Salon Tomorrow: The Roots Salon

In Spring 2016, Qnity partnered with SALON TODAY to host the Emerging Leader Cup for a competition designing the salon of tomorrow. Emerging Leaders is a subset of membership of 2 to 10, an association for salons that operate businesses from 2 to 10 locations. The Emerging Leaders represent members of the group who are 30 years old or younger.

For the purposes of the competition, the group was divided into three teams and charged with the mission of sketching out a beauty concept for the future. The teams were judged on the originality of their salon concept, how they worked together as a team, the feasibility of their concept, and how well they presented their idea. After the presentations, the judges scored each salon and conferred together to select a winning team.

In the end, the judges agreed that the Co-Collective team just edged the other teams out to win, but they all felt there was value in sharing the ideas of all three teams. Here is the slide presentation and the concept by The Roots Salon:

Roots Salon: Convenient Luxury Meets Philanthropy

Team members: Amber Burns of Salon 124, Lauren Coover of Lords and Ladies, Jillian Johns of Randolph’s Salon , Sheema Masood of Charles Penzone Salons, and Ashley Rivera of Lords & Ladies.

The Roots teamed targeted the Millennial as their key market, because it will represent 50 percent of the workforce in 2020. They studied aspects this target market wants in a salon, including technology touchpoints, a giving-back mentality and a cache of beauty experts would be key. The airy, bright and friendly salon is the perfect atmosphere for this client, and allows her to plug in if she needs to continue working during her appointment or take advantage of the time to focus on herself.

The team established their mission as the Three C’s: Commitment to the guests; Commitment to education, and a Commitment to the Community. The team planned for a 15,000-square foot salon, with businesses representing 70 percent hair services and 30 percent spa services, and a 5,000 square foot academy. With a focus on efficient luxury, the salon would strive to be mobile-friendly and technology-driven, offer clients results-oriented services and high-end food and drink options, and they’d strive to reduce the carbon footprint, simplify checkout through a Rootz App and offer boutique retail lines.

The team plans for both an apprenticeship program and a mandatory continuing education program, which would meet 13 times per year.

To address the target customer’s desire to interact with philanthropically-minded businesses, the salon commits to donating 15 percent of the profit of each service toward a scholarship fund helping young students get through cosmetology school. “We believe humans are innately good, and they’d welcome the opportunity to help students who are facing economic challenges,” says Sheema Masood.

The salon would offer  clients consistently high customer service, a smoothie bar for lunch on the go, express services and free wifi.

Commission for stylists would be tiered based on experience with levels at 30 percent, 40 percent and 50 percent, and employees would be offered ownership investment opportunities at the highest level. The team predicts they’d need a $2.5 million dollar investment to build the salon, and would target $38,500 doorswings to break even. They are planning to bring in $4.68 million in earnings in year one.