Two years running, and it still doesn't feel real

Hello,

I'm going to open with something personal, because I genuinely can't help it this week.

SIX Skincare has just been named Skincare Brand of the Year at the Professional Beauty Awards South Africa - for the second year running.

I keep rereading that sentence. Two years. Not a fluke, not a lucky nomination - the industry looking at what we've built and saying it again, on purpose, with everyone else in the room watching.

I'll be honest with you: some weeks in this business you're just moving from task to task, and you forget to notice you're actually good at what you do. This was one of those “oh right, we really are” moments.

And it landed in the middle of an already enormous fortnight, because we'd just wrapped hosting the Johannesburg Business Summit - two full days, a room full of spa and salon owners and managers, and honestly one of the best summits we've run.

Here's the part I didn't expect: across both days, no matter which session was on stage, the Marketing Masterclass content kept turning up. Not because I forced it in, because it's genuinely how our industry is starting to think now. Visibility. Trust. Database. Community. Campaigns that make money instead of just noise. It was everywhere, in everyone's language, all weekend.

And then, on day two, one new idea walked straight onto the summit floor and refused to leave my head.

I'd used WhatsApp for chatting to clients for years, like all of us have. I had never properly built a funnel through it. And once I saw what it could actually do, I knew it had to go straight into the Marketing Masterclass arsenal.

New addition to the Marketing Masterclass arsenal: the WhatsApp Funnel.

Here's why it matters so much right now: your clients are opening WhatsApp messages at well over 90%. Compare that to the 15-20% you'd be lucky to get from an email blast, and it's obvious where the attention actually is.

A WhatsApp funnel doesn't need to be complicated. The simplest version is four messages:

1. Capture — a “Book Now” or “Chat to us” link on your website, Instagram bio and Google profile, going straight into WhatsApp.

2. Qualify — one automated message asking which service they're interested in, with quick options (facial, massage, nails, colour).

3. Nurture — a reply matched to what they picked: pricing, availability, maybe a specific testimonial.

4. Convert — one message offering an actual time slot, with a direct way to confirm it.

That's it. Four messages, mostly written once and reused forever, sitting in the one place your clients already check ninety times a day.

I’m going to add a step by step on how to do this into our module content. So look out for it on your profile.

So here's my question for you this week:

Right now, if someone messaged your business on WhatsApp asking about a facial, what happens next: a real, mapped-out sequence, or whoever happens to see the phone first?

Go build the four messages. It's the highest-return hour you'll spend on marketing this month.

Now on a completely different gear, and I need to say this one plainly....

Every single spa and salon I have ever worked with has the exact same ceiling on retail, and almost none of them know it's there.

Most of you are sitting somewhere around 5-15% of total turnover coming from retail. You've made peace with that number. You've decided that's just what retail looks like in this industry.

It isn't. I've taken owners past 50%.

Not by finding one incredible salesperson and hoping the rest of the team catches up watching her. That's the mistake almost everyone makes - assuming retail is a personality trait some therapists have and some don't. It isn't. It's a system. A specific, teachable, repeatable way of actually listening to what a client needs during a treatment, instead of just telling them what to buy at the end of it. Some therapists have stumbled onto pieces of it by instinct. None of them are doing it consistently, because nobody has ever taught it to them properly, step by step.

That's exactly why our next Masterclass will be the for Therapists – Retail Masterclass!

Not for you, the owner - for your therapists themselves. Because you can want this for your business all you like, but until your therapists have an actual model to work from, retail will keep depending entirely on who happens to be on shift.

I've spent this past year building a skincare brand our industry has now recognised twice running, and running a business teaching owners exactly like you how their marketing and their numbers actually work. This is the same thing, aimed at the people standing in the treatment room with your client. I know what actually changes a retail number, and I know how to teach it to a therapist who has never been taught to sell in her life.

More on this very soon. If any of that made you a little uncomfortable - good. Sit with it.

Have a wonderful weekend darlings! 

Lots of love,

Marisa

P.S. The Retail Masterclass for Therapists is coming. If you already know which of your therapists this newsletter was really about, you already know why you can't wait to get her onto it.