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!