Succeed with style! Hair salons and day spas across the country are making as much as $300,000 a year — and you can, too. Whether you want to start a small salon out of your home or open a full-service day spa, this guide will show you exactly how to succeed.

You don’t even have to be a stylist. If you’ve got strong business skills, you can open a salon/spa, rent space to stylists, message therapists and nail artists, then sit back and rack in the cash. Inside our guide you’ll find:

Chapter 1

Since the dawn of the new millennium, the stock market has been in a freefall and the economy has been in the doldrums. But it was a good time to start a hair salon and day spa—and it still is today.

According to BizStats.com, an online small-business statistics source, in 2002, there were 1.4 million personal care services in the United States, 313,000 of which were beauty salons. The salon service industry alone had revenues of $55.9 billion, up 3.2 percent from the previous year, while salon product sales rose 3.8 percent to $5.5 billion. How was it possible for a service sector like the beauty industry to grow given the state of the economy? No doubt because many of the services offered by salons simply cannot be duplicated at home—or at least not duplicated well. In addition, in an age where people freely shell out $59.95 a month for unlimited cellular service or hundreds of dollars to lease the latest SUV model with the most bells and whistles, the price of a haircut probably doesn’t seem very high considering the lift it can give your spirits. Also, the baby boomers, who now constitute the largest population segment in America, are more than willing and are financially able to spend money on any personal care service they perceive will make them look younger and more attractive. No doubt as a result of their driving desire for a youthful appearance, the hair color segment of the salon industry continues to grow, according to Professional Consultants and Resources, a Plano, Texas, marketing and consulting firm. Coloring alone brought in $10.4 billion for the beauty industry in 2002.