Podcast

EP 239: Hiring and Onboarding Your Spa’s Dream Team

Does having a dream team sound like a pipe dream? 

I promise you it isn’t, but finding the right people to make up your dream team and developing them properly so you can hold onto them for the long-term takes intention and a process. 

In this episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy, I’m sharing my step-by-step process of finding your perfect-fit employees and team members, hiring them and getting them onboarded so you can demystify what it means to build a dream team once and for all. 

No more “it’s easier if I just do it myself” mentality; finding your people with this process will ensure that you get the full benefits of having a team that sees, supports and works toward your company’s vision.  

Pro Tip: Be sure to have your Notes app or a pen and paper handy, this episode is chock full of info that you’ll want to reference back to. 

Happy hiring! 

In this episode, you’ll learn: 

  •  Why now is the time to build your team and prepare for exponential future growth opportunity 
  • The 3 key steps from finding your perfect-fit employee to getting them properly onboarded 
  • What tools and templates you need to have working for you inside your company so that you’re never starting the hiring or onboarding process from scratch
  • My top tools and new hire sourcing recommendations to assist in building your dream team

References Mentioned in Episode #239: Hiring and Onboarding Your Spa’s Dream Team

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It’s totally free to join, and for every 25 reviews we get on iTunes, we’ll add a new training video, PDF, tracker, or other high-value resource to help you grow your aesthetic business!

 

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Episode Transcript

00:00

You’re listening to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast where we share simple, proven strategies just for spa industry professionals to help you get more clients in the door so that you can create a life you love.I’m your host, Daniela Woerner licensed aesthetician and spa marketing strategist. 

00:22

Hello my dears. Happy July, I hope you are thriving in your businesses right now. I know so many of our students in Spa Retail Rockstar and Growth Factor are just experiencing incredible, incredible growth. But that can actually be a problem. And what do I mean by that? Well, let me tell you a story about my old peer. So it was her birthday, I was wanting to book a spa day for her. And you know, the area that we live in now we’ve lived here for less than a year. So we’re still trying to figure out our places. And for those of you who have recently moved or if you’re someone who moves fairly often, you know that when you move, it’s really hard to find your nail person, your hair person, obviously your aesthetician, it can take time to find the right people. Right? So I was googling, researching, trying to figure out okay, where do I want to send her because I wanted to send her for, you know, a nice spa day. And the place that I ended up calling couldn’t get me in for five weeks. Five weeks, you guys. Now did I book there? No, this was for her birthday I wanted to get in. And the thing is clients, especially new clients, if they’re wanting to take a chance with you, they want to get in that week, or at least the following week. If you’re booked out that far in advance that you can’t get people in for five weeks, it’s really time to start considering, you know, bringing on a team. And let me just give you this perspective, that spa, they didn’t just lose a facial and a massage. Right? They lost if they could have accommodated my au pair and she loved it. She could have come back and told me I could have said okay, well this is our place. And I’m going to go to that place every single month for a massage. My husband loves massage, he could go there every single month for massage or for skincare, whatever was his desire or Au Pair could decide that she wanted to continue to go there and frequent this location multiple times, right? It’s not just one service, it’s the lifetime customer value. So by not being able to fit us in, they lost not just that appointment, but also the potential of all future appointments for my opare for our family, and for any people that we would have referred their way. So you have no idea it can seem like this. Oh my gosh, we’re booked out and how great we’re doing so well that it. But what are you leaving on the table? How much money are you leaving on the table by not letting new people get on your schedule? 

