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Catch the Latest Episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy

As a spa professional, one of the biggest keys to creating a life you love is getting more clients in the door. Easier said than done, right? With the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast, you can get all the tools you need. Join host Daniela Woerner, licensed esthetician, to get simple, proven strategies for marketing your spa business.

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EP 245: Running Your Business Like a Fortune 500 CEO with Kendra Lewis

Just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean you can’t operate like the big name brands in the way you streamline and structure your business. 

In fact, taking notes from Fortune 500 CEOs is a great way to see where the cracks lie in your business foundation and how you can seal them to be able to grow your business to be a strong entity that doesn’t rely on your sheer willpower to be the support beams that keep it standing. 

And here to shed light on what those key Fortune 500 factors are is Kendra Lewis aka The Boss Architect and a repeat guest here on Spa Marketing Made Easy. 

Kendra has 10+ years of experience helping entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies launch, grow, and scale their businesses, and she has coached over 100 small businesses through successful launches and helped them to acquire millions in funding collectively. 

Kendra and her groundbreaking methods are a force and have been featured in outlets like ABC, Fox, NBC, Yahoo Finance, Black Enterprise, and The New York Weekly. 

So, all that said, it’s pretty clear that she’s a boss, and that’s why she’s The Boss Architect. 

In this episode, we discuss: 

  •  The differences between small businesses and Fortune 5000 companies and where we can draw inspiration from in their practices 
  • What are the things we should be focusing on in our business as the high-level CEO
  • How foundational elements like core values, brand experience and target customer drive nearly all of your operations
  • Why thinking like  a Fortune 500 CEO matters for your business trajectory and how to shift your mindset into that role 

References Mentioned in Episode #245: Running Your Business Like a Fortune 500 CEO 

As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

 

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!

 

If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

Episode Transcript


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EP 244: From Solo Aesthetician to Retired Spa Owner in 18 Months with Andrea Klein

She launched her spa’s brick and mortar location at the end of 2019 as a solo aesthetician, experienced two shutdowns of her spa in 2020 due to the pandemic, and today, has completely removed herself from the treatment room, and essentially has retired herself from her spa. 

And these days, she’s gearing up to launch a skincare brand that’s going to change the lives of women all over the world. 

In this episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy, I had the honor of interviewing my client, student, and friend, Andrea Klein. 

Together, we’re going behind-the-scenes of her 18-month journey from solo aesthetician to spa CEO including the highs and lows, the key steps that made it possible, plus the things she wishes she would’ve done sooner. 

Andrea’s story is one that I just cherish because it’s a story of possibility, of seeing the staircase and taking it one step at a time, and finding passion and purpose in the journey. 

When you read a headline like “From Solo Aesthetician to Retired Spa Owner in 18 Months” and think, “I want to know how to do that…,” the first step is simply understanding that it IS possible. 

And as you’ll hear in Andrea’s story, seeing possibility for and within herself was a big piece of her own journey. 

In this episode, you’ll hear: 

  • Andrea’s journey from opening her spa in late 2019 to today and all the highs and lows along the journey from starting as a solo to now being retired from her brick and mortar.
  • What mindset shifts Andrea had to make throughout the process and what tactical steps she took to make steady and incremental process
  • How stepping out of the treatment room has provided the freedom and space to focus on new ventures, specifically, Andrea’s new brand, Liberté Skincare Company
  • Andrea’s biggest insights, takeaways and tips from what she’s learned along her journey, what she would do differently, and what she would tell anyone hearing her story today who hopes to be in a similar position as a spa CEO

References Mentioned in Episode #244: From Solo Aesthetician to Retired Spa Owner in 18 Months with Andrea Klein

As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

 

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!

 

If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

Episode Transcript


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      EP 243: 5 Mistakes Keeping You from Becoming a Million Dollar Spa

      Do you have a dream of owning a spa that brings in a minimum of a million dollars in revenue per year? 

      What about a million in profit? 

      Both of those dreams are a million percent achievable, however, if you’re finding yourself stuck at a certain income level or even questioning how you can make that possible, this episode of Spa Marketing Made is for you! 

      Tune in as I talk about the 5 key mistakes you might be making that are holding you back from becoming that million dollar business owner and how we can course correct to step further into the role of spa CEO. 

      In this episode, you’ll learn:

      • The top mindset shifts you need to make in order to transition into thinking like a million dollar business owner 
      • My top tips and sources for finding virtual support and why delegating is key for any spa CEO
      • Why digital marketing is non-negotiable for your spa and the critical pieces you need to have in place to make sure receive an ROI from your digital marketing efforts
      • The key metrics you need to understand to have a clear picture of your spa’s financial state currently and where you need to set your goals to get to a million

      Resources Mentioned in Episode #243: 5 Mistakes Keeping You from Becoming a Million Dollar Spa

       

      As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

       

      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!

       

      If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked!

      Episode Transcript


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      EP 242: Developing Into the Best Leader for Your Business and Your Team with Desarae Marhofer

      Team-building and development is by far one the most challenging hurdles a spa owner has to face as they grow. 

      Whether you started as a solo practitioner, as many spa owners do, or you began with a team, refining your leadership skills is an ongoing journey. 

      However, as my guest describes in this episode, there is typically that one pivotal point that shifts your whole trajectory. 


      Here to join me on this episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy is Desarae Marhofer, a passionate aesthetician entrepreneur with 15+ years of specialized skincare experience, which includes owning and operating a full service esthetics studio as well as an aesthetician school. 

      Together we talk about her journey from solo to team leader to studio + school owner and what lessons she’s learned along the way in becoming the best leader you can be for your business and your team. 

      In this episode, we discuss: 

      • When Desarae jumped from being a solo to having her first team member and how that was the turning point for momentous growth in her skincare studio
      • How holding back on hiring team members created missed opportunities and how she navigated retention troubles as her business and team expanded 
      • The critical mindset shifts Desarae needed to make as the leader of her business to help shift the culture of her team and get them onboard with her bigger vision
      • Her tops tips for developing those leadership skills internally and externally

      References Mentioned in Episode #242: Developing Into the Best Leader for Your Business and Your Team with Desarae Marhofer 

      As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

       

      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!

       

      If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

      Episode Transcript


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      EP 241: Focusing Your Efforts for Efficiency and to Meet Your Exit Strategy

      Think having an exit strategy only applies in corporate or for Silicon Valley start-ups? 

      Think again! 

      Even as a spa owner operating a small business, you need a game plan for what’s going to happen when you step away from the business, whether that be through reaching the traditional age of retirement or pivoting into purely the owner role without any of the operational work.


      The beauty is that the future of your business is up to you, but the tough part is that if you want to see that future vision become a reality, you have to make a plan for it and start working toward it today, even if that end goal is still 10 years from now. 

      In this episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy, I’ll be giving you some insight into how to think about your exit strategy and steps to take now to begin working towards it. 

      In this episode, you’ll learn: 

      • Why delegating and releasing yourself of the busy work in your business is the key to unlocking your time freedom
      • What you can do to get busy work off your plate and a step-by-step walkthrough on how to delegate one of the biggest time-wasting tasks in your business
      • How to determine your exit strategy and what needs to be factored into your plan 
      • Why having an exit strategy is for every business owner, even if you never plan to sell 

       

      References Mentioned in Episode #241: Focusing Your Efforts for Efficiency to Meet Your Exit Strategy

      As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

       

      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!

       

      If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

      EPISODE TRANSCRIPT



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      EP 240: Balancing Business and Family as a High Achiever with Dr. Gina Charles

      While many spa owners and aestheticians differ in their niches, specialties, and goals for their career, if there’s one thing most of us have in common, it’s that we’re a big group of Type-A, high-achievers. 🙋🏻‍♀️

      Now, I believe that largely boils down to the nature of aesthetics as a science and practice (you have to be someone that strives for results and can see the big picture as well as the minute details), but what often makes us outstanding aestheticians, doesn’t translate to other areas, particularly that of being focused CEOs. 

      Yes, CEOs are almost always “high achievers,” yet the difference between the practitioner and the CEO is that a practitioner is typically stuck in the weeds due to a lack of planning or systems. 


      Thus, those high-achieving tendencies actually leave us burning the candle on both ends, and eventually burning out. 

      However, that doesn’t have to be your truth or reality, and as my guest on this episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy exemplifies – we can achieve a variety of big, audacious goals when we intentionally step into the role of leader and invite balance between our careers and home lives. 

      So who is my Wonder Woman of a guest you ask? 


      Introducing Dr. Gina Charles – she is the CEO of Serenity Aesthetics & Wellness, a boutique aesthetics practice in Philadelphia, as well as the co-founder of Ade & Gina Studios, a wedding makeup and photography studio she operates with her husband, as well as being a wife and mom to two young children.

      Essentially, Dr. G is a prime example of what’s possible as a high-achieving woman. 

      Tune in to hear her unique path to her career in aesthetics and what steps she takes to effectively and efficiently stay on top of her game. 

      In this episode, we discuss:

      •  How Dr. Gina got her start in the world of beauty business ownership while simultaneously completing medical school and how her two passions of medicine and makeup have fused together to create a truly purpose- and passion-driven company
      • The key steps in her process to set and ensure that she’s successfully meeting her lofty goals for her life and businesses
      • Dr. Gina’s top tips for calendar management and home-based systems so that she can be fully focused on family when not at work 
      • Why leadership and delegation is such a critical piece to a high-achievers’ success and the mindset piece that keeps Dr. Gina ground through her journey to achieve new benchmarks

      References Mentioned in Episode #240: Balancing Business and Family as a High Achiever with Dr. Gina Charles

       

      As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

       

      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!

       

      If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

      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, Daniela here and welcome to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. Hey, have you marked your calendar for this Aesthetic Marketing Seminar online event. It’s happening September 20th and 21st. And you do not want to miss it. If you are a Growth Factor student, Spa Retail Rockstar student or Post with Purpose student you get a free ticket, nothing you need to do, we’ll be sending out information as it gets closer. But our AMS is known to be packed with actionable to-do’s and strategies that are working right now. To take your business to the next level, we never teach the same information twice, we focus on what is working now, what’s going on right now that you can do to take your business to the next level. Now if you’re not a student of ours and you’d like to attend, you can grab a ticket for only $97. And while all the material both days will be taught live and we encourage you to attend live, you will be getting the recording so you can go back and review the material as often as you’d like. Save the date now and more information will be coming very soon. That’s September 20th and 21st. 

      01:35

      Okay, so I have a really great interview for you today. Have you ever met someone who almost seems superhuman? Someone that you’re saying, Oh my gosh, how do they do it? Well, we all have we all have those people in our lives. And today’s guest is certainly a high performer. Her name is Dr. Gina Charles. I’ve been following her on Instagram for a while I love her messaging. I always feel uploaded, uplifted, uploaded from her post. She is a lover of systems. So of course, we are going to be best friends. Dr. G is a physician, she owns serenity and wellness medical spa in Philadelphia. She owns a photography and bridal makeup business with her husband. And she has two little kids like little like the same age as mine. So of course, I was like, Oh my gosh, how is this woman doing everything and looking beautiful and rested at the same time.

      02:34

      So I wanted to bring her on to share her story because I think obviously what she’s accomplished is very impressive. But I wanted to uncover the way that she thinks the actions that she takes both in her personal and professional life to accomplish these goals, right? Because being an entrepreneur, it can feel so overwhelming sometimes. And especially when you throw family and other responsibilities into the mix. So what are these individuals? What is she doing to accomplish these big goals? What is she doing differently? How is she thinking how she acting, what she’s spending her time doing? Those are the types of things that we chatted about in this interview. And of course, I was not surprised when she started telling me about the very clear systems and processes that she uses both in her personal and professional life. So let me just do a quick read of her bio, and then we’ll jump right into the interview. 

      03:30

      So Dr. Gina Charles also known as Dr. G is a Board Certified family physician, entrepreneur, skincare expert and fierce advocate for women’s health and wellness as a respected voice in the medical and beauty community educating diverse audiences. Dr. Gina serves as a mentor for women in STEM, particularly in the areas of health and beauty. She got her start in the beauty industry several years ago during medical school, where she would do bridal makeup as a side hustle as well as provide makeup services to breast cancer patients as a pick me up. Currently Dr. Gina is the CEO of Serenity Aesthetics and Wellness, a boutique esthetics practice in Philadelphia where she’s fused her love for beauty and medicine. Additionally she and her husband own and operate aid and Gina studios, a wedding makeup and photography studio They have two children ages five and one when it comes to entrepreneurship and life in general Dr. Gina believes in putting systems in place so the work is executed effectively. Okay, amen love that. Alright guys, so enjoy this interview. Be sure to follow Dr. G she’s got some awesome post on Instagram. And let me know if you have any questions just tag us over in the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group. Alright, without further ado, let’s play that interview. 

      04:51

      All right, Dr. G. Dr. Gina Charles, so excited to have you here on the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast you have such an incredible story. I know that our listeners are just going to be wowed. And I love to have stories of other women who are doing big things, to show that it’s possible. Right? It’s you can have a great career, you can have a family, there’s ways to do it and ways to approach your life to get the things that you want. And and I’ve been following you on Instagram for I would say that you’ve been popping up in my feed for at least a year now. And I love your posts. I love your messaging. I love. I feel so aligned with the things that you’re saying I see the post. I’m like, Yes, that’s so. So I was so excited when you agreed to come on as a guest on the podcast.

      05:48

      Thank you for having me.

      05:50

      Yeah. So tell me, tell me a little bit of background of, you know, how did you get into? So you’re a physician? Did you always know that you wanted to do kind of the wellness route? Or did you want to get into family practice first? Like, how did you blend all of that?

