The ins and outs of the beauty industry

Sarah Stowe

Waxing, haircuts, body piercing, facials, spray tans, massages – all of these services demand at least a little bit of physical contact. The health and beauty industry thrives on people wanting to be plucked, groomed, smoothed or soothed. But what’s involved for the business owners? How hands-on do franchisees have to be in their business in order to make it profitable and to establish a strong, loyal customer base?

While every franchise system is different, most within the health and beauty industry don’t require franchisees to be trained therapists or hairdressers. But while franchisees might be able to get out of doing the waxing and plucking, they still need to have a proactive, hands-on approach to the business so that it too can blossom and be beautiful.

Experience

Cheryl Bastow, national franchise recruitment manager at Endota Spa describes the business as a cross between an upmarket day spa and a beautician. Services include facial treatments, body wraps, eyelash tinting, waxing and organic spray tans.

Franchisees don’t need to have experience in the industry in order to join Endota, which recently welcomed a farmer and an ex-detective to the team. While Bastow says franchisees should be business savvy, she also believes that a career at Endota can be a welcome seachange for corporate climbers.

“We’re looking for motivated people with lots of communication skills who are wanting to have more balance in their life, who have probably come from quite a busy corporate background and are wanting to put something back into the community as well as make a really lovely, down-to-earth, heavenly job for themselves,” she says.

An interest in health and beauty is important, but only when it’s combined with an understanding of what it takes to successfully operate a business. “Most people do have a keen interest, but you need a balance as well. There’s no point being off with the pixies and not having any basic business nous, because otherwise it’s very well meaning but not necessarily successful.”

Ella Bache, which has 83 franchised beauty salons across the country, also doesn’t require franchisees to be trained beauty therapists, although experience in the industry is welcomed.

“We’d look for someone that wants to represent Ella Bache in a professional manner and is nurturing, self motivating, responsible and has had some sort of small business owner operator experience. Someone who is committed to growing their business and is capable of following a nationally planned marketing strategy,” explains Manal Haydar, franchise development executive.

Franchisees without therapist accreditation need to hire a head or senior therapist to work full time in-store to allow them to focus on running the business. “We do have numerous salon owners who are not qualified beauty therapists but they are in the business at all times, seven days a week, and their role within the business is to motivate, encourage and train their staff. They’re very service-based, meeting and greeting clients, so they’re also retailing and ensuring that the day-to-day operation of the salon is very effective and efficient.”

The same goes for Hairhouse Warehouse, a “one stop shop” for hair and beauty, where 60 percent of the average 100 square metre outlet comprises professional haircare products and the other 40 percent is taken up by a fully functional salon. The vast majority of franchises also have a beauty room on the premises where services including spray tans, piercings, waxing and nail treatments are performed.

“You definitely don’t need to be a hairdresser to be running a Hairhouse Warehouse business,” said Arthur Mitroulas, general manager. “You definitely need to know how to employ great hairdressers to do the job that they need to do, but you are essentially running a fully merchandised business that has a lot of planograming, stock management and customer service interaction. You need a retail manager, a salon manager and then below them you need to have the team. The franchisee is effectively there for the people, leading the people, managing the key stakeholders: the landlord, the suppliers, and then just enjoying life.”

The job description

Price Attack will also accept franchisees that have no beauty therapy or hairdressing experience, but it won’t accept franchisees that see the business as simply an investment opportunity. Franchisor Barry Jarred says the franchisor must be hands-on, working on and in the business. “All our franchisees, literally, are owner operators,” he says. “If they want to get the best results they have to be hands-on operators and not sit back and leave the business running to someone else,” he says.

Franchisees also need to be willing to follow a proven business plan but at the same time must be a team leader who is capable of hiring, firing and inspiring staff.

“We look for people who will listen and follow a system. If there are people who want to come on board and think that they can turn around and change the whole structure and operate differently then we tell them that they’re better off running their own business independently.

“The important thing is to make sure that you are a person that can comply with a proven and successful business.”

Mitroulas from Hairhouse Warehouse says that while it is very important for the franchisee to work in-store as much as possible for the first year of their term, the franchisee, assuming that he or she has employed skilled and capable staff, is then able to work on the business from arm’s reach. This will help them to become multi-unit franchisees, something that Hairhouse Warehouse strongly encourages.

