When it comes to the world of tanning, few months can be as chaotic and challenging as January. It’s often the season when people want to flaunt a tan—especially if they’ve gone on vacation or wish they had taken a trip.
With the rise of health concerns and melanoma awareness, one service remains uniquely popular to salons around the world: sunless tanning. Sunless tanning has been available for over 30 years, and yet it still remains an ever-evolving part of the industry.
Sunless tanning is ever-evolving.
Many professionals in the industry remember the “dayglo orange” sunless tanners of the early 2000s that became ironically iconic thanks to Jersey Shore. Today’s professional spray tan is not brassy, nor is it as prone to streaking as it once was.
As the new year kicks off, it’s important to encourage clients to enhance their tans with the right add-ons for their tans. Upselling is one of the easiest ways to improve your profits with minimal effort.
What should you upsell?
That’s all up to you. Anything that deserves a larger core group of buyers should be upsold. If you have new wellness machines (such as red light therapy or a sauna), new add-on treatments, or new tan enhancers, those all deserve an upsell from time to time.
It’s good to focus on specific enhancements or upsell options depending on your salon’s inventory and upgrades. For example…
- If you got new tanning mitts, advertise them through an upsell and explain their benefits.
- If you recently installed a brand new tanning bed, now is the perfect time to upsell them.
- If your favorite tan spray distributor recently updated their formulas, now is the time to tell your clients.
- Tanning salons that want to earn more money from product sales should focus on special upsell strategies.
This is the scoop on how to upsell your products and services, plain and simple.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to upsells. These tips help:
- Simply mention the new product plus a perk, then ask if they want to enhance their service with it. (“Our new bronzing mitts are now able to exfoliate 20 percent better. Wanna add one on for $6?”)
- Don’t push an upsell more than once. (“Ah, not today? That’s fine, just let me know if you change your mind.”)
- Ask your clients what their goals are and match the upsell to the goals. (“What’s the goal of your tan? Are you looking for near-instant results? Do you need your body to be contoured? We got something for that…”)
Train your sales staff to upsell.
The most important thing to remember is that upselling is one of the few moments where you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by doing it. Encourage your staff members to upsell your goods—and give them tips to make it easier on them. You’ll be glad you did.
