While salons are closed during this pandemic, many salon owners are working harder than ever to keep the team and business up for everyone’s future.

There was so much fear on March 19 in closing the doors due to COVID-19 and the unknown of when we would be able to reopen again.  This is new territory for everyone, and as we navigate through this together, we need to stay present in what we can do now. For me, it was important to keep the salon together as a team despite layoffs of employees and the other stylists being independent contractors.  Knowing we will be back together again, and we will be busier than ever, helped us to focus on the what we can do now and for the future. I had to push the fear aside and act quickly to be a leader for the team. As salon owners, we might not always have the answers at the time, but just showing up to listen to them and being there visually helps a lot for everyone.

Keep it together

First thing we did was commit to a weekly Zoom call with the whole team, even those laid off are still part of the team if they choose to be and invited to be a part of the call. The calls bring the team together and is an opportunity to share what struggles we might be going through, ideas we might have, new information, an obligation to still be part of something and see each other’s beautiful smiles. It helps a lot when you are so used to being with each other, sometimes even more than your family at home, I love to see my team together on our calls.

Connect with clients

To be there for our clients was the next thing that was really important to us. Together we talked about what we could include in an email that would be important for our clients to hear, put them at ease, and ensure them that we will be back to take care of them as soon as we are given permission from the state. Quickly we reached out to clients via email and stylists individually called their clients to put all appointments on hold and answer any questions.

Stay Present

Social media was going to be challenging to find content for, but we came up with a new team project and started to create videos at home for the clients, teaching them how to tackle their hair challenges at home. These videos are talked about on social and linked to our salon YouTube page that I quickly created and have a special playlist titled, “Quarantine How To Videos.” This really helped to give the stylists something to work on, elevate them individually and be there as a salon for our clients and community.

Time to prepare

As a team, we have been talking about how things are going to be different when we return. There are changes that we will have to make, and while we don’t have all the details yet, the conversation and awareness is crucial to set us up for success. I encourage the stylists to start thinking of new ideas, services, or even better ways to book our services to really make sure that we are prepared and respectful of what our clients might be going through.

Learn as much as possible

Education is always huge for us and there is a plethora of it online right now, so we share links of videos or classes we like, along with anything else that inspires us during this time.

We may be physically separated from each other, but a strong team and business is much more that than what you see in person. The doors are closed, but in my eyes, we are still open in a new way and I feel busier than ever as a salon owner, keeping the team and salon up and running. I believe we can come back from this stronger and more connected than ever before.

Anna Peters is a member of the Sam Villa ArTeam and owner of re:Treat Color + Hair Design Studio Salon