Industry Tradeshow Events: Why Attend?

Indoor Tanning Expos...  Ever been to one?  If you have than I know I don’t need to sell you on them. Fun, Excitement, Laughs, Free Stuff, Food, Drinks… whats not to love?  If you have never attended you probably have seen pictures in the industry trade magazines and manufacturers/distributors websites.  Visions of tan people standing up with their hands outstretched, sometimes screaming, trying to get the attention of the speaker on stage as if to say “I NEED that bottle of tanning lotion!” 

                If you have been to an Indoor Tanning Expo then you have witnessed or experienced the previously mentioned frenzy.  Hopefully that is not where your tanning expo experience has ended. Today’s Indoor Tanning Industry Tradeshows offer so much more than free lotion.  Don’t get me wrong, everyone loves free tanning lotion including this guy, and if that is your only reason for attending props to you!  I’ll see you at the next one with a bag full of samples.  For those who need more reasons to attend a tradeshow read on:

               

     First let me elaborate on the free lotion samples.  When bottles and packettes are flying into the audience there is not a machine that is sending these goodies sailing towards your head.  The human on stage is a National Sales Trainer for one of your favorite lotions manufacturers.  This person knows more about lotion ingredients, scents, benefits, sales tactics, pricing, and usages than you might think!  They are more than just hype men and women.  They have seen the best promos, deals, pitches, open house weekends, and fundraisers from around the world.  They have seen it ALL and they want to share what they know with YOU!  Not only will they provide you with training on their product during their seminars, but they are available to answer any and all questions at their booth.

                Indoor Tanning Tradeshows are also a great way to check out the latest and greatest equipment.  Thinking of upgrading an older bed?  Perhaps you are interested in adding sunless to your salon.  Most tradeshows do not have every single model on display, but you can get a very good idea of the quality and style of a brand of equipment from the models on the show floor.  For the salons that are not currently in the market for new equipment a tradeshow is still a great time to start making plans for the future.   How much will you need to upgrade your electrical?  How much Air Conditioning will you need?  Questions of this nature can be answered immediately from a representative that you can speak with in person.  It beats waiting on hold for a technician listening to your favorite Kenny G. cover.  Not only is it a great place to SEE the equipment, but many times there are pricing specials, buy in deals, AND free promos when purchasing equipment at an expo!

                Training and certification courses are another feature at many tradeshows.  Most states now require formal certification or training.  Most certification courses are now offered online making it easier to and more affordable to comply with state regulations.  However, Tradeshows still offer certification courses for a reason.  Salons keep signing up.  It is convenient.  If most of your salons employees are going to be gathered at a tradeshow why not take 3 hours and certify the whole gang?  

                If your salon offers handheld sunless spray tanning there is certification and training for you too! These handheld training courses are a great way to perfect your skills as a technician with one-on-one training or basic group spray tan trainings.   Even the most experienced hand held technicians will learn a tip from these trainings.  Oh did I mention product sample bags to certification attendees?  Bonus!

                 Lotions and equipment vendors are not the only vendors to get excited about;  Eyewear, modular walls, timing systems, software systems, lamp manufacturers, sunless solution, and marketing vendors can all be found at an indoor tanning expo.  While throwing out free tanning lamps or gallons of bed cleaner to an eager audience might sound dangerous it is very entertaining.  Okay so that doesn’t happen, but maybe this will be the year!! 

                In my experience every salon owner, manager, and employee has questions pertaining to some aspect of indoor tanning.  It could be a question about EFT programs, lamp compatibility, or software.  Maybe you have questions that you don’t even know you want to ask.  Mind blown, I know.  That is where the panel discussion is very helpful.  This panel discussion is where industry experts from salons, lotion manufactures, lamp manufacturers, and equipment distributors answer questions from the audience.  Some great topics are covered, tough questions answered, and there is usually quite a bit of jabbing between panel members (entertaining to watch).

Lastly, allow me to stress the information that the speakers at an expo have to share is priceless.  Ultimately it is your choice what ideas to implement in your salon.  Tradeshow Speakers have been asked to share their recipe for a successful salon with you because the more success YOU have the more successful WE are! Some salons take an interesting idea from an expo and use it to bump up sales, increase salon morale, change customer service.  Other salons completely turn around their business using ideas and connections gained from attending a tradeshow and go on to open second and third locations!  

Whether you take home free samples of lotion, a completely new business model , or a new wave of energy and excitement, you WILL take something from a tanning expo near you!  Register for one today!

