Business, Nov 2019

If you Fail to Plan…

November 1, 2019 | by Aurora Solis

Writing Your Spa Business Plan

Writing a business plan from scratch, or even revising your current spa business plan or structure can seem daunting. However, your business plan is one of the most important steps in creating a successful business, as it focuses your energy, time and resources on a clear end game. You are not only trying to launch a successful business, but you are also ensuring that it will last, grow and sustain you financially and professionally.

Your business plan is a living document. It is not meant to just hide away in a filing cabinet. It is a tool to refer to every time you are faced with important decisions. Your business plan guides your decision making and helps run the every day ins and outs of your skin care and spa business.

Writing a business plan takes time. It summarizes the hard work you need to do beforehand in discovering your vision, working out your ‘why’ and what your brand stands for, what you’ll be selling, where you’ll be selling, who your competitors are and what your market gap is, and how you’ll fund your business. It also entails drafting a full financial plan, based on things like estimated sales forecasts.

“Where the money to fund your business comes from hangs over your entire business plan.”

Step-by-Step Guide to Your Spa Business Plan

Running a skin care business requires you to be extremely organized. You will need a strong business plan that leads you through all of the main components of your cosmetics business. Your beauty business plan should cover the following topics:

1. Your Vision

Before you can build your business, you must describe your vision. Your brand mission statement says what you want your customers to get out of your brand. Your vision is your overall goals and dreams for your company.

You need to figure out what you’re trying to do with your beauty brand and why you are creating it in the first place. When you write your brand mission, you’re not just writing a boring, bland statement on a piece of paper. Instead, you have to view you and your customers as being on a mission. What does your brand do and for whom, how does it do it and why does it do it?

Your vision is coupled with your mission but is about your big goals and dreams. A brand vision isn’t that you want to make organic formulations to sell to anyone. Instead, your brand vision is about your bigger dreams and how you want to make a difference with your beauty brand. Your vision statement has to say something unique about your beauty brand, look to the future and what you aim to achieve and define what you are offering for your customers.

2. Your Demographic

It’s all well and good having your vision and mission, but if you don’t know who you are selling to, then you might as well not have a business at all. You need to understand who your client is is, how they live and how they shop. Once you know who your target customer is, all of a sudden everything clicks into place and becomes easier in terms of selling. You know which marketing messages work best for your customer, you know what they’re looking for and you know how to sell to them.

3. Your Services

In order to think like a business owner, you need to understand very clearly what you are selling and what your services provide to your target customers. Did you decide your target market is anti-aging clients? Then your services need to address their specific needs, such as hyperpigmentation, sun damage, sagging skin and aging skin prevention.

4. Know Your Competition

Yes, your competitors most certainly have a place in your skin care business plan. Knowing your competitors keeps you on your toes and is information any investor will ask for, up front and early on. Competitor research can help you identify areas where your brand can thrive and can show you more effective ways to grow customer loyalty and differentiateyourself. See what they are doing so that you know what’sworking for them and what isn’t. Write a list of their strengthsand weaknesses to see where you can do better. You alsoneed to know where to position yourself in comparison toyour competitors.

5. Funding

Where the money to fund your business comes from hangs over your entire business plan. As you’ve seen, each previous step has financial implications. You won’t be able to run a successful beauty brand without having a firm grip on finances. Having sound plans for raising finance at various junctures in your business is just wise business practice. Your business plan needs to cover the different types of funding options available to you, such as bank loans, help from family and friends, and crowdsourcing funds.

6. Financial Forecast

Business plans are best written in the first year of business. At this point, you may have not started seeking funding or making any revenue. You may not have sales to show, but you can still show some key figures on the size of your market and your brand’s potential. To begin your financial forecast, you should include a timeline showing your goals and accomplishments, such as when you started, your key achievements, any brand or packaging development, what stage you are at now, i.e. do you have a service menu in creation and how much have you invested or fund-raised so far? If you are already selling, then you can show how much investment has gone into the company already, what returns and sales you have and what your financial projections are. Having an accountant or financial expert help with this information can also help you be better prepared when talking about your finances to potential investors.

7. If You Fail to Plan…

Don’t let your spa business finish that sentence. In today’s market, beauty-related businesses all have the potential to succeed. Your clients are out there! Take the time to put into writing what you are trying to accomplish. If you build it, they will come!