Writing and maintaining a blog may take a little extra time out of your day, but it’s also a low cost means to advertise, educate and facilitate trust with existing and potential customers! Each and every post that is written gets published as its own indexed page on your web site. The more pages you have, the more opportunities you have to get found online! But, it’s also important to understand that even if you take the time to create a blog – it may not create the response you’re hoping for. What you are offering through a blog must be compelling, look professional and be well written, or people will quickly move on to greener pastures.

Salon Franchise Options

The choices for a Salon Franchise might be a little bigger than you think - but don't worry! It's not too difficult to sort out.

1.  Original Salons: The ones everyone thinks of are some of the original hair salon franchises - think Great Clips, Fantastic Sams, Snip n' Clip, etc.  These are low-end, walk-in type salons.  Clientele doesn't make an appointment, and they tend to exist on every major street corner in most metropolitan cities.  These typically have the stylists acting as management as well and the owner is an absentee owner.

2.  Mens salons: This niche is relatively new to the franchise sector.  Probably the most well know mens salon franchise system is Sport Clips.  However, many others have opened in recent years.  Everything from very high-end Men's Country Club type salons that offer a full array of services i.e. The Boardroom - down to lower-end salons that do high volume, yet still offer men a good haircut without all the frills.  There are also those that appeal to pool players, and those that just cater to "players".  Most wives don't really appreciate the "player" salon environment, and taking your kids to one might be considered as "inappropriate"!

3.  Kids salons: Again we have a type of salon that is relatively new to the scene.  There is no real dominant player in this arena.  Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids has been in operation since 1997 and that's one of the earlier children's salons!  None of the salon systems predate the 90's.  Each franchise has its own personality and philosophy on running a succesful salon.  Extras added to some are kids retail and birthday parties.  Some are run by a manager and others have the stylist/manager configuration. A close evaluation of what makes up the revenue portion of the salon is important to look at. For example, How easy is that portion to run?  Does it take an onsite owner or can it be run absentee?

4.  Hair Removal Salons: These are also very new to the franchise arena.  Tropical Laser Hair Removal opened in 2007! They still fit under salons as the technicians need to have licenses just as hair stylists need to have licenses.  These can be combined with the above types of salons or can be a stand alone type. Many times these are partnered with businesses offering massages.

5.  Nail Salons: There really isn't a dominant player here at all.  It seems that most nail salons are individually owned, yet we're waiting for a franchise to pull it all together!

6.  Massage Salons: An example of a Massage Salon would be Massage Envy.  These typically sell memberships instead of collecting revenue when the service is actually performed.  This type of franchise with membership fees is very popular, especially in the health club arena.  Many buy memberships and then don't use them like they should - which of course helps the franchise system be more profitable.

There you have it!  As you can see, there's a lot to choose from. If you are thinking you might like to know more about franchising in general, we'd invite you to download our FREE toolkit. This great e-document is a fantastic resource in helping you learn more information about investing in a franchise.

Writing a business plan for a small business can be a daunting task -- just the sound of it makes it sound BIG! So here are some down-to-earth tips to make the process easy:

It's important to understand that when developing a plan that there are plans for internal use, those for investors, those for bankers, etc. Be sure you know who your plan is going to be for. In this article we are going to focus on the one written to obtain financing.