Spa Royalty in Philly

     This weekend I am at the international congress of aesthetics in Philadelphia. I will be speaking today on building a profitable nail department so if you are in the area it will be great to see you. I spent all of today at the show walking the show floor and taking classes. The opening ceremony to the show was pretty inspirational and you know I am all about that. Apparently last years show was right when Sandy was hitting so they scaled back the show to one day but they offered any attendees that had bought tickets free attendance this year which is pretty awesome. William Strunk the publisher of Dermascope opened the show with his amazing journey of how he got into this industry. 

Basically through marrying a spa girl William became a licensed aesthetician and massage therapist and never looked back. He has been counseling, educating and motivating beauty professionals ever since. He shared his passion for this industry and gave us a sneak peek at his class Keys to Success. Right up my alley of course. 

      Some keys he shared with us this morning were about Self empowerment, something we speak to a  lot on this show. Developing power and influence through your own thoughts and actions. Self improvement, continually developing skills, confidence and resources. Self control, the maturity to develop awareness and control emotions, desires and actions. Another thing that I just loved that he shared was that we all have the innate resources to succeed as the amazing force of nature we were born to be. We are all the CEO of our own destiny and have the power to manifest opportunity. And lastly embrace change. Our state of mind controls our reality, our sense of self. Shy won't pay the bills, it has no value, don't choose it. Each of us is gifted with power to Choose our perspective to change our state of mind, Choose our motivation to change our behavior and choose our discipline to change our results. An interesting tidbit he shared also was that studies show 6% of the people are making the decisions for the rest. The people that get up early, stay up late...this is starting to sound familiar right? Be the 6% don't give up. Then it was onto the Crystal Award Presentation given to those professionals that work selflessly and endlessly to improve the standards of the aesthetics industry. 

    

     This year's recipient was Susanne Warfield and she also shared her amazing journey in a presentation called creating your legacy. Her road much like many of us was certainly not smooth and narrow. 

 

     She was kind of all over the board (even in Cleveland :)) but as she shared this journey everything that was presented to her early in her career served her well along the way and carved out an incredible career. One of her slides with a quote I posted has already gone around the world. 

     "Legacy is not what's left tomorrow when you're gone. It's what you give, create, impact and contribute today while you're here that then happens to live on" by Rasheed Ogunlaru.  Needless to say it was an inspirational morning for me. What an incredible opportunity to hear from some of the formative people in the spa industry. Even though it's my second weekend n a row away from home it has been well worth it to get these great thoughts in my head and burned in my heart. I took a few more classes but you'll have to check out my blog later in the week to get all the goodies.

Overdue Update

     So it's been a busy few days. All of my past business and marketing experience was truly put to the test this past month. After much research, thought and prayer, I decided to forgo opening another salon and booth rent. I know this may sound like a case of excusitis...with good reason. Looking at opening a salon space is no small feat, believe me, I know the challenges. The space I originally looked at had a pretty hefty price tag for the build out. Plus I had to rethink with everything else on my plate...did I really want to take on all the responsibility of running a salon, on my own again. I really had to look at several factors. My new responsibilities as co-host of Nail Talk Radio, by growing speaking and training opportunities and my outside writing certainly all take time, such a precious commodity these days. So having given up the idea of opening a salon the search was on for a new home. Mindful of the fact that I have not worked for anyone else as an employee for the past 13 years I was not quite sure if that was the route I wanted to go, so employee was out. The booth rent situations in my town are quite limited so I contacted a salon owner I spoke with about a year ago just to touch base. She had changed her stand on no booth rent and while she was still not willing to offer it, she was willing to work with me as an independent contractor. I spoke with my accountant about it and honestly there really was no advantage to me to work this way. While she was willing to pay me a higher commission I would be responsible for all of my taxes, with limited write off expenses. Plus her salon was an entire community away and I had several long standing clients that told me we would have to break up, it was just too far. So the search continued. On a fluke I walked into a small salon literally right around the corner from my current location on a Wednesday and while the shop was normally closed I happened to catch the owner there. I asked if there was any openings and she quickly told me that she only does booth rent. Perfect! The salon was adorable, very clean and very upscale.

