Advantages to forecasting are that you will be able to stock up on products that you might otherwise be sold out of, and be able to take advantage of bulk purchase discounts leading to more profit. If you hire help you will also be able to track when your employee expenses might be higher and when you might need temporary employees, or might need to increase the hours of the part timers working for you, or simply schedule more hours for yourself.

Also when planning vacations it is best to let your employees know what time periods are expected to be busy and which ones are expected to be slow. This will help them and you. Being gone during a very busy period for someone who works on commission or on a percentage of income can be financially harmful to your employees, so they will appreciate knowing what vacation times are the least profitable, as will you.

Keeping track of busy and slow times should be a part of your natural record keeping. You keep track of income and expenses for tax purposes. Making sure that your bookkeeper or site manager also keeps track of the number of clients you have and of the types of treatments they prefer will help. It will also assist you in marketing efforts. You’ll be able to see what areas are most profitable and which areas should be promoted more.

Your methods in this day and age will probably be computerized. Many software programs are available to keep track of customers including what they spent, who they saw, and what treatment options those chose. These programs generally integrate with your accounting, checking and tax preparation software as well as your tickler file for sending appointment reminders and your mailing list database. But even if you don’t use a computer and software for this purpose, just keeping track in a notebook puts you ahead of the game and allows you to make these basic business decisions. Taking care of business means knowing where you are at financially and forecasting will help you in this area.

Traditional methods of advertising and promotion have been consistently loosing market share to Internet marketing for several years. Take a look at newspapers as an example. Newspaper readership is down all over the country. News junkies and those who casually stay current with the news are en mass going to websites to read the latest wire service stories, and by the time it comes out in the next day’s newspaper it is old news. With readership down, advertising revenues for newspapers have gone done and the papers have raised advertising rates to maintain their income. So with newspapers you are paying more money for fewer readers.

Think about your phone book. The Yellow Pages is great and maybe still needed in some locations, but remember that the phone book is closed 99 percent of the time, and many people now use online resources to find phone numbers or addresses when they need them. Yellow Pages rates are going up and fewer people are using them. Radio and television suffer a similar fate as segmentation means more choices, but rates staying about the same for fewer listeners or viewers.

Your website on the other hand costs very little to set up. You can do it yourself using templates and wizards, or hire a web designer for a reasonable fee to create a site for you. Using organic search engine optimization will bring more people to your web site through Google, MSN, yahoo, Alta Vista, Dogpile and other search engines when they are looking for the services you offer in the location you reside in.  Your website can be a way to educate your client base, offer coupons and discounts, and use other methods to draw people into your business. And if you don’t have time to wait for organic search engine optimization to kick in, remember the PPC or pay per click options. Both Google and Yahoo offer paid ads that only cost you a fee when someone clicks them to go to your web site. This can be as low as a few cents a click, and if your site is designed properly you will have a high ratio of click through who become clients. You control the amount you spend, and by properly using your website and modern technology you can turn a small business into a large business with minimal expense.

One well known salesman and motivational speaker years ago wrote a book on how he acquired customers. One of the tricks that he used with great success was using his business cads as though they were confetti. When he went to a local college football game and his team did something good, a great play or a touchdown, then he threw a handful of his business cards into the air, and they rained down on the other spectator sports like confetti. Some people thought he was a bit crazy for throwing away business cards, since the majority of them wound up swept up by the janitorial staff. However his philosophy was that he could print hundreds of thousands of business cards with the commission from just one big sale. He was in the car business and you are in the spa and aesthetics business, but the principle remains the same.

Many people follow a “three foot rule” when it comes to their business card. If they meet someone new socially they give the person a business card. If they tip a waiter or waitress in a restaurant, they leave a business card. Anyone who gets within three feet of them receives a business card, and the strategy pays off. The idea behind the three foot rule is that many people will keep the business card and while they may not need your services today, things change.

