One of the hindering factors in starting a spa or salon business, or really almost any business for that matter, is startup costs. You may have the skillset, the experience and even the clients but, if you don’t have a place to work and equipment to work with, you simply won’t be able to get your business off the ground. This presents a complication because rent is expensive, business mortgages are expensive and so are equipment and furniture. Yes, you could always take out a loan but, if things start out slower at your new business than you had hoped, you will be on the hook for monthly payments which you might not be able to afford. This is where a spa or salon studio can really come in handy. Spa and salon studios are businesses which have everything you need to attend to your clients and rent out the use of their space for independent stylists, masseuses, pedicurists and more.
BENEFITS OF SPA AND SALON STUDIOS
Aside from saving you from steep startup costs, spa and salon studios have various benefits for the professionals who utilize them. For one thing, the independent contractors who do use them can set their own hours, prices and decide which services they do or do not want to offer. In contrast, if you worked for a traditional salon or spa company, you would be obligated to honor the hours given to you by the manager as well as the services and the types of clients the manager has decided on for you. However, if you wanted to focus solely on facials or pedicures, you could do this while renting out space at a spa or salon studio. Regular renters of spa and salon studio space are even given the freedom to decorate and customize their working space if they choose to do so.
DRAWBACKS OF SPA AND SALON STUDIOS
Despite the many benefits to working as an independent contractor at a spa or salon studio, there are drawbacks. For one thing, since you are technically only working for yourself, you will only earn money as clients come in. Therefore, if things get slow, there will be no guaranteed paycheck like there would be if you were working for someone else’s salon or spa. Second, if you happen to use a particularly busy studio, you may have to work your schedule (and your clients’ schedules) around the times in which the studio has available space. You could also run into scheduling conflicts in a traditional salon or spa business. However, these scheduling conflicts would typically be between your own clients so that, if you can’t schedule one client, it is because you are already working with another. The scheduling conflicts in a studio setting would simply result in downtime and the inability to earn money and work in that downtime because someone else has already scheduled the studio time that you wanted.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
Working in a studio setting as opposed to a traditional beauty business will also mean that you may have a rotating cast of strangers working at your side as opposed to co-workers who you know and work well around. Depending on your personality, you may consider this type of isolation as positive or negative, but it is certainly a consideration. Apart from that, you will be working at a location where your clients could have direct communication with your competition because everyone is simply working for themselves and this is another aspect to consider. It may be possible for other beauty professionals to try and poach your clients.
CONCLUSION
Spa and salon studios may be a good option for those who want to be their own boss and have their own business but who do not have the startup capital or loans to do so in a traditional manner. There are drawbacks but it is one way to get your entrepreneurial journey in the beauty industry off the ground with less risk.