      06:11

      Sure. So it’s actually interesting. When I was in medical school, well, actually, before medical school, I would assist a friend of mine in weddings. So I was in graduate school at the time, and she was doing bridal makeup, and I would just go and help her clean brushes and things like that just to make some extra cash during graduate school. And then I started learning how to do makeup application during that time. And then by the time I got to medical school, I started doing makeup on cancer patients as a pick me up, just to help boost their self esteem, because there have been studies that show that beauty care really do help with patient satisfaction, as well as outcomes. So I started doing it with cancer patients. And my husband, who is a professional photographer, wedding photographer, had a wedding and they need a makeup artist. So he’s there. Well, Gina, can you do the makeup for this bride? And I’m like, well, I’ve never done a bride’s makeup before. And I love a challenge. So I said, Yes, I’ll do it. So I did the bride’s makeup. And it was amazing. I got great reviews from her and her family. And from then I started doing makeup. On the side as a medical student working alongside my husband, and one of my friends in medical school. She said, You know what, in a couple years from now, I can see you having a med spa. And I said, What is that? I don’t know what that is. And she explained what a med spa was. And I said, Oh, God, that sounds so cool. And at the time, I didn’t really put too much thought into it at all. I knew that I wanted to go into family medicine, because I love the variety of Family Medicine as a family doctor, I’m able to see a variety of patients from the young ones to the older ones, I can do women’s health, and still have a great mix within my practice. So that’s why I went into family practice. And then it just so happens that several of my brides were asking for help with skin and getting their skin prepared for weddings. And I decided you know what, I need formal education. So I am a licensed physician, let me go and take the necessary coursework, I enrolled into several courses and aesthetics and skincare and business to really be able to provide my clients with optimal service. So they were able to get makeup, makeup application, they were able to get skincare, get started on a skincare regimen, get started with a treatment plan. And I was able to follow their journey for several months leading up to their wedding and even after their wedding. So that is how my love for beauty kind of transformed into this business where I was able to fuse the passions of medicine, makeup, beauty into one. So…

      09:23

      Do you realize what a unique skill set that is? I mean, because you have the the right like I’ve met I’ve worked with so many physicians over the past 15 years that I’ve been in this industry. And physicians tend to be incredibly skilled at a specific thing with quality care with their patient, right. But they’re typically not great business people. They’re typically not creative, right? So and they typically don’t know very much about skincare. Especially it’s like derms know how to solve the problem, they know how to treat the condition, but when it comes into understanding skincare ingredients and building regimens, they, they have to learn about it. And for you, you have this incredible like you have the the knowledge of and training of being a physician and understanding how the body works. But you also have the artistic side of understanding, you know, the makeup, the beauty, the aesthetic, so it is like this perfect, perfect mix, which is so, so interesting to me. I love that. I love that. 

      10:39

      Okay, so you have the you have a wellness center in Philadelphia, you have your photography business, you also have a five year old and a one year old. So tell me, you are clearly someone who knows how to get what they want. So how do you how do you set goals? How do you? How far in advance? Are you planning for things like when you were going to medical school? Was that only what was on your mind? or How are you saying like, I want this for myself? And here’s what I’m going to do to create it?

      11:14

      Right. So that’s actually a really good question. In order to effectively put all of these things into place that I’ve done over the years, I had to set goals. And I set daily goals, monthly goals and annual goals. And this is something that I continuously do. And the goals are typically something that is measurable. And oftentimes, I am going back and checking, have I done this? Have I done that? How can I improve? So when it comes to the family, same thing, I knew that I did not want to start a family during medical school because I really wanted to just focus on my studies. But during residency, we got married. And, you know, we decided to start a family then. So I had my daughter in my cheap year. And having children as you know, can be difficult with managing a business, I belong to businesses. So I’ve definitely had to put quite a few systems in place. And this year, especially after having my son, who’s now 13 months, put systems into place so that I can still provide attention to the children, my husband, and then business.

      12:37

      So when we’re talking and you know, this is my love language here as we’re getting into systems. But as we’re talking about being a present mom, because I see on your Instagram too, like you’re out, I just saw you like hiking up a waterfall like the whole thing. And you have to have systems for even for like, what’s for dinner? How are we going to do our grocery shopping? How are we going to do time management, like all of your systems for your personal life, but also for your professional life? And, and really understanding and I’m curious what your thought processes are how you do calendar management because I know so many of our listeners out there saying I have these goals, I have these dreams, I have no time because my kids, are because of my current job or whatever it is. There’s always like some level of excuse. But you hear that quote, like we all have the same number of hours in a day is Oprah. Right? And it is time is… yeah. So how do how do what’s the difference in the way that those women have built their dreams and follow their dreams? Right? Because they all everybody starts out as just a normal person. It’s choices that we make and how we choose to spend our time. And they’re still normal people, they just have managed they they have a talent and they’ve been able to capitalize on that talent. Every single person listening to this episode has a talent, right? It’s doesn’t mean that you have to be a movie star or a singer or whatever. It’s how are you going to capitalize on your talent manage your time to reach your specific dreams yours going to medical school having a family right like that’s a it’s a big piece and understanding thought process and and choices and maybe it’s an accountability question. I don’t know. What do you think?

      14:35

      So? It’s, it’s, um, definitely multifactorial. So the first thing is, when it comes to personal or business, you definitely want to start with taking inventory. Taking inventory of the things that you need to get done. So whether when it’s personal things that you need to get done at home, literally making a list when It’s professional in your business, making a list of all of the tasks that you have to do. Now, when you look at all of these tasks, you, you then want to prioritize Oh, well, what’s really important to me? What do I not? What do I not want to do? And you start to prioritize things, okay, so these few things are important to me. And I really want to get these done. These are important, but they’re time consuming. And I really don’t feel like doing that. And then you start to look at ways that you can delegate those tasks. So for me, food shopping, I know it’s important, but it’s not something that I really want to do, because it’s going to take one to two hours. So in our household, what we’ve done is, my husband will sometimes do the grocery shopping, or we’ll order everything online and do pick up. So we don’t necessarily have to spend one to two hours in the Supermarket and Costco. So the same thing in my business, I look at certain tasks that I need to get done. And see, well, for example, social social media. 

      16:16

      Social media is a huge part of marketing. Some people love to sit on Instagram, and Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter, and respond and post etc. But if you have your business, and you have these little ones, you may not have time to spend on social media. And I have learned that because I’ve learned that when I spend so much time focusing on social media, that it’s taking time away from, you know, going on a trail with my children, or even sitting and watching Netflix. So something that I’ve done is delegate to a social media manager, someone who can post from the business for me, so that I could spend more time with the family. So when it comes to your love language systems, I think the number one thing is taking inventory and then delegating based on the inventory.

      17:09

      Now I was listening to a really interesting podcast, it was Rory Vaden, who was a guest on Lewis Howes podcast. He’s been I’ve heard him speak a couple of times. But he has a, he has talking about a new way of thinking. So you’re saying in the 50s, we started worrying about efficiency. And then in the 80s and 90s, Dr. Covey, Dr. Stephen Covey, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he talks about importance and then prioritizing what’s urgent, what’s important and kind of listing out how we are productive and make our choices. And today he’s, he’s been studying Rory has been studying multimillionaires and billionaires who have accomplished great things and really trying to understand their thinking. And what he was saying is that these people that have accomplished such great levels of success, whether you’re a professional athlete, whether you’re a business owner, what you know, just in whatever your arena is, they’re thinking about, what can I do today, that’s going to give me more time tomorrow. So focusing on anytime that you can create a system for something, anytime that you can automate something. And I think the problem that so many people get stuck in is, it’s only gonna take me five minutes. So I’ll just do it myself. So have you ever had that struggle of, it’s only gonna take me five minutes? I’ll do it myself? Or how do you know like, cake, I’m going to, it’s going to probably take me some time to train my social media manager. But I know that that’s going to give me more return once I get them trained.

      18:54

      Yeah, so I definitely struggle with that initially in business. I thought that I could do everything myself. And as most solo entrepreneurs do, when starting a business, you think that you can do everything yourself, this is only going to take five minutes, this will take 10 minutes. But when you look at the list of tasks that we have to do, that five and 10 minutes, adds up to about 12 to 13 hours in the day. And after a while you find yourself burning out, and burning out within your business. And that’s something that we don’t want to do. Right? So I learned that earlier on and I said, You know what, I’m going to have to put something into place so that I’m not burning out in business, you know, when it comes to writing my blog posts or updating my website, do I necessarily want to do that all the time? No. So I have someone who can update the website who manages the website throughout the year. I have someone to do the email as a virtual assistant, who does the email listing on newsletters and things like that. So, again, looking at that list, I was able to delegate tasks to various people on my team. So that is not all falling on me, because I saw myself burning out in the beginning. And I said, you know, you’re going to fail at business, if you want to do everything yourself, and I am a type A personality. So initially, I wanted everything done my way I want it to be done, right. But the good thing about leadership is that you need to be able to choose the right person for the task, and be able to relinquish control, that is the only way that you are going to be able to scale your business and get to that CEO level where you’re more so thinking about the vision, as opposed to working in your business business, like a workhorse all the time.

      20:56

      I couldn’t agree more. 

      20:58

      And trust that person. You know, granted, it’s trial and error, you think you find the right person, and then you find that you have to make some adjustments. But over time, you know, you will be able to communicate your needs, your expectations, and work with that person.

      21:16

      For me, it was getting my team, if they can do it, 80% as good as I can. That was my initial measuring point. Now my team does everything way better than me. So it’s like you, they get you, yeah, you train them. And then they’re doing that task over and over and over again. And they become much better than you at doing that task. There’s things in my business today. Granted, we’re seven years in, but there’s things in my business today that I don’t even know how to do it, I could go and find a system of how to do it, but I wouldn’t know how to do it, because my team has ownership. And that is what I personally believe gives you the freedom that so many entrepreneurs are looking for, they think, Oh, I’m going to start my own company, I’m gonna have this freedom and flexibility and financial growth. And if you’re holding on to, I need to do everything myself, you’re trapping yourself in a little box of, you know, never having that time to go hike on waterfalls with your kids, or, you know, like, I know, my son’s 15 months, and going through the first year of a baby to begin with. And then during a pandemic, and you know, dealing with the social, like, how do we socialize our kid? And how do we make sure that they get the germs that they actually need without getting bad germs, because they’re building their immune system as well, right. So it’s like, there’s so many things, and run a business when the world is in this state, there’s to be able to, I was so grateful this past year that I am an entrepreneur, and that I do have a team. Because when my son needed me and my daughter during this, just, you know, whatever you want to call it time, I was able to go if my son was having a really hard day, I could say you know what, I’m not going to work today, I’m going to go downstairs, and I’m going to spend time with him because he needs me. And that is my top priority. And that’s something that in most jobs you can’t do. Right. So to be able to get to that space where you can create that for yourself. That for me is priceless. That’s more important than any amount of money I can make is having that true freedom, time freedom, that time freedom. And that lifestyle freedom, you know, is just so so important. I think that’s why I love systems so much is because I value that more than anything. 

      23:53

      So that’s also a great quality of a leader.

      23:57

      Is is what? passing, passing control to their team that says, oh, put systems in place. Yeah. So where do you find that two things? I’m really curious about where do you find inspiration for yourself? Like what inspires you? Are you are you scheduling time into your week to read books to you know, attend different trainings, like, spend time in nature, whatever, whatever it does that inspires you? How do you plan for that? And let’s just let’s ask that first. And then my next question is going to be how do you hold yourself accountable? Because it’s so easy as women, to put our kids to put our family to put our clients anybody in front of ourselves and what our goals are?

      24:51

      Yeah, so that’s actually a really good question. And it’s something that as a wife, a mother, a business person, physician, it’s a constant battle. Because on the weekends, I look at the week ahead, I look at my schedule, I look at my calendar, I’m really big on having my book with a calendar as well as my Google Calendar. And I look at that, to see what days I have nothing to do, I made sure that there’s one to two days in the week where there’s nothing. And that is when I actually have time to myself, if there’s something to do that day, I find that I end up doing more things that day. And I’m not able to do for myself. So for instance, maybe a Friday. And if I’m not in the office, if I’m not seeing patients at the time, and my schedule is blank, I’ll do things like go swimming, I started taking it, I took up swimming this year, so that I could learn how to swim. And if it’s not swimming, it’s just going outside, taking a walk around the block, you know, or going for a drive.

      26:08

      She like to do something physical. 

      26:12

      Yeah, being physical. I love dancing. Sometimes I come down here to my office at home and dance what my daughter wants to join me because she loves dancing as well. 

      26:21

      We have all kinds of dance parties at our house. 

      26:25

      Right, right. And it also burns them out a little bit so they can take a nap later. When it comes to reading books, I will tell you that I have not been able to read as many books as I would like. But I do listen to several audiobooks. And I listen to audiobooks on my drive. I’m a subscriber to to Audible, so I will listen to books on my drive. So that’s how I get a bit of books. And then in terms of in terms of reading articles, and things like that. I’m always reading articles, believe it or not 2am, 3am when I read the articles, when my son wakes up to nurse, so I’ll just be nursing and I’m reading, you know, just a random article on my phone at the time. 

      27:22

      Wow. 

      27:23

      So is he’s just waking up once in the night?

      27:27

      Yes, he wakes up once in the night. It’s around the top of that my daughter. So we are training her to wake up at night to use the bathroom. So it’s around the same time that she wakes up to use the bathroom. 

      27:41

      Wow.

      27:42

      It’s a little pop hour.

      27:45

      Good for you. I nursed until Luca, my son’s name is Luca, I nursed him until 13 months. And then I was like, Okay, I’m done. That’s all I can do. And the I mean, I know it’s so important. And I’m so supportive of women that can go longer than the year. But for me that was that was such a freedom to sleep through the night, through the whole night and not have to wake up to to nurse.

      28:15

      It’s I’m looking forward to that as well. I’m totally looking forward to that. My daughter went 26 months. I don’t know how long this one will go. But I am looking forward to sleeping a full night. It’s been 13 months.

