I love the opportunities my career offers me. Occasionally, I have the opportunity to visit salons throughout the US (and sometimes, Canada). However, we all communicate so much by text, email and mobile phones that we seldom have the chance to get “face-to-face.”
This past November, I was traveling to the Ultraviolet Resources International “Bronzed and Beyond” event in Columbus, OH and took a slight turn to visit some long time friends in the industry.
Victoria and Kegan Cordes are familiar faces at most of our expos and cruises, and they’re always ready to share information about the keys to their success. Columbus was already riding high on the Ohio State Buckeyes football championship, so I had to see if there was some kind of echo effect on their operation in person.
There’s nothing like a chat with a salon owner over a hot cappuccino on a cold winter day. For more, read on!
The Interview
Sun Is Life: Victoria, many salon owners get their start by either buying an existing salon and perhaps one they tanned at or starting fresh from the ground up. How did you get your start?
- Cordes: “While attending a vocational high school for Cosmetology, I did my internship at a hair and tanning salon. Despite the fact I was going to school to be a Cosmetologist, which is what I thought my love and passion was for, I quickly fell in love with the tanning industry when I realized all the benefits that came from UV exposure when administered correctly, and the science behind it.
It struck me that so many people really knew so little about indoor tanning other than it making them look good and feel good. I worked at that salon from 15 years old until I was 19, even after I graduated high school and received my Cosmetology License!
I saved up and at 21 years old, I opened my first salon in Englewood, OH featuring newer equipment than any salon around, staff that was educated, trained and extremely knowledgeable, packages that fit everyone’s budget including offering electronic fund transfers (EFT’s).
It seemed that no other salon was doing so at the time and only offered well known tanning products. I took basically all the complaints and suggestions I ever heard while working at the previous tanning salon and made that my motivation for this one. It was a huge success and took off very fast!
After 3 years in the biz, I had my first child and sold the salon. I went into the healthcare field to try something new and something with a more steady schedule but knew something was missing. The love and passion I had for the tanning industry never went away.
At 28, I decided to give it a try again and that’s when we built our first Bear Naked Tanning location from ground up in 2017. Taking the same concepts and re-producing them all over again but striving to make it even better. By God’s grace, it took off again, even faster this time and by 2019 we opened our second location and in 2020 our third location!
Sun Is Life: Our industry has typically consisted of 18-35 year old females. What are the demographics of your salons?
- Cordes: Joe, the demographic of our clientele actually varies for each location. It seems before the tan tax went into place and many of the 17 and under bans hadn’t gone into effect, the demographic was really women from 16 to 35.
There were hardly any men, very few older women, unless it was for a vacation or an event. For our Eaton and Brookville locations, being 20 minutes apart, they have similar demographics. They’re mostly 25-50 year old females but interestingly, 23 percent of our clients are males.
Our Springboro location is about an hour away from our other two and in a more high-end area, which has more of a “older” demographic of 35-65 year old females. But still 17 percent of our clients there are male, which is still much different compared to what we were seeing back in the day.
Sun Is Life: Many salons offer a wide range of diversified equipment offerings. I’ve seen quite a variety in your salons. Share your selection of alternatives to UV tanning.
V.Cordes: Joe, we want everyone to really “want” to come into our salons, not just because we just offer tanning but because we offer other things as well. We have something for everyone whether you tan, spray tan, use red light services, want to get your teeth whitened or even want to buy a candle. That really has been a big key to our success.
While so many people love tanning and all the great benefits that come with it, some people come to us for other reasons. In the end, they all want to look good and feel good too! That’s why we offer custom airbrushes, automated spray tans, red light therapy services such as the Cocoon, Poly, or Beauty Angel. We have something for everyone to enjoy.
Sun Is Life: Some of your staff just successfully completed our Sun is Life salon certification classroom course. Congrats! What insights can you share about salon certification?
Cordes: The Sun is Life in classroom training was amazing! As a salon owner, education to me is one of the most important factors in owning and operating a tanning salon. Having your staff trained and knowledgeable on what they are selling is always a plus but something that we require in order to work at our tanning salon.
The Sun is Life classroom training is more hands-on. It is not just skipping through videos (which we know so many people do), or looking up answers in a book but not actually reading all of it just to get the test done. It goes through the importance of tanning, the do’s and dont’s, how tanning works, why it works, and everything in between.
I believe this is the #1 thing any salon owner should be requiring their staff to take as well as themselves. I know as a salon owner when my staff is working at any of our locations they know what they are talking about, they have been properly educated on tanning, and are able to educate our customers on it as well without giving false information.
Knowledge is key, and what sets us apart from many other salons!
Sun Is Life: Great answer! Your attendees were really locked in during this training! Let’s move on to your goals. What’s in store for Bear Naked Tanning over the next few years?
V.Cordes: Our goals for the next 3 years is to continue to grow our current salons and maybe adding another one or two along the way. Continue to make our brand known by community involvement and events that give back to those in need.
Being able to make a difference in our employees lives and teach them life lessons while working at our salons that will hopefully help them in their future endeavors! Over the next 5 years, to bring in the latest and greatest tanning equipment.
Who doesn’t want multiple state of the art equipment in their salons? It would also be great having one of our kids want to work in the salons and maybe take over one day for us. They see how hard we work and the countless hours it takes and don’t seem too interested right now but we still have time. One can hope they’ll change their mind one day!
Sun Is Life: Victoria, thanks so much for taking the time to show me around your salons and sitting down for our interview. All the best to you and Kegan in the future!
The “411”
Salon Name: Bear Naked Tanning
Location Cities: Brookville, Springboro and Eaton OHIO
Website: www.BearNakedTan.com
Owners’ Names: Victoria and Kegan Cordes
Years in Business: 8 years
Number of Staff: Currently 22, but adding more weekly to prepare for the busy season! On average we staff about 25-30 for busy season
Number of UV Tanning Units:47
Number of Sunless Units: 5 Sprays & 5 Spa such as redlight
Lotion Brands Sold: Devoted Creations and a few New Sunshine
Best Sold Lotions: Vault by Devoted Creations, Solar Saturation by Devoted Creations, Color Drip by Devoted Creations, Manifest by Devoted Creations and Beach Bronzing Balm by Devoted Creations
Salon Software Used: Tanlink
Distribution Partner: URI & Heartland Tan
Salon Certification Program: Sun is Life