Tomorrow, the next day or the next month they may have a need that you can fill and may still have the card. If they don’t they will probably remember your name, the business name, or your logo –which should always be on your card. You will have achieved top of mind awareness and become the first person in your business that they think of. You will, in effect, have achieved branding.  This is something that mega corporations spend billions of dollars on, and you can achieve it with a simple business card.

Regular discounts for regular clients just makes sense. Keeping current clients happy in every way that you can, even when it means taking a few dollars off of the total price, still means that they will be spending money with you much longer than those who come in, try the service and then don’t come back, possibly because a competitor has a discount coupon in the local newspaper or the back of the Yellow Pages.

When you figure up all of the costs of doing business, the cost of marketing – that is, of acquiring clients – is often the largest single expense. Clients are acquired through various efforts including referrals from other clients (probably happy clients or they would not be sending you referrals), advertising, and other promotional activities. There is a cost involved with all promotional activities, even those you do yourself, since your time has value.

Anything you can do to keep a regular client with you, and keep them coming back, certainly costs less than acquiring a new client to replace them. Additionally happy regular clients tend on average to spend more money and increase the levels of service they desire. They also tell their friends, bringing in more repeat customers. With that in mind, offering a small discount, and making sure the client knows that you are doing so, as a way of showing your appreciation, will help you to buy even more loyalty from that particular client.

It never hurts to build the discounts you offer around special events in the life of the client. Know when your clients have birthdays, anniversaries and other special days. Use it as a marketing tool by sending out postcards to those clients right before the birthday, offering a substantial discount to come in within a few days of that special day for full service treatment and you’ll be amazed at the number who take you up on the offer, and at the amount of increased income you’ll receive.

Always find a reason, and keep the client happy.

Spacious – Still – Soothing

A great deal goes into the design and creation of a truly successful spa. Countless hours of hard work behind the scenes, hundreds of tough financial decisions of one form or another, and a thousand little details are what makes a satisfying spa experience possible. It is a tall order for a new spa owner to get right all at once, and it is easy at times to lose track of the forest for the trees.

When it comes to the design, layout, and functionality of a spa treatment room, it is important to keep the three S’s in mind. They are: spacious, still, and soothing. You will note right away that these three considerations are all intangible. Clearly a treatment room needs to be functional, private, and comfortable but more is required.

Spacious, still, and soothing; these features have nothing to do with the practitioner’s ability to do his or her job on a functional level. What these considerations speak to are the experience of the client. Any successful spa owner will tell you that their clients are not simply paying for the treatments themselves but rather for the entire experience of receiving treatment.

When you are dealing in experience, as we in the spa business are, it is not enough to have form follow function. We must deal with the hearts and minds of our clients. A spa treatment room that is spacious, still, and soothing is an absolute must.

Local business clients are often a neglected opportunity. Many companies and organizations struggle around Christmas when it comes to looking for appropriate employee gifts. Approaching local business and offering an incentive to buying gift cards in bulk can often be an easier sell then you might think.

The best part about targeting local businesses is that the recipients of those spa gift cards are often close at hand. New clients who are within a few blocks of your spa on a regular basis have the potential to become frequent repeat customers.

This year, approach the businesses in your neighborhood. Have a strong pitch and a well thought out incentive for businesses willing to purchase in bulk. Remember that a gift card in the hand of a new customer is easily worth twice that of a card in the hands of a regular customer.

Clearly gift packages are the key to a successful holiday season for any spa. The hope, of course, is that women who might not otherwise buy a given treatment for themselves will be gifted the treatment by loved ones. Furthermore, there is the hope that at least some of these first-time clients might subsequently be converted into repeat customers.

While offering competitive discount and/or introductory gift packages makes good sense in terms of price point positioning (an affordable half hour massage can easily be used to supplement a larger gift), it is important to have an all-inclusive ‘Day At The Spa’ package available for those individuals looking to give a spa purchase as their main gift.

