Wilddbill

I have only been in business for a few months so I have nothing to compare as yet. here is my question: do product sales averages tend to be better during the busy months. meaning.. do customers tend to spend more on lotions then or are the averages pretty much the same year round?

Bill

bronzecafe

They will be much more likely to dump the big bucks on lotion during season. Feb through May, our selection is much more higher end.

tanningchain

Second Bronzecafe

Sunkissed00

What works best for me....I go off LPPA (lotion per person avg) My average does not change whether it is busy or slow season, the only thing that changes is the product revenue. In my salon anything below $2 per client for products is not acceptable. You take product sales and divide it by tanning sessions. So if my girls see 60 people in a shift they must sell $120. I use this system to see which employees are maximizing their time with our clients. Somebody may sell $3000 in a month but if they are seeing 3000 tanners in that month then that is not so good. My point is pay attention to your average, if you dont you could be losing yourself alot of money!

DB Hottie

At our salon we use $1.50 LPPA. Maybe I should try $2 LPPA. I agree, this is by far the best method in determining employee efforts. Lotion sales are much easier in season though.

Kevin & Jess

hey, thanks for the tip. i also have been in buisness for a few months and am tired of out selling my employees twice over. i was wandering how to figure this out per customer because my staff uses the excuse of we are slow and they have no one to sell to.but yet i double and triple there sales. could you explain this (lppa) to me a little more in depth? thanks

Sunkissed00

Hi

I love to talk about sales its my favorite thing to do and my specialty!!

Ok so LPPA....you take your product sales and divide it by your tanning sessions to get LPPA. My standards for all of my salons are $2 per client....So if my girls are seeing an average of 60 people per shift there product sales should be $120 per shift. That is the most accurate way of calculating on how well your sales people are doing.

Motivating and coaching your employees is going to be one of the most difficult challenges you are going to face in your salon. Performance based pay is going to be your best bet aka commission.

Now there are a couple of different ways to pay out your commission on this system. You have to hear me out because its going to seem like alot of money to pay out at first but your rewards are going to be amazing!!! I am going to use one of my stores as an example and I am going to give you product totals based on the first half of the year, these are my actual numbers from one of my stores....

Product sales from jan 1 08 - june 31 08 $68,892.58
tanning sessions = 33,443...
LPPA $2.06

are you with me so far? now look what happens to product totals if my lppa were only at $1 my product totals go to only $33,443....Make sense??? Thats why LPPA avg is so important in this business!!!! I got that number by multiplying tanners and $1 since you in a sense are selling $1 to each client...I just lost $30,000... Who can afford that??????

Now my commision system....My managers were making in 2007 10% of their own personal sales if their own LPPA was between $1 - $199....15% of their own sales if their own personal LPPA was $2 - $2.99 and 20% of their sales if it was $3 and higher. During busy season my managers were making $800 or higher commission checks. But the rest of my employees were under $1 which was losing me so much money....So I had to change my system. I knew my managers knew how to sell but the question was did they know how to coach their employees??? And was there enough of a benefit for them to take the time to coach them and really work with them??? Lets be honest even though we want our managers to go above and beyond and they should but not all are going to if they arent reaping the benefits of their work. So I changed my system and now my managers dont sell for themselves they sell for their employees and here is what I mean...

Since my managers were already making so much money in commissions I could not change their commission where they were making less than what they already were making so I had to find some percentages that would make sense and not take away from them...So when the store LPPA for the end of the month is $1.99 and under my managers make 7% of the stores total sales 9% of stores total sales if it is under $2.99 and 11% for $3 and higher....I know it seems extreme and alot of money but I knew my managers were consistently over $3 each month so I needed my whole store to be over $3....Now I am going to show you the first half of 2007 so you have something to compare to and see how much this system helped me.

Product sales $32,586.20
Tanning sessions 25,571
LPPA $1.24

I may have had to pay out more commission but look what it did to my product sales!!!! AMAZING!! To me its all worth it in the end!!!!

Now for my PT employees The highest lppa at the end of the month gets paid 75% of their managers sales and second place gets 25%

This has been the best thing for me to do once i started thinking outside the box.

The PT get paid a dollar amount per bottle depending on the price of the bottle starting at $0.25 going up to $10. The only way they get commission is if they are at a minimun of $1.50 LPPA at the end of the month. Also they only get free tanning if they make their commission. I dont want the people that only want the job for free tanning I want the people that really want to make money!!!

Hope that helps sorry so long!!! :o)
good luck!!!

DB Hottie

"Now for my PT employees The highest lppa at the end of the month gets paid 75% of their managers sales and second place gets 25%"



Hi Sunkissed. Could you please break this part down farther. Seems like there would be a more cut and dry method.

Sunkissed00

If I am understanding u right...they get paid there dollar per bottle ranging anywhere from $0.25 - $10 depending on the price they sold that bottle for. So what it has done it has created a friendly competition amongst my employees to try to win their managers sales. So each employee was really trying to sell so not only would they get paid on their own sales but their reward was to get their managaers sales as well....Before I did this my employees really did not care about their commission check being that theywould only get about $50 a month now since they want their managers sales they have an opportuinty to make even more money!!

As someone had stated before PT employees were very frustrated because they felt our clients only wanted to buy from the managers feeling that the managers could do more for them (the clients) It has worked out more than you could know!! Before the only ones who would get paid their commission would be managers (again who were consistently over $3LPPA) and a few choice employees from each store. Now all of my employees are making commissiom. Yes I have to pay out more but that just means I am selling more!

If anyone has any questions and would like to talk more in detail my cell phone is 419.461.0134

This system may not be for for everyone, I was a bit scared at first paying out so many commissions but thats is why we have commissions to help motivate for the bottom line!! My PT employees have turned into real little sales girls and its amazing to see!! The ones who dont make the cut dont have a job. Everyone during the interview process is told its a sales job. Wihtout lotion sales I dont have a profit at the end of the year and my business wont survive, for me lotion sales is do or die!!!!

Also so everyone knows my pt girls only make minimum wage ($7) and my managers only make ($8) an hour. I know their base is not high but with what they rake in for commissions they are making an extra ($3 - $6) depending on the month and how hard they want to work...I am a firm believer in performance based pay and you get paid on for what you sell!!!

I hope to hear from some of you!! Also anyone going to Nashville I would love to meet some of you! :o)