Salon Business Plan 2025: Examples and Key Elements to Start Your Salon

If you want to succeed in the salon industry, creating a detailed salon business plan is the first step to grow your business and set yourself on the path to long-term success. A strong plan not only helps you manage your finances and operations effectively but also serves as a roadmap for achieving your goals.

Whether you’re just learning how to start a new salon or looking to expand your current business, having a well-structured salon business plan is essential. It’s the foundation for making informed decisions and staying ahead in the competitive beauty industry.

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1. What Is a Hair Salon Business Plan?
2. Why Does Your Hair Salon Need a Business Plan?
3. Key Elements of a Good Hair Salon Business Plan
4. Hair Salon Business Plan Template
5. Recommendations

What Is a Hair Salon Business Plan?

A hair and beauty salon business plan isn’t just a description of your business and your salon services- it’s a roadmap and an effective summary of your salon goals and objectives, and the milestones that let you know your hair and beauty salon is on the right track.

This plan contains your mission and vision statement, and your hair salon strategy for promoting your company and growing your client base.

A hair and beauty salon business plan isn’t just limited to external factors, though- the best salons also include a company description and vision for supporting staff, too.

The business plan for a salon should include both an executive summary (more on this later), as well as the important steps that you’ll take as a salon owner, and as a team to start your salon business and establish your success.

Your business plan will help you and your investors to understand the financial aspects of running your hair and beauty salon. This includes: a salon business plan market analysis, a salon budget sample, financial projections, and an overview of your target market and the hair services you offer.

A well developed business plan for a salon will show everyone that your company is viable, whether your timelines and goals are “on track” for each period, and allow you to evaluate whether you need to make any changes to your budget, business model or salon marketing plan.

It takes guesswork out of the equation and lets you make analysis-based decisions for your marketing, sales and financial plans. It’s essential if you want to develop a successful salon business and increase your market share.

Why Does Your Hair Salon Need a Business Plan?

This isn’t just limited to the beauty salon industry.

Any successful company (including salons) needs a business plan to help them stay organized and track their progress.

Even a small hair salon strategy plan is essential for things like securing funding, attracting investors, exploring markets for new customers, or analyzing your expenses and financial data.

It’s just as essential for your salon’s success as any staff or equipment you invest in.

In fact, this document will help you plan for your salon marketing strategies, organize your ideas, hold better staff meetings where you can show your progress, and even think through your expenses and marketing decisions.

It’s the backbone of your business and the best way to stay in touch with your values and target market.

Key Elements of a Good Hair Salon Business Plan

Whether you’re starting a new hair and beauty salon or have been running a full service operation for years, having a good business plan is essential.

The salon business plan examples that you’ll see online all have a few things in common. They’ll contain details about your objectives, pricing strategy, target market, salon services, sales and revenue, as well as potential expenses, marketing strategy and overall financial plan.

When it’s completed, a hair and beauty salon business plan should be a roadmap containing your company description as it stands and a plan/ outline for the future. Where do you want to be five years from now, for example?

Here are some details that you’ll need to think about when you’re creating your own hair salon proposal and business plan:

How to Start a Hair Salon Business Plan?

If you’re asking yourself “How do I start my new salon business”, then getting your business plan ready is a key first step. It’ll help you when you’re thinking about how to open a salon, as well as keep you focused on your mission statement and long-term goals.

If you want to create a hair and beauty salon business plan, you’ll need to do the following things:

• Set Clear Quantitative Targets: Try to base these on market analysis and the profits you’ll need to balance out all the expenses of your business. You’ll probably need to conduct market research and understand all the costs other local businesses deal with.

• Understand the Challenges: Do some research and list anything that could lower your revenue, impact your startup costs or any other factors that might make opening a salon more difficult. Be prepared to include money for these in your financial plan.

• Conduct Market Research: As well as looking at your own salon and its hair and beauty services, customer base and overall expenses, make sure that you are familiar with the current market trends, client segmentation, and what your competitors are doing to attract and retain customers.

• Get a Professional to Help: If you’re not sure how to proceed with some of the details, need help with your market analysis or mission and vision statements, or just want someone to take a second look at everything for you, consider hiring a professional consultant to help out.

