Starting A Spa Business Strategies

The idea of starting a spa business and owning our own health spa arose from three main motivations: to let people know about the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle, working in a truly stimulating, beautiful environment and the freedom one gets by being your own boss.  The fact that one can, if successful, earn a good income was clearly not overlooked but is indeed the most uncertain issue as it depends on a number of influences, which one can only partially or not control at all (e.g. a general economic crisis).  In contrast, the first three facts will always be part of your lifestyle as a spa owner and are there to stay! Let’s look at those a bit more in detail.

The origins and milestones of the development can be found HERE

I was lucky enough to learn healthy living from my father who inspired me after my teenage years to follow in his tracks. The mere fact that he conquered the dreaded aging with his active, high quality lifestyle far into his eighties motivated me finally to plan and implement the holistic health spa idea, together with my wife. She had experienced the opposite with her father: his untimely death in his early sixties, which was clearly linked to a much less healthy living pattern.  Teaching our guests the three pillars of good health “Optimal nutrition” – “Regular, situation adapted exercising” - “Mindful relaxation”, all based on my deeply rooted conviction – very different to acquired theoretical, literature knowledge! – of the benefits of healthy living, always gave me a feeling of making a valuable contribution to society. In the majority of cases, this feeling was amplified by happy and regularly returning guests.

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To live and work in a health spa is certainly a privilege, in spite of all the hard work it requires to get and keep the place in top shape.  The smell of aroma oils and the sound of spiritual music in the rooms and relaxation areas, the availability of herbal teas and light snacks and salads throughout the day, and the possibility of enjoying inhouse fitness center, sauna annd steam bath (and even a massage from time to time), which employer can compete with such an environment? Strangely enough, not all staff members did always appreciate these privileges.  Although such applies mostly to the younger ones who had not yet experienced other work places.

There is no need to say too much about the value of personal freedom, when being your own employer.  Any spa or salon of whatever size offers this freedom of making your own decisions, and it is my believe, this fact on its own is worth to create such a place, if you are attracted by health and beauty matters.  Yet freedom is inherently linked to responsibility – two different sides of the same medal! – , which one should not overlook: responsibility towards clients as well as staff.  It is very obvious that only when such responsibility is taken seriously by the owner, a spa operation can be successful in the long run as the image of the establishment is directly proportional to the responsibility practiced by the owner(s).

The chapter  “Guest Services” of the ebook is accessible here.

In conclusion, the day I knew that I would dedicate all my energy to creating my health spa vision and actively starting into my spa business was the beginning of an incredible challenge, well knowing that the rewards one day will by far exceed the blood, sweat and tears needed to make the business a success story.

If you would like to learn about the 7 strategies for a successful spa operation, we invite you to subscribe to our mini e-course on the right sidebar. As our appreciation for your interest and subscription, you will receive the spa planning and benchmarking software, which are part of our eBook “Spa Success Strategies”, completely free of charge for immediate download.

As a future or existing spa or salon owner, you need to have a clear picture about the key strategies, which you have to understand and ensure that they are applied on a day-to-day basis by management and every staff member.  It is my experience that as soon as the owner loses sight of one of those even for a short period of time, things start to deteriorate.  This will be reflected mostly sooner than later in your income situation and not long afterwards will affect the image of your establishment too.

“Click here to discover how these strategies are implemented in day-by-day spa practice”

So let’s have a quick look what those Seven Success Strategies are:

SS 1. It all starts with having a clear vision, what kind of spa or salon you want to have.  Many owners neglect that point and believe they get away with what others have done, basically copying their operation. Your vision to create something beyond the standard in the marketplace makes or breaks your future success.  All other strategies only have one purpose: to make such vision everyday reality!

SS 2. The second strategy is to materialize your vision in form of your spa location, interior design and products and services you will offer.  If all those elements do not reflect your vision in a homogenous manner, you will never be able to exceed mediocrity and come to fame.  Where should fame come from?

SS 3.   Strategy number 3 is the human element. Your staff has to be educated to live that vision.  The fact that your clients may be in a very special, beautiful environment does not mean thay they feel special while being there.  People only feel special, if they are treated in a special, not the common way. Common is that everybody does care for him-/herself.  But if you get genuine attention and care from somebody, you automatically feel special, appreciated, worthy. For such an experience people are prepared to pay money, good money. Your staff must understand that (again and again) to their own benefit (tips!).

“Click here to discover the 36 vital elements of outstanding guest services”

SS 4.  If your staff practices all those elements, it will be your job to ensure that it is practiced by everybody every day.  In other words, be there to enforce and control that continuity and consistency in high quality services is what your clients are getting each and every time they come for a visit.  Mc Donald’s is  a success story just because of that and not because their hamburgers taste better than all others in town.

SS 5.  Strategy number 5 is to create an automatism (procedures), which ensures that consistency. Without precise and transparent rules, which all staff has to adhere to, believe me, you will lose that battle. Staff wants to maximize their life, not yours.  So don’t fool yourself, they will always try to make their life more comfortable and some are very smart in doing so – at the expense of the owner.  Trust is good but control is better, I even say absolutely necessary in a spa operation!

SS 6.  It is no rocket science that a business needs traffic, which is another word for customers.   Customers may come, if they know about your existence and when they believe they get something, which helps or pleases them. Word-of-mouth is known to be always the best marketing you can ever have but at the beginning, it simply does not exist.  So your strategy has to be to be creative in marketing your place.  We are living in the internet age, where there is no shortage of  incredible opportunities to get the word out, locally and beyond. No excuses for not making clever use of those!

SS 7.  Strategy number seven is to be on top of things, knowing, where your business is earning money and where it is losing it.  This looks rather obvious at a first glance, but diving a little deeper, trust me, you may discover that even relatively harmless looking matters drain your income to a frightening degree. Find those leaks early enough before serious damage is done. As important is clearly to maximise turnover, not missing real income opportunities.

If you feel it would be worthwhile to enter into the various issues in more detail, the access is just a mouse click away.

And don’t miss the three minutes slide show in this blog by entering the page “Helpful Article”.

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