03:07

Okay. Now, I know that hiring can be really scary, especially if you’re not paying yourself what you desire. And it can seem like, Oh, that’s the wrong move. But I want you to keep an open mind here because I have worked with spas over and over again. And I have seen the incredible growth that happens when you as the owner, truly step into the visionary role and lead your team. So what is the actual process? How do you even hire somebody like you’ve, you’ve come to that conclusion that Okay, I’m going to hire, I’m ready, I’m going to take that leap. But what the heck do I even do? What paperwork do I need to do? How do I make sure that I’m doing this legit, right. So that is a lesson in itself. And we actually had a Coaching Call instead of Spa Retail Rockstar this was a few months ago, this was like two or three months ago, something like that. And I covered some of the basics. So we talked about the employee versus contractor relationship. We talked about offer letters, we talked about registering as an employer in your state. We talked about how to make sure you know what documents you needed to make sure that you are putting yourself protecting yourself legally as you bring on employees. So all of that fun, administrative yet crucial stuff to operating a legit company a legit brand. If you are wanting to create a company, this episode is for you. So it’s one thing to create a job for yourself. Nothing wrong with that at all. I see tons of solos with the vision of creating a job, but I’m talking to you if you’re wanting to create a company. If you’re wanting to create financial freedom for yourself, you want to be able to work yourself out of the spa. That spa can continue paying you into your retirement. You want to make a big impact in your community, you have entrepreneurship in your blood. Okay? With a team, you can make that happen fast. Now, Andrea, she’s a Growth Factor student of ours. She went from solo to completely retiring from her spot in 18 months. And did I mention that that was during COVID? Okay. Now, I know that if you take the global pandemic out of the mix, she would have gotten there even faster. And what did she do? She hired a team. Okay, so she now has somewhere between 12 to 15 employees at the time of recording, I’m sure she’s going to be hiring even more. But you know what else she has? She has time freedom. She has lifestyle freedom, right? That’s amazing. How many of you want that right now that time freedom, that lifestyle freedom? So did she mess up? Yes. Did she fall in her face? Sometimes? Yes. Was it hard hiring people? Yes. It’s all normal parts of the process. Whenever you grow, whenever you are growing by leaps and bounds, you are going to mess up. And that’s okay. It’s part of the process. But you’ve got to have that courage to get out there and take action because the reward is so incredible. Okay, the coaching call that you’re gonna hear from Spa Retail Rockstar, again, it was a couple months ago. So keep that in mind. There are some small things that may have changed since the time of the recording of that call. But it walks you through the how of hiring. Okay, before we jump right into that, I do have a quick announcement. So we at Adam aesthetics, we have made the decision to do our aesthetic marketing seminar virtually this September. Okay, so we typically do this in person. But there’s still some lingering COVID guidelines. And we just wanted to play it safe, because there are people that fly in from all over the country, you know, sometimes different countries that we flying in to attend our events. So we decided that with some of these guidelines, we just wanted to keep it virtual just a little bit longer. The good news is that doing something virtual, we can get some pretty incredible speakers. And if you’re a student of ours in Growth Factor, in Spa Retail Rockstar, in Post with Purpose, or in our spa marketing funnels course you can attend for free. And we’re going to include the recordings from both days of the training in your members area. If you are not a student of ours, but you still want to attend the two day training. It’s happening on September 20. And 21st. Tickets are going to be available for only $97. That’s for both full days of no nonsense straight to the point training on how to grow your business. And yes, you do get to keep the recordings as well. We will have a link for you in the show notes. We’ll also have information inside of the spa marketing Made Easy Facebook group, so be sure to check it out there. Of course any questions you can always email our support team at Hello at Otto aesthetics, but save the date. Okay, September 20, and 21st 2021 aesthetic marketing seminar virtual again, if you are a student of ours, this is totally free. You don’t need to buy anything, you don’t need to do anything. We’re going to send the reminders and the Facebook groups, you guys will give you all the links to join. And the recordings will show up automatically in your members area. Okay, so save the date there. Now let’s go ahead and jump right into that training about hiring. Remember to keep an open mind and massive things can change for you. Are you guys super excited. And again, keep the conversation going over in the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group. 

08:56

We have been getting a lot of questions about hiring, about onboarding about how to do the process. And so we wanted to do like this bonus call to walk you guys through so I’m going to go ahead and let me just dive in. And I will absolutely do q&a at the end for any of you guys that have questions. But I’ve got some notes here. I’ve got some examples of things that I want to show you. And really like this is such a timely offer or it’s such a timely training that’s going on right now because let me just ask you, you guys Raise your hands or type one in the chat. How many of you in the past month have really experienced a new growth or a new surge like you’re feeling the people come out of COVID the people like come into your office more so I have heard that from every single spot owner that I have spoken with and that is really a A big win also a good problem. And and it really aligns with what I’ve been saying for quite some time is that we, you know, after every recession, we experienced 10 to 12 years of positive growth. And if you just look back for the past 100 years, every 10 to 12 years, we have a recession. And then we have 10 to 12 years of positive growth. So, right now is the time you are in the moment that you’ve got to get all your ducks in a row. And hiring is one of the biggest pieces of that. So that can be for you, as the business owner, you really want to step into that space, where you’re doing the most revenue generating activities, you are able to outsource the things that you don’t need to be doing and pass that off. Whether that is, you know, if you’re hiring someone for the front desk, if you’re hiring a new provider, if you’re hiring someone to help you with social media, whatever that is, you want to make sure that you’re spending your time doing the things that are going to bring the most revenue into the business. So when you’re starting off, the step one is deciding if you’re going to hire an employee or a contractor. And I will tell you that 99% of the time, my recommendation is that you hire an employee. Now, if you’re in the US, I know we’ve got people from all different countries here on this call. So I would advise you to go to what your country’s you know, government, how they define it, where you’re paying taxes, and all that kind of stuff. But here in the US, it’s the IRS, and we have this website link, I’m going to post it here in the chat for you guys. But this gives you the definition of whether someone is an employee or a contractor. Now I am very much black and white, I do not ever want to do anything that is going to upset the government upset taxes like I want to do every I’m a rule follower, like just by nature, I do not like breaking rules. And so for me, like that’s a very important piece. So if there’s ever any gray area, I’m always going to err on the side of caution. But I would number one look at you know, is this person going to be an employee or contractor decide that for your business. If you are bringing on your first employee, there’s a lot of stuff that you have to learn about, you have to register as an employer in your state that can take anywhere between two to four weeks. How many people have employees, just give me a little emoji your hand raise?

