Mini Moment #30 - How to Downsize Your Salon Team Without Burning Bridges
Most salon owners know how to build. You hire the next person and take the bigger space. Very few know how to take it apart again when it stops working, and do it in a way that leaves everyone looked after.
In this Mini Moment, Sam and Jen are joined again by Siobhan from Siobhan Hair Artistry. She walks through exactly how she went from a leased six chair salon with three team members back to just her and her mum. It started with a lease conversation she didn't want to have. Then came the harder one with her apprentice, which she only had after she had quietly found a salon ready to take her on.
For any Australian salon owner thinking about going smaller, this is the practical side nobody talks about. It covers the order she did things in and how she kept it fair. It also covers what happened to a full book of clients once the team was gone.
What we cover
- The sudden resignation that started the rethink
- Deciding to reduce your team and your responsibilities
- Moving from leasing a whole salon space to renting two chairs
- Finding your apprentice a good salon to go to before you tell her
- Giving plenty of notice and keeping every change within Fair Work
- Handling clients when your own book is already full
- Why some clients won't follow you to a senior's price point
- Working side by side with family in a small salon
You built it once. You're allowed to build it again.
FAQs
How do I downsize my salon team without burning bridges?
Plan each conversation before you have it, and give people as much notice as you can. Siobhan gave her apprentice eight weeks and had a new salon lined up for her first, so the news came with a next step.
Can I reduce the chairs I lease in a shared salon space?
It depends on your agreement, but an honest conversation with whoever you lease from is the place to start. Siobhan went from leasing a six chair space to renting two chairs, with a three month notice period for any changes.
What happens to clients when a salon downsizes?
Tell clients early and move them into the calendars that can actually hold them. Not every client can come with you, and some won't want to pay a senior's price, so it helps to accept that upfront.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
[:
[00:00:07] Jen: Welcome back to Salon... No, you've thrown me
[:[00:00:14] Jen: moments brought to you by Timely
[:[00:00:19] Jen: listen. Well done.
[:[00:00:21] Jen: okay. Guys, we have Siobhan with us.
This is gonna be a little mini moment, a taster, a... I said previously, like, what's that word when we take the Lego apart? We said deconstruct. 'Cause everybody knows how to build. We build the Lego, we build the business. But sometimes, and I see this happening a lot at the moment, people want to deconstruct and maybe build the business in a different way, and this is something that you have done.
Yeah. So let's talk through from that, from that moment you made that decision, what steps did you take to deconstruct the business from the system that it was in to move you into the system that you are now?
[:And so it was a moment that happened with one of my seniors. She quit suddenly. No notice at all. Just emailed me her resignation and that was basically it. Didn't come to work the next day. She was completely gone.
[:a business owner, we would get- Oh, we would be ... reamed. I'm like, there has to be some type of thing sometimes. And I guess it's, like, people will have the karma that comes with that. But- Yeah ... like, there has to be something goes with that, that- Yeah ... that goes, "Okay, if you suddenly quit like that and you don't give your two weeks notice, then you actually don't get paid."
[:[00:01:50] Siobhan: Yeah.
[:[00:01:50] Siobhan: And it sucks- Like- ... 'cause you have to pay them out annual leave and all that kind of stuff as well. Like, I reckon
[:[00:01:58] Siobhan: Yeah
[:[00:01:59] Samara: of their annual leave. Because it's like why is it the same for one way and not the same for the other?
Yeah. That's not fair.
[:[00:02:17] Jen: Oh, yeah.
[:So on that trip, I had pretty much made the decision that I'm going to reduce my staff, reduce my responsibilities, and just go back to myself because I was just like, "I'm putting so much of myself into this- Mm ... and I'm not getting it back." Mm. Yeah. So just kinda got to that point. So as soon as I came back, I set a meeting with the, you know, girl that I lease off of and, 'cause at the time I was leasing a whole salon space with six chairs, two basins, all that kind of stuff.
And it was an emotional conversation because I know whatever decision I make is gonna snowball onto other people. Yeah. And I think that was probably one of the most difficult things to, to think about is, what is my decision going to do to affect other people? Mm. But I still had to make the decision for myself, otherwise I couldn't keep going the way that I was going.
Mm. Luckily in that conversation you know, Catherine is one of my really good friends, and she would never wanna see me struggle or anything like that. And I had a very open and honest conversation with them saying, "I can't do this anymore." Yeah. Like, "I literally cannot do this anymore. I can't hire people anymore.
