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Economy and Your Spa: On the Road to Recovery
Economy and Your Spa: On the Road to Recovery
Lyn Ross L.M.E.
July 2009. As our economy is starting to recover from its recent recession, stories of spa businesses flourishing are few and far between. Amidst the crashes of US spas and skincare facilities, the economic downturn is especially obvious. According to research, over 30% of beauty salons and spas nationwide have closed their doors in 2007 and 2008.
As business owners and managers, we are continuously looking for ways to improve and increase our skin and body care revenue. Keeping current clients and bringing in new clients has never been as important as it is right now, when consumers are foregoing luxuries in favor of day-to-day necessities.
In order to focus on our successful spa business future, we must learn from the business owners of the past and try to apply the strategies of winning entrepreneurs in our own facilities. In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, America saw its worst economic crisis in history, known as the Great Depression. During those turbulent times, the unemployment rate was near 30%, businesses were failing daily, and not many government aid programs were in place to help citizens make it through. With the current volatile stock market, credit crunch, steady unemployment, and plunging consumer confidence, small businesses are again reeling. Many – including spa facilities – are concerned about their ability to stay in business. To aid our skin care centers in recovering from the events of the past few years, it’s crucial to take a look back at businesses that have historically survived difficult economic times and emerged intact.
For example, a successful barbershop in the Chicago area saw its ranks of customers decline steadily in the 1930s, after the stock market crash. In order to stay in business, the shop moved into a smaller and less expensive space, which helped save cash. The owner of the shop also requested that his barbers market the business door-to-door in their spare time, sending them to knock on doors and offer on-the-spot haircuts to anyone who’ll have them. Such marketing creativity and inventiveness paid off and helped the shop survive the difficult decade.
Of course, the cornerstone of any great business is impeccable customer service. The family that owned a small grocery store in upstate New York understood that they must treat their customers – even those who bought very little – like royalty in order to keep them coming back. This business started offering carry-home service to all customers, offering to take the client’s bags to their house at no charge. Everyone was involved in carrying, from the stock boy to the head of the store. Employees were trained to treat all customers with utmost courtesy and were rewarded for taking excellent care of customers. Teamwork was as important 90 years ago as it is now in order to help a business stay afloat.
Another way to march through a murky economy is to use the customers you already have in order to obtain new ones. This was the case of a small company in Iowa that installed flooring in office buildings and homes. During the Great Depression, the owner of this business understood that if the company is to survive, it must try to bring in some new business – the best way to do that was to enlist the help of current customers, by asking them for referrals. Yes, even in the 1930s referrals brought in big business, because there’s nothing better than word of mouth to advertise what you do! By offering existing customers discounts and upgrades, this floor installer was able to obtain some new clients and continue to operate.
Seeing how these businesses coped demonstrates several key points:
• Marketing is essential, even in difficult times.
• We must continuously train our employees to provide the best customer service.
• Obtaining new clients is just as important is maintaining the existing ones.
Let’s elaborate on these basic elements of triumphant business survival and recovery.
Marketing
Simply put, marketing is vital and you must be proactive. Idly waiting for the customer to call the spa every month to book an appointment is not enough anymore. Your goal should be to get the client to schedule the next appointment before leaving the spa after today’s visit! An easy way to help achieve this goal is to offer a little incentive in a way of a small discount – if a client schedules the next visit right away, they receive 10% off. Train your front desk staff to ask clients if they’d like to rebook when paying for today’s services; your staff should be mentioning the incentive discount in order to get more re-bookings.
Furthermore, basic marketing tools such as direct mail, email coupons, voicemail promotions and fun spa events can still do wonders to bring clients through your doors. Think back to the tactics you used when you first opened up your skin care facility. What did you do to entice clients to try your spa services? Those same ideas can be useful now, as you are contemplating how to help your spa business recover and flourish.
Below are a few suggestions to try when marketing your spa:
• Offer promotions on your “slower” days and/or in the down season.
• Hold a special event, like a Make-Up Workshop, a Girlfriends Spa Party or a special skincare guest speaker. There are dozens of exciting event ideas you can create for your spa. Get your staff involved in coming up with ideas.
• Have “A Month in Provance.” Pick a month when your book seems in a slump and designate it to be a month of European pampering. Play French music in your facility, offer light French-themed hors d'oeuvres, have your staff wear berets – all while treating your clients to European facials and body scrubs, or whatever other European special you com up with. The idea is to help clients relax and have fun imagining they’re on a European vacation, without the attached cost and hassle.
• Offer discounts on products during the events in order to move products off the shelves.
• Invite clients to bring a guest for a free treatment.
• Provide complimentary makeovers, if a client purchases a full-price treatment.
• Buy a target list and send out a direct mail blast – with a 3-4% return on direct mail campaigns, this avenue is worth exploring.
• Adopt the philosophy called “think mini.” If you feel your customers can’t afford the full facial and massage right now, offer them the lighter, shorter option. A mini-facial or and express-massage takes less time and costs less money. Your guests can still unwind and relax, while not spending as much.
• Reassess your budget and see if there is any room in it for advertising and/or branding your business. It may seem counter-intuitive to spend money on advertising when cash-flow is low, but it is imperative to remind clients that you are still doing business!
