Closing…

[KoolTanz]

I wish you were my competition.

[Tanning Queen]

To quote you Island, you said "people will work around a day".

Yes, that is true. But not many will work around THREE days.

Look, you are a new salon. You need to establish yourself. You sit here and say that you ahve enough money banked to last the slow season, so why try and cut your hours so drastically? Now is the time to show you are here to stay. Open 6-7 days a week. I dont care how much notice you give, it wont get to everyones ears. YOu are going to lose customers and potential customers. General public sees a place close more than one day a week from when they used to be open 7 and they think they are gonna close.

If you dont even know what your slowest days are on a regular basis, why chose to close on any of them?

And sorry, this is more of a customer service industry than it is a product. YOu sell a service, and that is tanning. If it was a product, then you would have to pay tax on it.

People will come to a place for the service and treatment they get. And if you run a great salon, you will always have a clean place with great lamps that tan awesome. If you just see people as a dollar sign, you will fail in the end. It is all about building relationships.

[Kathe]

Seriously we are not putting you down, we are just trying to help. The ones who have been doing this a long time have made mistakes like this and we've learned from them. We are just trying to help you not make one.

And this is not coming from someone who is not doing well. Because I have learned from my mistakes and gotten better over the years. I've build a very solid business that does make money. Seriously guys, I really really want you to succeed. I wouldn't have come down there if I didn't. You are really good people and I don't want to see this come back to haunt you. I see this as a huge mistake in so many ways, most of which have already been posted by me and others.

People get spooked by tanning salons going out of business. They've all heard stories of people losing their money on packages they bought when a salon closes. We took over a salon that had done that and it never really recovered even though we honored packages. People will think you aren't doing well no matter what you say to them.

It's no different than stocking your shelves well. It shows the customer you are serious and doing well. They then have confidence in you. It's actions, not words, that speak loudest in situations like this.

Again, I am not in any way bashing you. I just care and see this not ending well for you guys.

[dlewis]

I have only been in business for 1 year and I just decided to begin closing on Sundays from July till January. That was the one of the hardest decisions that I have made. But I do not have any employees and I really need that 1 day a week off. Although I think closing on Sundays has been a good thing for us...I would never think about closing 3 days a week. Like TQ said most people will work around 1 day...especially a Sunday...but not 3 days. I know as a customer I would not tan somewhere that was closed 3 days a week. And I would never purchase a monthly plan when I would be losing on average 12 days of tanning per month. Just my opinion....I wish you luck and hope it works out for you!

[EliteMike]

No comments today!

[Glowtanning530]

It's Thurday.
Maybe he put the plan in motion early

[theislandtan]

Originally Posted by Glowtanning530

It's Thurday.
Maybe he put the plan in motion early

No. This thread has run its course. There is no need for me to respond any more.

[Glowtanning530]

Well no I want to know how it goes!

[TanQueen57]

We have been closing on Saturdays and Sundays for the months of July, August and September every year so this makes it easier for our customers to schedule their time during the slow months. I am still wondering if I should keep this schedule for the rest of the year. Being an owner/operator, I would love to close one or two days during the week but I do have people coming in every day and it really makes it worthwhile to be here.

[Kathe]

I'm kind of amazed at this. I knew that going into this venture that I would have to work - A LOT. That means being here every day or hiring someone to be here every day. This is not a job, this is your business. Yes it stinks some days to have to be here every day but this is a customer service business and that's what you do in a business like this. People who want to work 5 days a week should sell their salon and get a 9 - 5 job with weekends off.

[TanQueen57]

When I first bought the business 5 years ago, I worked 7 days a week but found out that during the months of July, August and September, the numbers for Saturdays and Sundays were below 5 a day. We, my partners and I, decided that for the months of July, August and September we would close on Saturdays and Sundays and continue our 7 days in October. Our customers are fine with that because they are off someplace for the weekends and this town closes down on the weekends especially on Sundays.

[Kathe]

That's fine but you said you were thinking of continuing it year round. I think that would be a big mistake.

BTW - I just noticed you are on post #2. Welcome. Sorry if I sounded too harsh. Didn't mean to jump on you on your first post to the board.

[TanQueen57]

That is okay, I can take it! I believe closing for the summer months is fine but closing the whole year would close my salon. I am closed on Sundays all year long because in this small town, everything is closed on Sundays and that works. With my customers that have monthly packages, I add on the days I am closed to their packages so that they have exactly 30 or 90 days to tan so that works and they feel they are not losing anything. I also send letters to my customers to let them know that their packages are expiring (all packages are good for 1 year from date of purchase). They like this because they forget they have visits left and I get return customers because of this. I also give free visits for referrals, postcards sent when they are on vacation, lotion purchase, package purchase and birthdays. This really works especially if you are just starting your salon. It really brings loyalty to your salon.

[theislandtan]

Originally Posted by Kathe

People who want to work 5 days a week should sell their salon and get a 9 - 5 job with weekends off.

Another one saying sell... Some of you sound like broken records!

