Make Your Spa Profitable in 90 Days or Less
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By Mike Brandon
How many times have you hired amazing massage therapists (or estheticians) only to discover that while they excel at their craft, they often lack the social skills required to build their guest list? The massage therapist is able to wow guests with their knowledge and skills during the time of service, but so often getting therapists to interact with the guests in the salon can be a challenge.
Well, no worries. The good news is that you have this other wonderful group of people in the salon who are extremely outgoing. They love to interact with people! I’m talking about your hair stylists, of course. Stylists are the consummate sales people. Even though they may claim they are afraid of making sales, how often do you hear them selling something? “Have you seen that new movie?”, “Oh my God, you have to go!”Or, “there’s a new restaurant that just opened, you should take your family.” In fact they are naturally good at talking about everything except the things they need to talk about. That’s a topic of another article, but lucky for us they are amazing at talking about the good traits of others.
Why not harness this strength and use it to promote other services within your salon? Consider this: If you have six stylists you have the potential to add 18 to 36 new appointments per month for the new massage therapist. After 90 days you will have provided them with enough guests to build a level one practice.
- Create some really cool-looking GOLDEN TICKETS with your logo and salon name printed on them. Then have the massage therapist give each participating stylist a free, one-hour massage.
- Give 3 to 6 GOLDEN TICKETS to each participating stylist.
- Arm each stylist with a script that sounds something like this:
“I had the most amazing massage the other day from our new massage therapist, {name}! I have a few Golden Tickets for our best guests, giving you the chance to receive a massage for only {price-see below}. I’m only able to offer this deal to three people a month and I thought of you! If you’d like I can give you a Golden Ticket, and we can make appointments for your next hair cut and a massage before you leave today.”
- Important: For this offer to be successful, you must require guests to book the massage before they leave the salon. It’s best not to allow guests to leave with the tickets. You could say, “If you will call me as soon as you get home I’ll save the ticket here for you. If I don’t hear from you, perhaps we can try again next month.”
- If you need to build quickly, make an aggressive offer. Consider offering a special price that is quite a bit lower than your standard price, like 50 percent off, or $39. Remember we are trying to load this new employee with guests.
- Don’t give a Golden Ticket to the same person more than once, and be sure NOT to give them to guests who visit another massage therapist in the salon. Consider having the new therapist look up the history of each day’s guests so you’ll know in advance to whom you should be making the offer.
- If you have a couple’s room, add this to the end of your offering: “Check with your partner when you get home. If {he or she} would like to enjoy a massage with you, we can rebook your appointment as a couple’s massage and extend the same price to your partner.”
- Don’t give more than six Golden Tickets to each stylist per month and don’t run this offer for more than 90 days for each new employee. If you have eight or more stylists, limit each to three tickets per month.
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