12:51

Okay, so you’ve gone through that process before. So filling that out, you know, having, you know getting registered as an employer making sure that you’re doing your payroll taxes, etc, your unemployment insurance, or however your state defines it, you won’t need to get all of those ducks in a row first. And you’re going to need a payroll company to process payroll, we use gussto. We’re very happy with gussto. For our employees, they help with payroll processing, paying your taxes. We have employees in multiple states. And so it made it really easy to we had to register as an employer in multiple states, but it made it really easy to you know, pay those taxes, they help with HR. If you’re not sure where to go, you know, go to your CPA to your bookkeeper ask them, they may have a payroll option. But gussto seems to be the most cost effective and has a massive amount of other benefits with them in place. They help with HR, they make sure that you’re compliant with all the posters that you’re supposed to have up and you know, what’s supposed to go in your employee handbook because different states have different laws, etc. Right? So figuring that piece out. So that’s step one. Step two, is you need to create the job posting and description for the position that you’re looking for. Okay, and I guess if we really want to take a bigger picture view here, I am a big believer, I’m visual, right? So a lot of you guys I imagine are too Is it helped to kind of see the vision of what you’re wanting to create. So org charts are extremely helpful to understand the structure of your company to understand all the roles and who goes where I’ll just show you guys real quick. I have this on my cork board, but this is our addo aesthetics org chart. So we have I have a visual representation of like, here’s every In the company and the roles that need to be filled for what is going on now for a spa, you are likely going to have like your providers that might be like massage therapist. As decisions, you may have a lead aesthetician, you may have an office manager, you may have like a, we have a section called, like our growth, so director of marketing and growth. And so in there, we have our content, our podcast, our sales, our ads, like all of that kind of division, which you may be the person wearing all of those hats, right? And that’s fine. But it’s important to know, like, okay, here’s this part of the company, here’s this part of the company, here’s this part of the company, when you have a visual representation of what your business what you want your business to look like, by the end of the year, it really helps you to know who’s that next person to hire? Should I be hiring front desk? Should I be hiring another provider, should I be hiring someone for admin support. So having that visual really helps with that. Now, then you’re going to create the actual job description. And I’m going to just share my screen with you guys real quick, because we have a job description here for a business operations assistant. And this is an actual job that we posted for addo aesthetics.

16:28

And so just to show you how much detail actually goes into a job posting for our company, so we’re hiring a business operations assistant at addo. aesthetics, a fast growing high performance coaching company that serves the spa industry. So here we are qualifying. Who who this person is, are you a self starter? Who can work well, both independently and with a team? Do you have a strong attention to detail and impeccable follow up skills? Are you you know, like? It’s, we’re asking questions. If you answer yes, you could be the perfect fit for this role, we give a quick description of who we are as a company. We talk about requirements. So among other things, your responsibilities will include Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, the position requires these things, right ability to communicate and technical information in a simple manner, openness to learning new technologies and software’s positive energy, the ideal candidate will have knowledge of these things. Knowledge of all software’s above not required just preferred some clarifying this. Were 100% woman owned company. So given just another little snippet about who we are as a company, here’s some of our core values. Here’s some of the benefits. And here’s how to apply this is something that’s really important. And if you guys leave with nothing else, I want you to remember this. So write this down, okay? To apply, please email, hello at out of statics with business ops assistant, plus your MBTI and the subject line, please attach your resume to the email. If your applicant cannot follow those instructions, they do not have a strong attention to detail. The person that you are hiring to bring into your company is supposed to make your life easier, right? So you want to bring someone in obviously there’s a an onboarding period, a training period, right. But from the start, you need to make sure that that person, if they don’t know what MBTI is, they’re not sending you an email. There’s this thing called Google that they can figure it out. Right? So you want to you want to see like, are they resourceful? If there’s something that they don’t know how to do? Can they take action to understand what is MBTI? Right. Can I follow that I’m putting this in the subject line. That has been such a great thing. And one of the reasons that I think I have such an incredible team that has been you know, our team, we have very low turnover. And it’s because we focus very much on hiring the smile training the skill, we get the right person in the right personality. It’s very hard to teach integrity. It’s very hard because each drive it’s pretty easy to teach someone how to use a booking software. Pretty easy to teach someone a protocol, right? So thinking about all of those things. Okay, you guys still with me? Anybody have questions on the job description? That look really detailed to you. It’s, it’s quite a bit different than just saying, front desk position open, you know, like posting something on Craigslist, but you’re making the first impression of your company and the way that you do business in that first posting, right? Okay, so where do you actually post your job, you can post it on indeed, which I found to be one of the more reliable sites for finding qualified people, I would also reach out to your network. So reach out to any of the product reps, vendor reps, anyone that you have relationships with in the spa industry and say, Hey, we’re looking for this position. If you guys are in any type of networking, or mastermind group, I would put the word out there, put the word out with some of your top clients. And also post on social media, you can have a section on your website that says careers. And, you know, posted in your stories, sometimes your clients turn out to be the best people they already know and love your brand. Right. And they I have several spa owners and Growth Factor who their front desk peoplewere clients and just said, Hey, I love your business, I love your brand. I want to work for you. Right? So be open to that. Okay. So when you are doing the job posting, you want to recommend, like I recommend saying, okay, applications are open from this time to this time. 

21:47

So whether you’re giving yourself, you know, a week or two weeks, whatever that timeframe is, have a dedicated amount of time that applications are open, and then have a dedicated amount of time that you’ll be performing interviews. And the way that I like to do interviews, I initially we’ll do a phone interview. And I just want to find out and this is what I’m referring to now is when I was working as a spa director, and when I was hiring for brick and mortar. So when I would I would do an initial phone interview. Can I talk with them? Right? Can I have a conversation? I see? Like, am I able to have small talk? Do I like their personality? are they showing up as authentic? are they showing up as professional? And if the answer is yes, then I invite them in for an in person interview. I’m looking at are they on time? Do they look professional? And I don’t really care if they wear makeup or not. I know that for some people, that’s an issue. But you know, do they have beautiful skin? Can you tell that they’re taking care of themselves? Do they look professional? That is something that is important as an aesthetician And, you know, how are they just how are they showing up? And my main focus, like I will ask them where they see themselves in five years. I asked them, What got them into the industry, what attracted them to our company? those kind of questions, if they are a provider, then I’ll ask them about their numbers that their previous employer like, were they keeping track of retail to service percentage? Were they keeping track of their client purchase percentage? Like? Are they someone who is focusing on the business side of things? Or are they just, you know, like, what what was their experience? Like? Why did they leave their last position? I want to know those different types of things as well. And it’s, for me, never a good sign if someone is like, bad mouthing or talking bad about their previous position. The spa industries have very small industry. And, and you know, there’s there’s lots of reasons why people leave, they want to grow more, they want different mentor, like whatever it is. But it’s it’s, in my opinion, not super professional to talk bad about a previous employer. So I always kind of keep those things in mind.

