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Spa Marketing How To
Get A Spa Business
Good Reasons to Buy an Existing Salon Or Spa – If You Can Find One
So, you want to be in the beauty business? Good for you. Of all
the business choices available to you, the beauty and personal care
sector is a good one.
It’s a sector that’s showing rapid growth. In the United States for
example, between 2000 and 2001, revenue from spas, hair salons,
beauty salons, nail and tanning salons grew by a whopping 78%!
(Source: US Bureau of Census)
It can also be highly profitable. Depending on how good your
marketing is, and how accomplished you and your staff are at
selling, owning a salon can provide a satisfying lifestyle along
with a handsome income.
But here’s the Big Question:
Should you start a salon business from scratch...or buy an existing
one?
If you’re lucky enough to have recently won Lotto....or maybe a rich
aunt has died and left you a fortune...or your partner is incredibly
indulgent and willing to sink tens of thousands of dollars into a
start-up business...then by all means, start from scratch.
But if, like most people, you really do need sales revenue coming in
from Day 1, then
always, if at all possible, buy an existing salon rather than start
one from scratch!
Here’s why.
An existing salon already has customers!
Yes, it’s that simple. You see, one of the biggest questions many
would-be business owners overlook is ‘where am I going to get my
customers from?’
And it’s why more than 80% of businesses – not just salons – fail in
the first couple of years.
Be in no doubt, starting a new salon from scratch is a massive
undertaking. And it can be an expensive one.
Here are just a few of the things you need to have in place before
you so much as accept your first customer, or make a single dollar
in sales.
Spa Space:
Where are you going to operate from? Unless you live in a big home
with plenty of space for a salon, and you have council permission to
operate from home, you’ll need to rent space. Depending on the type
of service you’re providing, you’ll need anywhere from 40 square
metres to 80 square metres or more.
Leasehold Improvements:
If you’re starting a new salon, you’re renting new premises. And
that means you’re going to have to fit it out, with treatment rooms,
plumbing, electrical wiring and so on, all at considerable cost. And
that’s not even considering salon equipment.
In most lease arrangements, you get to use the improvements for the
duration of the lease, but in many cases, the improvements revert to
the property owner at the end of the lease.
Staff:
The single biggest headache for any salon owner. Good beauty
therapists are hard to come by. Staff turnover in the beauty
industry can be high. It’s as much a function of the demand for
therapists as it is a function of the dreams of youth. Beauty
therapists are often young, and young therapists tend to want to do
what other young people do; travel and spread their wings.
Spa/Salon Equipment:
What you buy will depend on the type of services you’re going to
offer. But for a start-up business, the list is a long, long one.
Treatment tables, basins, equipment trolleys, electronic machinery
such as microdermabrasion equipment or IPL machines, perhaps a
hydrotherapy tub, a tanning booth, a solarium. Then there’s
back-of-house equipment such as a washing machine and dryer, a
stereo for soft, piped music, furniture for the reception area, a
computer and printer, a cash register.
How long is that piece of string?
Spa Products:
Unless you already have connections in the industry, you’ll have to
establish relationships and accounts with some of the major product
suppliers. Few will be prepared to offer extended credit facilities
for a start-up business.
And that’s just a brief and by no means comprehensive list.
But by far the most urgent need for any new salon business
is...customers! Without customers, all your efforts in setting up a
nice salon, with a cost atmosphere and aesthetic design, are for
nothing.
7 Great Reasons to Buy an Existing Salon.
#1. Customers.
If the salon you’re buying has been operating for any length of
time, it already has a list of regular and not-so-regular clients.
It has a database, or mailing list, of names and addresses you can
market to.
This is the true value of any business.
Most would-be business owners don’t pay nearly enough attention to
the immense value of a good, up-to-date mailing list. It is the pot
of gold, the farm from which you’ll draw your on-going revenue, yet
so many new business owners are focussed on the peripherals like
equipment, leases, finding staff.
None of these things matter if there are no customers to serve!
Yes, if you’re buying a salon, you do need to pay attention to the
quality of the client list – how many repeat clients there are, the
average spend per visit, how many times they’ve been mailed to – but
at least there is a list, which is a lot more than can be said for a
start-up salon!
Yes, you need to carefully protect that list, and rigorously
negotiate with the out-going owner the details of who now ‘owns’ the
clients. And yes, you do need to pay attention to the possibility of
existing staff leaving you and taking their best clients with them.
#1 Equipment:
When you buy an existing salon, it’s likely to be already equipped.
Maybe not to the level that you’d like, maybe not with the quality
of equipment that you’d like. But it gives you a base to work with,
and the price you’re paying for the salon business is more than
likely to include the equipment at a
heavily discounted price.
It’s a fact that hardware depreciates rapidly. Why buy equipment
new, at relatively high prices, when you can buy an existing salon
that a) already has customers, and b) already has equipment in it?
Staff:
If you’re starting a salon from scratch, you not only need to find
customers, you need to find staff to look after them.
But if you’re buying an existing salon, staff are more often than
not already in place...and they know the customers.
Fight to keep existing staff, even if only for the short term.
They’re the best insurance you have against losing customers on
take-over.
Spa Marketing:
Recently, a salon owner I know bought an existing salon, and only
after settlement did she realise that the previous owner had not
bothered to take out one of the most important pieces of marketing
collateral – a Yellow Pages ad.
But in most cases, when you’re buying an existing salon, it will
already have certain fixed marketing systems in place.
Check that there’s a Yellow Pages ad in the book already. It might
not be the best ad in the world (unless the previous owner had
already bought the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit!) but
it’ll be better than nothing.
And if the salon already has a website, make sure you get to keep
it.
As I said, starting a business from scratch – any business, not just
a salon – is an enormous task. And it could be months before you
bring in enough in sales to be able to breathe.
But if you’re buying an existing salon, at least you have revenue
from the get-go. Might not be enough, for sure, but you can bet your
bottom dollar it’ll be a lot more than if you’d just hung out your
shingle, and hoped.
Spa
Marketing How To Get A Spa Business
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About the
Author...
For nearly 19 years,
Greg was Executive Producer of News for Channels 7 & 9. Since 1996
he's advised and coached large and small companies on their public
relations and marketing strategies. In 2004, one of those clients
was a salon owner who complained there were no 'off-the-shelf' tools
for the salon and spa industry to help them get more clients, and
increase their average client spend. Later that year, Greg and salon
sales specialist Jill Groves launched the Essential Salon Owner's
Marketing Toolkit. By mid-2006, these simple tools were being
used profitably by 587 salons and spas in 14 countries.
Click for more information
Jill Groves, author of
'Selling with Energy' coaching salon & spa owners on how to increase
sales...and get staff to 'like crazy'...without them even realizing
it.
Click for
more information
Salon owners listen
intently as Greg Milner reveals the myths - and truth - about what
actually works in salon & spa marketing
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more information |
