I too am a salon owner. Our stylists are so busy that they are turning walk ins away. I have talked to 3 stylists about joining us but they are thinking the holidays are the wrong time to change salons. We haven’t had a slowdown since covid. Besides being a great salon there are a lot of reasons for our success, some things totally out of our control. We mostly serve normal people who come on a normal schedule. We book out 3-5 weeks. I’m sure you’re doing everything like you should. It may be the local economy in your area I don’t know, of course. But I wish you’d come and work with us.

they been trying very hard for the last 3-4 years to start a recession

Yeah this is a rough year. After all that free money that was spent in 2022 people are not spendind at all in 2023

The personal training business seems to be picking up earlier than usual. Usually it starts to get busy after the new year.

Bakery here, last 6 months have been brutal.

I own a hair salon too, also never seen it likes this. I always find October November to be slow where we are but I would agree that it’s worse than normal. See so many salons posting last minute promos and availability

I sell expensive specialty food. July was my best month ever when it’s usually a bad/off-season month. Every month since has outperformed the previous month. I’ll get downvoted but businesses need to learn to adapt and change, you can’t remain stale. People keep shouting about the economy but it’s just not true.

Not an owner but I work in sales for a small business bathroom remodeler. I’m 100% commission based. Before this week, it has been ROUGH. I lucked out the past couple of days, but I am concerned with what’s looming around the corner.

Hang in there. We’ll get through it.

PR guy from San Diego here (cue fancy music).
The way to get more people in the door is a local celeb strategy. When clients hire me, I look at their business model and what I call the customer journey. How do you get more customers for your salon?

Customer sees your social media, comes and visits.

Since you are a brick and mortar, IG, TikTok and Pinterest are going to be your friends. Install the Nextdoor App and start sharing posts about the salon with high end photos.

Make a “hit list” of 20 people in your area that use or are interested in your services and start tagging them.

Then get on the news and pitch a segment on the hottest hairstyles for 2023 (thank God the A Line and 2 tone hair is out).

If you have questions, fire away. Remember that business is about being POPULAR.

I dont know whats going on right now, Ive been open for 3 years and this has been the worst period for me in the entire 3 years of business we’ve dropped significantly this past month but im not giving up. still work to be done and quite frankly throwing in a towel isnt an option for me. Things will look up soon.

I’m really sorry to hear that. I only know of what’s happening from the small businesses that reach out for my services. But it seems like brick and mortar businesses that are trying to wear multiple hats are getting hit the hardest. The one person businesses or 3 person businesses taking on 15 responsibilities. At least that’s my view so far from working with some of these businesses.

I work in SEO for local businesses to get them traffic so I hear about their problems. Financially, employees, advertising, customers, etc. I’ve been offering discounts and even free things to help get a few of them by. I wish you all the best during these rough times. You’ll get through. Have you tried offering discounts, birthday discounts, or other free offerings that aren’t much cost to you? I’m assuming you have but if you haven’t, I would highly recommend that. Feel free to reach out if you need any advice. Wishing you nothing but positivity!

I hear and feel this. I own a hair salon and although we are steady, we are not crazy busy like we have been. I am in Seattle, it is usually bananas. Not sure what’s happening to cause this decline.

Have you tried running a discount campaign?

If not you should try.

Also, what about providing a membership card to the customers? After 5 haircuts you’ll get a FREE haircut.

In my local car washer, I got something similar, after 4 washes I get a FREE wash.

Let us know if that works.