SALON BUSINESS PLAN | WORKING DRAFT ---------------------------------------- Workbook by SalonAI. 0 of 8 sections contain notes. ---------------------------------------- This is a planning worksheet, not a completed funding application. Unanswered sections remain marked. Verify assumptions and prepare supporting financial documents before making commitments. ---------------------------------------- 1. YOUR SALON IN A FEW SENTENCES Make the idea specific enough that someone else can explain it back to you. - What kind of salon, spa, or studio are you opening or improving, and in which area? - Who is it for, what will they come to you for, and why would they choose you? - Are you starting from scratch, taking a chair or suite, buying a business, or expanding? What is your target opening date? Check: proposed location, ownership, opening timeline, and the assumptions still to test. YOUR NOTES [Not yet completed] ---------------------------------------- 2. YOUR CLIENTS AND LOCAL MARKET Start with people who could actually book, and the choices they already have nearby. - Describe your target clients, their service needs, visit frequency, budget, and travel radius. - Name nearby alternatives. Compare their services, booking experience, availability, and published prices using dated sources. - What have conversations with potential clients taught you? Separate observed demand from your hopes for it. Collect: local research, competitor URLs and dates, and anonymized customer-interview notes. YOUR NOTES [Not yet completed] ---------------------------------------- 3. SERVICES, TIME, AND CAPACITY A service menu needs to fit both your clients and the time, people, and equipment available. - List your core services, planned customer prices, appointment lengths, cleanup time, and consumable costs. - How many providers, chairs, stations, or rooms can work at once? Which services share a scarce resource? - Set realistic working hours and attended appointments. Allow for breaks, cancellations, training, and quieter opening months. Keep retail sales separate. Collect: a draft service menu, supplier quotes, staffing availability, and a weekly capacity schedule. YOUR NOTES [Not yet completed] ---------------------------------------- 4. OWNERSHIP, PEOPLE, AND RESPONSIBILITIES Decide who owns the business, who delivers the services, and who takes care of the rest. - Who owns and manages the business? Which skills do you already have, and which roles still need filling? - Describe the proposed employee, commission, or chair-rental arrangements and how they affect revenue and expenses. Verify the appropriate local requirements. - Who owns scheduling, stock counts, client follow-up, daily reconciliation, and decisions that need an owner? Collect: role descriptions, adviser questions, proposed agreements, and verified local licensing requirements. YOUR NOTES [Not yet completed] ---------------------------------------- 5. HOW CLIENTS FIND YOU AND RETURN Choose a first route to clients that you can execute and measure. - Where will your first clients come from? Name a channel, a concrete action, its owner, and a budget you can afford. - How does someone move from discovering you to choosing a service and booking? What information must your website and business listings show? - Plan rebooking, client follow-up, and review requests with appropriate consent. Which weekly measures will show actual visits and repeat clients? Collect: a launch checklist, channel budgets, booking journey, and a baseline for repeat visits. YOUR NOTES [Not yet completed] ---------------------------------------- 6. THE WORKING DAY AND THE SYSTEMS BEHIND IT Plan the routines that keep services running, including the work nobody sees from the chair. - Map opening, appointments, payments, cleaning, stock use, and closing. Include purchasing and handling unexpected absences. - Which system is the source of truth for clients, bookings, stock, team hours, and money? What must connect, and what access is actually supported? - Choose one routine to automate first. Name its data, owner approval, exception process, and success measure. Keep sensitive and clinical decisions with qualified people. Collect: operating checklists, supplier lead times, existing-tool details, and an automation test plan. YOUR NOTES [Not yet completed] ---------------------------------------- 7. STARTUP COSTS, CASH, AND FINANCIAL ASSUMPTIONS Use your own quotes and clearly labeled assumptions. A revenue target is not a profit forecast. - List one-time startup costs and recurring monthly payments separately. Include fit-out, equipment, deposits, stock, rent, wages, insurance, software, and professional fees where applicable. - Build a monthly cash plan: opening cash, cash received, cash paid out, and closing cash. Include tax payments, loan repayments, and owner withdrawals where relevant; timing matters. - For service revenue, use attended visits multiplied by average service revenue per visit. Deduct the applicable costs separately to estimate profit. Chair-rental income belongs to the landlord's plan; renters' service sales are not automatically the salon's revenue. - Compare a quieter case with your main assumptions. If you need funding, state how much, what it pays for, and the supporting evidence a lender or investor requests. Attach: supplier quotes, lease terms, a separate cash-flow spreadsheet, and adviser-reviewed projections when seeking funding. YOUR NOTES [Not yet completed] ---------------------------------------- 8. THE NEXT 90 DAYS Turn the plan into a short sequence of decisions and actions. - For the next 30, 60, and 90 days, name an outcome, one responsible person, a deadline, and the evidence that proves it happened. - What could delay opening or disrupt trading? List the highest-impact risks and a practical fallback for each. - Which assumptions must be validated before signing, hiring, purchasing, or switching tools? Set a date to review this plan against actual results. Keep: an action list, unresolved decisions, and the date of your next review. YOUR NOTES [Not yet completed] ---------------------------------------- Planning reference: U.S. Small Business Administration, https://www.sba.gov/counseling/plan-your-business/ ---------------------------------------- Use this worksheet for your own business. Share the blank template with a colleague; review private details before sharing your completed draft.