24:26

As you go through the interview process, you decide that they’re the person that you want to hire. Here’s a piece of a lot of people miss out the offer letter. So for those of you guys that have employees, do you have like an offer letter template gussto provides one but you can always adjust this and I’m sure a lot of payroll providers or those kind of companies do but what you want to have documented is what is the position, right? What are the what are like The role that they’re filling, what are the requirements? So you’re kind of pulling some of the information off of the job posting, right? So what what are you bringing them on as? What is their compensation and benefits? What is the employment relationship so this, you know, if you’re an at will state, so kind of stating that So, your employment at the company will be at well, meaning that either you or the company may terminate employment at any time for any reason with or without cause. So just kind of that language having that in there, if there is any type of contingency offer, so the company reserves the right to conduct background and our reference checks on all prospective employees, your job is contingent, the job offer is contingent on clearance of such background and will be withdrawn, if any of the above conditions are not satisfied. So if you are someone that checks, references, or anything like that, you want to have that in their company policies and additional agreements. And so this is, you know, as an employee of the company, you’ll be expected to abide by and adhere by the company’s rules and standards. This is something that we’ll get into with the actual employee handbook, but you can put just a sentence in there about that continuing obligation. So by signing this letter, you confirm with the company that you’re under no contractual or other legal obligations that would prohibit you from performing your duties with the company, you further confirm that you will not remove or take any documents or proprietary proprietary data or materials of any kind, electronic or otherwise, with you from your current or former employer to the company without written authorization from your current or former employer, nor will you use or disclose any such confidential information during the course and scope of your employment with the company. That is a big one, right. So in spa, we do a lot of non disclosures, non competes, etc. But it’s basically stating from the beginning, that your clients, our clients have the practice. So they cannot download or export, client data, information, all of those types of things. So you want to have that all in writing, and something that they have signed. So you do your offer. If the offer is not accepted, it’ll expire at the end of business on this day. We look forward to having you join us no later than this day, your name signature, and then having accepted and agreed, signed by that person. Right? So brick and mortar spas, if you are, you know, you guys hear me talk a lot about beginning with the end in mind. And if you want to run a seven figure business, you need to act that way. Now, even if you’re bringing in $10,000, you know, like, whatever, you’re just starting out, right? You’ve got to show up and act in that way now. And acting in that way. See, I mean, what is Alexander’s day? Is there any way to have that written down to have it? So Alexandra, I pulled this offer letter as a template from gussto. So if you sign up with gussto, or whatever payroll provider you’re using, they will have an offer letter template for you. So whatever one you’re using, um, you adjust it based on based on your needs. Okay, so let’s move on to Oh, thanks, Christy. And you guys, I actually so they have I have a special link, that if you sign up with our link, it is like a referral link, but it gives you $100 off. So if you sign up with them and I think are the payroll is based off of I’ll put it in here. The payroll is based off of how many employees you have. So again, this is a referral link for us. But it’s cool because if you sign up using that, then you get $100 yourself. So it’ll give you they have like a trial period where you get your first for us it was like your first month of payroll free. And I think our payroll is like $89 we have for employees for contractors. So depending on what your company it just to get an idea of what the cost is.

29:42

But there’s a lot of different. There’s a lot of different payroll companies out there. Most entrepreneurs that I have talked with are using gussto and really like it, but I would go in and look at all of that ones, talk to your payroll or talk to your CPA. As a bookkeeper and find one that you can work with long term. Okay, so once you get through the offer letter, you’re going to start the onboarding process, this is super important. So when they first come in, you’re going to fill out your I nine form, if you’re in the US, you’re going to need either a passport or a driver’s license and Social Security, there’s a whole listing of like different types of identification that you can use. Other countries, you know, go to your government to figure out what you need for legal representation there. The first thing that you’re going to do after you get that IE nine, and passport and all of that kind of information is go through the employee handbook, you’re going to review everything with them, and have them sign it and you want to make sure that they have a copy as well. So I’m going to go I’m going to share my screen again, and I’m going to show you this is actually something that we have for our Growth Factor people. So we’ve have the employee handbook template. And so this is just giving you like a quick outline. Here’s the overview. But you can see everything that’s in here, right. So welcome to the spa family. Here’s our culture and core values, important contacts, spa policies and procedures. And we’re looking at like treatment cancellations and read bookings late arrival and no show policy refunds, gift cards, payments and gratuities client consent forms Spa Safety notices restrictions, right of refusal, right, so this is all just spa policies and procedures that we’re putting in the employee handbook. Section five is employee policies and procedures. So client consent form and chart notes, social media posting, employee appearance, employee professionalism, requesting and using time off covering shifts, no visitor policy, food policy, headphone and music policy noncompete, three strikes and employee discount, right. So we’re looking at all of those things. And I will tell you, I know if some of you are like, Oh, my gosh, this seems like overkill. The more the the more clarity in your communication on what expectations are, the better the ongoing relationship with your employee will be. Because so often what I’ve seen over and over and over again, is an employee issue comes up. And the spa owner is telling me about it. And I was like, well, was this clarified? Do you have a way to request time off in place? Do you have a policy that they can’t listen to their headphones while performing a service? Like, there’s all these things that come up? If you’re not clarifying what expectations are? You know, that is just an opportunity for you to say, Okay, well, we need a policy on this. Front Desk, customer service protocols, daily checklist and tasks, treatment protocols, legal forms and documents. So that’s kind of the outline, and then we go in here and put everything in. So for our template for Growth Factor, they just have to fill in, you know, the name of the spa and look at, you know, all these different little things here that they want to adjust to make it their own.

