Blog

Training to meet your standard

First things first; if you want your salon to be successful, you have to offer the same outstanding service every time. Every client deserves the same experience, no matter what therapist treats them. This means that all your therapists need to be trained in what makes your salon stand out; why do your clients come back to you time and time again? Our highly experienced trainers are happy to come to your salon and teach your team the world-renowned Lilliane Caron waxing methods – this is great as a refresher too!

Ongoing training to achieve excellence

Ongoing training is hands down the most important thing you can do to achieve and maintain excellence. Many of us tend to get a bit lazy when we perform the same treatments over and over again, causing us to take shortcuts. To stay relevant, you need to constantly refresh your skills and your product knowledge.  Keeping up-to-date with new trends, products and skills is only the first step. Creating a platform where you and your team can share ideas, like a morning catch-up or a monthly training session is equally important. This can also help with selling your retail products and increasing your bottom line. A weekly product highlight helps refresh your team’s knowledge and excitement about it and can significantly increase sales.

How to make training part of your day-to-day

Training doesn’t always have to involve scheduling time with the whole team, blocking the books and organising a trainer, it can easily be a part of your day-to-day. Your staff should be practicing on each other on the regular. I’m sure they all wax each other already, but do they use the treatment as an opportunity to give and receive feedback? Waxing each other provides the perfect chance to ensure you’re all still waxing to the right standard. At Smooth & Tan, we use a simple training form that can be downloaded here. Our head trainer analyses these training forms regularly and decides what areas need a refresh during a training session.

Vetting the competition

A good way to determine where you stand is to go online and read reviews. Start with your own salon; what do people say about you? What do they love? Is there anything that they would like to see differently? When you have a good grasp of what your clients value at your salon, you can check reviews for other salons; salons that you admire, salons that are in your neighbourhood, salons with high ratings—you can learn a lot from this. You can also take it one step further and book a service with one of these highly rated salons to see what they do differently. Knowing what the competition does is important, but remember to always stay authentic! What works for one salon, might not work for your clientele. Always stick to your strengths.

Stay on top of trends to stay relevant

There is no industry as subjective to trends as the beauty industry; I’m sure we all remember how over-plucked our eyebrows were in the 90s and how hyper-contoured our faces were only a few years ago. Now it’s all about fluffy brows and dewy skin. In 2021, social media influencers play a huge part in starting trends. They constantly move from one thing to the next, taking their followers along with them. For us as beauty professionals that means we have to keep up with these trends and adjust our tools and techniques accordingly. Following relevant influencers on social media will help you effortlessly stay ahead of the game. You can follow public figures, but also other beauty professionals that share their unique techniques or manufacturers that produce innovative products.

Social media groups

Most beauty professionals you know in person probably work at salons close-by. It can be hard finding peers to share tips and tricks with, because we don’t want the salon next door to copy our best-practices. It’s a shame, because this makes us miss out on the opportunity to grow as an industry. Thankfully, there are groups on social media that are dedicated for beauty professionals and that create a ‘safe’ space to share knowledge and experience, review new products and share upcoming trends. A quick Google search will help you find them!

Training from your couch

Another great way to learn more about the tools, products and techniques you’re using is to sign up for professional newsletters, webinars and online training. A good manufacturer shares their knowledge and skills. Their products are made with a certain technique in mind and manufacturers are usually happy to share this knowledge. At Caronlab, we share training videos, step-by-step guides, product knowledge, upcoming webinars and much more. HOT TIP: sign up to your wholesaler’s newsletter to get notified of the best deals!