Opening your own salon is taking a very serious step as an entrepreneur and business owner. It requires significant up-front capital investment. Setting up doesn’t happen overnight either because you have to find the ideal location and premises. You’ll have to agree a commercial lease with a landlord, unless you’re lucky enough to buy the premises outright. You have to design and furnish the space. Plus advertise to attract new customers.
If you want to save yourself the trouble of starting from scratch, you could also take over an existing business or set up a grooming ‘concession’ within a vet surgery, kennels or existing pet shop. For now, let’s just look at opening …show more content…
• You get to be your own boss
• You get to be the decision-maker. You choose the shampoos. The equipment. The colour-scheme. The people you work with.
• You might be the main shareholder. You create equity by building a business. This is a business that has value that you may be able to sell for profit at a later date
• The business will give you a wage or profit on a weekly or monthly basis. You are making money. Money is liberating. You choose how to spend that money. Pay your mortgage. Pay school fees. Support your family. Take a holiday. Etc.
• Dog grooming is, generally, recession-proof. This is an arguable point. But when times are tough economically, people cut back on holidays, cocktails and shoes. Many people become more home and family-centric in their behaviours. A pet dog is increasingly considered a member of the family. So dog owners will continue to indulge their dog
• You have general trust and recognition in your community that you are a physically established presence. It means there is somewhere customers can go that is accountable to their needs or …show more content…
Purchase an existing business
The opportunity may come up of an existing business that is now for sale. The pros and cons of running your own business are similar to operating your own mobile grooming, salon or concession. However, you will need to conduct a thorough due diligence (investigation) to make sure you are getting into a business that is actually profitable.
Steps to take:
• Find out WHY the business is being sold. For example:
o Are the current owners retiring or looking to do something new or different (you don’t want to find out that they are opening another salon nearby and plan to take their existing customers with them)
o Has their reputation suffered beyond repair because of a certain incident?
• The seller of the business should provide you their ‘books’ (financial reports) for the last two or three years
• You will need an accountant to review the books and confirm that the revenue claims are true
• You will need to double-check all expenses – all the outgoings, including a fair wage for yourself. Subtract this from all the earnings (your turnover) and you will get a good idea of your Profit
• Ask the accountant to calculate your generally expected take-home pay after all the taxes have been