ACT 1:
Staging more engaging encounters for every salon guest
Salon operators must recognize that every time they are working, their staff is on stage. Team leaders should direct their cast members and give them roles to play, help them define their roles and encourage them to invest time into practicing those roles before placing them on the tanning salon stage. When your salon is treated as a mere service, most staff members will spend NO off-stage time preparing on-stage skills. Great actresses practice! Better performances that focus on guest interaction turn traditional scripted customer contact into customized, engaging encounters.
THE BIG, ALL-STAFF MEETING
I’ve been to more than 100 of these. Owners and managers salivate in anticipation for these bad boys. They plan them, make outlines on yellow legal pads, run spreadsheets, charts and graphs on performance and they even sometimes provide free pizza! The BIG MEETING day finally arrives and every team member is in the same place at the same time – and they seize the moment! How? By spending the next 1-3 hours going over every salon “operations” procedure ever conceived. Like the business surgeon and CEO they were born to be, they wow the fascinated group of 20-year-olds into a state of euphoric, glassy-eyed bliss (term for sleeping with your eyes open).
FOLLOW THE 90/10 RULE (second cousin of the 80/20 RULE)
At the 100+ BIG MEETINGS that I’ve lived through, I’ve never seen a cast of salon staff actually practicing guest-interaction skills – the most critical role played on all tanning salon business stages. Follow the 90/10 rule. That’s 90% of the meeting is spent practicing guest-interaction skills, and the other 10% is talking about the day-to-day stuff.
ACTING CLASSES
Weekly cast member meetings are the perfect dress rehearsal for your young actors and actresses to learn, practice, role-play and get ultra-confident with their in-salon roles.
YOUR FIRST ACTING CLASS
A sure fire way to provide the worst service possible is walk every guest through same impersonal routine, time after time. “Tanned here before?” “All set with your lotion?” “How long today?” “K – bed No. 8 is all set!” Sound familiar? Practice turning plain old scripted greetings into immediate ice-breakers to get your co-stars (salon guests) involved in their tanning experience. “Hi! How can we make your beauty nap better today?” “How can we help you jump-start your tan today?” “Hi! How’s your tan?” “Ready to spoil yourself?” “How’s your bronze?” These all work insanely well at getting your co-stars immersed in their tanning experience, but the fun part is working with other cast members and coming up with your own original greetings.
Next month in “Epic Sales”: If buying fish from a fish market can be an experience (Pike Place Fish Market experience), then just imagine the experience you could provide in a transformation business like tanning!
That’s a wrap!
