Power Book 2018

FIRST LOVE
Melissa Timperley opened her eponymous salon in Manchester’s Northern Quarter in December 2016.
Eighteen months on, the salon has won four industry awards and been voted the Talk of Manchester
Best Newcomer Business. Now thinking about the future and possibly expanding to a second salon,
Creative HEAD asked her what she would do again… and what would she do differently!
BUILD A BRILLIANT TEAM
I’m really lucky that we’ve built up a small team
slowly, one at a time – I started with just me, and
now we are five professionals who all get on, work
well together and have got each other’s back.
I did start out thinking that the way to generate
revenues would be to adopt a rent-a-chair approach,
but I soon realised after interviewing some
candidates that there was no way I could build a
cohesive team working in a similar way under the
Melissa Timperley brand. Everyone I interviewed
had their own ideas and individual way of doing
things, and I could see a major problem ahead if I
tried to control free-spirited creatives! If I did open
another salon, it would be even more crucial to
recruit professionals of like-mind and attitude as I
wouldn’t be there in a second business all the time,
and consistent client service is everything to us.
MAKE THE FINANCIALS WORK
“Know your costs and know your daily and weekly
break even,” my accountant said before I had even
cut a strand of hair. Not the most motivational
words, but probably the best business advice that I’ve
had! Really work out what everything costs from
the outset – I’ve got a good handle on the costs now
that we have a year under our belt, but I had little
clue when we started out. Now, I’d want to know
from day one how much we need to make before
we start making profit. I admit, it’s not my first love
to get the spreadsheets out, and I don’t know many
hairdressers who do love this aspect of owning a
business. But I know that to be a businesswoman I
need to have a good grip on what everything costs
and how we are doing against our budget – and to
make sure we have the cash to pay what’s required.
My recurring nightmare is thinking that we haven’t
40 POWER BOOK creativeheadmag.com