      28:30

      But I love that that that’s the reality is like, because there’s so many people out there that’s like, Oh, you know, I can’t because of this, like, you went through medicine, medical school, you have two businesses, you’re still waking up in the middle of the night. Right? But you’re doing it you’re making it happen. So I guess what do you felt like you said, you go outside and take time for yourself? You’re listening to books on Audible. What do you feel like is your biggest driver? What? What is your? What keeps you going every single day? Is that the love of working with patients? Do you have kind of bigger goals that you’re wanting to accomplish for yourself? Are you trying to teach your kids to be the best version of themselves? Like what is it that motivates you every single day? To be a high achiever is just something you’re born with? Or my husband and I have this conversation quite a bit. Can you teach drive? Right? It’s where does it come from.

      29:38

      So I love seeing others happy. And I love seeing results. I’m really results driven. So and I’m a problem solver. So I think my drive comes from being able to make an impact in other’s lives. Whether I I’m getting up, and I’m going to see patients. And it’s like, Okay, well, I’m going to suture today I’m going to, you know, I’m going to cast today or something like that, or I’m going to improve this hyperpigmentation or these wrinkles. Today, I’m doing something to service someone else. And their outcomes is what drives me.

      30:21

      That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. I, I have a feeling that there’s something special inside of you too, though, because it’s, it’s you are clearly a driven person, right? Like you don’t have multiple businesses, you don’t go through medical school without having that push or that drive. I wonder. Tell me about your self care. Because you have a lot of you know, you, you’re very passionate about women’s empowerment. That has to lead to a healthy self confidence. Do you believe that that believing that you can really helps you achieve those things? Yeah.

      31:08

      Yeah, I love that I do affirmations with my daughter every single night for her. 

      31:08

      Absolutely. The thing you you have to believe in yourself in order for you to achieve these things. And I start the day off with positive affirmations. And I learned this from one of my, from a mindset coach years ago when I did on mindset coaching. And initially I was, you know, I was like, Okay, well, I’m just saying these positive affirmations. But after a while, I owned those affirmations every day. And it was empowering me. So now I am on my drive, going into the office, going into the clinic, and I am affirming positivity into my life. So that when I’m when I walk in, I’m not crabby, I am smiling. You are going to get a great version of me because I started my day off. Granted, there are some days that I wake up and I’m just like, last night was terrible, these kids. You know, it can’t always be perfect, right. But positive affirmations have played a huge role in just giving me that empowerment. 

      32:20

      Yeah.

      32:20

      Yeah, yes, we have reasons for my daughter as well. It’s so interesting to hear her say her, say her affirmations at night with her little voice. But it’s definitely going to mean something when our daughters get older. And they have an interview for these jobs. You know, stand in front of boardrooms, etc. and give presentations to classmates. they’ll remember those nights and they will walk in there feeling affirmed. 

      32:50

      Yeah, so true. So in wrapping up. What advice do you have to business owners out there who have these big dreams? What if they’re feeling kind of overwhelmed, stressed? Or like maybe they can’t do it? What if you were ever in their shoes? Like what do you do? What advice do you have any? What are what’s an affirmation that you were that worked very well for you. 

      33:19

      Okay, so in terms of advice, I would say. One, take inventory of all of the tasks that need to get done in your business. Two, delegate those tasks, or prioritize and prioritize those tasks. Three, schedule the tasks to be done throughout the week, not all in one day, and save at least 30 minutes of your day where you are going to block off just for you. The 30 minutes is critical each day. It can be a nap, it can be listening to music, it can be taking a walk outside, that is going to help you to refuel. You cannot always be inundated in your work, emails, spreadsheets, marketing, and making plans for your business. You have to take a step back to refill your cup so to speak. And when it comes to affirmations, I am doing the best that I can and I honor where I am today.

      34:40

      I love that, I’m doing the best that I can and I honor where I’m at today. Because we’re all it’s it’s all a work in progress every single day.

      34:52

      Yeah, and I love it. Absolutely. A lot of times we look at others on social media, you know comparison is that the the thief of joy And a lot of times we look at other people in their businesses. And we’re like, oh, well, I’m not there yet, or, Oh, I should be doing this. No, you’re doing great right now. Enjoy where you are. So that is one affirmation that has really helped to center me so that I’m not comparing myself to everyone, and realizing that I am on this journey, and embracing where I am on the journey and knowing that I’m doing the best that I can right now.

      35:26

      I love that. I love that. So where can people follow you stay in touch with you? I mean, I know I love your Instagram. But is that the is that the best place?

      35:38

      Sure, so people can follow me at Dr. Gina Charles on Instagram. If you are into skincare and aesthetics, you can follow at Serenity Aesthetics and Wellness on Instagram and Facebook. And to get in contact with me you can find me at www.drginacharles.com.

      35:58

      Perfect and we’ll include all those links under the show under the show notes. As always, if you want to keep the conversation going, please head on over to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group and we’ll catch you on the next episode. 

      36:12

      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 estheticians committed to business building in the spa industry. I’ll see you there.

      Read More
      Read More
      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

      *Affiliate Disclaimer – If subscribing or making a purchase through this link, we may receive a small commission. We only affiliate for products and services we wholeheartedly believe in and use. 

      As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

       

      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!

       

      If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

      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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      EP 238: Finding Your Way in the New Facebook / Instagram Ads Landscape with Tara Zirker

      If the recent changes to the Facebook and Instagram ads landscape have left you frustrated, confused, and ready to throw in the towel, I want to encourage you to, first, take a deep breath. 

      Next, plug in your earbuds because today we’re going to kick that mind mess to the curb and get real on what’s really happening with Facebook and Instagram ads.

      And back with me on the mic for this episode of  Spa Marketing Made Easy is the Facebook Ads goddess herself, Tara Zirker! 

      Tara is my dear friend, a multi-time guest here on the podcast, and the founder of Successful Ads Club. 

      Tara has helped her clients and students generate millions of dollars in profit for their businesses, and what I think is most critical, is that she has helped her clients and students do this in the simplest way possible. 

      So, put your woes at ease, Tara is here to give you the real talk on what in the world is going on in ads land plus some major encouragement when it comes to modern day online marketing and advertising. 

      In this episode, we discuss: 

      •  What the new iOS 14 changes mean for business owners looking to run ads and how it will shift your paid ads strategy moving forward
      • The 4 key things to understand about the most recent changes Facebook has made with its advertising platform to comply with the iOS shift and what you need to have in your backpocket as an advertiser on the platform
      • What types of creative elements are currently working best for ads and Tara’s top recommendations on where to spend your time, energy and budget on the Facebook and Instagram platforms 
      • Where Tara sees the digital marketing and paid ads landscape shifting in the next 1-2 years and steps for how we can best be prepared 

      References Mentioned in Episode #238: Finding Your Way in the New Facebook / Instagram Ads Landscape with Tara Zirker

      As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

       

      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!

       

      If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

      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, Daniela here and welcome to another episode of the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I am so excited to welcome back my dear friend and Facebook ads expert, Tara Zirker. She is the founder of successful ads club many of you in the spa industry, I’m sure have heard me talk about her have joined her program to learn about Facebook ads. She’s absolutely incredible and has a ton of knowledge in the spa industry. And she has one of our most downloaded podcast episodes to date. So we thought that it was time to bring her back to talk about these iOS updates to talk about how you can use that as a competitive advantage. And some different low cost ad strategies that you can be utilizing in your business. So tons of information, you’re definitely gonna want to grab a pen and paper, take down some notes, maybe listen to this episode again. So I’m just going to do this super short intro and let you guys just dive right into the good stuff because there is a lot of good stuff. Alright, let’s go ahead and play that interview. 

      01:32

      All right, Tara, welcome back to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. So excited to have you. Here you are. I think you’re in our top three episodes of downloads. 

      01:44

      Oh

      01:44

      How to 10X, 10 ways to 10X revenue with Facebook ads. So that was one of our like, most downloaded most love tongue, tons of questions, tons of actions taken from that episode. And when we asked like, Hey, who do you want to see on the podcast? We were getting DMS requesting to have you back on. So I’m so excited because there has been a lot that has gone on with Facebook and ads. Since that episode. A lot. 

      02:19

      Yes, a lot exclamation mark. 

      02:21

      So why don’t we just just dive right in and start off with these iOS updates? Oh, what is the deal with them? What’s going on? Why do we care?

      02:32

      Okay, elephant in the room, right? Let’s just look after it. All right. So iOS 14, basically, here’s why you care. 80% of people who access Facebook are accessing Facebook by mobile only meaning in a whole year, they’re not logging on one time from their desktop, it is on their phone. So you have to understand Facebook and Instagram. So many of us as business owners, we’re still accessing these things on our desktops, right? Most of the world is not 80% of the world is not 80%. Can you believe that? So now you have to consider if you are an aesthetician in the US in Canada, in the UK, you know all these big countries, most of your traffic about half of it? Well, most of your traffic number one is mobile, and about half of that traffic is going to be from people on their iPhones, people on their iPads, etc. So they’re running off of the iOS platform products, Apple products. And essentially what Apple said was, you know, we don’t really like all of these advertisers being able to chase people around the web with their ads. And that’s called, you know, third party tracking is basically what enables that. And so instead, we are going to ask people, they have to literally opt in, not opt out but opt in, if they want to be tracked by advertisers. So most people are saying no, and they’re clicking the no button. And it’s about 80 90% of people are opting out of the ability to be tracked. So means a few things. 

      04:10

      Number one, it means there’s going to be a huge shift over time in the strategy of retargeting.

      04:15

      Number two, it means there’s going to be new tools and techniques implemented in order to capture your own data, turn third party data into first party data that’s already happening. 

      04:25

      Number three, it means that you’re going to also see all the other big players following suit, right? So this is not once Apple does something everyone else is going to as well. So, you know, as these as this continues to evolve, you will see that this continues to change. You know, Android I’m sure will be next to go and then all you know it’s every single basically operating platform is going to follow suit to this change. So you have to know even though it’s only Apple, it is going to affect everything eventually. 

      04:57

      And what are we on number four, you know, the big thing to know is that they’re still effective, you just can’t see the exact data that you could see before. So if a sale happens if a lead happens if somebody puts in their email is still happening, it’s just that there’s now a curtain between you and your data. And Facebook is not allowed to report it. So they can say, you know, things are still happening, there’s still conversions happening. But unfortunately, with the iOS change, Facebook’s not allowed to report unless somebody opted in to being tracked, they’re not allowed to report that back to the ads manager back to your dashboard.

      05:45

      Now, the other thing that I knew I noticed for us, and I imagine this is true, I’m sure this is true for brick and mortar spas, we had to verify all of our page domain, so we would not be able to do ads, unless we owned those particular pages.

      06:04

      Exactly. So let me see if I can revoke that.

      06:08

      Looks like you were doing a Reel.

      06:12

      For everybody listening in my camera, just so that we go went out of focus, because I’m jumping around too much with about all of this I Oh, okay. Yes, exactly. So, in order to advertise now, on Facebook, it is mandatory that you do two things, number one, verify your domain. And I want to say something really important about that. And number two, that you basically prioritize which events are most important to you? Is it the lead capture? Is it the purchase? Because there’s, there’s, you know, a few little nuances and rules and changes to how Facebook can report the data that people are, if there is somebody opting in, then Facebook can report the first conversion event, they can report across nine campaigns, and they can report across eight types of events so they could report a lead, a purchase, etc. You just have to prioritize to Facebook, which ones are most important to you? Now, is this a good place to insert a really important detail? 

      07:17

      Yeah, go for it. 

      07:18

      Okay.  Here’s my IMO, in my opinion, I believe that this little, it’s a 30 to 40 minute chore, verifying your domain so that you’re able to advertise. Whenever you start seeing stuff like that. I want everybody to who’s listening to really listen to this, whenever you start seeing things like this, the most normal reaction is to freak out, and everything you’re doing and saying, Oh my gosh, I’ve got to hire someone. Okay. Oh, put it on my list. I’ll you know, go on Upwork find some ads person to do all my goodness, this is going to take me months. That right there. Okay, hopefully, this is what separates you, from everyone else. Because as soon as you see things like that, what should be clicking in your mind is, this is my competitive advantage. This is my opportunity. 

      08:16

      100% 

      08:17

      Right now, D , I know you this, I know you do you know you you train people this way too, because most people are backing off. And you’re going to say how long is this going to take me a 30 to 40 minutes, oh, I’m doing this. And I know that most of my competitors will not get around to doing this because of like their own mindset issues for months.

      08:40

      So they are not going to be even if you like, are following all the rules of Facebook, if your pages are not verified, you cannot run ads and they will not let you run ads. So all of your your competitors, I say that in quotes, right? But all of your competitors if they’re not doing that, and you are think about all the exposure to different people that you can have, and likely at a lower rate to write because yes, yeah, yeah, it’s Facebook is that kind of like supply and demand, whatever. For me, it’s amazing, right? Because I’ll go and do the work.

      09:20

      You’ll do the 30 to 40 minute chore, and you’ll keep going and you’ll keep getting better and better and better. Meanwhile, you know, so many people in your industry around you in your market, they’re like whoa, you know, they’re literally delaying their success by months. And I’m not even joking when I say sometimes this will take people a year or two, because they will back so completely off. Or they’ll switch you know platforms or they’ll go chase some other strategy. You know, the shiny object syndrome, right? Something that is easier, that looks easier, and then that will change too and then they’ll have to circle back around and speaking of that changing too, I mean, Apples really, they’re really on a rampage this year, because they also just introduced, you know, some email things that is going to, you know, people who are like, Oh my gosh, this is only affecting the ads, people and all the ads, people are just, you know, trying to figure all this out and whatnot and feeling like we’re pioneers in this whole new world of advertising. Guess what, they just changed the landscape with email. And over the next couple of years, you’re going to see that email open rates? Well, they’re, they’re doing away with the mechanisms that make it possible to really track that effectively. So Apple’s kind of leading the way in privacy in a way that’s really shaking up the entire marketing world. And, you know, if you’re a business owner, I know that your first priority never wanted to be to be a marketer. But I hate to tell you, if you’re a business owner, you have to know marketing, you don’t have to know all the nitty gritty, you don’t have to know how to do everything. You have to know the big picture landscape so that you can start to adjust your strategy because your role is the visionary, and to hold your team accountable. But you need to know like what’s changing, so that you can help guide and lead your business to success. And marketing is a huge part of any businesses, you know, success journey for sure.