33:39

But I advise actually giving a copy to the employee, and also going through explaining the policy, having them sign off and asking giving them the opportunity to ask any questions that they have. And so this just really sets the tone. And it’s I know, so often, we don’t feel like CEOs in our business. We’ve we feel like, Oh, it’s a small business. It’s, you know, we but when I asked the question like, would the would the CEO with the owner of Starbucks, the dealing with this with the owner of target? Well, I guess target and Starbucks are public companies, but like, if you think of like a bigger company, right? Would this be happening? Or would this be a policy? Would there be something in place? So you have to think of yourself in that way? Like, how can we act like a seven figure company right now? Right? So they’re going to have clarity and communication like this? So in regards to employee handbooks, where are you guys at? Do you guys have employee handbooks, you have questions about employee handbooks? Does anyone go over the employee handbook? Yes, no, maybe? No. Well, It’s, it’s a fun project that you can add to your q2, q2 things to do. But it really is one of the most powerful things to have in your business just to even for yourself to go through and do and say, Oh, do we have a policy? Or do we need a policy on this particular thing? Okay. The other thing that you’re going to want to address in the onboarding process, when you’re going through the employee handbook, having them review having them sign, you want to then address how and when people will get raises and reviews. So what I typically recommend when bringing somebody on, I like to do a 90 day probationary period. So the 90 day probationary period, oftentimes, I’ll recommend having a flat rate of pay. And during that time period, you’re investing a lot of time and energy in training them. And then at the end of the 90 days, you can see what value they bring. And then you will, you can offer them compensation based on like, maybe someone comes in, and they just show up in such a huge way. And you want to offer them a higher compensation, because they’re doing so much more than what the original position required, or they’re not hitting the numbers that you want. And you want to make sure that you’re not that you can see that, Hey, there, they still are going to be a good fit, but they’re going to require a lot more training and development. So I’m not going to be paying them at this level until their performance hits these critical numbers, right. So you want to really address that and have it be crystal clear, like every time you have a review is an opportunity for a raise. But here’s our review schedules, you get a review at your 90 day probationary period, and then once a year, so it could be one year on their hire date. It could be you know, maybe you do reviews for the entire company in September, however you set it up, but you just want to have clarity for your employees to know

37:21

what what like when is their opportunity to get a raise? How can they get a raise? How can they get a review? And then I also am a big fan of having check ins with your team. And really asking them what do they enjoy doing? What do they not enjoy doing? Are they happy in their work? Because we might see something we might and I see this all the time with especially in med spas, they’ll be like a superstar aesthetician they’re like, Oh, you’re so great. You can do social media, and you can be the lead aesthetician and you can also be the spa manager, right? They’ve put all these hats on this person because they’re performing in such a great way. But then that individual gets overworked and overwhelmed and realizes like, Hey, this is not what I wanted to be doing at all. And it’s such a shame, because then you’re going to burn out and lose really good people by not checking in and seeing like, Hey, is this Are you happy in your work? Are you fulfilled in your work? And I do that regularly with our team? And say like, Hey, is there anything that we need to take off your plate that you’re just like, this makes me want to cringe every time I have to think about doing X, Y or Z? Right? It’s if you don’t know the answer to that question. It’s not like you can take everything off their plate. But if there’s one thing that it’s just an easy fix. That’s great. Right? 

38:54

So okay, let me look here. Is there any way we can purchase the template? Oh, for the handbook? Is that was it for the handbook? I think we have a package that Yeah, Christy, I think we like Annie put together. That new employee will look, Vivian I think we have a package of like some of our templates. We probably we have like hundreds of templates and Annie put together a couple of packages of like our most requested ones. But it’s something that we just we don’t ever promoted. It’s something that we have through our support channels. So I’ll have Christy look at that and find that link. 

39:46

Okay, so perfect. So what questions do you guys have because I want to now just open it up to q&a because I wanted to for sure cover the initial like hiring onboarding but how can Help you guys in where do you feel you’re getting stuck? Where do you feel lack of clarity? Is it understanding the role that you’re going to hire for? How to develop those people how to communicate with them? 

40:15

See, Felicia saying, Would you need a template for yearly reviews? Yes, you do. So you you, I always am a big believer in documenting every single review conversation every single, like, if you’re putting someone on a performance improvement plan, whatever it is, you want to make sure that every single thing is documented. And so that it’s, there’s like, a tangible, like a real life example of XYZ happened. And this is a pattern for this individual. This is like, we all mess up, we all make mistakes, right? That’s normal. When you hire employees, they will mess up, you just have to know that. But there’s, there’s a part of being human that knowing like, Hey, this is the learning process. And then there’s a part of where it’s a pattern, or it’s a misalignment with core values, you know, just not a right fit for the company. So, I think that having a template makes it easier, and just having everything documented in that employee file is going to be super easy. 

