Tanning Salon Owner FAQs

Additional Services for Tanning Salons

Q: “What other products or services could I add to generate additional revenue?”

TL;DR: Focus on maximizing your EFT revenues instead. That’s where the money is.

A: I appreciate your quest for additional revenue sources. Who would not want that? But at the end of the day, it could be a wild goose chase. UV is king and spray is queen in the royal realm of indoor tanning. This is why I encourage my clients to focus on maximizing their EFT revenues above all else.

I thoroughly inspect ALL my clients’ numbers. In all my years in this industry, there has NEVER been a time where I didn’t find ways to increase their EFT revenues. And these increases are always more profitable than other services they bring in.

I have many amazing techniques to help boost your EFT revenue. Call 859-250-8475 or email [email protected] for your FREE consultation.

Tanning Salon Referral Programs

Q: “Why don’t my clients take advantage of our referral program?”

TL;DR: You’re probably not offering a big enough incentive for them to care.

A: A weak incentive/reward is why most referral programs fall short. Salon owners hate to hear this but it’s true. There are many great ways to increase referrals to your tanning salon. Many of these are things you can implement right away without much cost. Some of them include:

• Offer 3 FREE upgrade tans to anyone who sends in a referral.
• Give a $10 credit to the referral and $10 to the referee. They can use it toward anything in your salon, including their draft.
• Refer a friend and when they book and tan, both parties get $10 off their next tan.
• Give 5 referral passes for 5 free days of tanning to each new member you sign up.

In the long run, the best way to increase new customer traffic is your “brand” in the immediate community. For most salons, the gain of new customers comes from good old-fashioned word-of-mouth PR. Also, if bad experiences are not recognized, if your staff is indifferent to creating a memorable experience for each customer. Also, if beds are dirty and other push-away factors are present, no one will want to refer their friends or family and then your brand suffers.

Tanning salon management is one of my specialties. Get a free consultation by calling 859-250-8475 or emailing [email protected].

Dress Codes for Tanning Salon Employees

Q: “When it comes to employee dress codes, what should I have at my salon?”

TL;DR: A shirt with your salon’s logo, a mask with logo (where applicable), and jeans, shorts or leggings.

A: When it comes to employee codes, you actually need two – a dress code and an appearance code.

Dress code defines what is acceptable for tops, bottoms, and footwear. Generally speaking, I recommend a logo shirt, logo mask (if still appropriate in post-COVID), and jeans, shorts or leggings.

Appearance codes define the significance of hair, proper use of makeup, and tanning. (You can’t sell tanning without at least a good spray tan.) Your appearance code should also define acceptable limits for body piercings and tattoos.

A note about tattoos and body piercings. These are usually very personal displays a person makes on their body. Those statements may be very important and personal to the individual. These expressions also run the risk of being offensive to others who don’t identify with them.

The appearance of your employees should be an aspiration for the customer. Too many statements may be too much for a customer to want to look at and then want to tan like the salesperson. Your employees must be a great representation of your salon’s quality experience.

Tanning salon management, aka human resources, is my specialty. Call 859-250-8475 or email [email protected] for a FREE consultation.

Business Mantra for Tanning Salon Owners

Q: “What’s the most important thing I should know if I want to be a successful salon owner?”

TL;DR: Customer-pleasing stores are, first and foremost, employee-pleasing stores.

A: If you manage your people well, they’ll manage your store and its success. That’s because happy employees are motivated and inspired employees.

But how can you create happy, productive, and inspired employees? I can help you with that. Among my background as a tanning salon consultant, I counsel salon owners and managers on a variety of human resources management skills. (I’ve earned an HR MBA.)

Cross-Promoting with Local Businesses

Q: “How do I cross-promote with other businesses like gyms, nutrition places, etc.?”

TL;DR: Choose compatible businesses with busy email output and social media traffic.

A: Well, in a world where people are regularly going to gyms and nutrition centers again, here’s what you do:

Don’t be shy to approach fitness centers that don’t have tanning as a cheap add-on to their monthly fees. Chances are, they may be feeling the pinch of a national or regional fitness chain that does have tanning that they use as a loss leader. (BTW, if you find a fitness center or other partner that has only 2 or 3 pieces of tanning equipment that is not totally a bad thing. After their customers feel the pinch of such limited tanning availability, that could be the motivation for them coming to your full-service tanning salon.)

Rehearse your pitch. Remember you are trying to make a “sale” for a partnership with the desired retailer. So, be prepared with the number of transactions you serve each year in your tanning salon(s). 20,000 transactions should be expressed as 20,000 “customer visits.”

Next, know what it is you’re going after from the cross-partner. Don’t waste your time conditioning discounts at your salon upon the purchase or use of your cross-partner. And neither should they condition purchases at their establishment upon buying at your salon. It gets too complicated trying to serve each other’s interests and asking customers to jump through too many hoops.

