Savvy Selling in the Spa

If you are not familiar with Supply Chain Management, you may want to familiarize yourself as this is part of the microeconomic impact trickled down from global economics. A slow supply chain can increase demand which in turn can cause price increases. If you are a new business owner with a brick and mortar, then you know the cost of plywood is up 90.3 percent from a year ago! This impacts your business plan’s bottom line from a build out perspective, and now you may not be able to afford, for example, the microderm machine you were planning to bring in.

Concurrently, if you own an established business, you may have noticed several of your accounts have increased their prices on products both in retail and back bar, which impacts your costing both services rendered, and products being sold. We know this is most likely because the Supply Chain is having problems sourcing and securing the ingredients or packaging from different parts of the world to create the products being sold from B to B.

With the current financial climate we are facing in our industry, we need to make smart decisions as business owners to help combat rising prices and inflation. Let’s start with how to order from your accounts to cut costs and maximize profit margins.

1. Literally take a look at the line or lines you may carry and assess which product/s in the line are not moving off the shelves as quickly as the others. Maybe a certain cream does not sell as well in the summer as it does in the winter. There is opportunity to not re-order that certain product at this time as it will just end up being money sitting on the shelves. This is not cherry picking a line, it is called being a savvy business owner.

2. Ask your account manager if they have any specials running that month. Free samples are great, but incentives are even better. Look for added value such as, purchase nine retail, get one free.

Purchase six retail, get a tester free. That tester you can use as an incentive to encourage your employees with. Whoever sells the most gets the tester! (You may already have a fresh tester from your last order that you can use for your shelves) Or, purchase six retail get one back bar free. This will cut costs from needing to purchase that product for the treatment room.

3. Ask for free shipping. Most companies will offer free shipping at a certain threshold that you may not even be privy to. Example: If you spend $2,000, you qualify for free shipping. Ask for discounts. If I spend X, will you offer me 10 percent off? Ask! Ask! Ask! You will never know until you ask!

4. Ask for training from your Account Managers. Training keeps you and your team fresh and excited to sell. Remember selling is a transfer of feelings, so if your team is re-energized with knowledge then that will transfer into sales which ultimately will impact your bottom line.

5. Think about implementing new services like a body scrub or body wrap, especially if you have body products sitting on the shelves waiting to move. There is no better way to move a product than to build a service and excitement around a retail product. Make it special and charge accordingly, this way it creates buzz and people will talk. There is no better endorsement or paid marketing than word of mouth!

6. Market, Market, Market.

• Make sure your Google ads are running and check the stats weekly if not more.
• Post to your Instagram story every day! Post to your page at least twice a week.
• Post to Facebook three times a week if you do not have your social media linked
• Post awards and accomplishments, local paper mentions, etc. to LinkedIn.
• Send handwritten thank you cards or follow up with a phone call a week after a service was rendered.
• Lastly, do not underestimate the power of an email campaign. You may just be surprised!