Owning a beauty or hair salon is a dream for many. There is something special about making dozens of people a day feel better about themselves. It is sure to be such a rewarding career that could even grow into a salon empire, but it’s definitely not going to be easy. It is not as simple as opening a salon and hoping it will all work out. Owning any business requires some well-considered decisions and a lot of serious preparation.

If you are hoping to be a salon owner that also performs treatments on clients, you will need to have formal cosmetology training, so why not see what courses Ogle School has to offer. However, it should be noted that to simply own and manage a salon, without performing any treatments, do not need any formal qualifications, but there are some community college course that are advised to best prepare for salon ownership. So, before rushing into salon ownership, think about attending community college or night school and taking some of these classes.

Business Administration

Any kind of business course will be beneficial to prepare for salon ownership —the more you know about business operations and ownership the better. It is important to recognize that many of the challenges of salon ownership occurs off the shop floor and in the office. A community college course in Business Administration will give you some knowledge and skills in how to manage a successful business. You will be given an insight into the management of staff, organizational operations, financial management, customer service, risk management, team building, marketing, project management, business communications and many other skills needed to run a small business.

You may be the best cosmetologist in the world, but if you don’t have any basic business skill, owning a salon will become a struggle. There are more specific courses in areas of business you can  take at community college too, especially if you have a particular area of management that you need to develop.

Marketing

A basic understanding of marketing can be crucial if you are thinking about opening up your own salon. You will need to know how  marketing can be utilized to promote your business and services. Through a marketing course, you will learn how to create a marketing strategy, an how to implement different methods to meet this strategy.

A course in Social Media Marketing may also prove to be useful. It will show you how to set up social media accounts for you salon, and how how to use them to promote your business, and entice in new customers.  A strong social media following can really help any business to grow.

Accounting

Unfortunately, there is no way around it, if you want to own your own salon, you are going to need some math skills, or at least a good calculator and well organized spreadsheet. An accounting course will help you to manage your business expenses and how to record transactions into a balance sheet. Furthermore, you will acquire the knowledge needed to complete a business tax return, so you can stay out of an trouble with the IRS.

Learning your own accountancy skills, and being able to manage your own books, will be extremely useful, particularly at the start of your salon ownership. By not having to hire an accountancy firm, you can keep your overheads low and save money. This means you will have more money to put into the business for the likes of advertising and marketing to promote your new salon.

Online Advertising

The fastest growing segment of the advertising industry has to be online advertising. It is constantly evolving and changing, but it has the potential to reach a huge number of future customers for a relatively small expense. If your local college does not have a course in online advertising, any basic course in advertising will help you. One of the hardest battles you will face as a salon owner is getting your business noticed. A clever advertising strategy and campaign will make your salon stand out.

Creative Writing

This course may seem a little left field, but a creative writing course can be useful. Creative writing is not just about fiction, this course will improve anyone’s writing skills, no matter what it is for. It will give you the tools you need to write compelling copy for your website, marketing information and advertising campaigns. Well-written and exciting copy is much more likely to hold the attention of a potential new client, as opposed to something standard and boring.

So there you have it, five community college courses that will help prepare you for a future in salon ownership. Good luck with your studies and if you have specific questions about beauty school or the cosmetology industry, Ogle School is happy to help!