      11:11

      I 100%. Agree, I think it’s so so important question on the tracking in relation to iOS updates. So we noticed on this past launch that we did. Typically, when we’re doing when we’re looking at our results from our ads, and then our results that we’re seeing in our CRM, they were way off.

      11:38

      For sure.

      11:39

      What like more like Facebook said you had X amount of sales. And then our CRM, we use Ontraport. Ontraport said you have this many sales. So it was like two different planets. Yeah, yeah. Is that from the update?

      11:56

      Totally from the update, and it will continue to get more dramatic as people keep updating their platforms, right, some people are still running, a ton of people are still running off of old, you know, iOS platforms and operating systems. So as they update, then they’re going to get these little messages, do you want to opt into being tracked? You know, again, we know 80 to 90% of people are clicking No. So it’ll continue to become, you know, more and more dramatic these differences.

      12:28

      As marketers or as business owners, how do we measure that Facebook ads, or whatever advertising we’re doing? You know, we talk a lot about cost per lead earnings per lead, like all of these, you know, return on adspend. Right? If we’re not getting the right metrics, how can we make an objective decision on where we’re going to put our money?

      12:53

      Okay, now, I want to preface this by saying I am not an attribution expert, nor did I ever intend to be, but I’ve had to become one. Thanks to all of these changes, right? It’s amazing. And I feel like in a spa world, I mean, everyone understands this, it’s amazing how you take one little platform like Facebook ads, and there’s so many experts that go into this, you know, there’s attribution experts, there’s data scientists, there’s people who run the ads, copywriting experts in video, you know, producers, and it’s amazing how many people can go into one tiny little feature. Or, and, and, and, you know, the same thing when you’re thinking about social media organic, or you’re thinking about the spa world, and how many different expertise is expertises exist there? You know, I don’t even know. 

      13:44

      It’s a word. That’s a word. 

      13:45

      We’re gonna we’re gonna go with it. 

      13:46

      Um, so the so a few ways that you can do this. Number one, there are software tools that will still help you track, okay, so think of things like wicked reports, it’s an investment. And honestly, if you’re just spending a few 100 bucks a month on your ads, it’s not one that I think that you should be making. But if you’ve got a sizable budget, and you really want to know exactly where people are coming from, how long it took them to convert all of these, you know, things then wicked reports is one that’s leading the way with this sort of attribution challenge that now exists more than ever before. 

      14:25

      Number two, here’s the thing. If you are spending $500 a month, 1000 bucks a month, and maybe you’ve got some stuff from social media, you know, but really, your primary vehicle of marketing is advertising. And maybe you’re a one, you know, you’re a one platform type of person. So it’s all Facebook ads, or it’s all Google ads, even if you can’t and Google Ads isn’t having this problem. Yet, although they will, even if you can’t attribute it directly to Facebook because there’s that curtain between you and your data, you can kind of make some really educated guesstimate right? You can say, Listen, I know that Facebook, you know, Facebook, by the way has always told us there’s a 30% over under situation. So they’ve always said they’ve always admitted to about 30% of the conversions are usually it’s, well, I should say, up to 30% of your conversions can be over or under reported. And now it’s just going to be who knows what it could be a 60% difference, you know, really, truly, especially as this continues to roll out. So if you are able to make you know, conservative and you know, pretty solid, like guesstimates, then I would just go with that. And I wouldn’t worry too too much about it.

      15:43

      And I think in spa, what most people are doing is running ads to a specific offer. So if you’re just doing that, you know, get a Brazilian wax, get your underarm wax complimentary. Like, if it’s, if that’s that what they’re booking, you have to know what came from that ad, right? 

      16:01

      Totally. So exactly do so. And by the way, so let’s say you do have, you know, a Brazilian, let’s say the offer is some sort of, you know, Brazilian bikini wax, get it, whatever it is, let’s say that that is the offer. And you’ve got Google and you’ve got Facebook running ads to that, well, you could just create two separate completely separate funnels, they get their own emails, they get their own, and then on your back end, you’ll be able to see it now maybe Facebook is telling you to sales and on your back end, you’re seeing eight sales? Well, that’s fine, you can say you know, with pretty much but nearly you know, 100% confidence. Well, this all came from Facebook, they’re just not allowed to live. They’re literally not allowed to report the data back to me. Because somebody opted out of… 

      16:51

      No, it’s making the CRM is that we’re choosing where we’re building our funnels, etc. Even more important. 

      16:59

      Absolutely. 

      17:01

      Absolutely. Okay, so let’s do a 180. 

      17:05

      Love it. 

      17:06

      That’s iOS updates. So let’s get into the creative. Because we’re seeing a lot right now, with Reels on Instagram. And, you know, I’ve been saying Reels are the real deal. You know, it’s Reels are the thing right now, there’s always some thing. And, you know, next month, it might be something new, like who knows, right? But right now, reels are the thing that you’re getting the most organic reach. How are people capitalizing on that? with ads?… what’s the deal? Like? How do we make the most of it?

      17:45

      Absolutely. Take your, your best Reels, obviously the ones so you want to think about in your your social media, social media strategy, you know, either creating Reels that are specific to your offers, maybe it’s your monthly promotion and evergreen promotion, whatever it is. And, by the way, I mean, Daniela, you could probably share some great tips Reels, the you do a few right, do a few and you’re gonna see how easy they become your mind starts thinking in Reels, you start realizing like a successful Reel can just be a little tour. I mean, literally like a five second tour of your facility. And you know, a couple seconds of showing somebody actually getting the service that you’re talking about, this does not need to be crazy. I do recommend… 

      18:30

      I think there more, like what I’ve noticed the ones that have done really well in spa are kind of funny. And but they are it’s like brand awareness and connecting people like I’ve seen a couple of spa owners in our Growth Factor program that do them there. They specialize in Brazilian waxing. And so they’re, you know, it’s like one that got over 40,000 views. And this is an account with under 10,000 I think she has like 2000 followers or something. And she got over 40,000 views. And it’s just what I’m thinking about before I get a Brazilian wax it was literally her like this and these different questions coming up. And then that one gal did the different types of in a Brazilian wax you know, we we wax everything front to back. And it was the different types of booty wax, right like the how you get the confused, the perfection is that like all the different ones. It was so creative and so cute. And it just shows her personality. It connects, you know, and she got over 40 I think she was at 42,000. 

      19:43

      Oh, it’s so good. It’s so good. 

      19:46

      Yeah, I mean, it can be. I think the intimidating part is just it’s something new to learn. It’s like and I don’t know if this is just now that I’m 40 I’m an old lady and It’s like, man, am I gonna have to start asking my four year old? How did you? Like, when does that start? Because as soon as she can just do my Reels for me, that’ll be great. 

      20:13

      Oh, literally. 

      20:15

      I mean, I’m guessing she’s on like a three year sort of

      20:18

      Three year plan. Yeah, your plan three year…

      20:21

      Totally. That’s gonna be so good when they can do that. And I have a daughter the same age. So trust me, I’m watching her skill set to like, let’s get this going.

      20:31

      But the thing is, they have to I know, it’s like, nobody wants to dance. Yeah, nobody knows what to do the editing piece, adding how do we do the video and then adding the text and then the timing. And you guys like, I get it. And I am the biggest proponent of make sure you’re spending your time doing revenue generating activities. 100%. But we are seeing insane, insane results 184% increase in website taps, people going to your website, from the Reel, that means they’re going to be that’s like, Oh, I want to learn more about this business, not just your profile. But clicking over to the website, how can I work more closely with them, right? That is what we want. From our social media, we don’t want people to follow us or engage with us, if they’re not the right ideal client who we’re trying to serve. But we’re just like, I feel like for me, when I switch to doing the podcast from blogging, there was this huge piece where people got to know who I was as a person more. And I feel like with Reels, it’s almost breaking it down that people get to see your personality and a different way. And they get to see like a more fun side or a more creative side of you and your team. And it’s just building a connection

      22:02

      100% this and you know, we’re saying Reels, right. But this is actually indicative of an entirely new type of marketing that is never going away. And that is short form video. And so really mastering this short form video is honestly probably one of the best skill sets that you can do to take your business into the next 3, 4, 5 years. And the other thing that I think will be on its heels will be you know, this audio revolution that’s happening. We’ve got podcasting, we’ve got, you know, live audio with clubhouse, we actually know…

      22:36

      Facebook is coming out with a clubhouse competitor. 

      22:38

      Totally. And in fact, this is actually very cool. Facebook is coming out with the ability to, they’re going to start featuring podcasts on Facebook.

      22:52

      So that’s why I heard about that, too. 

      22:54

      Yeah, so imagine that’s going to increase time on platform. So you got to be thinking about as you know, business owner, again, again, you don’t have to be the one executing on this stuff. But you do need to be aware of where the social trends are, where the marketing trends are, because this is how you take your business forward, you know, the next two or three years, and Daniela just gave this beautiful story of like, switching from blog, blogging to podcasting is kind of the primary focus and vehicle and just how it expand. I know Daniela, this is like, absolutely, you followed that, or you got ahead of that trend, actually, I think you were really, you know, insightful about where that was going. And very visionary of you, and you got ahead of it. And now look, you’ve got one of the top podcasts, the top podcasts in your niche, one of the top podcasts in business, I mean, it’s amazing. And so this is where you as a business owner, and so often we just need time to think, you know, thinking time to literally just sit down and say, Where do I see the trends in my community? Because your local, you know, spa owner, you really need to understand that. Who are the influencers in my community? Where do I see the trends on social media? Where do I see the trends going in marketing and how are we stacking up and usually, if you think through those questions, you’re going to unlock so many cool things and it doesn’t, it’s so cool, because it means you’re not copycatting anymore, right? You’re actually creating a vision for you that feels really unique to you, that’s your voice and, and then to watch your team execute that and, you know, unfold that vision is really quite a spectacular thing. 

      24:32

      And I think that so many brick and mortars think, Oh, well, podcasting is for online businesses or podcasting is, but like as a spa, I think podcasting is one of the greatest things that you can do. If you create a podcast that’s all about like you create a podcast for your ideal client. That’s local, like one of our gals in Growth Factor last year, was planning to do a podcast about aging, and then her city name, right. So she is coming up as searchable. She’s coming up, it’s local, she can talk to other business owners, other wellness experts, right. And so she is the host of this local podcast talking about anti aging or someone else that I was talking you wanted to do like fabulous over 50 in such and such city, right, brought to you by skin rejuvenation spa, the owner of skin rejuvenation spa, right? Like, it’s you have these pieces here that we have to think bigger than advertising and brand awareness is not just buy my thing, here’s an ad buy my thing. It’s building that brand relationship on a bigger level, becoming a name, a household name and your community. So that when someone does think, Oh, I need a wax, or I need my brows done or whatever, you’re the first person that comes to mind and and podcast, remember, are searchable now for SEO. So they are coming up in Google searches. So if you have a podcast titled, whatever in your city, and someone is searching for, you know, whatever insert that thing lashes in your city, or waxing in your city, you’re going to come up in a search result. So it’s I mean, there’s so many pieces of then creating the social ads that can go to this to build that awareness of who you are as a company.

      26:30

      Absolutely. And the more stuff you have like that, right. So taking this now to the ad strategy, the more stuff you have like that the more effective your ads will be. It’s really hard to run ads, when you have zero assets, you have to at least have a landing page and some good ad copy and things like that. But as you continue to deepen your reputation in your local community, now you’ve got some local media mentions, or some events, you know, some local events that you’ve been involved with, you can start running ads to that very, very cheaply. I mean, I’m talking $1 to $2 a day type of thing, raising that awareness. And then as people come to know your name, you can retarget those people into your conversion offers, right? So that’s where you’ve got your intro offers, whether it be monthly promotions, or evergreen promotions, whatever it is you’re focused on. That’s where people now have trust and rapport built with you. And your advertising can really take off. 

      27:30

      So let me just understand this. Yeah, I can do a Reel.

      27:36

      Hmm.

      27:36

      I can put some ad dollars behind it, and create an audio video view audience in this particular zip code. Right? 

      27:47

      Yep. 

      27:47

      And then I can retarget those people in that zip code with my ad. So if I did a Brazilian wax reel, and I want it to be shown to all the people in my zip code, I’m gonna throw 100 bucks behind it. Then I have an audience that I can target that anyone that watched this video for X amount of time, right? The three second rule, I think, three seconds, then I’m going to show them that ad, which is going to make my ad a lot cheaper. Yes. And people that are actually interested in Brazilian waxing, and they already know your name. 

      28:23

      Absolutely. Well, actually, this is kind of an advanced technique, what you’re describing Daniela, but really, it’s not it’s easy to do. Facebook has made it so easy, and it’s so effective, right. And the other thing that you can do is take some of your more popular Reels. Now, if it’s a Reel, that’s not relevant, but it’s super popular, that’s not going to be effective, right? If you’re opening your fridge, and it for some reason…

      28:48

      Your dog running around or something. 

      28:50

      Yeah, your kids like, even if it’s so like it was just so popular, it obviously needs to be relevant to whatever you are advertising for. So you can take some of these Reels that are really relevant to your offers, again, monthly promotions, something that you run all the time, whatever that offer is, and that can be your creative you can use those you can upload those videos as your creative so maybe it’s for you know, it’s a video type. It’s a video views ad or it’s a video conversion ad you can use you can reuse all of these creative pieces for your advertisements, which is pretty awesome. So just think about you know, how can you multipurpose this stuff. I’ve also seen people be you know, just thinking organically again have a lot of great results from putting their reels in their emails, and getting people to click over to whatever the thing is, you know, whether it be again a landing page with an offer back to your social media to follow you. So just really think about recycling these beautiful pieces of marketing collateral because they can be working for you so much harder.

      30:03

      Okay, so we have talked about a lot of information, I want to wrap up with one last question that might be kind of a long answer. But what do you see in the future? Like what’s coming with Facebook with everyone talks about the algorithm changes, like what is happening? What do we need to know, as business owners for the future?

