How do you gauge your salon (s)

[mgj]

I am looking for a few measurables to gauge the progress of the salon. I know per session average, Lotion average, et al.

What gauges do you have on your dashboard to tell if it is running good, smooth, and most importantly profitable. Try and explain them a bit, and what you like to see. For example, you use per session average, (total rev. divided by total sessions) for a given time period, and you like to see 10 per, but you current average this year is 8.50 or 12.50. Lay it out there so we all can use the info and maybe find a best practices "dashboard" to more efficiently run our salons. Thanks.

[MR.TANLINES]

I use my bank account as my gauge..

[mgj]

That is it??

[Kathe]

Personally I look at what I'm bringing in gross sales this year vs last year and the previous years before that. I normally look at 5 years history.

Then I look at my expenses. Are they up, down, even. Am I spending in areas that I didn't before.

I also look at number of new clients and number of daily customers. As long as I'm bringing in new clients, more dollars and not spending as much or more than I'm bringing in new then I feel like I'm doing the right thing.

For example if last year I brought in $100 and my costs were $50 and this year I brought in $150 but my costs were $100 I'm not really doing any better. But if I brought in $150 and my costs stayed at $75 then I'm doing ok.

I'm not much of an accountant but it works for me to give a nice snapshot of how we're doing.

[Beach Bum]

There are several ways. PPA is a good one to determine if you are getting a good return on each customer. But if you don't have enough customers, you would be in trouble.

Another measure is determine how much each customer spends on average each year. And if your software allows, try to figure out how long a customers stays with you, how many years.

Example, average customer spends $250 per year, and an average customer tans for 4 years at your salon. So each customer has a lifetime value of $1000. This is helpful in deciding what types of advertising to do.

If you are considering spending $5k on a marketing campagin, it will need to produce 5 new customers to break even.

Whether your figures (PPA, annual average spending, lifetime value) are good or bad will depend on several factors. A PPA of $7 may be good for one salon, but weak for another.

The botton line is whether you make a profit or not. Work the numbers backwards. Project what your total expenses will be for the year and then calculate some projections.

Example, your total expenses will be $100k. You want to make $50k profit. So your total revenue will need to be $150k. Based on your figures for the last 2 years you have a PPA of $8.00. So, to meet your goal you need to tan 18,750 for the year. If you don't think you will have 18,750 tans, you will need to make more than $8.00 PPA.

In order to do that you may need to re-evaluate your price schedule and your ancillary items. Or you can develop a stragety to increase your tans to 18,750.

Lots of ways to evaluate the numbers. Good luck.

[mgj]

Thanks for the good answers, keep em coming looking for something outside of the box, a veteran move so to speak. I want to track xx things daily so I can look at them at any time and see how she's running. On a high performance car you would watch the tach and oil pressure and temp gauges. What should all of us watch?

[Beach Bum]

Pretty simple on a daily basis. You watch customer count and PPA. For finer details, watch counts on your upgrade beds - your money makers. Also lotion sales, LPPA.

Good signs are high PPA and LPPA and more people tanning on the upper level beds.

[mgj]

Thanks, How is Lppa figured? I know it is lotion per person average, but how is that calculated?

[Tanning Queen]

how much product was sold divided by how many people you saw. Ex $100 in lotion was sold, saw 5 people = $20 LPPA.