How to keep your clients through maternity leave

There is no number of weeks that is safe. Every regular who comes due while you are off has to choose between waiting for you and going somewhere else, and the longer you are away, the more of those choices there are. What keeps your clients through maternity leave is not the length of the leave. It is how many of them know when you are coming back, what Google shows anyone who looks you up, and how quickly you refill the gaps on your return.

The same worry, asked again this month

On 20 October a stylist posted on Reddit’s r/hairstylist asking other mums how long they took off. She is self-employed and rents a suite, so there is no paid leave and the rent keeps going whether she is there or not. She was worried about losing clients, and thinking of going back part-time after six weeks.

She is not the first. The UK trade forum Salon Geek has threads with titles like Losing clients after maternity leave. The worry does not go away, because the sum underneath it does not change.

Count who comes due while you are away

Start with your own column, not anyone’s average. Here is a made-up one to show the sum. Say you have 60 regulars: 20 who come every six weeks, 25 every eight weeks and 15 every twelve. You see each of them the week before you go, and you are away for 26 weeks.

The six-weekly ones come due four times while you are off. The eight-weekly ones three times. The twelve-weekly ones twice. That is 80, 75 and 30: 185 appointments your regulars need while you are not there.

Each of those is a morning when she looks at her roots and decides. Waiting once is easy. Waiting four times is a lot to ask. So the clients most at risk are the ones who come most often, and they are usually the ones you can least afford to lose. Even six weeks off means every six-weekly regular comes due once while you are gone.

Your numbers will differ, so count your own: how many regulars, and how often each one comes.

Tell them before you go

The regulars who hear it from you, in the chair, are the ones most likely to wait.

• Tell each regular at her last appointment, with a return month rather than a date you might not hit.
• Ask how she wants to hear that you are back: a text, an email, a message on Instagram. Write it down against her name.
• If someone needs colour every five weeks and genuinely cannot wait months, say so out loud and suggest someone you trust. Better that than she drifts off on her own.
• If your diary lets you, book the first fortnight back now for the regulars who want a slot.

The rent is a conversation between you and whoever you rent from. Have it early, before you need the answer.

The money side, briefly

We do not give benefits advice, so read the whole guide on GOV.UK. What its Maternity Allowance guide said when we read it on 29 October 2026: you could get it if you are self-employed, for up to 39 weeks, at between £27 and £194.32 a week depending on how many Class 2 National Insurance contributions you have made in the 66 weeks before your baby is due. You can apply once you have been pregnant for 26 weeks. The same guide links to a calculator for working out your own figure.

What to do with your Google listing

If you have your own Google Business Profile, Google’s help page on marking your business as closed, read on 29 October 2026, is clear. Closed for more than seven days, closed for the off-season or closed indefinitely: use Temporarily closed. Seven days or less: set special hours instead.

Google says the status is there to help customers who search for your business by name understand that the closure is only temporary. The same page adds a tip: for broad searches, temporarily closed businesses can rank after open ones, depending on the type of business, the kind of search and how many similar businesses are closed.

Your regulars are likely to look you up by name, which is the search Google says the status is built for. The searches that push you down are broad ones like hairdresser near me, which is where new clients come from, and you are not taking new clients while you are off. So the cost of being marked closed mostly lands when you come back, not while you are away.

Two things not to do. Do not delete the profile, and do not mark it Permanently closed. Google’s page on reopening says that a business permanently closed as part of a move or a name change should not be reopened: a new profile gets added and verified instead, and you have to contact Google if you want your reviews moved across. When you are ready, reopening from Temporarily closed is Edit profile, then Hours, then Open with main hours.

If you rent a chair in someone else’s salon, their listing is not yours to change, because their business is still open. Only touch your own profile. If you do not have one, that has its own piece.

Coming back to a column with gaps in it

Assume some regulars will not come back. People move, change jobs, find someone nearer the school gate. That is not a verdict on your work, it is just what happens over months.

• A week or two before you return, reopen the listing with the hours you will actually work. If you are coming back two days a week, show two days.
• Message every regular the way she asked to be told, with your first free days.
• After the first month, count again. However many of your regulars have not rebooked is the gap you need to fill with new clients.

New clients come from those broad searches. Start with what is free: a listing that is open, with your real hours, your services and recent photos of your own work. If that is not enough on its own, that is where a small ad on the searches she types earns its place, sized to the days you are actually working. Our piece on £100 a month works through what a small budget buys.

If you would rather not run the ads yourself

That is what we sell: Google Ads for hair salons, barbershops and chair renters, built and run without you. £15 to £149 a month depending on your ad spend band, no commission on bookings ever, cancel in one click, and your Google listing gets fixed before you pay anything. There is no free trial: your first payment is our fee plus your first month’s ad budget, and that switches the ads on. The empty chairs calculator on our homepage, the button that says What could I make?, shows what your empty chairs cost you in a year before you sign up to anything.

Two honest limits. Under about £100 a month of ad spend, we will tell you not to bother, and the free listing work above is the better use of your time. And if your regulars have filled your new days by themselves, do not start: an ad that fills a diary you cannot fit is money spent turning women away.