You’ve been dreaming about it and now you’re ready. You want to start your own business, be your own boss, and write your own ticket. All that’s left to do is decide between opening a massage business or a barbershop. A massage enterprise has a few things in common with a barbershop, but it can’t hold a blade to where you get your fade. Let’s explore some things these businesses have in common, a few key differences, and why opening a barbershop is the better choice in today’s challenging economy.
Common Elements: Massage Business & Barbershops
Starting any new business comes with a slew of basic needs and requirements. Whether you decide to open a massage business or a barbershop, you’ll need to register your business with local and state authorities. Both require proper licensing for the businesses and the workers employed there. To protect your business, your employees, and your customers, you’ll want to obtain a good insurance policy.
Key to the success of any business is a solid, well thought out and realistic business plan. And both businesses involve lots of infrastructure. To outfit either a massage company or a barbershop, you’ll need the tools of your trade like massage tables and chairs, or barber chairs and mirrors, lotions and oils, or clippers and scissors. You’ll want to make your business visually appealing to customers with comfortable décor, top-notch sound systems and TVs, products to buy, and beverages to consume.
In order to find and retain customers, both businesses need marketing and promotion, as well as consistent and high-quality delivery of services. With such similar groundwork, you may be wondering how to choose which business best suits you.
Distinguishing Qualities in the Massage Industry
Starting your own business is a major investment of time, money, and effort. Choosing the right business will ensure growth potential and success.
While insurance is a necessity for any business, it’s especially important for the massage industry since there is a high rate of personal contact between the massage therapist and the customer. Protecting your business, your employees, and your customers from inappropriate touch or requests, as well as misunderstandings, is imperative to heading off any unhappy endings.
Massage services are a luxury. This means when times are tough and budgets are tight, massages take a backseat to other forms of personal care like haircuts and shaves. When consumers do opt for a rubdown, only 24% choose to visit a massage enterprise, according to the American Massage Therapy Association, with the majority preferring to visit a spa or massage therapist’s office. And because approximately 50% of massage services are performed in a therapist’s own office or during a home visit, finding the best employees to work for your business may be a challenge.
A Better Opportunity: It’s Cut and Dried
The barbershop business provides services that are always in demand. Men’s growing interest in personal care means barbershops now offer more than haircuts and shaves. As the definition of masculinity expands, so does the market for men’s skincare, beauty and grooming products, and services, expected to generate $81.2 billion in global sales by 2024. The Scissors & Scotch franchise is a growing leader in this market with plenty of prime territories to grow; see what’s available here. Barbershops now offer skincare, hair color, nail care, and — you guessed it — massage, lots of massage for the scalp and face, neck, shoulders, arms, and hands.
Services at a barbershop are seen as indispensable and are available at more accessible price points than services at a massage company. Repeat business is assured due to high demand but also because you’ll be able to hire and retain the best employees in this attractive occupation. Barbering has a faster than average growth rate of 19% between 2020-2030, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most barbers are employed by barbershops, so as the barbershop owner, you’ll have a consistent, qualified, professional staff ready to crop and coif.
Consider a Scissors & Scotch Barbershop Franchise
Since 2015, Scissors & Scotch has been offering top-shelf barbering services in an atmosphere that feels like a speakeasy spa. We’re a recognizable brand with a blueprint for success. We started in the Midwest and are growing coast-to-coast. To learn more, apply now and one of our franchise representatives will get in touch.