While you may not sell a large number of – Day At The Spa – packages, it is important nevertheless to give the creation of such a package your full attention, and to give those purchasing them the best possible customer service. A Day At The Spa package which is enthusiastically received (and rewarded) might just lead to a repeat purchase come Valentines Day.

There is a fine line to be walked when it comes to decorating your spa business for the holidays. On the one hand, you want to acknowledge the season and provide context to any seasonal changes to your spa menu. On the other hand, a spa needs to be a place of tranquility and calm, and this is never more true than during the busiest most hectic weeks of most people’s year.

When decorating your spa business, it is better to err on the side of too little rather than too much. Focus on small details and understated gestures, and understand that at least some of your business will ultimately come from customers desperate to escape the holidays (even if only temporarily) rather than celebrate them.

The difference between the spa industry and the restaurant industry is that there are many excellent, well-established restaurant management courses available in cities around the world, and the same cannot be said for spa management. The spa industry is still in its infancy in many ways. So how does one get spa management training?

The most obvious way is to apprentice in another spa and learn what you can from the owner; the problem is that some owners are naturally reluctant to train their future competitors. Alternatively, you can take business management courses, but these will lack much in the way of spa specific information. You can possibly get work managing a branded spa, but some of what you would be hoping to learn, in terms of spa management, would of course be done centrally.

Luckily the growth of the spa industry has meant that training courses and curricula are beginning to coalesce. There are online spa management courses available. Books and instructional DVDs are also an option these days for those willing to do a little research.

If you are an individual hoping to establish a successful spa, be sure to afford yourself the basics of spa management before you begin. After that, there is a lot that can be learned on the job, by way of online or distance education. You only have once chance to make a first impression – make the most of that chance.

As an entrepreneur or business owner in the beauty industry, you can use teleseminars and webinars to further your business and increase annual revenues. There are many companies online that specialize in facilitating a professional teleseminar and these services are advisable if you are a novice. A service will help you set up the registration process, provide numbers and access codes for each registrant.

Distance seminars such as these are not appropriate for simply telling someone or a group of people about your products and services. Although I guess you could have a virtual telephone based “Tupperware style” party, it is better used for educational purposes that intuitively link back to your business. For example, you may want to provide a 60 minute teleseminar on “Signs of Aging and How to Slow the Process Through Skin Care”. As you can see, this topic is broad based and would appeal to a wide range of people, and allows you to build a database to market your beauty products or services after the event.

You can earn revenue directly from the teleseminars and webinars directly. You can charge a fee for attendance, but this should really be reserved for those who are truly experts in their field and can offer a high level educational experience to registrants. If you do charge a fee, make sure that you have a perk package, such as a mailed package that includes product samples and a coupon, for example. Once again, this is another opportunity to market your business.

The basic setup of a teleseminar or webinar should be as follows:

1)    Welcome and Introductions – once all participants have entered the conference call, introduce yourself and your business, as well as any other speakers who may be presenting. Always give a brief outline including agenda and if there will be a Q&A period at the end.

2)    Presentation – begin the presentation and be sure to speak in a clear and concise manner keeping in mind that everyone is listening via telephone and some connections can be shaky. Stick with your agenda and go through each section methodically.

3)    Closing – make sure you have a closing segment so that participants know that the seminar is coming to a close. Be sure that you reiterate your company information and let everyone know that a follow-up email will be sent to all participants.

4)    Q&A – In most cases, questions must be submitted to the facilitator before the teleseminar starts. The telephone is not really the ideal format for an open question period.

It is a good idea to have an audio transcript of the teleseminar, publish it on your business website and then send an email to everyone so they know where it is located. This is also a good opportunity to thank everyone for attending, elicit feedback and perhaps offer a discount to teleseminar attendees who are interested in purchasing your beauty products or services. Always be thinking of ways that you can link your business to any event, gaining the most marketing impact possible.