      30:23

      And I don’t know how long this will be relevant for about tell you what I see in the very near future. Okay, so Facebook, who’s paying the bills at Facebook, it’s us, right? It’s advertisers, small business owners, etc. Their job is to keep us happy. And right now, they kind of have a little bit of a hornet’s nest happening with the updates with iOS not being able to track people are taking their budgets to all sorts of other platforms, right? They’re trying Tiktok and Pinterest. And what does Facebook want, they want to keep us on their platform. So I’m going to just I’m going to stake my my place in the ground, mark my words, I bet over the next six to 12 months, I’m going to give it a 12 month span, it might be a little bit less, it could be a lot more. I see Facebook, loosening the algorithm on a few things. 

      31:11

      Number one, I think that organic posts like on your Facebook page, you know how those have been dead for a long time, I see that having a major comeback, I would not be surprised if we see over the next few months, our posts suddenly getting more and more reach. I also wouldn’t be surprised if we see things. So I have always been a proponent of especially last few years conversion ads, right, you have to set up the pixel and do all the tracking and blah, blah, blah. What used to be super effective was boosting posts and website traffic ads used to be amazing. And then you had to learn all of these other strategies because of how Facebook kind of categorized all of us and learned our behavior. And, you know, they were going to say purchase ads for people who wanted to get purchases, and they were going to save traffic ads for people who just wanted more blog views or things like that, right. So I would not be surprised if traffic ads take off. Again, I would not be surprised if boosted posts were super effective again. So it would not surprise me if Facebook in kind of creating this, this new world of advertising, if they kind of go back to how things were two or three or even four years ago, when it was much simpler, much easier to do. There wasn’t as much advanced tracking with pixels and whatnot, while they figure out truly what will become the new solution, right. So I just would not be surprised if you start noticing. I don’t think there’ll be any announcements or anything like this. But as you’re, as you’re putting stuff out there, you’re boosting posts, don’t be surprised if you start to see these things be being like, Whoa, this is like taking off like Facebook is really prioritizing that. And the last thing I’ll say and this is kind of a trend that’s been happening for a while is groups have been hot. Facebook’s been very vocal about it’s all groups on Facebook. So if you’re on Facebook, I have seen so many local businesses be so successful with Facebook groups. And the way that you become really successful with a Facebook group is yes, you’re promoting your services in there. But you’re also promoting community events, you’re also promoting other businesses that are complementary to yours. And you’re getting a group, you know, you’re getting like a group of business owners in there who are really providing relevant local content, right? So it has to be local content. nobody really cares about you know, like, I don’t know, generic stuff has to be local, relevant content. But if you’re like, Hey, you know, who’s coming to yoga this week, yoga on the beach, like, I’ll be there, my whole crew will be there. You know, we’re partnered with the local community at yoga, yoga studio, and we hope to see so many…

      34:00

      We’re seeing right now that’s just working incredibly for brick and mortar spa, moms groups, so much. 

      34:08

      Sure. 

      34:09

      We all like you’ll see pretty much every town has like Moms of Bethesda, Moms, Moms of Potomac, you know, there’s like all these different moms groups, and they’re posting in there. Oh, I went to this spa, into this. I have one gal who’s getting 10 new clients a week for months from this group. And one group months. 

      34:33

      Yeah.

      34:34

      If they just keep going and going and going. So it’s like how can you even if you don’t want to manage your own group, how can you participate add value don’t be spammy and promotional, but how can you add value share information and people will talk about you, you know, in those groups, one of the best ways to that, that’s referral, like, right there.

      35:04

      Referral on a in such a hugely scalable, you know, way like, and that’s what I do all the time, like, Oh, I want to, you know, I want to find a new salad place, oh, I’ll go post it in the moms group, you know. So, think about moms groups, think about having your own group, the big thing to know, as groups is, that’s what Facebook is putting at the top of the newsfeed. So every day, we have 1500 posts, in any given day, new posts in our newsfeed. And businesses typically are the, you know, the bottom of the pile, the low, you know, five to 10% is all your business posts. But you know, what’s not, is the group post, group post go right to the top of the newsfeed. So be thinking about how can you leverage again, looking at whether what the trends are right now? And how can you leverage that for your business?

      35:52

      Okay, one last thing, Messenger ads you had mentioned, Messenger ads are working really well for brick and mortar.

      36:01

      Messenger ads. And I will also add in one more note, but I won’t talk about it lead generation ads as well, that’s where people stay on Facebook to fill out forms Messenger ads. So the thing with Messenger ads is you need to be on it with your backends. So somebody messages you, you really have a short window, I would say maximum four hours to respond to them, or they’re not going to be very interested. Now you can create little bots and things like that, to kind of make sure that they get an instant response. But you can also just do it manually. And I’ve seen so much success with this so easy. You have a great video or great image of you, your your studio, your team, whatever your services, whatever it is you’re promoting, right, so some image or video that’s relevant to that great copy. By the way, I recommend you go through a testing protocol, the way I teach it, you’re testing, copy imagery and your headlines. And then obviously your offers landing pages etc. If that if those apply. And then you’re just encouraging people message us, just message us and then you.. 

      37:06

      Something your front desk can be responding to. 

      37:09

      100% absolutely, you’re taking, you’re simply taking that conversation over to messenger, it could be messaged us to schedule your first appointment messages to schedule your free consultation, whatever it is, message us take that over to messenger follow up on that backend, make sure you’re following up plenty of times. And you know template, the response test, test, test, test, test all of your responses, template, the ones that work best for you and your team. Put that into a Google Doc make that you know your standard operating procedure and, and just scale it, scale it until you full capacity. I mean, really, that’s kind of the simplified, but actually it’s a really simple funnel. But that’s like a very simple explanation of it. But take that and run with it. Messenger ads are doing great right now.

      37:56

      You love that. Okay, so you guys, if you want to learn more about Facebook ads from the best of the best go visit Successful Ads club, Tara, where what is how can they find you? How can they learn more about ads?

      38:08

      Absolutely. Successfuladsclub.com is our main page. I also have a toolkit that I made from literally hundreds of conversations with business owners, I took the major themes of those conversations packed into a toolkit, you know, 21 words to avoid headline, swipe, headline swipe ideas that you can just steal from us and use for your offers. It has everything in there. So you can go to Youradkit.com, Youradkit.com and you can get that for free.

      38:40

      We all include these links. So yeah, we’ll include it all below to make it much much easier. But yes.. all of that out. You guys. I have built my entire business using Facebook ads. And Tara if you guys hear me talking about when I didn’t know what funnels were Taro was the one that I called. And I was like, What is the funnel? What is everybody talking about? I feel like I’m going crazy. Tara is the one that so patiently explained to me everything with ads with funnels, all of that stuff way back in the day. And here we are seven years later to…pretty well. 

      39:20

      Amazing. Daniela, thank you so much. It was so lovely to be here with you and your amazing audience today. You know, I just want to add one last thing like you were the real deal and people who learn from you are so lucky. And I know that you you change so many lives with how you serve your aestheticians and spa owners and you change their financial futures your change their family legacies and really I mean it goes such a hard thing for you and I know it goes so beyond the surface of what you offer which is absolutely amazing but it goes into trouble. really changing lives because you’re teaching them how to change lives for other women and I was one of those women that had their lives, you know, changed by the spa industry in such a profound way and that’s why I’ve been so passionate about it ever since. So yeah, you’re just you’re you’re the real deal and people who learn from you, I mean, just the way you teach them and the systems you teach them and how to create all this freedom for themselves. I just, I just want to say that you are absolutely incredible.

      40:29

      Thank you. I will receive that very much. All right, you guys if you want to keep this conversation going head on over to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group, right the group’s. So head on over to the group. keep the conversation going ask us questions, let us know how we can help and support you, and we will catch you on the next episode. 

      40:51

      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.

      Read More
      Read More
      EP 237: Mastering Your CEO Mindset and Goals with Tanya Dalton

      You’re ambitious, a dedicated friend, family member, boss, a dreamer who knows they’re destined to live a life they love and do work in the world that, well, doesn’t even feel like work. 

      But the *how* piece of that equation can make some days feel like you’re working your buns off, but for what? 

      As my guest on this episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy explains, leaning into your North Star of your vision, mission and values to create a dream life you love doesn’t happen by accident. 

      It happens on purpose. 

      Joining me in this conversation is Tanya Dalton, a best-selling author, speaker, sought after business coach for women entrepreneurs, and nationally recognized productivity expert. 

      In addition to her work as an author being featured in the world’s leading publications including Forbes, Fortune, Inc., Fast Company, and Real Simple, Tanya is also the Founder + CEO of inkWELL Press Productivity Co., a multi-million dollar company that provides tools to help women do less while achieving more.

      Whether you’re brand new to being a business owner or you’re a well-seasoned spa owner, I just know you’re going to love Tanya’s nuggets of wisdom and genius insights surrounding how to dial in your vision to craft a game plan so you can do more of what lights you up in life and with your work. 

      In this episode, you’ll learn:

      •  Why it is absolutely critical to figure out what you want out of your life, relationships, and your work so you can build a company that supports your vision and fuels it
      • The purpose of casting a 5, 10, and 20 year vision and the pieces and steps that go into crafting it and getting clear on what that vision is
      • Reverse engineering your vision into realistic goals and how to devise a plan to meet them
      • Why everything you do in making progress toward your goals and vision needs to be rooted in purpose

      References Mentioned in Episode #237: Mastering Your CEO Mindset and Goals with Tanya Dalton

       

      As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

       

      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!

       

      If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

      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, Daniela here and welcome to another episode of the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. Now I just finished an interview with an incredible woman, I think she might be a new business bestie she and I were just aligned on so many topics. That was incredible. And her name. My guest today is Tanya Dalton. So we had an incredible conversation about the journey of the business owner. So we start out as a solopreneurs, solo aesthetician, we move into the entrepreneur role. And then we step into the role of the CEO. We talk about that as the spa CEO. Alright, but more importantly, how do we move through that journey with intention? So that you’re actually creating the life that you want to live? Are you looking for time freedom, financial freedom, lifestyle freedom, right? You’ve got to know what it is that you want to create, in order to create it and we talk about all of that today. 

       

      01:22

      Okay, so let me do a quick read of Tanya’s bio and then we will jump right into that interview. So, Tanya Dalton is a nationally recognized productivity expert, best selling author and speaker. Tanya serves as a growth strategist for female leaders in corporate and entrepreneurial sectors. In addition to having her book being named one of the top 10 business books of 2019 by Fortune Magazine, Tanya’s podcast the “Intentional Advantage” is ranked among the top 50 in the self improvement category on iTunes. She’s also a featured expert on several networks, including NBC and Fox, and as a VIP contributor for entrepreneur.com. Tanya has been featured in some of the world’s leading publications, including Forbes, Fast Company, and Real Simple. She has been awarded the Elite Enterprising Women Award and has been named the female entrepreneur to watch in the state of North Carolina. Tanya is also the founder and CEO of Inkwell press productivity company, a multimillion dollar company providing tools that work as a catalyst in helping women do less while achieving maximum success. Okay, incredible woman, great interview. Let’s go ahead and jump right in. And be sure if you have any further questions to head on over to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group. Alright, enjoy. 

       

      02:42

      Alright, Tanya, welcome to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast, super excited to have you here. Something that we were talking about a little bit before the show was that transition that happens from solopreneur, to entrepreneur, to CEO and, and they really are three very different distinctions. And I see spa owners going through that so frequently, in you know, they start out as an aesthetician they want to become, you know, they’re going to be solo because they they want the freedom and the flexibility and the financial growth and all of these things. And they’re like, what the heck, it’s just mean, I’m wearing all these hats, I actually create a prison cell for myself, instead of what I actually wanted. So I’m so excited to get into this conversation with you today.

       

      03:35

      Yes, I am to because it really is a progression. Because a lot of times you start your business with what you are excited about what you’re passionate about, and you are doing everything you love the idea of you’re not taking orders from somebody else, right, you’re your own boss, but your hands are in everything, which makes it almost impossible to feel like you can step away that you can have the freedoms that you’re really looking for. Because you’re so in the thick of it, you’re in the weeds of it. And so then you move into entrepreneurship, when you start to bring on some team or you start to see how you could expand, whether that’s big, you want to be really large, you can be an Amazon or whether you want to be just you know, a $500,000 spa, or you want to be a million dollar spa. And so then, as you move into CEO ship, that’s really when you get those systems in place. That’s really when you start delegating more, that’s when you are able to truly start to unplug from your business. And that’s when I say you really do get the freedom. You can have the time freedom because you can step out of your business because it’s designed to run without you that’s what being a CEO is it’s really stepping into the visionary role even more so that maybe you’re not working directly with clients or if you are it’s at very high level, very select clients that you’re hands on with. Most of your time is being spent on the visionary work on where is it you want to go. Really leaning into what I like to call your Northstar, your mission, your vision, your core values, where it is you want that business to go long term, to create that lifestyle for yourself. And so it is every time you get to these those levels, there’s a mindset shift that has to happen as well.

       

      05:15

      So let’s, let’s talk about this a little bit. Because, you know, how do you figure out what you want? And I know that that seems like, what kind of What do you mean, but when I find when I’m talking with spa owners, and I’m trying to get them to imagine like, how much do you want to pay yourself? How many hours do you want to work? Do you want to go on vacation once a year, twice a year or half the year? Like, what do you want for yourself? People will get to this place where they they can tell you? Well, I know I don’t want that. And I don’t want that. But they don’t actually do the work to figure out what makes them happy? Do they care more about time freedom? Do they care more about financial freedom? Like? How do you start that process of figuring out what the heck that you want? So you can build a company that supports that?

       

      06:07

      Yes, I love that question. Because you do want to know what the vision is? Do you want to be a giant company? Do you want to be a smaller, medium sized company, there’s no right or wrong? whatever size that works for you is really what you want. But how do you know what you want? So I like to say you have to look backwards?

       

      06:26

      Go ahead.

       

      06:27

      I was gonna say doesn’t it come down to first, like, if you figure out what you want, you have to figure out how much you’re going to pay yourself to support that lifestyle, which in turn would figure out the size of your company? Right? 

