Some
Hotel Spa goers, having left the stress and routine of their workplace behind,
are now ready to pamper and reward themselves!
They'll be prepared to buy themselves little presents. Naturally,
you'll want to fulfill their wishes, you'll want to provide a customized sale
service for your guests!
Be
creative, close your eyes and dream. Imagine yourself inside your Spa. What would
incite you to buy something?
Display and shop area
Is
the display pleasant? Does it smell good? How about the music - the atmosphere?
Is it comfortable to walk around? How about your employees, how do they behave?
Are products accessible or locked-up in a glass cabinet with their prices carefully
hidden? Are your products too expensive? Put your feet in a customer's shoes and
walk around. Is your stock attractive? What can you find there that you'd like
to take home?
Different product for the same purpose
More and more
frequently, we're starting to see dietary supplements on the shelves in the shop
area of spas. In my opinion, every spa should offer them. While women have all
the creams in the world, few of them know that ingesting something could actually
do a better job-by bringing nutrients directly to the capillaries-than any cream.
For example, Selenium encourages tissue elasticity and
is a powerful antioxidant that protects against ultraviolet damage. Vitamin
C is necessary for collagen production and strengthens the capillaries that
feed the skin. Kelp is needed for good skin tone. Zinc
is necessary for the proper functioning of the skin's oil-producing glands. So,
here you have 'a whole new avenue' for bringing education and information to your
guests who will be more than happy to purchase it. But I don't suggest being more
expensive than a natural foods store. Keep to a logical and reasonable price.
Even better: if you can, be your own
producer of active ingredients! Create your own fresh indigenous products.
Women
are looking for fresh active ingredients. Why not have a garden of Aloe Vera?
Clip the leaves and sell a sun damage repair product for facial use. Use fresh
papayas, sea grapes, cucumbers and herbs. Present them in lovely preserves jars
with a "best before" date (for example: good for 5 days). And everybody
knows the natural benefits of olive oil as a treatment for sun damaged hair!
According
to Karen Korpi, Vice-President of Spa Development & Preparations for the Ritz-Carlton
Hotel: " Spa products are also evolving, more often
using horticultural materials indigenous to the spa's locale, such as locally
found flowers and berries for botanical or herbal wraps and salt-water scrubs." Go
for simple. The world of Spa is supposed to be Zen, remember?
Diversity Spa
= beauty products almost exclusively. Why is that? Is there some spiritual law
that I don't know about? Is it prohibited to sell something else? Women often
already own all the cosmetics in the world, specially now that ladies are so aware.
Why not look around and see what specialty products your island or country offers
and go for it... You can sell coffee if you want, or leather. Sell fresh fruit
juice by the pool!
Do still sell cosmetics, but watch out
for the expensive cosmetics retail companies, they eat up the biggest portion
of the cake within the spa industry. And watch their suggested retail price. Why
go with 50%? Why not 60%? Use the extra 10% to promote sales. Negotiate firmly
with the cosmetics company; there are a lot out there. Moreover, some of them
will absorb the 10%! I've seen too many small spas not making profits because
of unnecessary overhead.
Go for simple. The world of Spa
is supposed to be Zen, remember?
Marketing "Quick Tools"
Have you
seen how successful the sales strategies of Clinique and Estee Lauder are? Their
strategy of offering a bonus when customers spend at least $40 works wonders.
Maybe it's not a surprise that Clinique and Estee Lauder are both owned by the
same person. Madame Lauder, (God bless her soul) who, since she started selling
her uncle's product, kept giving, giving, and giving away products, finally created
what is now a multimillion dollar business. And they still give away those bonuses!
Why don't you try the same technique? Put up a poster announcing the gift in the
therapy room. Make a pretty display of it in the resort itself, outside the spa.
Stimulate
guests by offering education and information within the rooms, and around
spa rest and lounge areas. Instead of silly magazines, set out articles or papers
about the active ingredients of your products.
Display
testimonials from people who use your products and loved them.
Send
samples to the editor of the local newspaper along with an article about
the benefits of using your products.
If you have good
marketing tools, your sales will fly through the roof!
Sales Strategy
How can your sales strategy be
improved? Do you even have one?
Maybe, you are skeptical
yourself. Maybe, you've many bad experiences with sales in the past and a sales
strategy is a challenge for you. But you don't have to rely just on yourself.
You need to set up a sales process, repeatable and successful at helping the whole
staff make money.
Fundamentally, therapists
are scared of being pushy: that's why it's important to adopt a strategy without
pressure. According to Carol Phillips who was named "First retailer of
the Year", "The fear came from not knowing what to do,
and that's a very uncomfortable and unsettling feeling....Arm yourself with selling
skills and learn retailing techniques..."
Your
staff, whoever they are-cosmetologist, massage-therapist, director or front desk
coordinator-just need to follow a simple routine. An easy strategy,
that therapists like is the SwpStrategy ( Sale Without Pressure Strategy) mostly
because they do not sell. The only thing they do is prescribe a product. They
have a prescription pad and feel like a doctor when they do prescribe a product.
Forget about the 8 1/2 by 11 sheet with its boring blah, blah, blah in always
the same pattern. (You know what I am talking about!) Invest in a professional
prescription pad. Just take a look on your doctor's and use it as an example to
print up your very own.
As Director you've got to
do your homework too!!
First of all, for your Spa's development,
the staff's "willingness" to learn sales skills is very important. Putting
"consultation" and "prescription" into your employees' job
descriptions, and adding sales training, will self-eliminate anyone unwilling
to develop sales skills.
You must understand that in order to capture market
share growth, the spa team must invest time in marketing and develop a solid strategy.
If
nobody ever tries to sell anything... nothing will happen. Right? I always say
" It's not the result that counts, it's the action you take in order to achieve
the result.
And like Nietzsche said: "There are
three kinds of people: the ones who march in the parade, the ones who
watch the parade, and those who don't know that there is a parade.
Good
luck and most of all, have fun! Be passionate yet compassionate and if you need
more information about the Swpstrategy
please visit www.interspaconsultant.com
, contact us at 514-362-9263
or email-me directly at lynn@interspaconsultant.com
