Last month, we laid out an entire calendar for 2016 to help you plan your community philanthropic involvement; in other words, giving back where you live.
This month, let’s follow it up with an overview from the Sun is Life® Training module titled, “Community: It’s About Time.”
Your customers are local and you should be engaged in the community to understand what affects your area, affects those customers and thusly, impacts your business.
The 2016 Presidential election is in full swing with a hectic schedule of debates, press conferences, town hall meetings and more. That’s a lot of opportunities to shake hands with the electorate! These politicians understand that “all politics is local” and that politicians must be in touch with all the issues going on at a local level. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the same holds true for you as a business owner. Your customers are local and you should be engaged in the community to understand what affects your area, affects those customers and thusly, impacts your business.
You may have a local Chamber of Commerce – take time to join it and get involved. It’s a great way to network and build relationships with other business owners, some of which may evolve in to referral or cross-promotional programs with your salon. They may also be good sources of knowledge in areas such as customer service, human resource issues (hiring/firing), employee incentives and more. Setting up your community calendar can lead to some awesome “earned media” opportunities. This is free publicity and exposure that can fall under radio and TV coverage, magazine or newspaper articles, and social media. Take advantage of each of the local events that you organize to grab such earned media. A great starter example is the “Tans for Cans” promo we led with last month. Your customers will join you in feeling good about their donations going to help the local needy, and you can earn a great deal of well-deserved local exposure with it. Don’t forget to plan out the entire year!
Now, are you up to speed with what’s going on in your industry? Do you have a thorough understanding of the current Federal and State restrictions on indoor tanning? The Tan Tax? Research on UV exposure? Our national trade group is the Indoor Tanning Association (ITA), which works to fight the over-reaching regulatory restrictions that affect tanning businesses. Become a member of the ITA and keep abreast of these and other important issues. There are also national and regional trade shows that offer training programs, such as our Sun is Life Certification, which should be an absolute must for you and your team to kick off this season and offer your guests a professional experience. IST magazine posts a current schedule of all such events and Sun is Life Training will be offered at many of them.
So, it’s January and we’re ready to kick off another great season of indoor tanning, and IST is ready! But are you? For more on “community,” visit sunislife.com and try the module, “Community: It’s About Time.” Then, kick it in gear, get your calendar of events set up, and go after that earned media!