      After a few details were sorted out I am happy to say I have a new home. It was a bit overwhelming to move all of my things, geesh we acquire a lot of stuff over the years don't we? My first day was yesterday and my clients LOVE it. They feel they have been given an upgrade :) There are a few more things to work out. I don't have a dedicated skin care area as of right now, however the owners husband is quite handy and has already talked about future plans to build one in the near future. So that's it in a nutshell. I'm a happy camper :)

Let It Rain...Men

 

    Since  it's raining men this month on Nail Talk Radio I thought I might research a few ways to get it raining men in your salon or spa.  The Small Business Development Center Website reports "Revenue growth in the beauty industry  is expected to improve over the next five years, rising at an average annual rate of 3.3% to $49.3 billion by 2017…this will be driven by an expected increase in per capita disposable income and declining unemployment toward the end of the five-year period…higher disposable incomes could also lead hair salon customers to spend more on higher-value services like manicures, pedicures, facials, hair modification treatments, and massages." Good news for beauty professionals. Now I'm not sure if the S.B.D.C. factored any shutdowns in their stats, but that's a post for another time. The economy has always threatened to shut down the beauty industry and quite frankly there have been many salons that have not been able to hang on. Truth be told, there was probably an instability in many of these businesses long before the economy tanked. Again a post for another time. My favorite quote about this is from my friend Geno Stampora. What he shared a few years ago, after 9/11 when everywhere you turned was bad economic news really stuck with me. He said I really don't care if they say that we are in a recession or depression, I choose not to participate in it. So ramp up your marketing efforts, keep a keen eye on your business numbers, tighten your beauty belt if need be and look for new ways to generate income. Building a male friendly salon and salon menu is one way to start. Imagine if every client you put your hands on has a significant other and you could get your hands on them, well for services anyways. You could double your business just like that. What are some ways to encourage male traffic to your salon?

    

      We all know men love being pampered but they don't want anyone to know it or see it. Try scheduling your men's services on slower days so they are not the sole survivor in a sea of women clients. Think about keeping private services private. Book their pedicure or manicure in a more private setting, perhaps a facial room or draped area. And remember even if they love their services, don't expect them to refer their friends, that is just asking way too much.

Encourage your female clients to get their man  in for services. Today's market place is more competitive than ever and a well groomed man says a lot about him to potential employers and clients. If they can't keep themselves together how can they be trusted to manage bigger challenges? There was a guest in the salon I overheard just the other day getting a pedicure complaining how bad her husband's feet were, ok she said disgusting. I would have taken that opportunity, especially if she was a good client to offer a free pedicure for her husband. I know once in my chair he will become addicted to the service, plus now he has a happy spouse, and we all know what that means.

Put together a more male friendly space, lower the ratio of fem-details to men-details in your salon along with Golf Magazine, Men's Fitness, Maxim, you get the picture. Design services specifically for men. They don't want to come in and get a pretty piggy pedicure. They need a foot work-out, hand detailing, use words that give them images of things already in their world. Pay attention to fragrances as well. Men want earthy, musky scents more in tune with aftershave and colognes they are already comfortable with.  Partner with a fitness club, a golf or country club and offer the employees free services for referrals. Male guests are much more loyal than females so beef up your men's services, because that's smart marketing.

Adventures at the Beauty Classic

 

     The Premiere Beauty Classic in Columbus is no Premiere Orlando, that's for sure. With only a handful of nail vendors it was somewhat dissapointing. The vendors that were there certainly had captive audiences and the nail classes, at least the ones I saw were packed. There is a need for more nail education at this show. Maybe we need to offer a few more options to nail vendors to entice them a bit more. I would offer a "Nail Village" where smaller nail companies could group together at a larger booth (at a reduced rate) and each have an area to demo and sell . I'm going to talk to the Premiere people to see if we could brainstorm a few ideas to make the show more nail friendly. In the meantime. I saw a lot of good friends at the show and sat in on some great classes. Stopping first at Light Elegance their booth was brimming with people and plenty of demos going on. They have perfected their gel polish, P+ with a final seal of approval from master chemist Jim McConnell. Light Elegance also offered two classes Light Elegance Acrylics with John Hauk and Let's get colorful with Jayne Berger.