41:35

Okay, so Vivian, saying, I’d love guidance for pay bonuses commission, is there a structure, stimula that worked? Well, when you manage? Yes. So you guys know the company strategies. They’re like a consulting company, for spas, and kind of health and wellness. And they, what strategies does is they’re known for team based pay. A lot of people love team based pay, a lot of people hate to base pay. But what they do that I think is really great is they break down four core areas of value for an employee. So there’s going to be critical numbers and performance. So this might be something like your retail to service percentage, your client purchase percentage, your client retention, your client, prebook, so all those numbers that we care about. 

42:35

But that is not the pure value of an individual, if you so let’s say you have a team member, who is just average, with their numbers, maybe they’re just kind of baseline, but they’re always early to work, they always have a great attitude, they’re always helping to clean up. They’re going above and beyond with their customer service. You know, there’s all these other pieces that just make them a pleasure to be around. Right? You know, they’re extremely reliable. They have a great attention to detail all of those things, but maybe their numbers are not through the roof. But then you can have someone whose numbers are through the roof. But everything is a battle. Everything right? Like you have to you have to look at the whole person, and the strengths that they’re bringing to the company. It’s not just all about the numbers. I think that’s the only time that you will ever hear me say that because I talk about numbers so much of how important they are. Because they are right. But when you’re looking at your team, it’s what qualities do they bring to the business as a whole? And how do they create the culture of your company. 

43:58

And so as far as pay structure benefits, there’s a lot of different ways to do that. When I was working as an aesthetician, because I am a big time performer. I always wanted to be commissioned only. And because I knew I could sell, I knew I would go out and hustle and find clients and I made the most amount of money doing that and I was very money driven. But you really need to understand number one, what makes the most sense for your company? What makes the most sense for your people. I also am an entrepreneur, right? So there’s a lot of people that just want to come in do the work, but they don’t want to have to worry about marketing. They don’t want to have to worry about all of those other pieces, but they can give an excellent facial they are so good at following up with our clients. Right so you’re looking at those different types of things but the the main ways that we pay our commission only hourly only we’re out Plus commission, that’s most commonly what I see. I believe, personally that as a spa owner, you will be like, hands down, no question, you will be the most profitable. If you do hourly only, um, there’s Yes, you’re going to be paying hourly if you don’t have someone in there to fill those appointments. But, um, you know, a lot of people say, Oh, I want to do commission only because if they’re not doing treatments, then you know, I don’t want to have to pay them. But over like, longevity, you’re going to make a lot more profit as a spa owner of your having an hourly rate for them. And you can see that in the cost of treatment and profitability tracker that we have inside of spa, retail Rockstar. And then as far as bonuses, so with team based pay the way that strategies teaches it as they do, you know, let’s say that your goal for the month is to hit $20,000. And maybe you have three people on your team. So it’s two aestheticians, and a front desk. So if you hit $20,000, then there would be a team bonus, where you would do maybe 3% of top line revenue, to take 3% of 20,000, you divide it by three, and that would be an additional bonus that your team would get. And so that’s kind of the way that they do that. But there’s all different kinds of ways that like, you know, maybe if your membership based a lot of spa owners are doing like a flat $10 per every memberships sold to the front desk or to the provider as like an additional way to earn commission’s and then as far as retail. So I am a big fan of a tiered retail commission structure. So this is what they did at Bella Santa’s when I was there. And I felt like it worked incredibly well and was really motivating. So for retail to service percentage, if you were less than 30%, you got zero commission, like that’s 30% is like bare minimum, right? So you’ve got to hit 30%. If you want to earn commission, so 30 to 39, you would get a 10% Commission on products sold 40 to 49, you would get 12% Commission on product sold and then 50. and above, you would get 15% Commission on product sold. So when you’re doing 50%, retail the service, you know, you can be selling a pretty significant amount of product. So the more you’re making, the more you’re earning. And it really allows for some pretty significant add ups on your paycheck for the aesthetician and also on top of the fact that there’s in meta statics and a lot of other kind of industry journals and magazines. They’ve done studies that show that if a client purchases three or more retail products from you, there’s like a 90% likelihood that they’ll be returning for an additional service. So it’s really important for us as spa owners to you know, recommend skincare. We want to recommend those skincare products because we want them to use professional products. We want them to reach their skincare goals as fast as possible. But we also want them to continue to come back and see us as clients. Okay.

48:48

I had a question. Yes, Danielle. So this is the structure that you just listed out. For like the retail to service percentages, is that more on an individual basis when they use it in the review before one tire is breakdown?

49:09

Yeah, so each provider, so your, you should be tracking retail the service as a spa, as the entire spa. But you’re also going to be tracking each individual provider for what they are bringing in their individual retail the service percentage, and that’s how they’re earning their commissions. 

49:29

Now I have a question for you. Did you ever encounter any conflicts as I certainly have working at other med spas where you know, people will be fighting over clients or, or indicating that they are the ones who recommended those products prior and so, again, …gets caddies…You can find it ensure that that type of atmosphere doesn’t happen.