Each salon and market is different. You witnessed that first hand by coming to our salon and trying to sell Arbonne. After we dropped a good bit over $1000 on products you were unable to sell one item. We're still sitting on the majority of that product because it won't move in our market.

We each have the option of doing whatever we want with our salons; whether it’s taking a gamble on offering another product or service or attempting to trim work hours and expenses.

Telling someone they need to sell because you disagree with their thoughts or decisions is ridiculous. Should we sell because we made a bad investment in Arbonne?

I don't think so. I think it was a gamble that had the possibility of adding another source of income to our salon. It didn't work so we'll look for the next thing.

Cutting expenses does the same thing to your bottom line as adding income. If I can cut $1000 dollars in expenses and it costs me $500 in revenue I'm still up $500.

I think a lot of people miss the intangible ROI as well. What is it worth to have an extra day of not working/worrying about your salon? That doesn't add to you fiscal bottom line but adds a heap to your mental bank account....

[Kathe]

That is not what I said. I said if you were getting into this business thinking it was going to be a 5 day a week job then you should sell. I was talking about the mentality of the workweek, nothing else. You have to go into owning a business knowing that you will be working a lot.

As for Arbonne, it may be your demographics and it may just be that you don't have a lot of clients coming in right now. It's hard to sell something when you don't have anyone to sell it to. Even I can't do that - LOL. I hope you give it some time and build up your client base. I've had it in my salon for over 11 years. I didn't start out right away selling loads of it, it was a building process.

[theislandtan]

Originally Posted by Kathe

You have to go into owning a business knowing that you will be working a lot.

We own the business, the business doesn't own us.

Originally Posted by Kathe

As for Arbonne, it may be your demographics and it may just be that you don't have a lot of clients coming in right now.

Arbonne isn't going to work in our area. We forked out a significant amount of money, gave it and you a chance and it didn't work out. As for the amount of customers... You said we had more people coming through the doors than other salon you visited so I doubt that was a problem. Maybe if you would have spent the amount of time we originally agree upon at the salon you'd have had more of a chance to sell.

[Kathe]

Wow! I'm so sorry. I left early because your wife was totally wiped out and I felt that it was in her best interest not to have to entertain an out of town guest. I came down there on my own expense to help you. And after seeing her work that day and realizing that she was exhausted I didn't want her overdoing it any more.


And you did not give it a chance. You've only had it in for a couple of months, slow months as it is. Nobody can expect results that quick. I'm sorry you feel the way you do. I have only had your best interest at heart and felt that once you started building good relationships with your clients that things would start rolling really well.

You said "Arbonne isn't going to work in our area" is the very reason it won't. If you believe or don't believe you will be right. I believe it can work in your area. But if you don't believe it there is nothing I can do.

[Kathe]

I would like to add a few things to my post above.

Arbonne is something that does not just sit there and sell itself. Nothing does that. The person behind the counter must love the product or at least believe in it and use it themselves.

Secondly Arbonne has an entire training program online - free. It's called Arbonne university and Arbonne learn and burn. Has anyone at the salon gone through any of the modules or listened to any of the training? A personal visit can only do so much and I accomplished with your salon exactly what I've accomplished with every other salon I've visited, which is mainly product knowledge and why Arbonne is different as well as just simply meeting the owner in person rather than just online or on the telephone. I cannot possibly teach you 11 years of knowledge in a day or two.

Normally when I go into a salon there is a pretty steady stream of clients to talk to. The owner can hear me talk to clients about the products and pick up little things here and there. When I sit there for an hour or so with no clients coming in the only thing I can do is talk to the owner about the products, which is exactly what I did.

In the last couple of months I have visited several salons and had good success. Mike, Meg, Pete, Danielle, etc. Every single one of them was totallly enthusiastic about the product and had realistic goals. They all knew it was a long term project. Giving something 2 months, especially this time of year, is not good business.

I'm sorry this didn't work out for you. I truly think it will if you give it time. If not, then just send it all back to Arbonne and get your money back from them.

[Stellita3]

I'm in agreement with the vets. Cut back hours but don't close. Tuesdays and Thursdays have been soft for me too. But yesterday everyone was buying big packages and lotions and I had a $1000. day. There's too much competition out there to give them the chance to go elsewhere.

[EliteMike]

Hey Island, maybe lowering the price will help you bring more people in to buy more arbonne I didn't think the stuff would sell in my salon either. It has been slow, but it sells. I beleive you are one of the ones that sells lotions dirt cheap as well as tanning. If so, there lies your problem. It's hard to sell a 50 dollar moisturizer package when you sell that 100 dollar bottle of black for 40 bucks.

Better yet, why don't you take some Friday's off too, wouldn't want you to work too much

There is a fine line for what you are talking about with closing and saving money. I knew after a year that being open on Sunday wasn't going to work year round. This is something I can prove easily. You said it yourself in differnt words that some days are great and others aren't. If you think that you are going to take the people that were patronizing you on tues and thursdays and they are just going to continue to be a mon wed fri client, I think you are out of your mind. If you are sitting in your salon on tuesday and Thursday with no payroll expense, how much money does it really cost you to be open? I think you are looking for reasons to not have to work.