Guides
Nail salon plan for people who want the details
A nail salon plan needs the sections a generic template leaves out: menu durations, the chair-hour ceiling, the pay model and per-station ventilation.
What to take away
- The working plan is short and dullthe menu with durations, the chair-hour ceiling, the pay model, the procedures and the hiring triggers.
- Every menu line carries a seat-to-seat duration rather than a hands-on one. A menu without durations cannot be scheduled or costed.
- Stations times open hours times working days is the ceiling. Write the number down, then check every revenue assumption against it.
- The compensation model belongs in the document with its reason attached, because it decides who controls the schedule.
- Sanitation, waste and ventilation are asked for by a landlord and an insurer. Ventilation is specified in CFM per station and air changes per hour, and the sanitation content itself comes from the state board of cosmetology.
The menu, with a duration against every line
A menu line is not a name and a price. It is a name and a block of chair time.
Hands-on vs seat-to-seat booking
Hands-on time
- What it counts
- Service only
- Station reset
- Excluded
- Short services
- Understated
- Mid-afternoon
- Running late
- Menu effect
- Overbooks
Seat-to-seat time
- What it counts
- Sit to next sit
- Station reset
- Included
- Short services
- Reset-heavy
- Mid-afternoon
- On schedule
- Menu effect
- Sellable hours
Write the duration seat to seat, meaning from the moment a client sits to the moment the next client can. That includes the station reset. Booking software will happily hold the hands-on figure instead, and a room scheduled on hands-on time is running late by mid-afternoon.
Typical seat-to-seat times, offered as starting points rather than rules:
The menu, with a duration
| Menu line | Hands-on | Seat to seat |
|---|---|---|
| Classic manicure | 30 min | 45 min |
| Gel manicure | 45 min | 60 min |
| Acrylic full set | 90 min | 105 min |
| Pedicure | 60 min | 75 min |
Measure your own before you settle the menu. Reset time grows when a station has no drawer for tools and no bin within reach.
Two facts fall out of this, and both belong in the document.
The menu, with a duration
- Short services carry proportionally more reset time than long ones, so a menu of quick work needs more seats to sell the same hours.
- A service you cannot staff at the duration you wrote is not on the menu. It is an intention, and it will be booked anyway.
What each line needs at the station is a separate list. The equipment and setup guide builds each seat from the services performed at it, which is the right direction for this section.
Stations times hours times days
The ceiling is arithmetic and takes one line. Stations S, open hours per day H_open, working days in the period D. Sellable chair hours are S x H_open x D.
The chair-hour ceiling
S x H_open x D
Sellable chair hours
Every revenue figure divides back into this
More sold hours than the ceiling: more stations or longer hours
People without seats are payroll standing up
Write it, then write what it implies. Every revenue figure in the plan divides back into that number. Any figure that does not is a number the room cannot produce.
Take a six-station room open 10 hours a day, six days a week, over four weeks. 6 x 10 x 24 is 1,440 sellable chair hours for that month. A plan projecting 1,800 sold hours out of that room is projecting a building that does not exist.
The ceiling settles the hiring argument too. If the plan needs more sold hours than S x H_open x D, the answer is more stations or longer hours. It is not more technicians. People without seats are payroll standing up.
Which format produced that station count in the first place is decided earlier, in the startup and market guide.
The pay model, decided in writing
State the compensation model and the reason for it, because a reason is the part a reader can argue with.
Who controls schedule, menu, pricing
Employee
- Schedule
- Owner
- Menu
- Owner
- Pricing
- Owner
- Classification
- Legal test
Commission
- Schedule
- Depends on agreement
- Menu
- Depends on agreement
- Pricing
- Depends on agreement
- Classification
- Legal test
Booth rent
- Schedule
- Renter
- Menu
- Renter
- Pricing
- Renter
- Classification
- Legal test
The models differ in one respect that outweighs the money. An employee model puts the schedule, the menu and the pricing under the owner. A booth-rent model hands all three to the renter for their own chairs. A commission model sits between them and depends entirely on what the agreement says about hours and services.
Whether a person is an employee or an independent contractor is a legal determination made against published tests. It is not settled by what the agreement is called. Choose the model with that in mind and have the classification checked before anyone starts.
Who gets hired at which point is worked through in the hiring and training guide.
The procedures a landlord and an insurer both ask for
Neither of those readers is the state board, and both will ask before they sign anything. A landlord wants to know what goes down the drain and into the bin. An insurer wants to know that a written procedure exists.
