rooney3

I agree with you, TJ. I've often wondered if RAI had it to do over again if they would have started their Lumiere sales through a different channel. This is a very different mindset for the typical tanning salon owner, and from what I've read here most people (myself included) underestimated the marketing task to educate customers and introduce them to a totally new tewchnology like this.

But as a business owner, isn't this what it's all about, solving problems? The satisfaction of making things work? This is why people like you and I are out here working our asses off, as we listen to people around us who work for someone else but feel free to tell us what we're doing wrong and why it won't work. I have so much respect for entreprenuers and small business owners. It takes balls (OK, ovaries too) to do what we do.

I love the challenge of creating a new revenue stream out of thin air...and having customers who thank you for introducing them to the new service.

I'm just as disappointed as the rest of you that the national marketing program that was supposed to happen, didn't. But what am I supposed to do, complain and wait for someone else to do something, or suck it up and take responsibility for my own salon and make things happen, with or without a national marketing and PR effort?

How many of you have taken the time to speak with the new PR firm out of San Diego that RAI has retained to get things moving again (Esche & Alexander)? I have, at length. Did any of you know that RAI had hired a new PR firm?

I am NOT here as a RAI cheerleader. I am here as a salon owner willing to tell you what's worked for me and what hasn't, to try and give a hand just like Tom did for me when I first came to this board back in March looking for advice and insight from other salon owners.

I believe in the Lumiere technology 100% and my team now sells with conviction and confidence (it wasn't that way when we began though). That's why I offer a 100% money back guarantee; it that takes ALL the pressure off a customer if they want to try the service.

If I hadn't done my own homework on the technology I wouldn'y have brought it into my salon. If you don't have 100% confidence in the machine, get rid of it because the customer will smell your doubt a mile away.

But my main point is simply that you have to be flexable, you have to be ready and willing to adapt your marketing strategy as you get feedback from your customers.

The Lumiere VIP membership was a response to our initial Lumiere marketing results. When Tom mentioned his $99 dowm $79/mo EFT program it was a perfect fit for our salon and our existing EFT philosophy. I wish I was smart enough to have thought of it myself but I wasn't, it was help I got from someone on this board.

The difference from the person that questioned my honestly is that I took Tom's advice and made a committment to give it a 100% effort, rather then call Tom an RAI lackey.

If you think reviewing one of what my employees call my 'email novels' that I've used to educate my customers on Lumiere would be useful, let me know and I'll post or send it to you privately as it is typically thre or four pages.

Ric