       

      06:40

      Yeah, I do this, I do this exercise with a lot of the women that I work with where we we talk about redefining success, because I think the problem is a lot of times success is defined by society, by other people by what things look like. And really when we stop, and we look at who we are. And I don’t just mean who we are as the business owner, but who we are, you know, with our our lives in all different aspects, what is it that we want, with our relationships with our finances, with where we live, and, and all of those pieces of ourselves. So if we don’t take time to really think about what we want that to look like, it’s hard to work backwards. So we actually go through this exercise where we, we look at where we are today. And we write that down. Okay, this is where I am, this is what things are like, for me, these are the things I want to do. Here’s where I’m living. This is what my relationships are like, these are the things I want my money to do for me. Because I think so often too, when we talk about money, we think of it just as money in the bank, but money is the vehicle, right? It’s the vehicle to get you whatever it is you want. Are you wanting to save up money so your kids can go to college? Are you wanting to save up so you can live on a sailboat? For five years? Are you wanting to save up money? Because you want to be able to buy houses for your children? when they when they grow up? What What is it you’re wanting your money to do? What does that look like right now? What is your money doing for you right now? What is your life look like? Then let’s just go forward just a year? Because that’s manageable? Well, what does it look like there? What do you what do you dream your life could look like? Then we work on the finances last, right? What does it look like? What kinds of things Am I wanting to experience? What kinds of relationships Am I going to be in with my kids, especially that’s a big driver with where your kids are thinking about their ages and the things that have been going on in their lives? And then figuring out okay, what is my money need to look like? So I can have that lifestyle? Then we move five years, then we move 10 years, and then we even stretch over to 20 years. And that makes it where it’s like these little incremental steps. And we think about how we want our lifestyle to look, is it really the time freedom? Is it the location freedom? Is it the financial freedom, which of those freedoms are really showing up in those dreams? And I like to tell people, if you’re feeling really stuck, like you’re saying, I just have no idea. Start with regret. Because we move away from pain so much faster than we move towards pleasure. It’s true, right? You think about. 

       

      09:10

      Yeah… 

       

      09:10

      We don’t decide to lose weight until your pants get too tight, or you know, we don’t decide to quit working so hard until you realize that your kids haven’t seen you for three weekends in a row, that we have that pain, and that moves us to where we want to go. So when we go and we look at our past, if you look backwards, that tells you where you want to move forward. Start with what you do regret. What are the things that you wish were different? Don’t spend time in Oh, this is terrible. Think about what life could look like the opposite of regret is resilience. So let’s choose the opposite of that as you’re visioning and you’re thinking about what that future looks like, what is the opposite of what you didn’t like, look like for you? 1 year, 5 years, 10 years down the road, and then we figure out the finances.

       

      09:54

      I love that and a couple of reasons. One, I think that women in general have so many blocks around money, that when you tell the.. yeah, the stories, the blocks what it means that it ended up, right. But when you put a tangible thing behind it, then it’s it makes it easier, I need this much money. This is the tool that’s going to provide me with this, it’s easier to visualize, it’s easy to easier to comprehend. It’s a, it’s a goal to work towards. So I love that aspect of it. And I love the aspect of moving away from pain. Something else I wanted to kind of add to that is if you are someone who has such a blessed life, that you don’t have a tremendous amount of pain, then I think another beautiful thing to do is look at other people and see, oh, I would love to have a life like that. That looks interesting. How can I do that? You know, that was actually how I found the coach that I work with. Now one of the reasons I started working with her is because of her lifestyle. I said, She’s got two kids, she works from nine to three. That’s what I want, right? How did she do that? If she can do it, I can do it too. And trying to figure that out. So I think that’s another great tool that you can use if you can’t figure out what you want. But look at other people and realize if they can do it, you can do it.

       

      11:28

      Yes, it really mining those. Those qualities that you admire in those people. What is it I admire? Because we don’t get caught up in comparisonism. Right? Because that’s easy to do. I love that though. Looking at other people and and figuring out, what is it in their lifestyle that I really admire? What is it that they are doing that looks exciting to me? What what draws me to them? What attracts me to whatever they’re doing, and start pulling from that. That’s a great idea. I love that.

       

      11:56

      Okay, so we’re figuring out what we want. We’re creating these, we’ve got these plans, the 1, the 5, the 20. You know, I think there was a 10 in there also. So then when we’re creating our action, right, it’s not just okay, this is what I want to do in a year. Well, now we get into the reverse engineering, right, like, so how do we actually take the the steps and do the work to make that happen? Oh, well, I, I love…

       

      12:29

       And can you answer that in three minutes, please?

       

      12:33

      Well, it’s funny is I actually answered this question in like 63,000 words, because this is actually the topic of my next book that’s coming out in October with Harper Collins. It’s called “On Purpose”, the busy Woman’s Guide to an extraordinary life of meaning and success, because we don’t know what we want. And we we set these goals arbitrarily. And we do it because we look around and we think Well, everybody else is doing these things. So I should do them. But if we choose instead to look at the long term at that 5, 10, 15, 20 year vision of where we want to go and start backing it up to decide, okay, if this is what I want, in 20 years, what do I think that’s what’s what’s your potential is? What do I think is possible? So you start with what’s your potential? What is possible in three to five years? what’s possible then? And if I back that up even more, well, if that’s what’s possible, what is practical, in 12 to 18 months. And that’s what’s practical, right in 12 to 18 months, then if we back that up even more, and break that down into maybe like three or six month periods, what do I want to prioritize? Those are really your goals. So we start with that long vision, and we almost work backwards. Like it’s a map, instead of saying, this is where the map is taking us. How do I work backwards from where I want to go back to where I am today? And that’s how we choose what our goals want to be or what would they I hate to say should look like because I don’t like shooting on ourselves because I think women do that far too much. But this is this gives you an idea of, of the direction you want to go in. And I think that’s really when our when our lives, when our businesses become more meaningful, because we’re making progress towards that big vision, what we’re what our potential is. And the thing is, is so often we set goals, and then they happen and then we think now what there’s this goal setting paradox of what do I do now I’ve already gotten to this goal, where do I go and you start looking around for something else. If you continually make progress by setting goals, one after the next that are aligned to that 20 year vision, that’s when they begin to have a lot more meaning that’s when the goals become part of the fun of living every day with that unhurried purpose.

       

      14:46

      Okay, so tell me the story of how this book came to be because there’s got to be something behind it. What happened in your life, what happened in your business that prompted you to write 63,000 words. On honest because I mean, it’s it’s a question that, you know, gets asked, I think by business owners that gets asked by busy moms that gets, you know, just women in general. So what was the thing that triggered this or the catalyst that kind of brought this book to life? 

       

      15:20

      Well, I feel like I hear from a lot of women that they don’t understand their choices. In my first book, “The joy of missing out”, really is about how we make meaning in every single day. And so how do you prioritize? How do you understand how to create a life that feels good every day? And people were asking me, Well, what does it look like bigger than that? How does it look like, you know, if I look even further than just this today, or this week, and for me, I knew that I started my first business back in 2008. Because while I started with $50, it was supposed to be this little side business that I was just doing, because it was something fun, I was a stay at home mom, I thought this will be great gives me something to do. And my husband travels or he did travel. He was doing international marketing. So he would leave our home in Dallas, Texas and you buy an around the world ticket, that was the name of the ticket, he would fly and he would touch every continent, he’d be gone for like three or four weeks. And I had a conversation with him on one of these trips, where he’s on the other side of the planet, where I’m telling him all the things that kids are doing. And I’m excited. You know, this is what Kate saying today, and this is what’s happening here. And he got really quiet. And he said, I’m missing everything. I’m missing the moments, I’m missing the milestones, I’m missing seeing the kids. And I was like, No, no, no, you’re not. You know, they love you. It’s good. But I hope the phone that night, and I realized that my husband was not satisfied with what he was doing. He was he wanted to be more of a hands on dad. And I stood in my kitchen. And I thought you know what, I’m going to grow this business to absorb his MBA income. So he can come and work alongside of me. And I’m going to make this happen that became this giant vision for me if this is what I really want to do. I want to create a lifestyle for ourselves. I wanted the lifestyle freedom so that he could come work alongside of me.

       

      17:09

      And this business that you have right now…

       

      17:14

      Okay, this is something different. Yes. And, you know, I had no business experience zero. So what an audacious crazy thing to even think to yourself. But I sat down, I mapped out what this could look like. I had a husband who traveled for three or four weeks at a time I had two tiny children playing at my feet. But within about a year, I made that goal happen. He started working with me, we’ve been working together since 2009. We sit across the desk from each other, where I like to say work together like 28 hours a day. But it works for us. And so I created that life for myself, which then we chose to move we had location freedom. Well, we can live anywhere. Why don’t we move to Asheville, North Carolina, we have location freedom. And then I looked at my husband and I said, I’m not really fulfilled by what we creates, like I love you, I love working with you. But the business itself wasn’t what I wanted. And he was like, we have the freedom to do what we want to do. So that’s when I shifted into owning Inkwell press and doing the coaching. And for me, that purpose of creating that lifestyle for my family where my husband could be the one who makes lunches, who drives carpool, who’s here every day. And that was really my purpose. And people have always asked me like, how do you make that happen? How do you make that work? And I’m like, I am nothing special. You can do it if I can do it. It’s just really knowing where you want to go. So taking that big vision backing it up and deciding what those goals were. That’s what’s led me to where I am today. You know, multiple seven figure business owner with two companies and and loving what I do with my husband by my side.

       

      18:54

      So that’s really…

       

      18:55

      Its reminding me, um, we interviewed Jamie Curran Lima on the podcast, when her book “Believe it” came out. I don’t know if you’ve read that book, but it’s an incredible book. 

       

      19:06

      I have it on my list. 

       

      19:08

      Yeah, so she is the founder of It Cosmetics. She built it from her living room and then sold it to L’Oreal for 1.2 billion within 10 years incredible woman and it was very similar. It was it was her main point was through all the ups and downs all the behind the scenes, all the crazy things. She believed that she could. And so often I think women say like, oh, who am I to do that? How could I could never build a seven figure business. I could never, you know in spa. So often we’re hearing like, you know that first big milestone is when you hit 100,000. And everyone’s like, I want $100,000 business. I’m like, do you because what are you paying yourself if you’re if you have 100,000 business, you need much more than that. You want to pay yourself If 100,000 or more, right? 

       

      20:01

      Yes, so there’s a big difference. 

       

      20:03

      But that is a very much a mindset piece I think that so many entrepreneurs and specifically female business owners struggle with is what is possible for me? What do I believe I can actually do and it sounds like you have a healthy confidence, which is great, right? Like going into business, like knowing your strengths, knowing who you are, and what’s possible for you. And I think also, knowing what the end goal was, was, I want to retire my husband, right? or retire him from this job, so he can work with me. That I think is a bigger motivator, then I want to make seven figures. Right? 

       

      20:48

      Absolutely. 

       

      20:48

      It goes into I have this family, I have my kids, etc. So I think that what I’m taking away from this, for the spa owners that are listening is, again, what do you want? What’s the end goal? What motivates you every single day? To get out of bed? Is it having your spouse be able to, you know, to retire your spouse is at that lifestyle freedom, right? And, and you guys, just because you have a brick and mortar spa, does not mean that you can’t have that lifestyle freedom, when you step into that role of CEO, and you are truly an owner and not an operator? You go wherever the heck you want. Right? So it’s not …, there are no limits on what is possible. There’s really not you’ve got to believe in yourself, you’ve got to do the work, right? I’m sure like for you building to seven figure companies or multi seven figure companies. I’m sure you weren’t just like eating bonbons on your couch every day, you know, like…

       

      21:58

      Yeah, that sounds really nice…  

       

      22:01

      No, you’re right… 

       

      22:02

      But it’s still like you do it with that bigger vision of this is more important. And this is going to push me out of the fear of going live on Facebook or push me out of the fear of negotiating the terms of my lease or whatever the thing is that needs to happen to take your business to that next level.

       

      22:32

      Yes, absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s the limiting beliefs. We are the ones who put limits on ourselves, there are no limits, other than the ones that we place upon ourselves. And we can look at obstacles, we can look at stumbling blocks, and we can say these are in our way. Or we can say these are opportunities for me to be innovative. And for me to be creative. And for me to find ways around it. I like to say when I see an obstacle in my mind’s eye, I see it as a wall. And my choices are, I can go around it, I can I can climb over it, I can tunnel underneath it, or I can just burn it to the ground. All of those are options, but they’re all opportunities to do something on your own terms. And you’re right, having that six figure goal sounds like oh, that’s gonna motivate me. Is that really what’s gonna motivate you? Or is it what that six figure lifestyle gets you? Whatever that is. That’s why it’s so important to really redefine success on your own terms. This is, you know, when I go through businesses, we do a three step system of simplify, and then scale and then strategize that simplify is really important. What is it that you want? How can we really focus in. Let’s stop offering everything to everyone and choose instead to narrow in and decide what it is I want to offer to what I call your soulmate clients? What is it that I feel on fire for? And let’s do more of that, because we tend to undervalue joy. We tend to undervalue happiness. we’re so busy looking at that bottom line, what does the P&L statement say? That we need to make sure that we’re really taking care of ourselves with with how we feel with our own well being that needs …

       

      24:18

      The craziest thing is that when you do, your numbers actually go up.

       

      24:23

      Oh, when you…

       

      24:26

      Personal growth leads to professional growth, which leads to more personal growth, which leads to more professional growth. When you get to those new levels and you take care of yourself. And you really look at your mindset to make the shifts and the adjustments needed. That’s how you achieve the next level every time you’re ready to uplevel in your business. The first thing you want to do is take a look at your mindset. What are the lies that I tell myself about what’s possible and what’s impossible? What are the things I tell myself that I don’t know how to do when I all I have to do is figure out how to do them right or Who not how it right figure out who can help me do that instead of me figuring out how to do it. So there’s lots of ways we can look at these obstacles as opportunities. And that is 100%, a mindset shift.

