My business profitability increased by 300% despite being heavily impacted by COVID

In addition to growth marketing, I've always enjoyed side hustles, owning and growing businesses, creating products, and more recently being the primary carer to our little boy.

My wife and I opened the Adilla barbershop in late 2019 with expansion plans eradicated by COVID. Only weeks away from opening in the airport we, like many businesses, found ourselves in survival mode vs growth mode.

However, after some key changes were made in early 2021 we increased our profitability by over 300% and successfully sold at the end of last year.

Here's what I learned.

1)Learn to adapt, but to really achieve this you have to take calculated risks

As the doors closed on businesses around us we did wonder if we would survive the lockdowns, declining client confidence, and the workforce shortage.

We had a simple but impactful thought.

If we couldn’t guarantee the number of clients through the door then we would ensure each visit was valuable to both the client and the business.

So we did some research into and obvious shoulder niche, men's skincare and beauty.

Interesting stats we uncovered:

• There was a 34% increase in male millennials buying and replacing skincare products every 6 months
• Manscape (men's grooming tools) signed a 2-year sponsorship deal with the UFC
• Pharmacy men's skincare sales jumped from 9.6M to 10.2M in 2020 despite the pandemic?
• Female buyers were key to unlock e.g 50% of HANDSOME men's products were purchased by women
• The general cultural shift towards self-care & evolving masculinity?
• “Beard Trimmer” topic is up 3,200% YoY in Google Trends in Australia.

We had plenty of data to steer our thinking towards men's beauty and wellness but we also knew that people were locked down and essentially locked-local. People wanted a mini escape from the news, the noise, the pandemic, and possibly their homes.

We decided to incorporate extended facial & beauty packages focusing more on the “local experience” versus the “chore” of a haircut.??

So, we trained the team, bought the equipment, and went to market.

The Adilla Escape was born.

2) Invest in your marketing & storytelling skills

We did lots of marketing stuff across different, but relevant, segments to drive bookings.

• We spoke to the AFR
• We did a live segment on Ticker News
• We spoke to numerous publishers
• We created an easy gifting process from female clients in our salon
• We created a grooms package, ranked 1st on Google for related terms, and created a WOM loop amongst those clients

We saw some decent results in just 6 months:

• Net profit increased by 320% YoY
• Beauty services grew to 15% of the total revenue?
• Client spend increased by 20%?

3) It’s OK to walk away from a successful business

Knowing when to leave a project is an important skill IMO. This is something my wife taught me. Yes, there is money on the table but what about happiness, mental wellness, and passion?

We had much grander plans with this business which COVID simply stopped in its tracks. Even though it was very profitable and an all-around great brand & business, it wasn’t “happy money” anymore. Recommend reading Happy Money by Ken Honda.

We also knew that because of the declining workforce the business would flourish owner-operated vs investor-operated as it was currently. We were very excited to give someone that opportunity.

We were also excited to free up the mental space to allow us to work on something new with a new passion which is much more valuable in the long term.

By the end of 2021, we had a list of potential buyers looking to snap up the business as there was very little to do other than jump in and run with it.

On Dec 1st, 2021 we sold.

I had to achieve something whilst my kid was napping, right? :)?