49:55

Yeah, it’s charting. So it needs to go in the notes. So the second that you recommend those products, your patient, then whatever EMR you’re using, you need to document here was our conversation. Like for me, every time I would chart and this goes, if you’re in a baseball or Med Spa, even the day spas, you have like a note section, right? So you’re going to document in there, we talked about, you know, here’s what we did, here’s what I saw in her skin. And here’s the products that I recommended. And then also, I would include personal notes, like, they’re going on vacation, or their kids names, or this or whatever, just so I would have a talking point when they came back, because they’re coming back in four to six weeks, I’m not going to remember every detail of our conversation, right? But if you have that written down, then you can go back and check. So this goes back to that employee handbook piece, where you’re clearly stating, here’s our policy for how you earn commissions. And the person that it’s either the person that recommends the product, or it’s the person that actually closes the sale. And, you know, you you get to choose as the business owner what your specific policy is. And then you also get to decide, does that provider continue to earn commissions each time they repurchase? So what I noticed is that we in a lot of the spots that I worked in, it was whoever closed the sale. So you can recommend something and that’s great. But if they’re not actually taking action to purchase, then it’s whoever gets them to purchase gets that sale, and then we’ll continue to have the the Commission’s earned every time that they repurchase. Does. Does that answer your question? Vivian.

51:58

Yes, it does and have another question to follow. Did you ever give options for clients to choose their provider?

52:08

It depends. So the spas that I worked at, and we would do consultations. And so we would just kind of they would come in for an initial consultation. And then we would put them with whatever the time, the provider that the time made the most sense for when that patient wanted to come in. And if someone was referred, and requested that specific person, then 100%, they can go with whoever they request. 

52:40

Thank you. 

52:41

You’re welcome. 

52:42

Oh, one more question. Sorry for the questions. So now with ease, in terms of charting has in the past, I believe just had separate file folders for every single client. But nowadays, do you find that the easiest thing to do is to do with electronically.

53:01

I think that’s a personal choice of the practice. And so I know in, in medical spas, you’re required, you’re required to chart and depending on your state, when I was in Hawaii, it was we had to keep the charts, I think for seven years. And so it just depending on the size of your practice, I mean, we’re a multi seven figure practice. And so that was a lot of charts, right. So switching to electronic, really created a lot more space and was a lot easier to kind of document different things. But I personally am such a pen and paper, kind of girl. That for me, I like to actually write notes, because sometimes I’ll draw little pictures. You know, if I’m like marking, we had like, a progress note that had the face and so we could mark like locations on the face and different things like that. That was really helpful personally for me, so so I don’t have a black and white answer for that. I think it’s going to be really what makes the most sense for how your team works.

54:17

I mean, awesome. Thank you so much. 

54:18

Yeah, yeah.

54:22

Okay, so Megan was saying, what would you suggest for training benefits? Is it customary to offer them a certain amounts of put towards ongoing training? 

54:32

Yes. And so I don’t know if it’s customary, but I definitely think that that’s, that is such a benefit and the things that motivate us as entrepreneurs is very different than what motivates people as employees. So a lot of times employees are looking for a place where they can get experience where they can get developed, where they can grow and in our industry, especially I’m like, gosh, I’ve been in this industry 14, 15 years now, I learned something new every day, every day, there’s something you know. And so there’s constant ongoing training that we have to do to stay on top of the game. And so I think that, even using that as a bonus, like, hey, whoever, um, you know, this quarter, if we hit our quarterly goal, I’m going to send the team to this spa show, or I’m going to do, you know, provide X amount of dollars for ongoing education, whatever it is, right? And when we all start going to spa shows and all those things again, right. And so I think that, that is absolutely an important and very motivating piece for people to join your team.

55:53

Okay, and then. Penny change in a handbook and resign after hiring. Yes, 100%. So, a handbook is a living document, which is why we keep it on Google Drive, because it can change every week, it can change every month. And I suggest getting the the main framework with all of your policies, all of your procedures, etc, kind of filled in and mapped out. And then what I want you to do is, it’s, you want to have it numbered, right, you want the pages numbered. And so if you find out like, oh, here’s a problem, here’s something that we have an area of opportunity for us to address, and we need to create a policy around this, then what you want to do is just go in and update that specific page, reprint that page, and then have them sign that. And then would you hire someone for front desk, also completing as decisions will assume 100%, 100%. I think that that, so I’m a big believer in, everybody should know how to do everything. And when you, the you guys, the front desk is one of the hardest positions in the entire spa. That is you want, it takes a special person to do a great job at the front desk. And they’re the first person that your client is going to see they’re the last person that your client is going to see. You want that person to be warm and friendly, and conversational and helpful and all of these things. And so having an aesthetician up there, they can understand how to do the booking, they can start to get to know the clients. Right? So then when they do go in and practice if something does come up, where you know, what if your front desk person calls out sick, what if they’re having to quarantine for a period of time, like whatever is going on? Right? You have a backup, you’re not saying oh man, now I have to go in and do the front desk or, you know, it’s gonna be crazy. You have someone as a backup. So I think that that’s awesome. 

58:18

And do I believe in hiring and choose? Yes. If your business financially can afford it 100% it’s going to save you so much time, you can do the entire employee handbook onboarding piece in one city, right? So you go so you’re not like explaining the policies and procedures, you have both of them there at the same time. And here’s another thing, I just did a facebook live in our free Facebook group about this. But use your vendors, like have the software company come in and do a training for that, that you’re using, have your product dress come in and do trainings for them. So because it’s a lot to really understand, like, what is this product line about? What are each of the skews you know, what is each thing do? What is our company believe is the best vitamin C what is our company believe is the best cleanser for oily skin because that’s another thing, right? Like, you don’t want to have different people in your business recommending different products. 