       

      25:13

      I love that. Okay, so in wrapping up, what advice would you give to a solopreneur? Or spa owner? Right? Who’s wanting to get to that CEO role? What’s the one thing they can do today just to get that even if it’s just an inch closer? 

       

      25:34

      Yeah, I would say really, really look at delegation, not as decision making, understanding that when you get that art of delegation, under control, and you’re able to delegate and have other people step in, that’s when you start to get that first taste of freedom. That’s when you begin to understand that not everything has to be done by you. So starting with delegation is a really good place to really begin your journey into up leveling to that next because you can’t get there on your own. That’s almost impossible to get there by yourself. Not without wearing yourself out. So take a step towards delegation and understand it means taking you out of the decision making process sometimes and giving them some ownership. That’s what I think is the next best step.

       

      26:19

      I love that. Okay, so where can people find you follow you stay in touch with you learn about your books, all the things? 

       

      26:27

      Yes, well, the best place to find me is at TanyaDalton.com. You can find links to my podcast, the Intentional Advantage there you can find links to my books, and even to my products, I planners and those types of things and my coaching programs. So TanyaDalton.com.

       

      26:42

      Perfect, we’ll include that link. Thank you. So so much so informative. I feel like we’re so aligned in so many different ways. I love that. And for those of you listening, if you want to keep the conversation going, please head on over to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group, tag me, let me know your questions, and I will catch you on the next episode. 

       

      27:02

      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.

      Read More
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      EP 236: Using Personal Strengths in Professional Negotiations with Susie Tomenchok

      If the word “negotiation” jolts your shoulders up to your ears and immediately makes your face contort, you can’t afford to miss this episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy. Because whether you like it or not, as a spa owner and CEO, negotiation is a non-negotiable part of business.  

      Now, here’s the good news, anyone can learn to be a smooth sailing negotiator, and here to show you how is my guest, Susie Tomenchok. 

      Susie works with individuals and organizations to amplify their strengths and unleash their internal negotiation skills to increase professional success. 

      With over twenty-five years as a corporate executive with a Fortune 50 company, Susie and her team were responsible for end-to-end agreements valued at more than $80M annually and her portfolio of clients included ESPN, Discovery, Viacom, NBC, CBS and Boeing. 

      From big boardrooms to small business owners, strengthening your negotiation skill set is for everyone. 

      In this episode, we discuss:

      •  Why most small business owners need to shift their mindset around negotiation and understanding its role in business beyond what we commonly think of (i.e. salary negotiations)
      • How to get out of your own way when it comes to ressisting negotiation and leaving opportunity on the table 
      • What it really means to be a good negotiator and why you don’t have to be inauthentic, but rather embrace your personal strengths to leverage negotiations 
      • The breakdown of Susie’s P.A.C.E. Method and how it facilitates walking away with a win-win situation

      References Mentioned in Episode #236: Using Personal Strengths in Professional Negotiations with Susie Tomenchok

      As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

       

      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!

       

      If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

      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, Daniela here and welcome to another episode of the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. Now let me ask you a question. Are you comfortable negotiating for yourself? Have you ever asked for a raise? Have you ever negotiated terms of a least, maybe you have. But my guess is that it probably wasn’t your favorite thing to do. But it is my belief that we as women, if we want to step into more leadership roles if we want to bring our companies to new levels, it’s a skill that we have to master. That’s why I’m so excited to have my friend Susie on the show. Now Susie is an accomplished businesswoman. She’s had an incredible corporate career. And now she helps women master the skill of negotiating. So let me take a quick second here and read you her bio. And then we will jump right into the interview.

       

      01:13

      Susie Tomenchok, works with individuals and organizations to amplify their strengths and to help unleash their internal negotiation skills increasing professional success. She believes that when people learn how to use negotiation strategies every day, they create more opportunities to walk away with a win win. It matters most. With over 25 years as a corporate executive with a fortune 50 company Susie and her team were responsible for end to end agreements valued at more than $80 million a year. Her portfolio of clients included ESPN, Discovery, Viacom, NBC, CBS, and Boeing. She’s now committed to helping clients, especially female executives, or business owners, to choose a better option than being the path of least resistance and letting their careers or businesses happen to them, not for them. 

       

      02:06

      It’s a great interview. I love everything that Susie talks about. And I especially love, you know, what really hit me was talking about how we show up in business, when we are asking for the things that we need. When we are negotiating. We’re actually teaching our children, specifically our daughters, how that skill, right because kids learn from watching as well. So that was a big piece for me that really stood out. And you know, as a way that I can educate my daughter is by making sure that I’m negotiating that I’m asking for the things that are important for me. Great episode, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Alright, let’s go ahead and play that interview. 

       

      02:48

      Susie, welcome to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I’m so excited to have you on. I’m so excited about this conversation. Because I think it is so, so important, not only I mean for women in general, to talk about negotiation to talk about how to improve that as a skill set, right and going after what it is that we want, but incorporating it into our everyday lives. But also as business owners, there’s so many pieces, so many areas where women just don’t have that same. And I’m over generalizing here, but we don’t tend to go after things as aggressively. as men, we don’t we tend to say, Oh, that’s what it is, instead of asking for more or compromise negotiating on the topic. Why do you think that is?

       

      03:46

      Oh, it’s such a good question. And there’s been a lot of research around it. And a lot of it has to do with just that mindset that we expect to be seen. Or we expect if we work really hard, we’ll get what’s deserved. And so just changing that mindset, I mean, little simple things that we could do to just create curiosity, asking more and thinking about things in pieces of leverage, and discovering and just thinking through the conversation can really shift that mindset. I think just the awareness around that can help you understand and be aware of what’s happening around you.

       

      04:28

      Yeah, I, you know, I didn’t really have awareness around the, you know, you always hear about like, women get paid less than men. It’s like 76 cents on the dollar or something like that. You know, women are not in leadership roles, like all of these stats, but I didn’t really understand the mindset piece or how, how it was affecting me as a woman every single day of my life, really until probably about 10 years ago. And because you think I don’t feel Like I’m being discriminated against, or I don’t feel like this or that, you know, but when you realize that as women, I wouldn’t apply for a job if I didn’t have every single criteria. Right? Where I think there was a study that men, if they just have three, they’ll be like, great. I’m qualified. Right? So, really like, I don’t know if that’s because of the way that we’re raised or because like, I have no idea the why behind it. But I think just being aware that sometimes things are so ingrained in who we are, as people, we don’t even see it. We don’t even realize that pretty much everything can be a negotiation. If it doesn’t break the laws of physics, right? I mean, yeah.

       

      05:48

      And yeah, for sure. And, and one of the things another mindset shift is, the research does show that women are great negotiators when it’s not for themselves. So how do you reframe that, you know, if you are negotiating something that feels very personally, personal. How do you reframe that for advantage for your family? Without feel, you know, like, how do you do that? Or it’s for your team, or even as, as a woman, doing something different just to show other people another way? So how do you it’s a very personal but reframing that in a way, and then thinking, the other stat to that is really interesting, as men are really good at negotiating ambiguity, where women need to know the details. So like, if you’re told, you know, this position is $120,000 value, then the woman’s going to fight for that, because she has a reason she has the facts around it. So even if you make up the facts as business owners, about what you’re willing to have, having that clarity, can also lead you to the end. Because if when women have that power, how do you leverage that to get what you want?

       

      07:06

      What are some? So, you know, I read your bio, in the beginning, you’ve had a really impressive career. How do you, can you just give us the highlights of how negotiation helped you build the career that you have? Like, what where were you using it in your life and your business in the day to day? Like, it’s not always just I’m negotiating for my salary. It’s, you know, everyday conversations, how did that help you create this incredibly remarkable career?

       

      07:45

      It’s, it’s such a great question, I had some aha moments for myself. One was being a mom of three girls. And seeing that even early on, they started asking more and advocating for themselves because of, they kind of mimicked me, there was one situation where my two daughters were on two computers and other parts of the home. And she was saying, you know, I understand your proposal, I appreciate it. But we need more strategy, less tactics, do it again, and come back to me. And then they have since admitted they’re all in their 20s now that they used to have a target strategy about getting what they wanted at Target and thinking about timing and asking and who has relationship equity and, and knowing you know what to present to me. So that was an aha for me around how important it is to show others and that happens every day. And then, when I was at corporate, one of the big aha moments for me, my coach, my peer was a man. We had been were pretty high up in the organization. We both were given new offices at overlook the mountains had a conference table, that both offices were exactly the same size. And I was so happy that they gave me this great office on executive row, you know, I was just appreciative. And my coach said to me, you know, the difference between your office between yours and Dean’s is his isn’t at the end of the hallway. So he has the corner office. You need to ask for the corner office. I was like, Oh, I don’t want to ask for the corner office that’s so selfish. And he said, you know, for other women you need to so I went to my boss said I wanted it she was just like she kind of knew me and she was like seriously, but she went to the COO and said, you know, she wants to corner office blah blah blah took like a week later and they and she came back to me and said the seat, COO had thought about that, but they like you better so they want you closer to them and they intentionally just put them on the end of the hall. And I was just like shoo you know, like done and Just because I did it, I was proud of myself for doing it. But my coach said, Do you know why they didn’t give you the corner office, because they knew you wouldn’t say anything. And they knew he would fight. So I thought, don’t be the path of least resistance. And so I that awakened my awareness around, it happens all the time around us. And if we’re not aware, we’re opting out of an opportunity, maybe don’t get that project or those things. So it happens all the time, in retail as business owners, so…

       

      10:34

      What I’m thinking about so much as you know, a lot of aestheticians, they’ll start out solo, a lot of times, they’ll be in solo suites, which are these kind of one person, one organization, or a franchise owns all these different rooms, and there’s all these independent businesses within there. So they’ll start out there, build their books, and then they go out and do a storefront. So they’re renting a space. And there’s so much that goes into opening a storefront. And it starts with, you know, negotiation around ti dollars, right, and negotiation around price per square foot, and all of these things. So many just go in there and say, what’s the, how much does this cost per month? Right? And sometimes that can make such a huge difference in the like, if you’re doing a build out, you know, what type of improvements is the landlord growing to pay versus what you can pay the landlord’s paying it, then you automatically have that extra money for advertising, marketing, hiring, right? But if you don’t ask, it’s not going to just be given to you.

       

      11:44

      Yeah, completely. And if I was going to coach, somebody that was looking at those things, I would I, I have a framework, and I’m going to give something to your audience to help them think this through. But it’s all about preparing an understanding that the negotiation starts at the first conversation. And so asking out of curiosity, before you get to the specifics, understanding the lay of the land, asking questions to understand what is negotiable.

       

      12:17

      So let’s use let’s use a storefront. Okay, as an example, and can you walk us through your framework? And how someone would negotiate renting a space? Like what are the what types of questions would they be asking? Out of curiosity?

       

      12:33

      Yeah, so as so the framework is, is four parts, it’s just a way of thinking. One is, its pace, prepare, aware, close and evaluate. Okay, so the most important part of negotiation that’s often overlooked, is preparing. And that’s because we don’t like to negotiate. So we don’t want to spend that time we just want to get in, get it over with. But preparing is really important. so in this situation, I would say, who can you ask who’s rented from this person before? Or this organization? How does it work? How do they make decisions? Get the lay of the land, ask what had worked before? What are some of the terms that they use, you know, if you’re new to negotiation, just ask a lot of questions, ask other people around you, then find out and understand who the decision maker is. And what are think through what’s important to you. And what’s important to them. Maybe timing is important to them. Maybe those adjustments and things that you want to have control over that you mentioned, is important to you. But really being clear about all of the pieces of leverage that they have, and that you have. And then being clear about what you want making a list of all the things that are important to you, in the short term and the long term. Because the key is going to aware is being as objective as you can. So being really clear about what you want to get out of it, and what their interests are so that you can really adapt and change in the moment. Does that make sense?

       

      14:16

      It does. And I think also like, being able to think clearly, and without emotion during the negotiation piece because we can get we all have our own triggers. We all have our own stories. And, and just knowing what that walkaway point is, like, you know, for me, I’m thinking about this situation when I bought a car and I was like, Okay, well, I’m just, this is my walkaway point. I knew that in my mind. And if I didn’t get the price down to that particular point, then I was just going to walk away. So it makes so much sense that you know that ahead of time and I’m not going to go in and be like, Oh, I really want the car. And it’s this much. Like I, I did not let my emotions get in the piece get in the way, because I had made that I had thought it out and looked at my budget and did all this stuff ahead of time. And I think that’s so important in in business, right to know, like, okay, there’s so many opportunities, if this one doesn’t work, if this one doesn’t get you what you need, there will be other opportunities. 

       

      15:36

      Absolutely. And there’s the emotion does cloud your thinking, positive and negative, both ways. So you should never make a final decision without it. And I love what you said, have a walk away, and be ready to walk away. And the way to make that really comfortable is have options, even if it’s not what you want, have looked at other places that you could go so that you feel more comfortable, because that will drive you to be more objective. So having those those pieces is absolutely important to think about how do you get objective, and also framing it as you know, this is benefit to them, too. So this is a win win, how do I make them feel like they got what they needed. But I have to ensure that I get what I need to.

       

      16:26

      And I will say I mean, this is a little bit off off topic. But I think that it’s relevant. You know, we talk about removing the emotion, and all of that, I do believe that emotional intelligence and having emotion around our team and team development can be a really beautiful thing that women are so good at. But it’s understanding and like on the Myers Briggs, I’m an F, like, I am an emotional person. But I have had to train myself to how do I think of objectively about this decision? How do I any decision that I’m making in business, for my business for my company, for the company of my clients that I’m, you know, coaching. How do we look at that from a purely objective standpoint, and make that decision?