• Try Using a Free Template: A free salon business plan template can be a cost-effective solution if you need some help to get all of your research organized. You won’t have to create a statement or plan from scratch, and can customize one for free using an existing template. You can also find a hair and beauty salon business description sample online to get started.

Here are some examples of what you should include when you create a hair and beauty salon business plan:

Cover Page

Your cover page introduces your business to potential investors, management staff, and anyone with a financial stake in its success. Make sure that this page includes your:

• Salon Name
• Contact Information

Table of Contents

A table of contents is very helpful in longer documents with a lot of information about financial planning, market research data, or information about products and services.

Executive Summary

The executive summary is where you can make the best-possible first impression. This section of your business plan should cover a few things, including:

• Your Hair Salon Mission Statement (your current objectives and how you plan to achieve them)

• Your Vision Statement (where you want your business to be in the future)

• An Overview (both of your salon itself and what this plan will cover)

• Your Keys to Success (what you require to start and run your salon successfully)

Business Description

Include a brief description of your business and its services. This should cover:

• Your Location

• The Services Offered to Clients

• Your Staff (how many employees you have, or what your staffing needs will be)

• An Overview of the Beauty Industry in Your Area

Target Market

Who will your customer base be? What’s the income level of your target customers? Will you try to attract customers in the local community, or market more widely? As part of a thorough market analysis, business owners need to think about:

• Who is Your Target Audience? (Also, do you already have a group of existing clients?)

• Where are They Located? (Do they work or study in the area? Do they live nearby?)

• What do They Want? (This will influence your income, sales and services)

• Why Them? (Why do you want to market your services to these clients and not someone else? Deciding on your clients will influence a lot of other details in your business plan, including the equipment, location potential cost and financial needs of your startup)

• Why You? (Why do your target clients need your services? What are you providing that will make the customer choose your hair and beauty salon over the competition? How will this impact your services and pricing? Will your staff do anything special to provide exceptional customer service to this group?)

It’s helpful to conduct a salon SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) at this point to understand precisely what you need to plan for with your hair salon’s business proposal and plan.

Competitive Analysis

You’ll need to know that and be prepared to briefly explain the following things:

• Who are your existing local competition?

• Where does your salon stand, compared to them?

• Will you be fighting for the same group of local clients?

• What are the current industry trends?

• What sets your hair and beauty service apart from the crowd and makes it unique?

• How does all of this align with your business goals?

Management Plan

Create a salon management plan for your salon that shows how your business will be managed. This is an integral part of writing a business plan, since it’ll help you make a lot of decisions about your hair and beauty salon space, its management team, and the staff you’ll need- as well as give you an idea of how to make these things align with your business objectives. As the salon owner, you’ll need to explain the following details clearly:

• The Company Structure (this will be simple or more complex, depending on your business size

• Your Management Strategy (your major goals, where you want to be in five years, and the high-level actions you’ll take to get there)

• Staffing Details (an overview of the staff you will hire and their roles)

Products and Services

Putting these in the document will help show your planned revenue sources, as well as help calculate your salon expenses later on. This includes:

• Any Salon Products/ Product Lines You Will Sell or Use

• Each Service That You Plan to Offer

• Any Specialized Services (or new services, for existing salons)

Make sure to list these in detail and break down prices for each service and retail item.

Note: When deciding on services, you should consider your salon’s brand image- do you want to specialize in classic salon services, or continue to train your staff on the latest beauty trends, for example?

Marketing Plan

What marketing efforts will you make to reach your customers and grow your business? What kind of funding will you need to carry it out? How much will it cost? You might not need to include all of these things in your final document, but you’ll still want to do your research.

Make sure to outline your:

• Promotions, Planned Marketing Campaigns and Sales Strategy

• Complete Hair Salon Marketing Plan (How will you find and bring in your ideal customers? Is your market a local one? Will your location help with this? What service promotions and loyalty programs will you use?)

• How You Will Reach Your Target Audience

• How Will You Retain and Reward Loyal Clientele

• Hair Salon Branding (especially if you’re expanding an existing chain of salons) *You might also want to include any information about your salon’s opening, if you have a special event planned

Sales Plan

Remember to think in terms of both retail product sales and services. Outline these things in your statement:

• How You Will Present Your Services and Hair/ Beauty Products

• How You Will Market and Sell Them

• What Makes Your Services/ Products Unique and Appealing?

