What’s your average bill?
I’ve often said “That I don’t trust most industry statistics”… but I continue by saying “But ask yourself, what if it is true?”
Recently I heard a statistic from a reliable source that said that the average bill in hair salons in the US was only $41.00!
We often hear about celebrity hairdressers that charge $100 $200 $500 1,000 and more for a haircut. But they are not your average hairdressers, and can I suggest that the people that are watching this video are not the average hairdressers.
But think about it for a moment, all over America or Canada or the UK or Australia or wherever you are watching this there are thousands upon thousands of salons that charge $20-$30 for a haircut, so I can believe that the average bill, not the average haircut the average bill is $41 which would be about the equivalent of $50 Canadian or Australian dollars or £30. in the UK.
If you are not sure how to work out your average bill it’s the amount of money generated divided by the amount of clients you did in the same time frame and it includes everything from kids haircuts, blow-drys, mens haircuts, colours, everything… So say you did did $1,500 and 23 clients it’s 1,500 divided by 23 = an average bill of $65.
Let’s get optimistic…
Let’s use the US example and assume it’s factual, that the average bill is $41 and then lets get wildly optimistic and say that the average hairdresser is doing 30 clients a week.
30 Clients a week multiplied by and average bill of $41 equals $1,230 a week in total services. And that’s being optimistic!
Where does it go?
Now lets use some industry averages and say that half of that $1,230 which equals $615 is meant to cover the gross weekly wages of the employee who did the hair, plus it’s also meant to cover any pension fund, medical insurance, holiday pay, and sick leave etc if you are lucky enough to work in a country that offers that and it’s also meant to make a contribution towards the wage of any support staff like assistants or receptionist.
Now the other half is meant to cover Accountant, Advertising & Promotion, Book keeper, Bank fees, Cleaning, Credit card fees, Computer, Couriers, Donations, Drinking water, Electricity, I.T. support, Insurance, Coffee/tea/milk/sugar, Laundry powder, Legal, Magazines/Newspapers, Maintenance, Music Performing rights license, Petty cash, Postage, Reference books, Registration fees, Staff amenities, Staff training, Stationary, Sundries, Telephone, Towels, Trade subscriptions,Travel, Uniforms, Washing machine dryer lease, Water rates… and rent and all product costs… and this little thing called profit!
It isn’t enough!
Hopefully you can see the problem… $1,230 simply isn't enough money being generated to meet all these overheads plus have well paid staff let alone for the business to make a profit.
So that’s the problem, how do you grow the $41 average bill so that you in turn grow the total weekly sales of $1,230 so that you can run a viable business, pay your team well and, meet all your overheads and make a profit?
What’s the solution?
There is no single answer, and obviously there are many salons out there where the individuals who work in them have average bills of $80, $90 or $100 and more and they are paid accordingly. Plus the salons meet all their overhead and make a good profit but as an industry unfortunately that’s not the norm.
So what is your average bill, and what are you doing to grow yourself, your team and your business?
If you are a salon owner your success revolves around your ability to grow the individuals on your team into busy productive stylists …I call them Super Stylist because they are the people that refuse to be average, they take ownership of their productivity and as a result they are paid accordingly.
Thank you for watching…
Have a great week!
