Every business venture starts with a plan. With so much money and time at stake, business plans can help you streamline your efforts and plan for your professional future. This article will explore the importance of a business plan for your barbershop, including how to set one up, and some common mistakes to avoid. 

How to Create a Barbershop Business Plan

Opening a barbershop takes planning, just like any other business. A business plan is a useful tool for helping identify the key aspects of your professional journey like your mission statement, goals, budget, and operations details, so that you can better envision and prepare for what lies ahead. Keep reading to learn how to properly create a business plan that serves your needs. 

Why Do You Need A Business Plan For Your Barbershop?

Whether you’re just figuring out how to open a barbershop or you’re an industry veteran, a business plan can always help make things easier to manage. A barbershop business plan outlines your business goals, market analysis, marketing strategies, financial projections, and other key details, serving as a roadmap that guides you through the process of starting, running, and growing your own barbershop. 

You can follow a barbershop business plan template or create one from scratch, but having one provides several benefits, such as: 

• A clear statement of goals. It’s easy to lose sight of the finish line once everything starts running, but with a business plan in place, you have a clear view of your vision for your business and what you need to accomplish in order to guide it to success.  
• Establishing a timeline. Your business plan will not only help you detail what milestones you need to hit but when you need to hit them. Nobody expects to be an overnight success, and a timeline will help you track your business’s progress. If you haven’t made enough money or hit the necessary number of clients by a certain date, that tells you something in your strategy isn’t working. 
• Outlining financing needs. A great idea is a great idea, but if you don’t have the funds to make it tangible, then that’s all it is. Figuring out the amount of money you’ll need comes first, but how you’re going to raise that money is equally important to creating a solid business plan. 
• Detailing operations. What will your day-to-day look like? How many employees will work for you? How will you make sure the business runs smoothly every day? This is information that is useful not just for you, but for those who might invest in your business. 
• Identifying challenges. Problems are unavoidable, and they can happen to any business, but figuring out what challenges lie ahead early on in your planning can help you better take care of them. For instance, is your location severely affected by seasonal weather? Is there a parking problem? Are you surrounded by competitors? What else will impact your cash flow? While you can’t anticipate every problem, identifying your weaknesses can help you build a stronger strategy to tackle them later on.

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8 Items to Include in Your Barbershop Business Plan Template

There are several key items you should try to include in your business plan. Keep in mind that this plan can change as you do more research or develop other aspects of your business, however, putting in the work to make it right will only benefit you in the long run. It’s always better to lay a sturdy foundation before you start building your house!

Overview

The overview is an executive summary of your barbershop business and management plan. This section is where you’ll present your mission statement, and briefly address your strategy to manifest your vision. It should be concise, engaging, and compelling to grab the attention of potential investors, lenders, or partners. Remember that this is a summary, and there will be room to address these sections in more detail later on in your plan.

Business Profile

An effective plan paints a thorough picture of the business as a whole, while also detailing the ways it will run. After your mission statement, you’ll want to describe what your barbershop does, what services and products you will offer, who will run the company, and other high-level details. Include info about the market landscape for your barbershop business to show there is a proven need for your services. Address who your competitors are, any advantages you have compared with others, and any research you’ve conducted to demonstrate there is a demand for your services in the area. 

You can also highlight the specific services your barbershop will offer, any products you will sell, and any other information showing that your barbershop will fill the need you’ve described in your market analysis summary. Briefly address your business finances, including any current sales and profits, the funding amount you’re looking to acquire or any funding you already have, and your projections for growth.

Market Research

Describe the current trends, successes, and pitfalls of the industry. Include some hard data/statistics if you can, like how far do people in the area generally travel for hair care? Or what percentage of barbershops retain a majority of their customers? 

Part of creating a business is knowing your target audience, but also who you’re competing for their attention against. Who are your competitors? How well do they run their business? How are their reviews? What is the age demographic of your business location? What is the foot traffic like? How will your business fill the needs of the customers in a way these existing businesses cannot? These are all important details you’ll want to research to know exactly how to design your business strategies. 

Structure and Leadership

This is the part of the plan that details who is in charge and how your business hierarchy will function. Who are the managers? Who does everyone report to? Who is in charge of the money? Are you going to helm the whole operation? Or will you establish a team of trusted professionals? These are questions investors will definitely have before sinking any cash into your business, but they’re also good questions to answer for yourself so you can better plan out how you will use your time and funds. 

