Dear Readers,
Well, here’s hoping all of you had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday season with family and friends. Now that the festivities have concluded, it’s time to ready your business for the 2016 season. I know that you’ve all prepared your 2016 budgets (since I’ve been preaching this for over 19 years), and if you’ve done the research that I have, my 2016 budgets reflect a slight increase in tanners and both UV and sunless sales. Yes, there are some strong indicators that the industry will pick up in 2016 … that is my prediction.
Over the last four years, one of our major challenges has been the anticipated and overreaching stack of regulations that have been proposed by the FDA. Well I’m glad to inform you that the ITA scored a BIG victory over the FDA’s proposal to make sunlamps and sunbeds prescription-only devices. Had this happened, most in this industry would have been out of business. We still have a few very important FDA issues left to address – please read John Overstreet’s ITA Update on pg. 26.
As a salon owner, it’s your responsibility to help protect the health of your business. By joining the Indoor Tanning Association, you contribute to efforts made on your behalf. They have your interests at heart – not their own agenda – as they work to strengthen our position by communicating with federal and state governments to ensure we can all do business in the tanning industry. I’ve always urged all salon pros to support the ITA, and I’ll start the New Year by doing the same.
In this issue is our annual Buyers Guide – considered by many in the tan biz to be a valuable tool for salons. It’s hard to believe we’ve offered this resource for 19 years; it’s an indicator of how much our industry changes. When you call the companies represented, be sure to tell them you saw their listing in IST Magazine! Thanks to my team for their hard work in putting it together.
IST has always been dedicated to making our industry better. Our Sun is Life® Training has been chosen as the featured salon operator education and certification for two of this season’s largest regional distributor events happening this month: Heartland Tanning’s Midwest Expo in Blue Springs, MO on January 15-16, and the Four Seasons/Forever Tan Southeastern Expo on January 29-31 in Winston-Salem, NC. Check out our website for details. If you want to start out this New Year in the right direction and with a well trained staff, SIL is your choice. And, it’s available online, 24/7 – visit sunislife.com.
There are so many features in this issue, in addition to the great columns by our industry experts – you’ll only find them in IST. Why? Because we are the leader!
I hope you all lead off the New Year ready for success this season.
Thanks for reading,
