Small Business Q&A: Élon Salon

, built in 1996, is undergoing construction of a room addition and lobby renovation. The extra space will add 10 cutting and six color stations. The project will be completed Nov. 1.

Élon is planning a 2012 trip to Italy to participate in an Intercoiffure World Conference. The salon is one of eight Georgia members of the international, invitation-only hairdressing organization.

The entire élon staff takes annual trips for continuing education at the salon's expense.

Salon owners Don and Flonnie Westbrook, married for 48 years, talked to Northeast Cobb Patch about their business.

Q. What's the best thing about your job?
Flonnie: I get be meet different kinds of people. All day I'm socializing and helping people feel better by helping them look better. We go to fun places on our educational trips. We keep up to date with fashion and running a business. There's something different every day."

Q. What is the best thing about Northeast Cobb?
A. There are a lot of women interested in keeping themselves up for their jobs and lifestyles. Our clients travel here from all over north Atlanta and north Georgia.

Q. Why did you choose to open your business in Northeast Cobb?
Flonnie: Don graduated from Sprayberry High School. We're from the area. Our first place was on Canton Highway.

Don: The area has changed a lot since 1965. We have a lot of white-collar income. Great income. Sometimes I think of it as a velvet ghetto.

Q. Why did you pick this kind of business?
A. We have an upscale beauty salon that suites our standards for quality hair care, quality education and standards for growing our business. We're not stand-still type of people. We like to keep learning.

Don: True story. When I was 16, I was looking for a summer job. I thought about going to barber school, and a buddy of mine was going to go to cosmetology school. He asked me, "Who would you rather be around all day, a bunch of guys? Or girls?" I went to the Marietta School of Cosmetology and discovered that I was a good hairdresser. I have a lot of fun with it. One day I was at work and thought, "They're actually going to pay me to do this."

Flonnie: I followed Don. I started out washing hair and sweeping up for him.

Q. What are some of the services you offer that people don't know about?
A. We specialize in hair color and conditioning to keep hair healthy.

We started our own product line in the '70s. We work with a couple of chemists. We test the products until it's what we like. We have our own hair colors. Our products are not tested on animals.

We do more hair color than any salon in the U.S.

Q. How long have you been in business?
A. We opened our first shop in 1965.

Q. How did your business get started?
A. We were about 19 and 20 years old. We just wanted to have our own business. We started with a two-chair shop and almost always owned our own building.

Q. Do you have advice for anyone who'd like to start a small business in this area?
A. Stay focused. Put in the time in the beginning to pay attention to every detail.

We've grown over the last five years, and this year business is up dramatically.

Your business needs quality service and products. Train staff. Only make changes that improve on quality. If recession happens, the leaders at the top take a pay cut. The last thing to do is lay off or furlough workers. Everybody is responsible for repeat customers. Everyone deserves to be rewarded when the business does well.   

Don: This is the third severe recession that we've gone through in the beauty industry. We saw the Lehman Brothers-led stock market crash coming before it happened three years ago. We saw it coming by seeing women stretch out appointments. Our management team met in July 2008 for a full day and found ways to cut back overhead and spend more on things that grow business. For us, that's advertising and promotions and education for all of our 60 employees.

Q. Is there anything else you'd like our readers to know?
A. Sunday, Oct. 16, the whole staff comes in for the élon Cut-A-Thon. It's a fundraiser for a local breast cancer charity. We average raising about $15,000  to $18,000 each year. This is our fifth year.

élon Salon Hair Colour Specialists
695 Piedmont Rd.
770-427-8698
www.elonsalon.com