|
 Spa ownership. A wonderful vision that began with the desire to create a haven of peace and rejuvenation for world weary clients. The picture is filled with images of water gently falling into fountain pools, aromatic essences and soothing the senses, luxuriously appointed rooms providing calming treatments by a cooperative and caring staff. This beautiful idea which persuaded you to invest time and money to make it a reality. How close have you come to achieving your goal now that the spa is open for business? Have you discovered that there are a few more details to add to the picture you started with? Is spa ownership now what you thought it would be then?
For many if not most new owners, the opening of a day spa is a surprising introduction to the complexities of business. Suddenly the harsh business realities descend upon the once optimistic spa owner. Personnel challenges, cash shortfalls, accounting headaches, and facility management rapidly replace the idyllic experience our spa promised to deliver. Profit, often more of a euphemism for success rather than a concrete numeric goal, is elusive. The workload is expansive and draining. Our spa experience has become a series of worried evenings in the back office attempting to settle past due accounts payable with a slim checkbook. Not quite the vision we had in mind!
 So what do you do at this juncture? If you feel that you've exhausted the limits of your own business knowledge, and that of friends who offer advice but no real assistance, is there another resource for help? It may be time to consider contacting a spa business consultant.
When prospective spa and salon owners plan their businesses, there is frequently a serious, and potentially fatal, disparity between capital devoted to fixtures and that invested in operations—those systems and processes which allow a business to run smoothly and efficiently. A sophisticated hydrotub and marble appointments cannot determine compensation strategy, understand profit margins, or solve personnel issues.
Clients may come, even in astonishing numbers, but the relationship between what they spend and what you keep is a complex and fragile formula. Profitability requires careful planning and protection from reversals. And while this may not sound like your idea of spa ownership, neither are sleepless nights due to financial worry. Overlook one and you get the other, it's that simple.
There are many types of business consultants who offer turnaround strategies to struggling companies. Accountants can demonstrate the break-even point of a business and help you develop the proper understanding of a profit and loss statement, among other financial details. Generalists can assist you with strategic planning, marketing, sales ratios, and cost controlling. But spa owners know that there are unique features about the spa business which require specialized comprehension and management. Spas, which are an elaboration of the full service salon, face employee attitudes and expectations which are often at the heart of a business's financial problem. Unreasonable compensation demands, expensive reliability issues, and retail resistance will call for experienced intervention by a professional who knows how to identify and effectively deal with the situation.
Your consultant must be prepared to balance the sensitive concerns of the beauty professional with the quality demands of the customer, and the cash considerations of the business. Your advisor must know how—and teach you, the owner—to communicate with and lead your employees toward cooperation and productivity. The consultant must be prepared to neutralize the fears and objections associated with procedural changes. This person will ideally have with a solid track record in first-hand spa operations and a proven formula for success. Untested strategies should be backed up by clear, documented projections. And you should look for a professional who speaks your business language, someone who understands the pressure you have been shouldering and will patiently guide you through the learning process. You need a sympathetic friend but one who will not enable you to continue along a fruitless path. Their job is to promote progress and not to coddle you while further draining your scarce resources.
The eventual goal is to develop business courage, skill and independence while moving steadily towards profitability. This may be achieved in either a short– or long–term relationship with a consultant, depending on your willingness and ability to initiate meaningful change in your business. You have to be prepared to become a business person, and to learn what you may consider to be dull or complicated tasks. The spa owner must recognize that she or he is engaged in the work of business and, like it or not, there is never a time where business doesn't matter in an operating day.
 One important function of your consultant will be the translation of management functions into terms that you can comfortably embrace and comprehend. A common mistake consulting clients make is in pretending to understand new business terminology when in fact it may as well be a foreign language. It's easy to pretend comprehension of sales ratios, cost benefits, and margins to avoid seeming ignorant to the consultant. This is a risky and expensive practice however. Think of your business consultant as a dictionary for your professional education. The most important element in this relationship is learning; fail to learn the true definition of profit and you will probably fail in business altogether.
