September
18, 2013
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!
·
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!
