In last week’s blog I talked about how to set SMART goals.  That post focused on you as an individual and how to set goals to create a life that you love. This concept of setting goals is one that we should share with our students.  Focusing not only on goal setting in their personal lives but also teaching them how to set goals in business.   We want every one of our students to graduate from our school, achieve success and become gainfully employed.  That success isn’t going to just magically appear one day.  Success must be planned for and there are actions that can be taken to make it happen.

Creating success starts while students are in your school and learning in the student salon.  You have probably had a student say “While I’m in school, I’m not going to retail (upsell, rebook, ask for referrals, etc.) because I pay tuition to go here.”  The reality is, it isn’t about the money made in the student salon, it is about the skill set they are learning.  If a student doesn’t practice how to retail, upsell, rebook or ask for referrals while in the student salon, they won’t know how to do it when they get into their salon.  They will eventually learn but it will be a longer learning curve.  The habits students build while in school will be the habits that follow them into the salon.

As educators we must remember that in addition to being a place to perfect technical skills, the student salon is also a place that is critical to the development of a student’s business skills.  Part of our responsibility is to teach them how to set goals and track their success towards these goals in the student salon.  Here are a few areas that students should be taught to set goals and track their numbers:

• Number of Clients
• Total Service Dollars
• Ticket Average
• Number of Retail Units Sold
• Number of Services
• Upsells
• Rebookings
• Referrals

If students can learn how to set goals and track their numbers in these areas, they are on their way to creating success and becoming gainfully employed. Milady publishes a fantastic program called Business Fundamentals.  This program will help students learn how to make service and retail recommendations, rebook, ask for referrals and to set and track goals in each category.  If you are interested in more information on the Business Fundamentals program, please contact your Account Manager.