“We look out for their vision, how they can create their own wealth. Because we don’t want to have a franchisee that just wants one store. We want them to build their whole network of stores so they can stretch to as many as five stores,” Mitroulas explains.

Franchisees at Hairhouse Warehouse are actually deterred from having too much of a hands-on approach to business. “We have franchisees saying that they want to do the piercings course and we just say ‘No, never get it done. Get someone who is able to do it day in, day out so you can focus on x, y, z’.

“With piercings you have to get someone trained up and it’s part of OH&S and there’s an operations manual around it and you need to have all the certificates and it gets audited by us. So there’s all these things that they need to be aware of.”

At Ella Bache, the typical franchisee has had small business experience, is savvy, passionate about the industry, financially secure, nurturing and loves interacting with people. Like Hairhouse Warehouse, Ella Bache encourages new recruits to work in the business for the first six to 12 months to learn the ropes. While the business does not accept people that see it as purely an investment, Ella Bache franchisees can still operate the business efficiently and effectively without being in-store 24/7.

“It is encouraged for them to be hands-on in the business but, for example, if a female is looking at having a baby or can’t be in there full time, it is very much recommended that they work two or three days in the business. There are some therapists that work two or three days in the business and they still work on the business. So they’re recruiting staff, managing staff, advertising and marketing.”

And hiring efficient and reliable staff is key to making your own life easier as a franchisee, says Manal Haydar. “The way that therapists are recruited in the salons is that they actually take ownership as if it was their own, and that’s part of our training. If you as a client walk in and you have one of the therapists treat you, you’d feel as if she was running her own business. If there isn’t a salon owner in the business there’s always a manager or head therapist, and they all know the values of the business.”

Training

It is particularly important in the hair and beauty industry for customers and clients to feel that the people performing their treatments or selling them their beauty products are knowledgeable and reliable. After all, it’s their appearance that’s at stake.

“We offer our salon owners product knowledge and training, so we go into salons and train the therapists. There are Ella Bache field trainers who obviously support in-salon business planning, marketing, PR, sales initiatives, as well as ensuring that all staff are up to date with skin care treatments, techniques and product knowledge. There’s a calendar that is sent out every six months so [franchisees] can send their staff to be trained,” says Haydar.

Ella Bache also has business managers with salon territories, and their role is to manage business performance and ensure that there’s a drive in growth and that the salon owner is getting great returns.

Similarly, Endota Spa offers a support team for its franchisees including an operations manager, a dedicated area manager to provide ongoing service and support as well as a marketing manager. The franchise also requires new franchisees to do a number of courses before they open for business.

“We have a business owners short course, we have a training school in Sydney and Melbourne and we have a business managers short course or a spa directors course that they have to undertake. We also have product and treatment training courses at the school which you participate in if you aren’t a beauty therapist, and we encourage our business owners to do that training,” explains Bastow. She adds that professionalism and expertise are essential for any business within the hair and beauty industry, where clients often feel vulnerable and are placing a degree of trust in the therapist or business owner.

“It’s personal, it’s very important and a lot of people are very self-conscious about their skin or any problems that they’re having. The therapists are very caring and nurturing but I think that if you don’t have the background it’s very important that you do have good product knowledge because otherwise you’re just parroting and you’re not able to assist the client properly.”

Regardless of the franchisee’s business or beauty experience, Price Attack trains its team on every aspect of operating an outlet well before the doors open. “We provide a four week training period and then we’ve got our field staff out there that will actually go into the store and support them once the store is open and operating.

“They undergo a lot of training on the systems, so the administrative part of Price Attack, and we bring in our suppliers’ representatives to give them extensive training in the products that we sell. So they’re trained in every aspect of the business,” outlines Jarred.

Franchisees are also trained in how to hire and manage staff and while Jarred admits that the personality and people skills of potential franchisees are considered before they sign on the dotted line. Even great customer service can be trained into a new franchisee, he adds.

“Customer service is absolutely one of the most important things and I think that’s the case for any business today because people have a lot of options. We spend a lot of time training our franchisees in the importance of giving the best customer service. It is so important.”