We at SuperSalon have had the honor of enabling and witnessing the success of many salon owners over the years. Each success story is different, but they all have very much the same factors at play. Business success in the 21st-century is all about harnessing the newest technology, and using it to your advantage to outwit and outperform your competitors.
In order to be as effective as we have been in delivering cutting edge business solutions for the beauty industry, our development and quality assurance teams have had to know just as much about the beauty industry as the tech industry. While the two industries may seem to be completely disparate, we have found that there are far more similarities than differences, such as the two that stand out the most.
- The need to constantly stay abreast of current trends: It would be a significant challenge to find a successful hair salon that only provides mullets and bowl cuts. Likewise, if SuperSalon was designed to only work on a RadioShack TRS 80, we wouldn’t have gotten very far.
- Both industries are in a constant state of change: While very much related to the first point that was made, changes in both industries don’t necessarily reflect popular trends. Laws, regulations, and licensing terms are common playthings of politicians, and directly affect both industries.
How We Synergize the Best of Both Industries
To begin with, SuperSalon was originally conceived and designed by a software programmer who also happened own a few beauty salons in Alaska. With each location spread out over a very large area, Matt Rogers had a pressing need to keep tabs on each of them without having to charter a private plane multiple times per week.
With help from friends who also had a stake in both industries, SuperSalon’s origins were humble. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and SuperSalon is the best choice for multi location and small independent salons. We have achieved this by maintaining an almost 50-50 split in our upper management staff being of either a heavy technical, or beauty sector backgrounds.
Interacting with our clients has illustrated the necessity to communicate with those in the beauty industry on their own terms. As our Implementations Manager, Melanie Fajth so eloquently put it in a recent interview:
Working in the tech industry I would be prepared to deal with a lot of waiting and back and forth communication, also with the beauty industries. And especially with the beauty industries, expect to deal with a lot of people who aren’t the best at grasping the concept of technology and software. Patience. My advice is to have patience.
Clear communication, delivered in a patient manner has been the hallmark of our implementation and training programs since their beginnings. It has always been vitally important that the first contact between our business and the salons we serve be as understanding and nonintimidating as possible. Technical knowledge combined with patient and tactful communication is how we strike the balance between the tech in the beauty industries
We feel that this balance has served both of them well, and in the years to come, we will study new ways to keep SuperSalon at the forefront of both industries.