Write three things.
What landlord and insurer ask for
- Implement procedurereusable vs single use, where each sits
- Waste procedurelidded containers for solvent-soaked cotton
- Who empties the waste containers
- Ventilation per stationcapture at the working surface
- Filter or duct path, and who changes filters
- Send procedure to the state board and ask
The air question is the one a landlord or a contractor will ask you to name. They ask for airflow per station in cubic feet per minute (CFM) and for the room turnover rate in air changes per hour (ACH).
Your local mechanical code sets the floor. Room volume, ductwork and the number of stations set the rest, and a mechanical contractor signs the figure. Write the required CFM per station and the ACH into the plan with the code citation beside them.
The content of the sanitation rules is set by the state board of cosmetology and differs by state. Two examples of the authority you would cite are the California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology and the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
Requirements vary, but a typical board rule set covers disinfecting implements with an EPA-registered hospital-grade disinfectant after each client, changing liners between clients, and draining and disinfecting foot spas on a posted schedule.
Write your procedure, send it to the board, and ask whether it meets the current requirement. A plan that states a rule you invented is worse than one that names the authority and asks.
The staffing ramp, tied to a booking level
A staffing plan with dates in it is a guess. A staffing plan with triggers in it is a plan.
When to make the first hire
Is a share of S x H_open x D genuinely booked, held for your chosen number of weeks?
Make the hire; the first hire is usually a second pair of hands
Hold; an owner can answer a phone between clients but cannot be in two chairs
Write each hire against a booking level rather than a month. The trigger is a share of S x H_open x D that is genuinely booked, held for a number of weeks you choose and record.
The first hire is usually a second pair of hands rather than a receptionist. An owner can answer a phone between clients. An owner cannot be in two chairs.
What the room needs in place before that person arrives is listed in the equipment checklist for new owners.
Who asks for which section
| Plan section | Who asks for it | What they are checking |
|---|---|---|
| Menu with seat-to-seat durations | The owner, and whoever builds the schedule | Whether the day described can actually be run |
| Chair-hour ceiling | A lender first, then the owner every month | Whether the revenue figure is possible at all |
| Compensation model and its reason | A lender, an insurer, whoever runs payroll | Who controls hours, prices and the menu |
| Sanitation and waste procedure | The landlord and the insurer | What reaches the drain, the bin and the air |
| Ventilation specification, CFM per station and air changes per hour | The landlord and the build-out contractor | Whether the shell carries the required airflow, and who installs it |
| Staffing ramp with triggers | The owner | Whether payroll arrives before the bookings do |
| Structure, ownership and tax registration | A lender, a bank, the tax authority | Who is liable, and how the business is taxed |
The working plan itself is a short document. In the order it gets written:
- Menu, with a seat-to-seat duration and a price method against every line.
- Chair-hour ceiling, as one line of arithmetic with the station, hour and day counts filled in.
- Pay model, with the reason and the classification check beside it.
- Sanitation and waste procedure, with the state board citation.
- Ventilation, in CFM per station and air changes per hour.
- Staffing ramp, written as booking triggers rather than dates.
- Structure, ownership and registration, with the tax election named.
Nothing else belongs in it.
A plan written for a lender is a persuasion document. It leads with the market and projection and is read once.
The Small Business Administration guide to writing a business plan sets out both the traditional format lenders expect and a shorter alternative. Its ownership section rests on a choice the Internal Revenue Service page on business structures lays out in full.
The owner's plan is shorter and duller. It reopens every time a service is added or an hour changes.
Write that one first. Let the lender's version be an export of it. The order of these decisions is a separate question, covered in the guide to starting a nail salon.
Common questions
How long should a nail salon plan be?
As long as its shortest useful version. If a section never gets reopened when something changes, it belonged in the lender's copy rather than the working one.
Should the plan name a price for every service?
It should name the method and the durations. A price list lives in the menu and changes far more often than the plan does.
What do landlords ask for that owners have usually not written?
The waste and drain procedure, and the ventilation specification. Both are answers about the building, and both are missing from every generic template downloaded as a business plan.
Does the plan need a projection?
A lender will want one. Build it downward from S x H_open x D rather than upward from a target, so the figure stays inside what the room can physically produce.
Who signs off on the sanitation section?
Nobody inside the salon. Send it to the state board of cosmetology, ask whether it meets the current requirement for your state, and keep the reply filed with the plan.
