I stood on an International stage on Monday, and they finally said my number out loud
Hola hola,
I don’t even know where to start this week, so I’ll just tell you what happened, because it was beyond busy.
The World Spa & Wellness Convention in London ran over two days, Sunday and Monday, with more than 50 speakers from around the world, true leaders in our industry. Sunday was conference by day, and on Sunday night, at the big gala awards dinner, The Grotto Spa in Cape Town, one of the spas I run, was named Best Spa for Africa at the World Spa Awards. I walked up to accept it, and I’m still smiling about it. Behind every award like that is a team that was trained, backed and believed in, and I could not be prouder of every single one of them.
Then on Monday morning, I was on a panel of four speakers on day two of the conference, talking about increasing revenue in spa and salon businesses.
And then, as a mum, I did the thing nobody can really prepare you for: I checked my son into varsity in Murcia, Spain. I’m here for two weeks getting him settled in, helping him unpack, working out where the furniture goes and trying very hard not to hover.
Now here’s the part I keep coming back to, sitting here in Murcia while the dust settles: of everything we talked about on that stage, one topic got a reaction I have never seen before. And it’s the one topic I find boring.
Our panel was about increasing revenue in the spa and salon business, and across the two days, three things stood out stronger than ever this year: memberships, personalisation and retail.
I expected the first two. It was retail that stopped me. Retail is spoken about every single year, and it’s such a boring topic for me, not because it doesn’t matter, but because I preach it every day. It is an essential revenue stream for the business, and it’s the continuation of the treatment results for the client, because the results they came in for shouldn’t stop the moment they walk out of the treatment room.
But this year, retail came under the spotlight. Globally, retail has typically sat at around 5% of a spa’s revenue, if that. This year, the conversation had moved to 20 to 30%.
Which, for the record, is a number I’ve been saying out loud for a long time. In my world, it’s 40 to 50%.
The number on the slide isn’t the hard part.
Here’s what none of those rooms said out loud, so I will. A number on a slide doesn’t sell a single bottle. Nobody moves from 5% to 20, 30 or 40% because the owner wants it, or because the industry is suddenly talking about it. Your therapists won’t just miraculously get there.
They get there when they are equipped with the tools, the dialogue and the system for how to have that conversation with a client, and until now, almost nobody has taught them. You can’t expect a result from a team that was never given the method.
That is exactly why I built the Retail Masterclass for Therapists. Five weeks, live and online, every Thursday from 10 to 11am, with tasks to practise in between, on your real clients, in your real treatment rooms. And one important change: I’ve moved the start out by a week, so we now begin on Thursday 22 October (not the 15th), which gives you one more week to get your therapists’ diaries sorted. We finish on 19 November, which means the whole system is fresh in every therapist’s mind going into the December rush, the busiest, highest-footfall month of your year.
As always, it is online but it is live. The value is in being there, cameras on, taking part and asking questions, not in catching a recording later. And while the rest of the world is only just starting to talk about 20 to 30%, the businesses that get their teams trained now will walk into December already doing it.
So here’s my question for you this week:
If your team was handed a retail target of 30% tomorrow, the number the world is now talking about, would your therapists have the words, the tools and the system to reach it? Or would they be hoping?
Don’t leave it to hope.
Register your interest below and I’ll send you everything you need: what to prepare, what it involves, and how to get your therapists booked in for 22 October.
Have a wonderful week.
Lots of love,
Marisa
P.S. Watching my son walk into his new world this week, I kept thinking about how much of loving someone well, is making sure they’re prepared. We don’t send the people we care about into something new on hope and good intentions, we give them the tools first. Your therapists stand in your treatment rooms every day, and they deserve exactly that. The more you invest in their growth and their confidence, the more they give back, to your clients, to your business, and to you.
