You may be ready to take on an entry-level salon job upon graduating, but what kind of long-term goals do you want to achieve? If you dream of owning your own salon or at least managing one, you'll find it easier to move forward in your career after studying salon management. Including business and marketing training in your cosmetology degree can help you out in five different ways once you've started climbing the ladder of management in a spa, salon, or franchise outlet.

Preventing Failure

First, an in-depth knowledge of how salon businesses run can help you succeed in your career at every level. Knowing how to market a salon translates into marketing yourself as an individual hair designer or esthetician, which means you'll be able to bring in new clients regardless of where you end up working. You'll know when it's time to find a new salon to call home because you'll spot the warning signs that the business is floundering. You may even be able to help the owner turn the business around if they're willing to put your experience to good use.

Opening Your Own Business

Of course, all that training makes it much easier to open a salon of your own as well. Well-rounded salon management training plans will include information on topics like writing a business plan for securing funding, choosing between the various styles of salon operation, and negotiating deals with product vendors. A little training in the beginning can help you avoid common pitfalls that cause salons to shut down, including:

• Pricing mistakes that put off potential customers
• Resisting the need to adjust to changing demands and competition
• Working with too little cash in the bank for covering lean times
• Expanding too quickly or too slowly.

Adding Services

Even while you're still working at a salon owned by someone else, your management training can help you determine which services to add. This skill is doubly important once you're running or owning a business. For example, specializing in hair loss, advanced coloring techniques, or bridal designs could bring in business or alienate your existing customer base. Training in management will give you the analytical and research skills needed to determine what services to add, drop, or advertise more based on your target demographics and their needs.

Understanding Marketing

Great salons can't operate on word of mouth alone anymore. Aside from basic marketing like advertising, you'll need to know how to manage your salon's reputation, in addition to your own reputation as an individual. Reacting badly to a negative review on a website like Yelp could cost you further bad press. Most cosmetology schools include marketing and reputation management as part of the curriculum for salon management programs, so take advantage of the available training to make sure you know how to spin these kinds of events in your favor.

Replacing Experience

Finally, you'll definitely need some kind of advanced training and certificate to prove it if you want to jump ahead a few positions fresh out of cosmetology school. Management at salons and spas is often promoted from within based on experience and seniority, which helps ensure the management preserves the current goals and quality of the business. To have any hope at getting even a position as an assistant manager at a beauty-related business when all you have is a new cosmetology license, you'll need to study as much as possible in school. Every extra training course in hair care, marketing, management, secondary services, and even bookkeeping can make you more valuable despite being an entry-level employee. Just don't overwhelm yourself with extra training and let your cosmetology scores suffer as a result.

Contact a beauty school like Cannella School of Hair Design for more information.