Offerings and Services

Include details about the equipment you have and the services you plan to provide. Do you go beyond a standard barbershop experience? In addition to cutting hair, do you offer massages or other salon services? How much will a basic session cost? If you plan on carrying products like beard oils or lotions, list them out along with how much they’ll cost to buy, and how much you’ll sell them for. 

Marketing and Sales Plan

How you plan to market your business is hugely important to the success of your business. While it would be nice to spend $0 on ads, local TV spots, and/or social media promotion, you simply cannot just rely on word of mouth from family and friends. Do you plan on creating your own website or only using Instagram/TikTok? Will you try to take advantage of partnerships with influencers or other businesses? 

Your barbershop marketing plan should include information on how you plan to attract new customers (and retain loyal ones), what you’ll do to establish an online presence, how much you’ll spend on your marketing efforts, as well as any unpaid marketing strategies you’ll utilize. 

Operational Strategy

This section should detail your daily operations, answering questions like how many employees will you have? How many will work each day? What training will they have? How many managers will there be? How much support staff will you have on hand? How many chairs can you fill? 

In addition to figuring out both the macro and micro details of your operational strategy, you’ll also want to plan for any permits or licenses you’ll need to legally operate your business, as well as any software you’ll use to help manage your administrative tasks. 

Financial Overview

The financial overview is a crucial part of any business plan. A cash flow forecast shows the anticipated amount of money coming into the business, as well as what you will spend on expenses. It also projects growth over time, which allows you to make predictions about future revenue and expenses so that you can better plan for them in advance. You can include balance sheets, profit and loss statements, funding sources, expense projections, and any other hard financial data that can give a better insight into how you will both get and spend the money for your business. 

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4 Common Mistakes When Creating A Barbershop Business Plan

We get it, you’re (literally) ready to get down to business, but that doesn’t mean you should casually approach your barbershop business plan template. Below, we detail a few different causes of your plan not going… well, to plan! 

Lack of Research

Not knowing who your competitors are, what your ideal demographic is, how much your expenses will be, or what makes your business unique can mean setting yourself up for failure. If you’re investing money into your business, or trying to convince others to invest in yours, you want to establish a clear picture of what’s at stake by having as much necessary information as possible. 

Unrealistic Financial Projections

Crafting a useful barbershop business plan means being honest about both your expenses and your profit projections. While it’s great to dream big, expecting to make millions of dollars with minimal overhead in your early years might be a little too big. Chairs, equipment, and sanitization tools all cost money to buy and maintain, employees need living wages, marketing costs can add up, and there should be an emergency fund set aside just in case. When in doubt, it’s better to overestimate the amount of money you’ll need rather than underestimating it and coming up short. 

Ignoring Marketing Strategies

You can’t be too proud to engage in a little—or a lot!—of marketing. If you want people to know about your business, you have to get the word out to them. Ignoring social media, cutting your barbershop marketing budget, or refusing to advertise your services will only hurt your business in the end. Even if you’re uncomfortable putting yourself out there, there are plenty of clever ways you can advertise your business without being the star of your own marketing campaign. 

Neglecting to Review and Revise

Just because you’ve come up with a great plan doesn’t mean it will stay that way. Business plans can change and adapt over time, so while your barbershop business plan should contain plenty of details, it’s also important to be flexible—whether it’s the market that’s changing or your clientele.

Optimize Your Business Operations with GlossGenius

A well-developed barbershop business plan can make all the difference in your success. By researching and outlining the most important aspects of your business, you can create a helpful guide that serves as a map for your professional journey. While it might be a difficult one, it’s not impossible, and the right planning will certainly help get you where you need to go. 

If you’re going to open a barbershop or have plans to expand your current barber business, GlossGenius can help you implement and manage various aspects of your plan, including handling your schedule, client notes, appointment reminders, payments, website creation, marketing, and more. Our all-in-one platform was built specifically to save self-care business owners and team members time and frustration by streamlining day-to-day operations. This way you can focus on providing quality service and not the paperwork. 

‍Click here to learn more about what can do for your barbershop today or start a free trial to experience the benefits firsthand and see how we can help meet your business needs.