Summertime Sadness?

September 18, 2013

From what I have seen there are four relationships that salons have with Sunless Spray Tanning.  

The first, and my favorite, is the salon that has a least one form of sunless tan application and is doing very well with it.  When they first broke into the sunless tanning game they employed smart marketing and are now reaping the rewards of their initial investment.  They have upgraded their equipment as new technology has been released.

The second would be the salon that has the latest and the greatest form of Sunless Tanning Application, but have not marketed properly, perhaps were never really excited about sunless in the first place, or are battling a negative “oompa loompa” sunless vibe in their region more on these unfortunate souls later.

The third is the salon that added sunless to their salon years ago in the form of an automated booth that, in today’s standards, would only be used for a makeshift outhouse, and initially did well, but for some reason have not upgraded to any modern form of acceptable automated spray booth. 

The Fourth, and most tragic, is the Tanning salon or spa that stubbornly maintains that Sunless tanning is a “Fad”, they would never offer it, and none of their customers would ever use it. 

And now it’s time for the breakdown.   

WARNING:  Tough love coming up.

Let’s start from the bottom and work up.  If you are a tanning salon and do not offer some form of Sunless tanning, you are out of touch!  You are missing out on a whole new customer base.  You are denying your current customer base a service that most want, and others don’t know they want, but they do!  More importantly you are missing out on income!  The argument that it is too expensive to get started is weak.  A decent handheld startup kit ranges from $500 to $2,500.  By the time you use all of the sunless solution that comes with the kit it would be paid for!  A decent used automated booth sells for as low as $10,000.  (Do NOT make the mistake of purchasing anything older than 2009 no matter how cheap you can get it)  Admittedly, ten thousand dollars IS a hefty investment for smaller salons, but look at it like this:  If you charge $25 per session (that’s on the low end of the price scale), and spray 4 clients a day (again, very conservative number), you are making $600 a week and over $2,500 a month!! The $10k investment could be paid off in less than 4 months and that doesn’t include upgrade session or sunless retail product sales!  After it is paid off you are making an extra $30,000 a year on the conservative end!  If you STILL don’t see how Sunless works into your facility you probably don’t have an email address or a cell phone and your salon will be irrelevant in the next 2 years.

Moving on to the salon that has sunless, but either purchased their equipment 15 years ago, or made the mistake of buying an extremely cheap used booth more than 6 years old.  Kudos for at least making an attempt to join in the sunless revolution, but you don’t get an “A for effort”.  If you still have the spray booth you purchased 10 years ago the time has come to UPGRADE.  That Ol' Thang has paid for itself 20 times over by now… put it to rest.  Severely discounting your pricing and packaging to convince customers to use your antiquated booth isn’t worth it after you figure in the time, money, and headache it costs to keep the thing functioning.  Unfortunately, you are now the salon with the “streaky” and “orange” booth.  It may take some time to build your sunless business back up after you upgrade, but with a little marketing and a free spray tan weekend we can help you get back on that sunless track!

For the salon that has a quality booth, but sales are not where you expected they would be, there IS a reason.  More than likely potential spray tanners in your area have a bad taste in their mouth (sometimes literally) regarding automated booths  from using one of the older units previously mentioned here, receiving a streaky, blotchy, orange spray tan, and vowing NEVER to try sunless again .  It will take more time and marketing (we suggest a free spray tan weekend) to get your numbers up in these areas, but they WILL go up.   

That brings us back to the first Salon on the list.  This business invested in a quality sunless spray booth, employed smart marketing, and probably throws Free Tan Weekends twice a year to continue to bring in new sunless customers.  This salon ALWAYS keeps up with the maintenance on their booth and quite probably had the booth paid for in one year.  They are probably already looking for their next spray booth or possible a second, maybe even third unit.  I give those salons a high five! 

Quick recap:

·        If you are a Tanning Salon or Beauty Spa you are losing money to your competitors if you aren’t offering sunless spray tanning.

·        If you are a Tanning Salon or Beauty Spa that has a spray booth that gives less than perfect results not only are you losing money to your competitors, but you are giving the sunless industry a bad name.  Stop doing yourself and others a disservice and upgrade now.

·        If you are a Tanning Salon or Beauty Spa that is having a hard time convincing customers that your booth is not like the crappy 2002 model down the road, let us suggest hosting a free spray tan weekend to put the good word out.

·        If you are a Tanning Salon or Beauty Spa that is killing it in the sunless game… Rock On!  Thanks for making the world a beautiful place!