05-07-2014, 02:11 PM | #11 (permalink) | |
Join Date: Apr 21 2004 Location: Frisco, TX
Posts: 1,502
Rep Power: 20 | Re: Start With The Basics Quote:
There is not nearly as much risk buying used UV equipment as there is with spray booths. Also Peach you do not give your tanners much credit for knowing the difference in equipment. That is something you have convinced yourself to validate how you operate and think. based on your theory there is no difference in levels, they all tan you and that is all tanners are concerned with. | |
05-07-2014, 02:31 PM | #12 (permalink) | |
Join Date: Mar 18 2005 Location: GA
Posts: 1,153
Rep Power: 20 | Re: Start With The Basics Quote:
You are right Steve, I do not give customers credit for knowing what I know about tanning equipment. They prove that every day in my store. They also prove it when they tan all year long at a another salon with crappy equipment. But they do not need to be equipment experts. That is what I am there for. They expect performance AND value from my salon. They trust me for that. Could I go out and buy a 35k Ergoline 1050 Open Sun? Sure. But I'd have to charge them prices that I know most of them could not afford. Tanners only know what they have seen and experienced. That is why the independent salon owners are being wiped out. These people go and Tan at PBT a couple of times, can't afford it, but think that all tanning salons should be and look that way. They set unrealistic expectations for customers that most independent salons cannot match. Combine that with dirt cheap prices, and that is one of the main reasons that small salons are dropping like flies. | |
05-07-2014, 05:30 PM | #14 (permalink) |
Join Date: Mar 18 2005 Location: GA
Posts: 1,153
Rep Power: 20 | Re: Start With The Basics If there are alternatives to the spaceship salons, clients will find them. That is the problem, at the rate we are going now, in 5 years, there won't be anything but spaceship tanning salons with Airline style pricing structures. People will really begin buying all of the "old" tanning beds at dirt cheap prices, that are on the market, because of all of the defunct tanning salons, or lay in the free sun, and you will get to fight it out with PBT, STC, and Zoom over the 1% that can afford the spaceships. |
05-07-2014, 05:57 PM | #15 (permalink) | |
Join Date: Aug 21 2007 Location: San Jose, CA
Posts: 155
Rep Power: 17 | Re: Start With The Basics Quote:
If so, then you are promoting a road map for indys to follow. If they follow it, then the future you described above will not happen. UNLESS you are saying that there is no way to compete with PBT/STCs long term? | |
05-08-2014, 08:01 AM | #16 (permalink) | |
Join Date: Mar 18 2005 Location: GA
Posts: 1,153
Rep Power: 20 | Re: Start With The Basics Quote:
It is simple; you will either separate yourselves from the herd and be the antedote to the big box mega chains or you will imitate them and try to blend in. Sure there are many in this industry who are tired of trying to "adapt" to changes in this industry driven by the industry's mega chains, and are getting out. I have a formula that I have used all along and it has worked to a degree, I will use it until it doesn't and then I will have a choice to make..... | |
05-08-2014, 12:23 PM | #17 (permalink) |
Join Date: Aug 21 2007 Location: San Jose, CA
Posts: 155
Rep Power: 17 | Re: Start With The Basics Peach, I've been playing devil's advocate with you with a splash of sarcasm the last week or so, not because I disagree, but because sometimes your message is confusing. On one hand you say set yourself apart, but on the other hand the industry is going to h*ll anyways. On one hand you say I'm doing fine with SBTs all around me, but on the other hand you say "I'll have to make a choice." On one hand you say low prices are killing the industry, but on the other hand you don't want to raise prices (or we have this idea of REAL pricing). On one hand you say consultants don't know anything and every market is different, but on the other hand you complain that no one can enter the market. Well, why would anybody? On one hand you say the ITA and ASA are a bunch of idiots, but on the other hand you don't want anybody to donate any money and expect everyone to get organized. I hope you can see how it's hard to boil anything down to a solution . To me, it sounds like the take home message is this: You can set yourself apart from deep pocket, low price, spaceship salons for only so long, eventually you won't be able to compete. Combined with public sentiment and government policy and spaceship salon business models, they too will be history eventually. So to me, there is NO solution to that scenario, so when you try to present one, it just sounds like Peach screaming the sky is falling again. |
05-08-2014, 08:01 PM | #18 (permalink) |
Join Date: Mar 18 2005 Location: GA
Posts: 1,153
Rep Power: 20 | Re: Start With The Basics Solutions? For the industry? or for myself? I have been doing this for 22 years and will probably do it for another. As bad as things are in the industry, it is still better than punching someone else's time card. As for the tanning industry....the fishbowl gets smaller every year....I am powerless to change that. |
05-09-2014, 11:21 AM | #19 (permalink) |
Join Date: Sep 20 2012 Location: Osceola, Iowa
Posts: 145
Rep Power: 12 | Re: Start With The Basics My only comments: #1 - I DO NOT allow personal cell phones. I don't pay these people to be on their phone. Nothing is that important, and if it is, they are allowed to have people contact them via the shop's phone. #2 - Flexibility is the key to success. That is all. |
05-09-2014, 10:12 PM | #20 (permalink) |
Join Date: Jan 30 2007 Location: Naples FL
Posts: 782
Rep Power: 18 | Re: Start With The Basics Steve's quote "The single most distracting item for an employee is a cell phone. they should be turned off and left in a purse or designated area while at work. No other service business allows cell phones or sitting. This is not being a tyrant these should be establish rules of employment. Salon business should be conducted on the salon phone only" Steve Good employees can sell, clean and have their phone on. Bad employees cant regardless of the phone or not. When an employee is at the back of the salon working alone and she gets trapped by an aggressive man she better have that cell phone in her back pocket and it better be on! And you give this advice based on how many stores you run and how many hours you spend behind the counter Steve????? |
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