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Facing a Time and Training Crunch, Business Leaders Think Technology Can Help

Our Most Compelling Data:

Nearly three quarters

of beauty leaders said they’re spending more time now than they were a year ago on all nine different business areas.

81%

of beauty leaders said they’re researching or implementing new technology to help save time.

47%

of beauty leaders said social media tutorials are important for their employees’ professional development.

Beauty leaders are buying into the idea that tech will help them save time

While your clients might think you just do eyebrow treatments or blowouts all day, the reality is it’s hard to do everything you need to do on a daily basis to run your business.

At least 72% of beauty leaders said they spend more time now than they did a year ago on all nine areas we asked about, from marketing and social media (84%) to managing finances (80%) and hiring (75%).

Based on these stats, it’s no coincidence that 81% of beauty leaders told us they’re researching or implementing new technology to help.

It becomes even clearer they’ll lean on tech in the future when you look at their investment desires. At least 76% of beauty leaders said they want to invest in AI or automation to improve all the aspects of their businesses that we asked about, from inventory management (84%) to vendor management (83%) to taxes (78%).

Key takeaway:

The act of researching technology to solve your problems just sounds like another problem to solve, right? But the reality is that small, automated tweaks at small- and mid-sized beauty businesses often pay off quickly in the form of time savings. Savvy business operators don’t think of this as another software to learn or another task to complete. They think of it as a chance to free up 5% more time to be creative or to educate their staff on the things that keep customers coming back.

Pro tip:

With Square Staff business owners have access to HR software that can help create documents, such as new hire forms and handbooks. And with Square Marketing beauty businesses can manage and automate curated marketing campaigns and manage customer information, all saving you valuable time.

Social media tutorials and trainings aren’t just for clients

With rapidly changing styles and trends, as well as a varied set of skills across your team, beauty leaders can’t afford to brush off the continuing education needs of their businesses.

The majority of beauty leaders (85%) saw training or coaching their employees as key to their spa or salon’s success.

But that training can come in a variety of formats. While on-premise and in-shop training was a close second (46%), beauty leaders told us that social media tutorials (47%) were the most important thing their employees could do for professional development.

We asked beauty leaders to select up to three things that were most important for their employees’ professional development.

Here’s what they said:
Engaging with social media tutorials	47%
On-premises or in-shop training	46%
Industry certifications	43%
Online forums	40%
Mentor relationships	40%
Conferences	34%

Key takeaway:

Many salon and spa owners look at training as a way to educate their future competitors, since today’s employee could be the person running the shop across the street in six months. But there are very few ways to stop that from happening in the long term, especially as the Federal Trade Commission is now closely scrutinizing noncompete agreements. Instead, beauty leaders who are looking to build a strong in-house team should embrace advanced learning as an opportunity to stand out above their competitors.