4 Ways to Achieve Spa Quality Not Quantity

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For the past 13 years, I have had the good fortune of building a solid clientele which has allowed me to amass a successful spa business. I attribute this achievement to making every service, and every connection all about the client. At our spa, the priority is to ensure that our clients are always happy, comfortable, well informed and satisfied with both their immediate results as well as their long-term skin care and wellness game plan.

Our industry is innately nurturing. We enter this business to help people, to heal, to listen, and to enrich their lives. We are givers; I believe it’s in our DNA. According to Business Dictionary, we are different than today’s corporate environment, where businesses are established to make money as quickly as possible and at the highest margins. In the beauty industry, we believe that lower quality work, produced quickly, is profitable only in the beginning and won’t sustain businesses growth.

Experiencing a spa service where you are rushed is not what our industry is all about. My business grew fast. I thought I could handle the vast increase by increasing the number of facials I did per day. At that time, I was performing 9-11 facials each day, not thinking of the long-term of my business. The result was a robust clientele and a serious arm injury to go with it. My injury required surgery and kept me out of commission for three months. Time off to heal was frustrating, but it also helped center me. I now know my limits and schedule a maximum of only six facials per day. The silver lining is that I get to spend more quality time on my relationship with each client. Sacrificing quality for quantity may grant you a few short-term profits, but you will quickly run out of steam. Favoring quality over quantity will increase your company’s reputation and increase product loyalty, which will keep your business sustainable in the long run.

Here are four things that have helped me along my journey to grow my business into a quality, well-respected spa.

1. Reward Top Employees

Losing a quality employee can only hurt your bottom line. Get creative with your employee rewards program. If you don’t have one, create one. People need to feel valued. It doesn’t have to be financial. Find out what drives them, and work to develop them professionally. Long term gain is achieved with a quality staff, which equals a quality business.

2. Choose Perfect Products and Services

This is why high-end boutiques are so trendy and successful. Boutiques generally offer higher quality products that may be a bit more expensive, but their customers are loyal and often willing to pay more because they appreciate you, your reputation and your knowledge.

We can apply the quantity vs. quality business model to the products we sell and use daily. Once again, less is more and quality always trumps quantity. This point is so glaringly obvious in the beauty industry, where well-informed clients are now leaning toward natural and organic ingredients used in skin care vs. chemical and synthetic ingredients even if they are less expensive. As a result, global demand for organic personal products is expected to reach $13.2 billion by 2018. This is great news for the beauty industry.

3. Go Social Wisely

Collecting “likes” is a dangerous game. Growing your social media base falsely will never grow your clientele. If your social media audience is not engaged in your business, your efforts here are essentially worthless. Take time to nurture your social media numbers. Work to engage them with quality helpful content that will actually help them. This could be anything from a health tip to a funny quote. Not every post needs to be a sales ad. Once you develop a solid base, your number of followers will increase organically. Slow and steady wins the race here.

4. Make It Worth Your Client’s Time.

You know how busy you are, so put yourself in your client’s shoes. For some, it may take a small miracle for them to find the time to come in, so thank them for their effort. They will appreciate you for acknowledging them and will remember this when it’s time to reschedule. For me, this is the essence of what quality really means.

When things get tough for me, I like to remember this: "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." -Philippians 4:8

Like most entrepreneurs, I have experienced the highs and lows of what it means to be in business. My clients are the core of all that I do. I need to remember this every time I unlock the door to my spa. I am aware that the second that I lose sight of this, I must find a new profession. But for now, I remain grateful to work in an industry that enhances the day to day lives of the people around me, and what could be better than that?

Lisa+Stewart

Lisa Stewart is a licensed esthetician and the owner of Solia Spa in Brecksville, Ohio. Since 2003, she has lead training seminars for professional skin care lines, including a partnership with Thalgo as their national trainer and educator for Nordstrom and many other prestigious properties and spas spanning the globe. She is sourced as a regular beauty expert in both national and local TV stations and magazines. She is also the founder of Peri Skin Care.

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