SOS Small Business Success for Salons & Spas Owners

The salon industry is a people business built on connection, trust, and relationships. With nearly 90% of salon owners being female, many leaders naturally lead with heart first—wanting harmony, support, and loyalty within the team.

But when leadership has too much heart without enough structure, accountability, and clarity, difficult conversations get avoided, and growth can stall. Heart matters, but heart without edge creates overwhelm. You need the balance between the two for ultimate success in leading people.

Find out more SOS Leadership Academy

SOS leadership mini-series focused on practical leadershipskills for service-based businesses, emphasizing that leadership clarity is essential for business growth.

Highlighted how unclear leadership expectations can createconfusion, unnecessary conversations, and accountability issues, leading to challenges like staff turnover.

The series will cover written communication, speaking,listening, branding, and coaching as practical leadership tools you can implement immediately.

Listen now to Session 5 of 5.

Plus, check here to see⁠ what kind of leader you are.⁠

SOS leadership mini-series focused on practical leadership skills for service-based businesses, emphasizing that leadership clarity is essential for business growth.

Highlighted how unclear leadership expectations can create confusion, unnecessary conversations, and accountability issues, leading to challenges like staff turnover.

The series will cover written communication, speaking, listening, branding, and coaching as practical leadership tools you can implement immediately.

Listen now to Session 4 and all 5 Sessions.

Plus, check here to see⁠ what kind of leader you are.⁠

SOS leadership mini-series focused on practical leadershipskills for service-based businesses, emphasizing that leadership clarity is essential for business growth.

Highlighted how unclear leadership expectations can createconfusion, unnecessary conversations, and accountability issues, leading to challenges like staff turnover.

The series will cover written communication, speaking,listening, branding, and coaching as practical leadership tools you can implement immediately.

Listen now to Session 3 and all 5 Sessions.

Plus, check here to see⁠ what kind of leader you are.⁠

SOS leadership mini-series focused on practical leadershipskills for service-based businesses, emphasizing that leadership clarity is essential for business growth.

Highlighted how unclear leadership expectations can createconfusion, unnecessary conversations, and accountability issues, leading to challenges like staff turnover.

The series will cover written communication, speaking,listening, branding, and coaching as practical leadership tools you can implement immediately.

Listen now to Session 2 and all 5 Sessions.

Plus, check here to see⁠ what kind of leader you are.⁠

SOS leadership mini-series focused on practical leadership skills for service-based businesses, emphasizing that leadership clarity is essential for business growth.

Highlighted how unclear leadership expectations can create confusion, unnecessary conversations, and accountability issues, leading to challenges like staff turnover.

The series will cover written communication, speaking, listening, branding, and coaching as practical leadership tools you can implement immediately.

Listen now to Session 1 and all 5 Sessions.

Plus, check here to see what kind of leader you are.

Reset Yourself. Reset Your Leadership. Reset YourBusiness.

Burnout in the beauty industry isn’t just about workingtoo many hours—it’s the pressure of leading people, serving clients, managing operations, growing the business, and feeling responsible for everything in between.

In this special SOS Small Biz Success episode,originally presented as a live webinar, Bonnie Bonadeo, Nikki Le and Brigette Sobus tackle burnout from three different perspectives: the self, the leader and the business.

Discover the leadership pressures affecting owners, sixindustry conditions contributing to burnout, the two leading causes that may be keeping you stuck, and practical ways to start changing them.

Because the answer to burnout isn’t simply doing less—it may be learning something new and learning how to carry less.

Find out more about Beauty Leadership Lab Here (www.beautyleadershiplab.com)

No Captain Reaches the Destination Alone...

In this episode of the SOS Small Business Success Podcast, we take leadership to the water with a powerful lesson from two ships that didn’t sink because the captain lacked skill, but because the right tools were missing, distractions took over, and preparation wasn’t enough to prevent disaster.

Bonnie connects those lessons to her own journey aboard Better Days with Jeff, where even with planning, preparation, and experience, unexpected challenges still showed up. The same is true in salon ownership. You can know how to run the business, but without the right leadership tools, trained support, and a crew that understands the destination, growth becomes harder than it needs to be.

Check out these tools and programs to ensure smooth sailing in your leadership journey.

Heart and Edge Webinar

Ultimate Leaders Certification Course

The Beauty Leadership Lab

What Small Business Stats Are Really Telling Us About the Course Ahead

“On the water, numbers matter. Wind speed. depth. fuel. distance. direction. You don’t sail by hope. You sail by reading the conditions. Business is the same. The stats aren’t there to scare us; they’re there to help us lead smarter.”

Today's episode is a stat attack on some numbers I learned at the Data Driven Conference about small businesses and our salon industry. Listen now, you will want to know these numbers.

The future of our industry is on the line—this is your call to lead, not watch.

This is not just another industry conversation—this is a moment that could redefine the future of beauty education as we know it. In this urgent SOS Alert episode,

Bonnie Bonadeo sits down with Shelly Gitthens, Academy of Hair Design, Heather Sinclair-Hello Gorgeous Barber College, and Leah Longest-Shawnee Beauty College to break down a proposed bill that could eliminate funding for—putting up to92% of beauty schools at risk of closing.

These leaders share firsthand insight into how heavily schools rely on federal financial aid and why flawed Department of Education metrics could devastate not only schools but the entire pipeline of future professionals.

But this conversation goes far beyond the classroom. The ripple effect affects salon owners, workforce development, small-business growth, and even public safety standards across the industry.

With timelines tightening and a critical May 20th deadline approaching, this episode outlines exactly what’s at stake—and more importantly, what must be done. From submitting public comments to contacting legislators and unifying the industry voice, this is a call to action for every salon, spa, wellness leader, and licensed professional.

The question is no longer “What’s happening?”—it’s “What are you going to do about it?”  

Listen now and take action here. MYAACS/ORG/SUBMIT-YOUR-COMMENT/