Adopting a healthy success mindset can help your salon overcome just about any challenge

How do you create a successful salon enterprise? We’ve previously tackled many strategies and techniques, but sometimes the simplest solution is believing in your plan. Adopting a success mindset — in which you commit wholeheartedly to a specific objective — can see you through a surprising number of challenges.

Now, we’re not suggesting Rhonda Byrne’s self-help book The Secret is a how-to guide for salon management, but you can accomplish great things with single-minded dedication. In fact, at least one academic study proved that having backup plans — even thinking about them — makes humans less effective at completing an assigned task.

Does that mean salon owners can leap into the fray without creating contingency plans? Of course not! After all, contingencies are why salon owners can benefit from the Paycheck Protection Program during a crisis. What’s more, a failure to plan is still planning for failure. If you cannot adapt budgeting or stylist retention strategies to address changing circumstances, you’ll likely lose out to a competitor who will.

A success mindset simply means using the right mental process to overcome challenges and obstacles. Easier said than done, perhaps, but it’s something the most accomplished leaders in history all achieved. So, where do you start?

Set clear goals

If you want to create a successful salon, you need to know what a successful salon looks like. How much revenue does it earn? What is its regular client percentage? Can it expand to new locations? Each salon owner will have different responses for each question — or other goals altogether — but knowing the answers is the first step to realizing them. One key to goal setting is to make them S.M.A.R.T.: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.

Be rigid with goals, flexible with plans

Have you identified your clear and specific goals? Do. Not. Change. Them. Goals are your benchmark for measuring success, making them the only way to guarantee you’re on the right path. If you want to increase the likelihood of success, you’ll have to be rigidly committed to achieving them.

Business plans are a little different because they need to be flexible for evolving circumstances. Think of goals as destinations and plans as directions — you can change direction if you get lost, but if your destination keeps shifting, you’ll never get anywhere.

Practice productive criticism

Often, the hardest part of any business plan is being self-critical about it. Criticism doesn’t mean being negative or putting yourself down — it’s about being honest enough to judge what works and what doesn’t. If you aren’t learning and growing as a leader, you won’t be able to adapt successfully.

An excellent place to start is creating opportunities for feedback, whether from clients or stylists. Effective listening can help you improve as a leader and creates stronger ties with staff and your community. Even better, you might gain solutions to problems that you’d never previously considered.

Remember: success isn’t something tangible you can hold. It’s a process that helps you achieve your goals. At the end of the day, adopting a success mindset is training yourself to follow that process in the most effective way.