We are sure you can think of dozens of more creative marketing ideas. The key is to let existing customers know that you are still in business and doing well and to encourage them to come into your skin care facility for all the wonderful services and products you have to offer.
Continuous Employee Training
Face it, we are nothing without our qualified, well-trained employees. They are the ones who interact with clients on day-to-day basis. They are the ones who help sell services and products. They are the ones that greatly influence our bottom line, whether we like it or not. Hence, it’s easy to understand why employee training should a top priority for any spa owner or manager.
There are several areas in which we need to train employees on ongoing basis. Those areas include client care, sales skills, and technical skills.
• Client care – Employees must know that they are to treat a client – any client! – with the utmost respect and kindness. Regardless of how much money this client spends in the spa, she or he must be treated like the Queen of England – even if all they do is get a brow wax once every six months. This seems like a simple one, but it can sometimes get lost in the day-to-day hassle of running a spa. Ours is a business of extreme sensitivity. We put our hands on the client, and with that create a special bond, a trust that is not easy to earn. Our customers come to us for healing, relaxation, rejuvenation and pampering. They may often unload their problems at home or at work on us, while we’re performing the treatment. The key to great spa business is to be professional, understanding and nurturing to each and every client, regardless of how much they spend with us. Give them the treatment they want to come back for again and again. This alone is worth more than any advertising or PR you can do.
• Clients can immediately feel when they are not treated right, when they have to wait too long to see their esthetician, when the front desk staff is not courteous or cuts them off too fast, and so on. Such circumstance can lead to the immediate loss of that client from your roster – and that is something you do not want, as your spa is trying to recover from a slump.
• Sales skills – Much as they may not like it, your staff are sales people. And if they are not, they should be! A good, skilled staff trained in sales can make a difference between a half-empty schedule book and a booming volume of clients. Same applies to products on your shelf. Teach your team to offer new services when a client is booking an appointment. Estheticians should also be suggesting products for clients to try at the end of the treatment in order to maintain the great skin care results achieved at the spa. The trick, however, is not to bulldoze your customer, but to subtly pick up on what the client may be missing in her skin care routine and to suggest a service or product that may fill that void. Being delicate is key. “I will never forget,” says one skin care professional, “when I was in a strip mall nail salon having a pedicure once. The lady who was doing my nails looked up at me from her stool and said, ‘Do you want an upper lip wax today?’ I have never had an upper lip wax there and never needed one! Though she was trying to up-sell, such rudeness was a major turn-off. I didn’t tip and didn’t return.”
• Technical skills – This one is a no-brainer. Your skin and body care staff must be knowledgeable on all the top technologies and treatments on the market today. They must be able to answer questions from clients. They should read pertinent literature and have up-to-date information on all products and services. When a client comes to a therapist, the client must feel confident that she is in good hands with this professional. Such confidence comes from having a highly skilled and highly trained team working at your spa.
New Clients
While maintaining your current client roster is fundamental to the prosperity of your spa, acquiring new clients is what will help your business grow. The easiest way to bring in new business is via referrals. Make your existing clientele work for you by offering a Referral Program. If a client refers a friend to your skincare center, both customers can receive a small discount on their next treatment. That way everyone feels appreciated and you have two clients!
Here are more great ideas for obtaining new customers and revitalizing your spa:
• Reach out to the community. The way to get the word out about your fabulous services and to increase the number of customers walking through your door is to go where potential clients go. Contact your local women’s club, mother’s group, school, temple, or any other place where women may congregate. Offer to do a free seminar on skincare, bring samples for people to try out, suggest yourself as a guest speaker/teacher at local schools, and so on – the pool of ideas is bottomless. The point is to get out there is talk up your facility.
• Partner with other businesses. Go to high-end boutiques, art galleries, even restaurants and ask if you can leave your business cards or flyers at their front desk. Offer, in return, to showcase a few of their coupons in your spa. Cross-marketing can work wonders when you share customers with another business. The same women who go to the local boutique may be in the market for a place to receive great facials, and vice versa. You can even partner with local businesses to do events together. For example, Institut’ DERMed Spa in Atlanta frequently holds events where a local restaurant will cater the food, a nearby clothing shop brings a few of their top fashions to display, and spa therapists provide manicures, pedicures and makeovers. Customers get pampered, while getting to know the products of the other neighboring businesses – cross-marketing!
• Public Relations – are you doing it? It’s not very complex, though requires a bit of time. Here’s a simple plan: think of something exciting or newsworthy in your facility – new products, new procedure, one-of-a-kind make-up class, anything! Contact your local magazines or newspapers, especially those whose demographic match your spa clientele. Offer to write a brief press release or a short story for the editor of the magazine. These busy mavens of the publishing world usually don’t have enough writers on staff and frequently rely on outside writers to get them the stories they need. Also, invite the press into your spa for complimentary treatments! It may get you some free publicity, but it also simply gets the editors/reporters familiar with your facility. Perhaps they’ll think of it for their next story; or maybe they’ll become regular clients.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was once quoted saying: “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” Yes, the job we have to do is large and frequently presents us with challenges. However, the joy we receive from treating our clients well and the thrill we feel from finding creative solutions to our business questions make working in this industry interesting and rewarding. The goal is to aim high – even during difficult times – and to give your business your every effort. With dedication and creativity you are sure to navigate these times successfully!
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