One of the greatest frustrations facing business consultants is in watching desperate spa and salon owners neglect management improvement tools after their delivery. The consultant wants to help you, they want to see you achieve personal relief and lasting success. They feel deeply for your dilemma and will work hard to assist in turning your operation around. But they cannot make you do what needs to be done. Consultants find it stressful having to push business owners into saving themselves as is often the case. This being said, when you decide to bring in the skills of a consultant you should be absolutely committed to implementing the systems and tools you are paying for.
 Spa consultants may charge anywhere from $500.00 to $5,000.00 per day depending on the project or their experience; this is not money you can afford to waste. The fees of a spa consultant, even at the top end of the scale, may pale when compared to the cost efficiency and revenue generating benefits of successfully integrated programs or systems. Remember, the consultant's fee is short term expense while the benefits of their work may be in effect for the lifetime of your company. A $10,000.00 consultant fee may translate into hundreds of thousands of dollars in otherwise undiscovered revenue or gross profit. It's important not to focus on the up–front cost of the consultant but rather on the long term benefits (unless of course you have no means to pay those fees to start with). You must think of your consulting relationship as a business investment, one probably of more critical value than any other feature of your spa or salon. Some of us spend more time selecting the style of our personal checks than learning to balance the register. This leads to trouble with our account and returned check fees. Better to spend a little time learning a valuable skill than working harder to pay unproductive bank charges.
What's the best way to select a business consultant? The best method is the one we rely on to attract the most qualified customers to our businesses; word-of-mouth endorsement. Spa and salon owners who have shared the experience of disappointing profit performance are often surprisingly willing to help their peers find quality business assistance, especially when you are not in their immediate market area.
If you are considering a startup investment you will want to talk to someone who successfully employed the services of a consultant in the creation of a business. You'll need to know something about how the consultant's planning assistance interfaced with his/her client's startup budget (or if a budget was considered at all). Did the consultant keep profits in mind during the planning phases and was there enough focus on the retail–to–service mix in planning the spa menu? What was the quality of the relationship between spa owner and business consultant? Were they willing to go the "extra mile" with the owner during the difficult stages of opening and shakedown? You will probably discover that you need far more than a business theorist. You will need a informal partner who intervenes in tight situations and has real experience with the daily challenges of spa and salon management. Personnel crises, customer service issues, cash shortages threatening payroll and vendor relationships, and many other unforeseen hurdles. Will they be there when (not if!) you need them?
 On the brighter side, a skilled business consultant can also help a healthy company expand revenues and profits through strategies aimed at increased efficiency. Why not go from average to stellar in retail sales productivity? Why tolerate operational waste which erodes the potential of your company's earnings? It's always the customer who sees the cobweb in the corner we've become accustomed to; consultants are trained to see the overlooked income potential in your business. These oversights may be as obvious as failing to consistently recommend upscale services to customers, or as subtle as creeping wholesale product costs without periodic retail price adjustments. There are hundreds of possible leaks in your revenue system. Busy owners may not have the time or acuity required to monitor efficiency at the same level of attention other responsibilities demand. It may well be worth your while to invest in an audit of your operations to see if you're suffering from similar unseen losses. Even the best run companies leave a few dollars lying around the aisles; it's just impossible to see everything from the inside!
 Overall, the most important indicator of the need to bring in a business consultant is in the realization that your goals are not being met. Suppose your profit picture is on track but only with you putting in those 80 hour weeks. Maybe you're still the default recipient of every emergency that happens in the spa or are constantly forced to fill in for absent employees. If you've had a vacation in the last few years was it punctuated by salon crises and daily check-in calls? In other words, if the ownership of your business has not yet improved the condition of your life it may be an ideal time to consider a resource that can help achieve this basic motive for exposure to the risks of private enterprise. You don't have to do it all by yourself, and if you've read anything here which feels gnawingly familiar, probably shouldn't.
|