59:24

And so having the companies your vendors do an initial like high level overview training, and then you coming in and saying, Okay, great, you understood like the capacity, what this booking software can do and how to find reports and how to do the basics. But here’s how we also use it and here’s where we put the notes in and here’s how we confirm appointments and whatever you know, like giving them all of those pieces out there. But whatever you can do in twos. If you’re having them both do the vendor trainings at the same time. It’s gonna save you so much time.

1:00:08

Any other questions? 

1:00:09

Daniella. Yeah, I was speaking of because right now I have to I need a friend, this person. One of my ads was doing it on her days off, but she started doing more work. So I guess my question was about hiring too, I have two young ladies that are about to finish aesthetician school. They both have from this experience, but they can kind of work opposite days because of school. So that’s what I was wondering. And then I could see, you know, one may not work out, we may not mix well, or at least I still have one, that that’s what are kind of meant by that.

1:00:44

By that too. Yeah, I think it’s great. 

1:00:47

Okay.

1:00:48

 You’ll think it’s great. Because the front desk, I think that’s a really underestimated position, have the value people are like, Oh, I need another provider, so that they can do services. But look, guys, if you have a front desk person, they can be rebooking, they can be selling products, they can be calling clients, they can be creating SOPs for you, they can be cleaning, there’s so many things that a front desk person can do. And it also just brings a new level of professionalism to your business. So I’m a big fan of having a front desk, I think it takes a lot off of your plate as the provider and as the owner. And I also think that you know, with, with booking, like how we’re operating spas in COVID, with needing more time between appointments for sanitation, and etc. Like, if you have a precast person, you’re going to be able to, to shorten that a bit. Because think if you’re like having to book and check them out, and then go and clean, and then check in the person, you can, you can cut that probably in half, where you’re going and cleaning and sanitizing the room. The the front desk person is booking their appointment, talking with them not making them feel rushed, right, all of those things. So it’s it really is a huge benefit. 

1:02:14

Okay, so that’s probably where I’ve been going wrong, because all of my but I hadn’t had a front desk person for a while because all of my staff was checking their own client out. But I was providing extra time for that, that this taken away from treatments to. 

1:02:28

Yep, because you’re people that are already if you bring in a front desk person that just think if each person could see one more client per day, if you were able to tighten up that schedule.

1:02:41

Okay. 

1:02:42

Yeah, looking at it that way. 

1:02:44

Okay, so let’s see, Megan has another question. What expectations can I have on someone who’s paid hourly? To learn product information, etc? Should they be expected to do this on their own time? Or should they have time during work hours? 

1:02:56

If they’re an employee, they should have time during their work hours. So it is it that is definitely something that they’re required to, like, you cannot ask someone to do something in their own time without paying them. And does it happen 100%. But you can’t require it. So you can say, here’s all the information. And if you’re interested or eager and learning more about the line, this is, you know, what we expect. And like, I did stuff like that all the time, when I was still practicing, like, I would always read about things on my own time go to trainings on my own time. Because it made me a much better provider, it made me much better at my job. But you can’t require to do so someone to do something on their own time without paying them. Okay.

1:03:54

I have one question …so I just want to know your thoughts and everyone else’s thoughts on in terms of like boundaries of duties. So, previous med spas that I worked at, we all talk you know, half an hour to an hour, every morning and right after closing the clients are gone. She do some general cleaning duties like mopping and sweeping and putting things back. What are your thoughts on that? You know, if there was a professional cleaner coming in once a week but would you say that only my employees very unhappy if I expect that? 

1:04:33

I think you put it in the job description. 

1:04:36

Okay.

1:04:36

If that’s something that the role requires, when you’re creating the offer letter when you’re creating the job description. here’s here’s what we expect as an aesthetician you perform the treatments you perform the opening and closing procedures, our closing procedures includes laundry, sweeping, dusting, mopping, right so it’s it goes back to that clear communication from the beginning of what is the job description? What is required in the role? They have the opportunity to say yes or no, it’s not like you’re throwing something on them that’s unexpected. You’ve communicated what the job is from the beginning. So I think that, you know, if you’re in a position now that it’s like, hey, I’ve already got employees, I need to adjust, you know, the, the language, then you just in a team meeting, say, Hey, here’s some updated policies. You know, if anyone has any questions or concerns, please feel free to come to me. But this is what is expected as part of closing procedures, but I don’t think it’s unheard of at all, to have a close out of like, we’ve got a vacuum we’ve got to wipe down, especially in COVID. Right, that just like even more you know, we’ve always as an industry, I think, had exceptional standards on sanitation. were trained in sanitation. I’ve never met in a sufficient that’s like, I don’t care about sanitation, right, where we’re very clean people. And so now especially with COVID, I think that by just saying, Hey, this is what we’re doing to make sure that our clients are as safe as possible. Because if we number one don’t want to put any of you know, us at risk or our families at risk our clients at Red Sprite. So this is just an important part of doing of operating business. Alright, so we are at time for this call. Is there any other questions that I can answer before we sign off?

1:06:45

All right, well, you guys tag me in the group if you have any, anything related to hiring or any of that kind of stuff, and just I will go and look at your post here in a minute and give you a loom. But I hope that this helped. I hope that you guys found value and I’m excited to watch you grow. It’s an exciting time to be in spa. 

1:07:06

Hey, talk to you soon. 

1:07:09

As always, if you want to keep the conversation going, I want you to head on over to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group. The number one free resource out there for aestheticians focused on business building. We’ve got weekly marketing tips, a monthly goal setting and planning session monthly aesthetician business book club, plus a community of thousands of aestheticians committed to business building in the spa industry. I’ll see you there.

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