In this episode, Brett shares 10 key questions you should ask yourself to determine if you’re ready to transition away from your salon business.
For today’s episode, we’re going to explore a question. And you can tell from the title that this question is: Is your salon ready?
Now, I can already hear you asking, “ready for what, Brett? What in the world are you talking about?” But this is a very specific question, and it may not be a question that you’re even ready to think about right now. Or it could be a question you have been pondering for quite a while.
The question really is, are you ready to transition away from your salon? Are you ready to exit?
And so, what I want to do today is to go through the 10 things that you need to consider to determine if you’re ready or not.
Now, as I mentioned, this could be more appropriate to someone who’s maybe reaching retirement age. For instance, maybe you’re 55 plus and you’re thinking that over the next five to 10 years you want to transition into something else.
You may want to exit your salon completely. You may want to exit yourself, but still have the salon as owner. Make sense?
You have a compelling vision for the next stage of your life, and you’ve been drawn towards that.
So, I’m going to unpack that very specifically today. But even if you’re not ready—let’s say you’re only 35 or 40—you’ve got another 20 years, 30 years, you’re building the salon business.
You’re not thinking about exiting. Instead, you’re thinking about building its value. You’re thinking about making more income.
Well, that doesn’t matter. Because there are some things in these 10 points today that are still going to be relevant. So, let me just baseline this.
If you’re thinking that one day you’re going to transition away from your salon—and today’s the day that I’m going to sell my salon and I’m going to do something else—if you think that miraculously just happens, you’re wrong. Even the big salons.
There’s a heap of preparation that happens for many years in advance, building the attractiveness in the salon, building its value.
So, if you’re thinking that an exit is on the horizon, okay, my opinion for you is that at a minimum, you should be thinking about that happening in the next three to five years.
So if you’re 55 and now listening to this and you’re thinking, “I want to do something different by the time I’m 60,” well then you should be doing your exit planning now.
You ultimately became a business owner because you can make more money. You can build wealth. And often the goal is generational wealth.
You want to leave some sort of legacy, right? But you also want the salon to be in a great position, and that it’s going to be transferable to someone else. And then they can take it to the next level. Wouldn’t that be an amazing scenario?
You’ve got this thing that you’ve created. You pass it on, and it gets taken even further. And you were the visionary. You were the creative spark. So, are you ready to transition away from your salon?
Episode Highlights
[04:05] Are you prepared or ready to sell your salon?
[04:25] Do you have your personal, financial, and business goals aligned?
[06:18] Have you created an advisory team?
[07:13] Do you have a contingency plan?
[08:21] Have you completed a business valuation of your salon?
[09:13] Have you considered all of your exit options?
[09:56] Is your transition plan in writing?
[10:57] Have you considered and designed a post-salon life?
[11:58] Do you have a pre-transition value of your assets and some preliminary due diligence underway?
[13:27] Do you have a management succession program?
Looking for more tips on how to grow, scale, and ultimately sell your hair salon business? Check out our other Unchained From the Chair podcast episodes.
