GROW THE BUSINESS
moments surrounding the service— arrival, conversation, recovery and goodbye— part of the product.
PUT IT TO WORK: Identify the three moments in your guest journey most likely to shape how the entire visit feels. Give those moments as much attention as the treatment protocol.
GROW THE BUSINESS 7 Sun Tzu
Choose your battles— and know what victory looks like. The Art of War was not written about midweek utilization. This is probably for the best.
Its emphasis on knowing the terrain, understanding the opposition and choosing strategy carefully, however, belongs in plenty of spa offices.
A promotion should solve a specific business problem. A discount that fills already-busy Saturdays may generate plenty of activity while accomplishing very little. Winning Tuesday at 2 p. m. can be considerably more valuable.
9 Estée Lauder
Don’ t just sell it. Let them experience it. Estée Lauder understood the power of sampling, demonstration and putting products directly into consumers’ hands.
Spas possess an advantage most retailers would envy: Guests may spend an hour or more with knowledgeable professionals while actually experiencing the products being recommended.
If the first retail conversation happens at checkout, just as the guest reaches for car keys, the spa may have squandered its best sales opportunity.
Retail works more naturally when discovery begins during the service.
PUT IT TO WORK: Choose several priority retail products and make sure practitioners know when and how guests experience them during treatments, what benefits they can credibly explain and how to continue that conversation without turning hospitality into a hard sell. n
PUT IT TO WORK: Before launching a promotion, finish this sentence: We are doing this because we need to ______. If the answer is vague, the strategy probably is too.
8 George Orwell
Clarity converts. Orwell had little patience for language that obscured rather than communicated. He might therefore have enjoyed editing a few treatment menus.
Guests shouldn’ t need a graduate seminar in wellness terminology to determine whether something is a massage. Beautiful language can create desire, but useful language helps people buy.
Tell guests what the treatment is, what happens, who it is for and why they might choose it.“ Transformative” can come later.
GROW THE BUSINESS
PUT IT TO WORK: Give your menu to someone unfamiliar with the spa and ask them to explain each service back to you. Wherever they hesitate, simplify.
EDITOR’ S NOTE: The advice in this story is a playful reinterpretation of ideas, accomplishments and philosophies associated with these historical figures. None of them, to our knowledge, ever weighed in on spa utilization, treatment-room turnover or whether 15 minutes is really enough time to reset the relaxation lounge.
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