[gap height=”15″]I hear these comments often:
[gap height=”15″]“Business is SLOW.”
[gap height=”15″]“The tanning industry is FINISHED.”
[gap height=”15″]“Sales are DOWN.”
[gap height=”15″]“FEW people tan these days.”
[gap height=”15″]These statements are often backed by vague statistics like, “thousands of tanning salons closed last year.”
[gap height=”15″]Let’s put this into perspective.
[gap height=”15″]The Small Business Administration (SBA) has data that shows 50 percent of ALL new businesses fail in the first five years. So, if you open a new business, you only have half a shot at surviving. And, that has nothing to do with the type of business, or the industry you are in. That is a scary number. But here is the thing …
[gap height=”15″]Businesses often fail because the business owner failed to do their homework in the beginning, or has lost track of what made the business profitable in the first place. The business owner is usually unable to answer basic questions, like:
[gap height=”15″]1. What part of my business is profitable, and why?
[gap height=”15″]2. What part of my business is failing, and why?
[gap height=”15″]If you fall into this category, please read on.[gap height=”15″][gap height=”15″]
[gap height=”15″]YOU are responsible for your business, not any trend or statistic provided by the government.[gap height=”15″]
[gap height=”15″]If your tanning salon is not performing to par, or sales have been dropping off, the first step is to try and figure out what part of your business is suffering, and why that is happening. All industries follow some trend, and the tanning industry is no exception; but to blame the industry trend for the lackluster performance of your own business is not going to help you in any way. You are responsible for your business, not any trend or statistic provided by the government.
[gap height=”15″]This brings me to reports. Do you look at your salon reports daily? Which reports do you look at? What do they tell you? Do they tell you what’s working and what is not? Do the reports tell you what you are supposed to do?
[gap height=”15″]If these questions made you uncomfortable, good. You are on track to identify the first problem in your business: you have a lot of data … but NO information.
[gap height=”15″]For my tanning salons, I use a scorecard – a fancy word for a report that ONLY has a handful of metrics that I track. These metrics tell me exactly what my business is doing, what it did last year at the same time, and most importantly, which specific area of the business is falling behind.
[gap height=”15″]Armed with this information, I make minor course corrections. If my lotion sales are behind, we do new lotion promos or product bundles to increase lotion sales. If my credit (point) sales are behind, we do credit promos. If my membership sales are behind, we focus the entire team on selling memberships.
[gap height=”15″]This scorecard – a single report – is delivered to my email daily, which forces me to look at it every day. The “red” stares me in the face, demanding action. Having this info available every day has been a game-changer for my business. It tells me what is working and also, what is broken, so I can take action to fix it.
[gap height=”15″]The tanning industry is NOT dead! Not for me, and not for thousands of other tanning salons. Watch your numbers. Watch them closely. Watch them daily. Take charge of your business.
[gap height=”15″]If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. – Lewis Carroll