• Your Sales Goals

• Projected Income (don’t forget to calculate how much revenue you’ll receive from both sales and services)

• Your Pricing Strategy (for both your services/ hair treatments, and any hair and beauty products you’ll sell)

• Costs and Financing for Any Extras (additional professional or sales training, for example)

Make sure to check out our article on How to Increase Hair Salon Revenue.

Financial Plan

How much does it cost to start a salon business and how do you plan to make a profit as soon as possible?

Especially if you’re creating a salon business plan for investors (or if you intend on seeking funding in the future), it’s important to make these details as accurate as possible. You should be prepared for this and gather information about your:

• Financial Statements (you’ll want to understand both the money coming in and the regular expenses)

• Assumptions (these include both a cash flow forecast, or a cash flow statement if your hair and beauty salon is already in business, and detailed forecasts for costs and expenses)

• Financial Projections for Profits and Losses

• Your Break-Even Point

• Balance Sheets

• Loans and Debts Involved in the Business (make sure to always keep your salon’s expenses and any future revenue separate from your personal funds- it makes all of the paperwork much easier and will save you a lot of time and stress)

• Whether you intend to run your salon as a Limited Liability Company (to keep the business and its assets and debts legally separate from your personal finances)

• Note: If you’re running multiple different locations, try to keep each balance sheet separate, along with notes about how much profit/ expenses are related to each of your hair and beauty salons.

Whether you’re new to the hair and beauty industry, or a veteran hair and beauty salon owner, we always advise having a financial advisor or professional go over all of the money details and numbers in your financial plan before you create the final copy later on.

Operating Plan

Here, you’ll go over the practical details of running your business, including:

• Where You’ll Run Your Business (especially if you have a central office for multiple local salons)
• How You’ll Run It (what will your management structure look like, and how you’ll manage your salon inventory, for example)

Any Extra Information

This includes anything else that you think investors, leadership staff or anyone handling funding should know. This can include things like:

• Additional Documents
• Statements That You Consider Relevant
• How Much Inventory You Think You’ll Need

These documents and details can be included on the last page or pages of the business plan. Consider adding an appendix to your table of contents for these items.

Hair Salon Business Plan Template

The cost of a professional hair and beauty salon business plan might not be the only thing that some salon owners find a bit intimidating. The fact is that the whole process can sometimes feel like a lot to deal with.

Writing a hair salon business plan from scratch is something that even experienced salon wonders might not have the time or resources to take on. Don’t worry, if you need a hand, then you’re not alone.

Using a premade template or salon business proposal sample can save you time and money. Just fill in the blanks and customize it where needed.

We’ve created a straightforward and easy-to-use template to help you get started.

We’ve put together an easy-to-use template to help you get started.

Recommendations for Your Salon Business Plan

Creating a solid salon business plan is essential for success. Focus on these key areas:

• Research your market: Understand your audience and local competition.
• Define your goals: Set clear, realistic objectives for growth and profitability.
• Plan your finances: Outline startup costs, revenue projections, and expenses.
• Use tools: Leverage salon business plan software to streamline the process and create a professional plan.

A strong plan helps you stay organized, attract clients, and secure funding for your salon’s success.

FAQs About Salon Business Plans

What should a salon business plan include?

A salon business plan should include an executive summary, market analysis, detailed financial projections, marketing strategies, and an overview of your services. These elements demonstrate your understanding of the business and help attract investors.

Why is a salon business plan important?

A business plan is essential for setting goals, managing finances, and guiding your salon’s growth. It also serves as a tool to secure funding from investors or lenders and ensures you stay on track with your objectives.

Can I use software to create a salon business plan?

Yes, salon business plan software is a valuable resource that simplifies the process. It provides templates and tools to organize your ideas, project finances, and create a professional plan that meets industry standards.

Citations

Small business economics: A global perspective
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/05775132.1992.11471626

What do investors look for in a business plan? A comparison of the investment criteria of bankers, venture capitalists and business angels
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0266242604042377

Anatomy of a Business Plan: A Step-by-step Guide to Building the Business and Securing Your Company's Future
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id