Saying that they can get a discount on tanning services IF they purchase a membership at a fitness center or vice versa becomes an administrative nightmare for both partners. (Best possible partners are those non-tanning competitive services that are personal indulgence products or services such as fitness centers, beauty shops, massage, beauty supply stores, nails, hair cutting, or waxing.)

Your best goal is to find out how many emails the partner sends out, and how busy is their social media. What you want is to “piggyback” on each other’s ad traffic. So, when you do an email, you agree to place their ad at the bottom of your email, and they add your offers at the bottom of theirs. Social media is the same approach. Think about the additional audience this can generate for you.

Let’s say you have 5,000 emails and the non-tanning fitness center you want to partner with has 10,000 emails they send out every month. There may be some overlap, but it’s very conceivable that your email reach of 5,000 might now be somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 recipients. The name of the game is to increase your “audience reach.” This can open up new clients for you and for the fitness center because one service is not necessarily predatory upon the other.

Finally, get an agreement on which party is going to manage the monthly submissions to social and email marketing. One party has to be responsible for bugging the other and themselves to get the copy ready for distribution.

One final note: each party should sign an agreement holding the other party “legally harmless” for these cross-marketing efforts. You don’t want someone to say that their business suffered because they were partnered with what you offer for services and products.

If you need more help with your tanning salon, email me at [email protected].

Buying Client Databases

Q: “I have the opportunity to buy a client database. I would be taking over the space and equipment but using my company’s name. Thoughts?”

TL;DR: The quality of the detail and revenue level is what’s most important.

A: There are many considerations when it comes to buying a client base. One of them is the quality of the detail and revenue level of what you’re buying. If that salon is a failure, you may be buying customer data that is not profitable. But that is rare because it’s usually usable information. The question is what does the seller want for that data?

I have helped clients acquire databases many times. It’s just one of the many services I offer tanning salon owners who hire me as their consultant.

If you need more help with your tanning salon, email me at [email protected].

Birthday Wheels and Salon Contests

Q: “Should I get a birthday wheel and host contests to get more people through my door?”

TL;DR: Focus on your social media, email, and text marketing instead.

A: Tanning wheels are fun, but these things are not big traffic draws. At best, they’re fun for those who are already in the salon, but they won’t create any real competitive differential to ramp up your foot count.

With the same energy of creating an in-salon tanning wheel, salon owners should work on developing broader audience appeals with their Facebook, email, and text marketing, for example. There are many other things you can do as well.

If you need more help with your tanning salon, email me at [email protected].

Free Tan Week Limits

Q: “For a Free Tan Week, do you limit it to one tan per customer for the week?”

TL;DR: Absolutely not.

A: No, don’t limit it. The average free tan week customer tans 2.8 times during that week, and what you should want them to do is tan even more often. The key to your success is feet in the door. That’s what “lathers them up,” to use an old sales & marketing phrase. You and your staff selling skills is what gets them “shaved.”

If you need more help with your tanning salon, email me at [email protected].

Staying Open on Sundays

Q: “Should I close my tanning salon on Sundays?”

TL;DR: There are a few variables to consider when making this decision.

A: That’s a straightforward question with many possible answers. To give you the right answer, there are some questions that need to be answered first:

Is there significant competition open on Sunday? If so you may have to be open just to defend your turf.

How many of your consistent customers want to tan on Sunday?

Are you typically doing enough tans on Sunday to at least pay for the payroll required to watch the salon?

What retail drawing cards are around you? Or do the retail sidewalks roll up on Sundays? If you have huge retail traffic in the area of your salon, but are not getting enough customers on Sundays, marketing might be your issue.

Keep in mind that the most important issue in tanning is to keep your top line of gross revenues growing. Even if you lose a few bucks of profit on Sundays, you can and should make it up during the week. Closing on Sundays might give your competition an edge. Take that and these other points into consideration when making your decision.

If you need more help with your tanning salon, email me at [email protected].

Retaining EFT Customers

Q: “How do I keep tanners in my EFT program without breaking the bank or losing customers?”

TL;DR: Start with dropping your signup fee during peak-season.

A: Here’s my list for keeping tanners in your EFT programs.

• Dump your signup fee during peak tanning months. You want to sign up every tanner you can. To do that, you have to reduce as many barriers or objections you can.
• Set realistic goals. Sell as many EFT memberships that you can knowing that some people will jump in for temporary cheap tanning then leave prematurely. It happens. Instead of getting discouraged, focus on servicing those tanners who stay in the program.

These are solid EFT-saving tips, but there are only 2 of them. I have A LOT more where that came from! If you want to add EFTs, or revamp your EFT program, contact me. Your first consultation is free. Email me at [email protected].

Negotiating a Lease for J.A.S.O.N. Discounts

Q: “Our business is seasonal. Do you have tips to negotiate lease amounts that might offer relief during off-peak months?”

