fred dengler asks salon and spa owners what is your job dscription?

OWNERS - What is your job description?
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As owners we show up for work every day. We manage, motivate, lead, train, listen, and most the time Ado whatever it takes@ to keep the business going (and hopefully growing).

But what is our job description? What would we write in a classified ad if we needed to hire someone to replace us? What would we hire the person to do and what would be the training program for our replacement?

Knowing your job description is just as critical as your employees knowing their job descriptions. Having a clear job description helps you to prioritize tasks, gives you a perspective, and creates a clear description of your responsibilities with those you work with.

I speak with salon and spa owners every day and on a regular basis ask owners what their job description is. The answers I get are everything from broad statements about sustaining the company vision to detailed hour by hour descriptions of tasks the owner does. The most common answer is Awhat ever needs to be done!@

One challenge with Adoing what ever needs to be done@ is that at the end of the day and the end of the week have we really done what needs to be done, or just reacted to what was happening and responded to the most urgent requests for our attention? Have you ever finished for the day and wondered what you did all day? Have you asked yourself where did the day go? Have you looked at projects that you know will move your business forward that have been sitting on your desk for weeks? Have you skipped interesting and important meetings and seminars because you did not have the time to attend and participate?

A big question is whether the job we think we have is the job we have (and do every day). What takes up our day? Do we have the time to move our company forward? Do we promote the company vision and concept every day? Do we delegate, motivate, and supervise our staff to increase their quality of working life and improve the customer experience? Do we manage our time effectively?

Would you like to have more control over your time and the impact you have on your company? I have some owners do a little exercise that helps to define their job and prioritize their efforts. All you need to do is make a list of the most important ten things you can do on a daily basis to grow you business. You might include setting and reviewing staff goals, staff training, greeting new customers, remerchadising your retail area, working with the front desk on customer service, reviewing your SMS software management reports, researching new services to add to your menu, reviewing your expenses and looking at areas to cut waste and costs, following up on your direct mail and e-mail marketing campaigns, visiting local beauty schools and meeting with students and staff, or any other jobs you need to do on a regular basis.


Now, for a week you need to track your time. Write down what you do each day in fifteen minute blocks of time. At the end of the week add up all of the time you spent on the ten most important things on your list. Also add up the time you spent on other tasks. How much time did you spend on your top ten tasks? What other tasks took up your time? Should those other tasks be part of your top ten tasks? What can you do to reduce the time spent on non top ten tasks?

If you hired yourself as owner to do the top ten tasks how would you rate your performance at the end of the week?

How can you spend more time on your top ten tasks? Can you delegate some of the other things that take up your time? Can you eliminate some of the tasks that don=t contribute to your business?

What does your staff think your job desciption is? This is an interesting exercise that will give you feedback on what your staff thinks you do and also what they would like you to be doing. Have a staff meeting and ask your staff to write down what their job description is. They can be as detailed as they want. When they are done have them also write down what they think your job description is. Don=t talk to them about what you think it should be, or what the company goals are, or corporate vision is. Review their ideas and see if what they think your job is matches your top ten list.

If you are really brave also ask the staff to give you an evaluation on how well you are performing you job description. One owner even had the staff vote on whether the staff would keep them as the owner.

On the broadest level our job is to sustain the vision and concept of the business. We do this by constantly promoting our concept to customers, staff, and vendors. We do that by keeping in touch with cultural, fashion, and economic factors and refining our vision and concept to achieve our goals.

In conjunction with maintaining and enhancing our concept we must make sure our company is self sustaining and profitable. Break even is not good enough. We have to create a company with the right mix of products and services that appeals to our target market and then go after that market.

If you worked through the exercise of tracking your time you probably isolated some time wasting tasks. You need to be ruthless in eliminating those time wasters. Do you have vendors that just drop in and take up your time? Do you have staff members that love to visit and never seem to have enough time to get their work done? Do you spend time on e-mail, faxes, and mail that doesn=t give you information that will help you grow you business? Get rid of it all!
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Do you have customers or piers that take up your time with their latest tales of bad luck, no luck, or bad timing? Don=t take their calls. Surround yourself with happy, lucky, productive people. It is amazing that the busiest people always seem to have enough time to get one more thing done. Spend time with people that have goals and vision.

Want to get more done? Get up one hour earlier and get to work. Book out 2 hours of office time every day and allow no interruptions. Get rid of voice mail and take every call you can. Be brief and direct if you are not interested in something. Learn to say no when someone wants your time on a project you are not interested in. Learn to say maybe or I=ll think about it when someone wants you to make a snap decision. Reveiw e-mails, faxes, and mail during lunch.

The best time management strategy is to operate every day like it is the last day before a two week vacation. Think about how efficeint you are the day before you go out of town. Act that way every day!

As owners we have limited resources. We only have so much time and only so much money. We must manage our time in a miserly way. We need to use our time to communicate our corporate vision and enhance and improve our concept. Review your top ten priorities and work on them every day. Perform in a way that will let you give yourself a great job evaluation!

Questions or ideas? Call or e-mail me!

Fred Dengler
MIKAL
513-528-5100
fredd@mikal.com
www.mikal.com