Industries We Serve

Tanning

It's been a long trip from the roots of the tanning industry's beginning and from those days only a few years ago when "you didn't have to be good, you just had to be open" says John Farr, tanning industry consultant and trainer.

But most of the low lying fruit for easy picking has been picked and tanning, in the last few years, has became a real job for salon managers and owners. And what else is real is that more real retail strategic efforts are needed to just keep the status quo. In so many cities, towns and tertiary markets, tanning operations or clubs with tanning beds have made competitive considerations a necessary concern. Individual free tanning sessions are thrown around promotionally like confetti.

John Farr has been working with tanning salon clients for more than 15 years. Once a side product of working with video retailers who added beds as an adjunct business, John now guides dozens of tanning only salons. Salons from a one store operation to more that 60 outlets with over a 1,000 total beds has given him a wealth of experience in guiding the industry.

What can put the owner operator or chain magnet back into a leadership role again and produce more easier picked fruit? There are 4 critical pieces of information that John looks at when he takes on a new tanning operator client:

  1. Revenue stream data. Where have the sessions and lotions averages been and where are they trending now? Included in that is a needed snap shot of the competition's pricing, programs, promotions and marketing patterns. Also, how do the tanners break down in age groupings such as 18-24, 25-34, and 35-54. Those can be different customers with different needs and different spending patterns that all need to be addressed.

  2. A review of employee talent management practices. The obvious biggest key to all salon business success is not the equipment as much as it is that human being that works for you at the counter, that person is your first and best impression for continued tanning clients and new sales. How are they being compensated financially and, most importantly, emotionally? Tanning room turn over is good, not employee turn over! Some can't be avoided but that reliable, responsible, inter-personal skilled employee is the tanning business' backbone.

  3. Is there a real marketing budget and plan for not just holding on to your market share but increasing it? It is a certainty that in the tanning industry today, if you're not moving ahead, you're falling behind. There are simply to many competitors to try and just tread water. There are only so many tanners, seasonal or otherwise and the tanning retailer who gets the message out quicker, sharper, more consistently and to more of the market potential will get more feet in the door. Today's marketing must include a sold partnership with the Internet in some fashion or another. A tanning web site by itself may not have the "sticky content" needed to draw in younger web oriented tanners. A marketing strategy that includes radio and its new commitment to web site traffic and pushing that traffic to your site is the start of marketing magic.

  4. The selection of counter employees that are "natural" "people-people" can't be over emphasized. "Natural" means that their very immediate persona is to be interactive and deferential in the way they handle relating to other people. The hiring process can't be a 10 minute set of questions at the front counter that in essence answer the questions: Are you 18, is your heart beating and can you start tonight"? Hiring the right sales and service folks is part art and part science. But for sure it is a task that can't be given the time it has to have. No marketing campaign in the world is as powerful as one set of lips to another set of ears about the great experience at a certain salon nor can it repair the destruction of continuous bad experiences.

More Resources for Tanning Salon Owners:


John Farr has ben teaching these principles for tanning salon owners and managers for many years.