TL;DR: The best time to negotiate your lease is when you are working out a new lease agreement.

A: It’s tough to find a landlord who cares about your off-season revenues during the lease year. If you have them sign an NDA PRIOR to finalizing a lease, you could demonstrate how your revenues drop during J.A.S.O.N. You’ll show why you need their consideration for rate accommodations.

Unless their lease rate is built on a percent of your revenues – and I hope it is not – the landlord might not be sympathetic. The exception is when your lease is coming up in less than a year. If you’ve been an excellent tenant, they might want you to stay. They may be open to lower rates July through December.

I negotiate lease agreements and salon sales all the time. For more assistance, email me at [email protected].

EFTs Vs. Single-Session and Monthly Membership Sales

Q: “Why should I sell EFTs when I make more money by selling single sessions or months?”

TL;DR: You’re not making more money with single or monthly sessions. Focus on selling EFTs.

A: The salons with the biggest profits – either chains or single locations – do not concentrate on selling single or month packages. Those are “stepping stones” or opportunities for selling memberships, aka EFTs. The huge advantage of EFTs is that they don’t pay you once, as selling a session package or months do. EFTs have the effect of annuity style payments for your salon.

The key is to be aware of how much you’re collecting from each individual customer annually. Let’s say you’re collecting an average of say $100 in sold sessions or monthly packages. You can make much more from them on average via their continued active payments on an EFT plan. For example, if they are on a $40-a-month membership plan, and you require them to be on at least three months, you would take in $120. That’s a 20% more than if you just sold them $100 of sessions or monthly payments over a year.

The attraction in some people’s eyes is to just sell sessions or months because they collect more money immediately, and they like that cash flow. EFT memberships make you much more money over a year or even over a season, peak or off-peak.

Hope this helps! For more assistance, email me at [email protected].

Lotion Sales Tips Throughout the Year

Q: “How can I increase lotion sales during any time of the year?”

TL:DR: Since I give you five tips here, it’s best to read the whole thing.

A: In the past, I would suggest giving away a month of free tanning with the purchase of a bottle of lotion. Now, to avoid penalties and taxes for “Tan Tax evasion,” I’d offer these suggestions:

• Sell a month of tanning at a DEEP discount. You could also graduate which beds they can use with the increased bottle price.
• Stress the value of the moisturizer in the lotion for treating dry skin that’s common throughout the year.
• Have meaningful rewards for employees selling your lotions. Graduate from 5% of their personal lotion sales. For your base line or average lotion sales per transaction…total lotion sales for this time last year divided by the total tans or transactions will give you the salon average. Start your 5% of that for any employee, then 6% if they sell an average sales dollar higher, then 7% if $2 higher, 8% three dollars higher etc. Go up to 10% if they hit an average $4 above average. (Do this math each month because of the seasonality of tanning.)
• Monitor everyone’s sales and post results ranking highest to lowest using names. If they have at least a high school education, they have 12 years of report cards and should be used to performance feedback. (Reward more hours to those who request them AND have earned them with higher per transaction results.)
• Have each employee pick out their personal favorite lotion in a top, middle, and cheaper price range. They should be an expert on why these 3 lotions work AND why they get better at each level. (Having them become an expert on EVERY lotion in your salon is crazy!)

Hope this helps! For more assistance, email me at [email protected].

Increasing Foot Traffic at Your Tanning Salon

Q: “I’m a new salon owner having a hard time getting people in the door! Any advice will be GREATLY appreciated!”

TL:DR: Free tan weeks are great… if you host them the right way.

A: Do you have email and phone contacts for your salon customers? Have you used text messages, email, FB, and/or Instagram? I’m not high on Yelp, flyers, or super savers. I think it’s best to use email, social media, and radio. (If you’re in a radio economical market). Use these to blast out weekly deals that give people reasons to come to your salon.

A free tan week for all units will get many folks you know and many more you don’t know through the door. Regardless of the media you use, keep in mind that it can only get people “lathered up,” so to speak. It’s still up to you and your staff to “shave them.” (I know. It’s an old sales and marketing analogy that I still use to this day. LOL) It means have everyone trained to up-sell EVERYONE who walks through your door during free tan week.

One last tip: knowing how to sell packages or EFT memberships from packages makes all the difference in the world. Developing those selling skills and techniques are critical!

If you need help with EFT sales, pricing, and much more, email me at [email protected].

The “Secret Formula” to Salon Success

Q: “What’s the secret to running a successful tanning salon?”

TL:DR: Be good to your employees and everything else falls into place.

A: This has become my most-repeated quote but I’m happy to share it again. A customer-pleasing store is first and foremost an employee pleasing store. You always must be doing something tangible to inspire and motivate your employees. They, in turn, will happily provide the best customer service to your tanners.

If you want an employee-pleasing store, email me at [email protected].