3 steps for salon industry career success

Industry coach Susan Papageorgio boils salon success down to three key components:

1. The right attitude and focus. How do you manage your energy so that you’re present with clients and help them? That’s what I mean by attitude. In salons, they don’t always define that very well. Write down exactly how you can focus on the client’s needs while you’re at the salon and not let what’s going on in your own life get in the way of that.
2. Good people skills. You must have—or develop—the ability to connect with people and positively influence them.
3. Technical knowledge as it relates to creating a successful business. Even if you have a lot of talent in achieving all the hair cuts you’ve been taught to do, you still may not know how to apply that knowledge to doing ten haircuts a day. Learning to be efficient, and learning to do things the way your salon owner wants them done, is refining your skills. You also should be expanding your skills. Learn to do more difficult cuts and color formulas.

“In this business, you have to love to learn. If you don’t love that process, you’re in the wrong industry. You won’t succeed.”—Susan Papageorgio