Most salons run on gut feeling. The till feels busy, the diary looks full, things are probably fine. Then the accountant calls in January with figures that don't match how the year felt, and by then you've lost twelve months where you could've done something about it.

There's a handful of numbers worth checking every week. Fifteen minutes on a Monday morning. That's enough to catch problems while they're still small.

Average spend per client

Total takings divided by number of clients. Write it down each week.

This number catches things you'd never notice otherwise. The team stops mentioning treatments. You've been a bit generous with discounts. Clients quietly switch from full colours to half heads. None of these show up as a single obvious problem, but the average spend drifts down and that's your early warning.

One week means nothing. Three weeks heading the same direction means something changed.

Chair occupancy

Four stylists, eight hours each, five days. That's 160 hours of chair time a week. How many have someone in them?

75-80% is healthy. Below 65% and you're paying for a lot of empty chairs. Above 85% and you're turning people away.

Knowing the actual gaps means you can do something specific. Not just "Tuesdays are quiet" but "Tuesday 2-5pm is dead." Run an offer for that window instead of discounting randomly.

Client return rate

Look at everyone who came in six months ago. What percentage came back?

A salon can feel busy with lots of new faces while losing existing clients at the same rate. You end up working hard just to stand still.

Above 70% is fine. Above 80% is good. Below 60% and you've got a leak. Worth finding, because getting someone back is much easier than finding someone new.

Retail percentage

Retail divided by total revenue. Most salons sit around 3-4%. The ones doing well are at 10-15%.

This matters because margins are completely different. A £22 conditioner is almost pure profit. £22 on a service has to cover wages, products, chair time, everything else.

Low retail usually isn't about the products. It's about whether anyone mentions them. Using something on a client's hair and hoping they ask isn't selling.

Individual performance

Nobody wants a competitive league table. But if you don't know who's bringing in what, you can't spot when someone needs help, or when someone's figured something out worth sharing.

Sometimes the reason for low numbers is obvious: part-time, newer, specialises in longer services. Sometimes it's not. Gaps in a column that could be fixed. Certain clients always funnelled to one person. You only see these patterns when you look at the figures.

No-show rate

Missed appointments divided by total appointments.

Under 5% is just life. Above 10% costs real money. 200 appointments a month at 10% no-shows is 20 empty slots. At £45 average, that's £900 a month. Nearly £11,000 a year.

Text reminders help because people read texts. Deposits help for longer bookings. Making cancellation easy helps too, oddly. Some no-shows are people who wanted to cancel but felt awkward calling. Give them a link and at least you get notice.

What doesn't matter

Instagram followers. 800 locals who book beats 12,000 scattered followers who never will.

New client numbers on their own. Fifty who come once is worse than twenty who keep coming back.

Total revenue without context. Your biggest week might barely turn a profit if costs were high that week too.

The numbers worth watching are the ones that tell you what's happening, not the ones that look good.