I was lucky enough to get a demo from John Hauk at their booth.

Darcy Olin was busy sharing the proper placement of forms.

      Jaime Schrabeck offered 5 classes and had a full house for her "I'm Not Your Nail Girl" class sharing ways to polish your professional image.  Jaime doesn't pull any punches about her passion for this industry. Other classes included Massage for Manicurists, Marketing Your Salon Through Giving, Waterless Spa Pedicures and Enhancements Not Replacements.

Jaime, keeping it real!

Dee Dee Fetters Harper Drove up from Kentucky for the show

   I also ran into Michelle Torisk and we took in a Brisa Lite Class with Gina Cella. CND also offered Secrets of CND Shellac and CND Shellac and Vinylux Weekly Polish Art and Style.

Gina shares the benefits of Brisa Lite

  Since my travel schedule only allowed for one day at the show, it was a whirlwind day.OPI had Wendy Brownlee teaching Color at the Speed of Light and Amazing Mani's and Pampered Pedi's. Erica Schlabach was there offering a class on using an electric file in your pedicure services. Backscratchers Salon Systems offered two classes on Extreme Powder Glaze and Glass Glaze. LeChat offered demos all day long on the show floor featuring Connie Le and Blanca Reyes.Still 60+ hair classes compared to 16 nail classes?? We can do better than that...can't we?

Brand new?

 

      Just when you thought you were safe from hearing about Miley Cyrus..Yes I'm going there. NTR was at the event in Gatlinburg when the VMA's aired and while we were not watching live, we were just as sucked into the controversy as everyone. Fortunately for You Tubes sake we were able to watch this piece of American iconic history in an instant replay. I addresses this masterpiece in a post the following day. Was it career suicide or marketing genius? After all, the entire country, it seems was talking about her, many still are. So mission accomplished. The saying even bad publicity is still publicity rings true here. So what does this have to do with you and your marketing you might be asking? Miley Cyrus  recently signed with a new manager, Larry Rudolph, who coincidentally was the same manager that ushered Brittany Spears and Justin Timberlake from their squeaky clean Disney image to full blown pop super stars. Her performance was all very strategic. She was in no way building  personal brand. Personal branding is on the way out.

 

     The word brand comes from "brandr" which actually means to burn,  like to burn a brand into cattle. Not that long ago companies  adopted branding as a way to leave their mark. So to build a personal brand is to boil your entire personality into one symbol?  Building your business brand is to take all that you are and minimize it?  How impersonal is that? By trying to manage your branding you can end up in an identity crisis.  The new branding is to build a public personality. 

      Instead of distilling everything you are into a brand, and then trying to make it personal again why not take who you are at the heart of your personality and decide what you would like the world to know. What you would be happy shouting from every media site you own. That every time you cultivate your public personality you ask yourself "What should others see, to see the true me?" Not what should I put out there, to be what others want to see.  So the personal brand is becoming a myth and cultivating a public personality is the new branding. By staying true to yourself it leads you to your authentic self, building a transparent public personality that will automatically make you more endearing to your audience. I know when working with a blogging coach She asked me which posts of mine were most popular. When I reviewed them I realized the posts where I was most open and honest about the struggles, of not being perfect, or even close had the most views. The ones I was really uncomfortable sharing. The ones I asked my inner circle, is this career ending? When I was most open in my weakness I gained my strength. More support and more followers. So in building your public personality for your business what is at the heart of your business, it's soul.  Don't think of what everyone else is doing, chances are most of them are wrong. Create your own image, a distinctive fresh take on why you do what you do and why people should come to you. Be bold, be aggressive and be authentic. Because that's smart marketing.