I can't do this." I was kind of in a moment of like, not mental breakdown, but pretty- But you- ... pretty close to it-
[:[00:03:48] Siobhan: kinda thing. And so we-- I was able to set it up, so I was renting the two chairs just for me and mom. I had like a three months notice period for any, you know, any changes. And so I kind of like, I sat on it for a little bit and just in the background I was kind of like, if there was any clients that were from that past employee kind of putting them in Ellie's calendar, putting them in my calendar, kind of like doing all that kind of stuff.
And a couple of weeks later, that's when I had to kind of look into how I was going to have that conversation with Ellie because- Not only am I saying that- Now,
[:[00:04:32] Siobhan: Yes. Yeah. Ellie was my apprentice. You know, not only was I making all these changes, but I needed to give her, I needed to give her plenty of notice so she could kind of like sort herself out.
But also knowing that I wanted her to go to a really good hair home. Yeah. You know? Like, she's a special girl, and I know how dedicated she is and how much she loved the industry as well. I wanted her to go to a good hair home. So I actually started reaching out to salons and, you know, privately, and had a couple of phone conversations with a few salons.
And luckily because of, you know, the reputation that I have, which is hopefully a good one to everyone, but you know, you never know she's like, "You know, she's trained with you. You've trained her. I trust you. I'll take her on." Like, "I'll just take her." Mm. Like, "I don't need an interview. I don't need anything.
Let her know she's got a job." Oh,
[:[00:05:23] Siobhan: And so I was able to have, you know, a conversation with my sister and be like, "Okay, how do I do this- Yeah ... so that it's done right?" Because the last thing I wanted, not that I thought, not that I thought I would get any repercussions from it, but I just know from past experience, you just don't know what people's reactions are going to be to things.
Yes. And you just kind of need to make sure you've got something to fall back on to, you know, keep everything within- Mm ... like fair work stuff. So yeah, we had that conversation, and so yeah, I sat down with Ellie. Before I had even started talking I was crying. I was literally like, "Can I have a talk to you for a second?
Can we just step outside?" And she's like, "Yeah." And I'm just like, "So I've just wanted to talk to you," and I was like bawling my eyes out before I even like started talking to her, and that to me was like, oh my God, this is like, you know, this is a really like hard conversation, and I obviously really care about her to like be, you know, crying like that.
But yeah, I kind of like let her know that she's got like eight weeks' notice to the changeover that's happening. And I already have a job for her, and luckily she took that. Mm. Which was good, which is where she's at now, and she's thriving, which is great. And then once that, once she knew, we just had to start doing the whole client thing.
Mm. I had two... Like, I was already fully booked myself. The senior that had left, she wasn't, like, fully, fully booked, but had a decent, you know, calendar of clients. Plus, we had actively been starting to really, like, amp up Ellie's clients, and rebooking people, and all this kind of stuff. So all of a sudden I've got a full book of, like, three people's- Mm
clients to deal with. And so we just, like, low-key before I had even announced anything, we had just low-key been like, "You know, Ellie's moving on." Like, this is what- kind of what's happening. There was a lot of clients. Like, so none of Ellie's clients I could take on. Mm. None of them. Because for one, some of them didn't wanna pay to see me.
Mm. Yeah. But second of all, I just didn't have the time to see them. So yeah, we just started having those conversations with clients and letting them know. And Yeah, it kind of just... To be honest, it just flowed from there. Once you make the decision, everything just kind of like falls into place. Mm.
So yeah, once Ellie had kind of left, we had already made all these changes in that two-month period that everything just kind of like coasted along for the- from there.
[:she's still employed
[:[00:08:02] Jen: Yep
[:But yeah, all these changes too were like hard for her as well, 'cause like she would see me struggling all the time, and like as a, as a, like I'm not a mother, but like I'm sure you could understand, like as a mother, if you're seeing your child go through so much stress-
[:[00:08:37] Siobhan: and like there's... You can see the person that's causing that stress- Mm
and trying to hold back from being like, "Why are you being such a fuckhead to my daughter?" Yeah. You know? Like-
[:[00:08:47] Siobhan: kind of thing. It, it was really hard on her, so she was so excited when I made the decision that I did.
[:[00:09:08] Samara: Mm, agreed.
[:[00:09:10] Siobhan: And it's not the end of the world.
[:[00:09:14] Siobhan: really good.
It's great.
[: