culture
- You can maintain consistency and track where your people are at in all aspects of what they do
- It helps make your team an actual team and promotes an environment of growing together
Having on-going training for you and your staff keeps you all on the cutting-edge of your industry’s best practices and advancements. Salon education is an investment in your business and team that is palpable and should be considered a benefit to everyone involved, especially your clientele.
READ: How to Motivate Your Salon Staff to Sell
WHAT SHOULD SPA OR SALON EDUCATION TRAINING LOOK LIKE?
Salon education can look different from business to business, but in the end, every day working for you should be a learning opportunity. Every sect of your business will receive modified training pointed at their specific task. That’s why the training of your sanitation staff should look different from the training of your front-desk people and why training long-term employees will look different from the education received by fresh talent and experienced new hires.
The best training takes on a mixture of training methods, which for a salon, could look like the following:
Classroom-Settings
Along with your other spa manager duties, once a week (or however often possible), schedule staff product training with your Starpil Wax PAM or other brand reps, train on new techniques in applying hard wax or on Brazilian wax positioning. Plan daily huddles to discuss company policy issues or current events. The plus-side of classroom-based training is that your team will be getting a unified education in a “lump sum.”
Hands-On Training
New hires can bring in models to gain skills on their waxing techniques and get them out onto the floor faster. You can hand out questionnaires on waxing body hair or play games like salon Jeopardy or bingo with topics on waxing steps, waxing techniques, or anything that gauges where your team is on protocol, technique, or product knowledge. You can even have morning touch-bases where you pick a daily goal and offer a quick motivational training on it.
On-The-Job Training
As a spa manager, if your business model involves hiring an assistant, or you offer new products for staff to work with, that’s on-the-job training. You can blend social learning into your salon education by pairing new hires with long-time employees together to have the new hire observe or be made aware of your salon’s way of doing things.
Here’s where new employees can see your sales philosophy in action. From selling home care like the Starpil Post Intensive Care Lotion or a Brazilian Waxing Mask, this can be effective for both parties because older employees can step outside of the boundaries of their regular duties and expand their knowledge of their craft.
Of course, this can extend to your long-time staff by having you train them on managing a spa business or sharing beauty salon manager roles and responsibilities. You want your team to feel like they can always be growing while working with you and so that you, as an owner or leader can rest easy knowing that your salon is in good hands if you ever get time for that vacation, you busy bee!
Homework
You can even provide your staff with simple homework that would require them to watch short videos on advanced waxing techniques for pregnant women or have the whole team go through an online course tailored around sales. All of this can be discussed in your morning huddles (kind like an Oprah book club, but it boosts your business). You can have the staff research your competitors to learn from what they are doing or solidify the differences in your doing. There are so many fun ideas for keeping your staff engaged and accountable for striving to be the best.
READ: Top Tips for Reducing Your Wax Salon Product Costs
USING YOUR SPA OR SALON EDUCATION TO BE A BETTER SPA MANAGER
When managing a spa business and creating an immersive salon education program, begin by defining what you and your employees want to achieve. To be a good spa manager or salon owner, you need to be in constant, open communication with your team members so that you’re creating a two-way street environment filled with reciprocity and acknowledged expectations on both ends. This is what makes training so great; you are working with your staff to make them better so that they can make you better—everyone wins.
You’re also:
- Listening to your team
- Being supportive of their goals and concerns
- Leading by example
- Making sure everyone is working toward the same goals
- Being open to suggestions and constructive criticism
- Including the team in the decision-making process
- Holding people accountable
- Celebrating wins
SETTING GOALS WITH YOUR SALON EDUCATION PROGRAM
Start your salon education with a list or schedule of what a team member will need to achieve to advance at each level of their training. This allows you to check off initiatives as you move forward so that progress is trackable, and milestones can be celebrated. As a leader, this is an opportunity to be maintaining expectations on both ends. You can always have your finger on the pulse of your employees’ needs by using training in all its forms as the conversation starter.
For new hires, training might include beginning and advanced waxing techniques, how to wax properly in your salon-style, and everything there is to know about how to apply hard wax and more. Here is the beginning of a sample list that can be made into a schedule.
Internal Salon Protocol
- Go over the Employee Handbook
- Salon Safety
- Intro to Brands We Carry
- Taking appointments
- Social Media Rules and Expectations
- Salon Cleaning Schedule
Product Training
- Starpil Wax
- Senna Cosmetics
- Natura Bisse
- Eva Professional
Waxing Techniques
- How to Wax Properly in the SALON NAME Style
- Client Intake, Q & A
- Waxing Facial Hair
- Waxing Body Hair
SALON NAME Waxing Steps
- How to Wax with Hard Wax
- Prep Practices
- How to Apply Hard Wax
- How to Wax with Soft Wax
- Prep Practices
- How to Apply Soft Wax
Starpil After-Wax Care Steps
- Post-Wax Care Oil
- Post-Wax Care Lotion
Home Care
- Post-Wax Intensive Care Lotion
- Brazilian Waxing Mask
This is not a complete salon education list by far, but just enough to start with the basics. Of course, your new esthie will need to know more than just how to apply hard wax and will have to dive way deeper into your salon education. This would also include everything there is to know about each service from how long does leg hair need to be to wax, Brazilian wax positioning to Brazilian wax training, but this list should give you a firm idea of how to get started.
FINAL THOUGHTS
In the end, being a successful spa manager and creating training is more about your investment in people than just about your bottom line. Your staff is a reflection of you and the environment you’re creating. Their knowledge surrounding services, sales, and customer relationships is a massive part of making or breaking your business. The more you invest in the people that work under you, the more they give back to you and their clients. And that’s no a small ROI, investing in your staff’s spa or salon education and leading with the philosophy that you want to build better people, for a better business can be the difference between a successful business and a household name.
So, tell us which suggestions you might implement into your spa manager duties list? How does this affect your beauty salon manager roles and responsibilities? What actions have you taken in these areas that have worked or that needed fine-tuning? Join the conversation in the World of Waxing, our Facebook group comprised of excellent pros like yourself!
READ: How to Use Hard Wax to Increase Sales
The Esthie Shield Lite is a lightweight, clear face shield crafted for esthies, salon, and spa workers. There are also the Esthie Shield Protective Face Masks, which are crafted from ultra-soft fabric and washable, for use time and time again. Having Esthie Sheild for germ protection is the best way to keep yourself and your customers safe during your services while allowing for easy breathing and clear communication with your clients.
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