       

      17:21

      Mm hmm. And you can become more, it’s so important, it’s you can become more objective by having more data. Like, I know, you like data around how things go and looking back at that, you know, for your business to say, Oh, yeah, negotiation, all the data, even if you have options, and you know, square footage from other places, comparatively, and you look at the story, and you frame it, right. If you have that plan, it is all about managing your reaction, your emotion, even pacing, because you can come across really confident. And knowing your position, which can give you power just by applying silence. And sometimes when we’re nervous, understanding, we’re going to be nervous, sometimes we just have to say Okay, and now I’m going to be nervous, because this is a high stakes negotiation. How am I going to leave that in my body and just get through it? But knowing that having that objectivity having those decisions already made about your walkaway, then in that moment, you don’t have to think about it, you’ve already made that choice.

       

      18:34

      Okay, so let’s continue through the framework.

       

      18:38

      Yep. So awareness is is getting in there, you already have your prep done, you really know what you’re, how you’re going to get through it. It’s being aware of those triggers that you have being really clear about your frame, like really thinking about what is your story, and what is important to you and how you want to walk that person through the negotiation. You want to continue to have them look at it from your perspective. So that awareness is about what is happening to them. You also don’t want them to go through emotional ups and downs. Don’t make them frustrated, if you feel like they’re getting a little bit out of control. How can you take a break? How can you keep them also objective because that’s the key. And then understanding where you are in it don’t oversell when they’ve agreed to it, know that it’s time to move to close. And then in prep, you can also anticipate all of those relationship things along the way. And there’s awareness around that even personality types. You know, there’s a lot of data around salespeople and with introverts, extroverts, and ambiverts and they found that ambiverts, the middle between extroverts, introverts are actually better at negotiation. extroverts talk too much. They don’t know when to close, they don’t have that awareness, the other person doesn’t feel heard. And then introverts sometimes don’t speak up enough to tell the story. So I think about that is how do you think about your personality and give equal time? or allow that to happen? This is a relationship. So how do you do that? That’s all about awareness.

       

      20:29

      I love that. I love that and you have a little handout or download for everybody

       

      20:34

      Perfect, that’ll be so helpful. Because I’m like, trying to like go through all the steps. In my mind, it’s so helpful to have something visual that as you’re because anything that does make you a little bit nervous or uncomfortable, like, the more you do it, the better you get. But for me, I find that if I have a checklist, or I have a resource or something, it just makes it so much easier. That’s like, Am I doing this? Am I doing this? Right? Absolutely. I love that. So any other advice? for aestheticians, for business owners, in how to incorporate negotiation just in their day to day lives?

       

      20:34

      Yes.

       

      21:15

      Yeah, that’s such a great, I love to talk about silence. And the thing about negotiation, if you practice it every day, you do find those tactics that work for you, or you get comfortable doing it when the stakes are high. So you really want to have that. So like you said, the more you do it, the more you understand how to get better at it. And so the key is how do you practice those things? So some of the things that people practicing silence with somebody that you know, and changing the pace of a conversation, it’s just interesting to see what happens.

       

      21:49

      Well, and I know with when we’re recommending homecare products, so often, like I say, a confused mind always says no. So if you’re making recommendations and and for us as aestheticians, we’re, so I’m interested in ingredients, and the technology and the science and all of this kind of stuff. But if you’re talking to someone, right after they have a facial, and they’re in facial fog, and they’re all blissed out, and so happy, and you’re talking about glycosaminoglycans and changing…, they’re gonna be like, what, what is this going to do for my skin? And so sometimes just saying, here’s the homecare that I recommend, this is what I want you to do, and the am and pm, you know, just making the recommendation and then being quiet, and letting them make the choice or letting them answer the question. And I think knowing that their decision, if they say no, they’re not saying no to you as a person. They’re saying, No, that doesn’t feel like the right fit like that homecare, or whatever. It’s, I think a lot of times in negotiation, just my personal belief. We take it personal. If someone says no to us, and it really has nothing to do with us. It’s we either haven’t communicated the value of what we’re offering in a clear way. And we need to work on how we can communicate that in a better way. Or it simply just wasn’t the right fit, right? 

       

      23:30

      Completely. Clarity and that awareness around the know, like and trust factor, because after you’ve given a service like that, the trust is really high. So they don’t need a lot of information. If you say this, you know, either. And if they’re not ready to say yes, just have that awareness around how where the relationship is.

       

      23:51

      Mm hmm. Yeah. No means not yet.

       

      23:55

       Yes, it’s a starting point in this. 

       

      23:59

      Yeah. Very good. So Susie, tell us where people can find you follow you stay in touch with you. I know, we’re going to include our links below this. And we’re going to include your resource, but what’s the best place to kind of stay in touch with what you’re doing?

       

      24:12

      Yeah. So all the places where you can find me is my Susie Tomenchok , which I have to figure out an easy way to dispel it. But the good thing is, it’s the one I use everywhere. So you can find me on Instagram, and I’m very active on LinkedIn. And because I work with a lot of corporate people as well, and then we will have that resource. And if there are any questions for your audience, I would be more than happy to, if they reach out to me, help them guide them and help them figure out what negotiation strategies they can start to use.

       

      24:50

      I love that. Thank you so much for your time, Susie. This has been incredible and I know it’s going to help some of our spa owners, all of our spa owners, right anyone that puts into practice just advocating for yourself. You know, knowing that no means that yet right it’s just the start just the start. I love that. All right if you want to keep this conversation going head on over to the spa marketing Made Easy Facebook group. We love to talk strategy we love to talk business, we love to talk all of those things. So hang out in there join us and we’ll catch you on the next episode. 

       

      25:26

      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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      EP 235: How a CFO Helps You Meet Your Big Vision Goals with Kristi Thiel

      Finances are the ultimate two-sided coin of business — on one side, it’s the lifeblood that can lead to quite a bit of entrepreneurial pressure. 

      And on the other side, having a financially successful business is one of the keys to relieving all the pressure and unlocking true freedom, both in time and ability to do what we want not just with our business trajectory, but our lives. 

      And it’s this aspect of business finances that my guest, Kristi Thiel, and I are discussing in this episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy. 

      With more than 15 years and a unique blend of accounting and financial advisory experience under her belt, Kristi’s role as an Outsourced CFO is to help companies implement a strategy that ensures growth and profitability on track to achieving the long-term financial success they envision in both business and life. 

      Tune in as we talk about Kristi’s approach to finances and how a CFO can function as a collaborative partner in your business to ensure that all your financial bases are covered. 

       

      In this episode, we discuss: 

      •  How a CFO differs from a bookkeeper and CPA, and what they uniquely can do for a business in regards to finances 
      • What CFOs do and how they work to help you achieve your goals 
      • How to know when it’s the right time to consider bringing on a CFO and what pieces you need to have in place to onboard one effectively 
      • Kristi’s unique approach and on boarding process that helps her client get a grasp of how their financials look today where they’ll move in the future to support both personal and professional goals

      References Mentioned in Episode #235: How a CFO Helps You Meet Your Big Vision Goals with Kristi Thiel

      As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

       

      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!

       

      If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

      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, Daniela here and welcome to another episode of the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. Now when I ask our students to create an org chart for the vision of their company in the next year, I’m always surprised at how many leave off the finance department. Now, I know that you may not have a finance team on site at your spa. But they are an incredibly important piece of your business structure, a division of your company that can really make or break you. That’s why I was really excited to talk to Kristi Thiel about the role of your financial team. What should they be doing? What should you be talking to them about?

       

      01:03

      So we got into the difference between a bookkeeper a CPA and a CFO. So a CPA is a certified public accountant. A CFO is a chief financial officer. So really interesting to look at what each of these roles do and how they can help and support your business. Now, remember that in creating your business, you need to begin with the end in mind. What is it that you’re wanting to create for yourself? So if you’re wanting to create a multi six, seven, or even an eight figure company, you’ve got to start acting like a multi six, seven or eight figure business owner today. And how do they act? Well, I can tell you for sure that they have a financial team that they are consulting with that they’re being guided by, that’s helping them make the right decisions as they grow into the next level. 

       

      01:59

      Now, I’m going to go ahead and do a quick read of Kristi’s bio and then we can jump right in to the good stuff. With more than 15 years and a unique blend of accounting and financial advisory experience. Kristi’s role as an outsourced CFO is to create and help companies implement a strategy that ensures growth and profitability on track to achieving the long term financial success they envision. She becomes a collaborative partner in your business to ensure that your financial bases are covered. So go ahead and listen and take some notes and start to think about what your financial team looks like in your company. Alright, let’s go ahead and play that interview. 

       

      02:42

      All right, Kristi, welcome to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast, I am so excited to have you on to have this conversation we met online. I always think that that’s funny, we met on LinkedIn reached out you sent a really, really nice post a lot of times like on LinkedIn, they have those spammy messages and yours was really something about it just caught my attention. And and we had a great conversation about what is a topic that I think is so important in spa, and that’s for those spa owners that are at that like 200 – 300k and revenue. And they’re wanting to get to a million. There’s this missing piece that nobody really talks about. And that is the relationship that you have with your CPA, your CFO, your your finance team in general. And that’s what you do. That’s what you are, that is your world. And so I felt like bringing you on to really shine some light on that topic was going to be just so so valuable. 

       

      03:53

      Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

       

      03:55

      Yeah. So you know, we did your bio in the intro, but can you just give like the in a nutshell version of how you got to where what you’re doing today?

       

      04:07

      Yeah, so I have over 15 years of experience, not just an accounting, but also, I’m a former financial statement, auditor, I’ve done tax, I’ve done consulting, and I’ve also been on the private side. And I took what I really liked about all of those things, and decided that I wanted to serve companies in a greater way. And in order to do that I needed to provide services in a different way. We frequently see companies that interact with their CPA once a year or on a quarterly basis when they feel that they need something but CPAs have the power by having the exposure to all of those numbers and that information and exposure to a greater number of companies to see what works well. And so in this role, I have The ability to jump in and help was so much more than just producing financial statements or filing tax returns. So really, the purpose of it is to help provide some clarity, and align financial goals with the strategic plan and the vision of the company, and really help find a path forward so that business owners can get where they want to go.

       

      05:25

      So for listeners who are not clear on what these different roles in the financial piece are, can you explain the difference between a bookkeeper, a CPA and a CFO?

       

      05:41

      Okay, so a bookkeeper is making sure that the books and records are in order, everything that has happened in the past is recorded, it’s reported, and you have that information to use a CPA can help with anything from audits to tax preparation. CPAs also do consulting. But a CFO really is responsible for the financial management and the strategy of the company. So they are more involved in the company and the operations, financing and investing decisions going forward.

       

      06:19

      Yeah, and this is something that that we learned, you know, as we were growing as a company, it’s like, so often as the business owner, like the first goal is just getting to 100,000. Right? It’s like everyone wants to get there. And then you get into those multi six figures. And you’re like, Okay, yes. And then the next hurdle is a million. But there’s so many, like, Are you an LLC? Are you filing as an S corp? Right, like structure changes that can that’s a question you would talk with a CFO or CPA about, right? 

       

      06:53

      Yes. 

       

      06:54

      How? What is your strategy bringing on employees? What is your strategy and investing? What is your strategy, like? All of these types of things that are kind of like, you know, you’re no longer running a hobby business like this is really being developed into a company that you are creating, rather than just creating a job for yourself? And how do you structure that? And I feel like so often in the world of business, we talk about the marketing and the social and all the like, sexy parts of it, right? But the, the part that’s really going to save you thousands of dollars or push you over that hurdle is understanding and having a clear strategy for taxes for paying yourself or under for understanding long term growth of the company, because no one wants to get hit with a huge tax bill without being prepared for it, right? 

       

      07:53

      Yes, definitely. So in a spa, you have a multitude of things that you’re doing as a business owner or managing operations. And there’s so there’s a combination of so many different things that can bring you to the right place. But getting all of those pieces in order. There are so many details involved in that. And so what a CFO can do is really take a step back from those tiny details, and get it to the high level and help guide you in that direction.

       

      08:27

      I know for us over the pandemic, and our like whole finance team. They were the ones that were like, okay, here’s what the ideal is, here’s what the PPP is, here’s what you know, they were giving us all the information and digesting, like, okay, the Cares Act came out. And this is what this means, right? Like, if you don’t have a CPA or a CFO that’s helping guide you through those pieces. That can be so challenging, because you’re just trying to like, how am I going to keep my business afloat with all of this that’s going on, right? So it allows you to, okay, I don’t have to figure that piece out. My finance team can tell me how you qualify for this, or here’s your options. Here’s what we suggest or don’t suggest, here’s the pros and cons, right? Like looking at all of those pieces, which I think especially in the past year and a half, right, it’s just been so incredibly important, important to understand what all of that is.

       

      09:35

      Yes, and CPAs, and especially CFOs. They have exposure and they have the resources at their fingertips, to know what’s going on and what’s available to be used and how to get there. There’s so much in the laws, regulations and the rules for obtaining different sources for funding and so to look into that you really need someone who understands the lingo and Instead of trying to read the whole thing yourself and get to that point.

       

      10:05

      So, at what point in business, does it make financial sense to bring someone on that is a CFO?

       

      10:15

      So I think you’ve reached the point where you know, what you want your company to look like, and you’ve started operating. And you’ve already got your accounting is in order, and you’re able to analyze your financial performance. But you really need that strategic step forward, on the financial side.

       

      10:37

      So you know, what you want your business to look like, like, you have your 5, 10, 20, you have your exit strategy, right? You know, like, when the business is fully realized? What is it going to look like? Am I going to sell? Am I going to create a, a company where I just truly become an owner and not an operator. You know, all of these pieces we need to think about? And so often I see spa owners, especially if they’re solo, there is no, they’re just going day to day, right? They’re not thinking about what is the long term growth of the company. But yeah, to hire a CFO, and give them the direction of the goals that you want them to achieve? You’ve got to know like, what you’re going for? When do you want to retire? When do you want to? You know, are you going to hire a team? Are you going to sell, right? Because I imagine your financial statements should be done with all of that in mind.

       

      11:40

      Yes, definitely. And it also depends on do you have a plan for succession? Do you have a plan to sell. But also, I think a lot of owners, they have that dream and vision in mind before they start. And then they get into operations. And some of that gets forgotten because they get in the routine. And it’s tough to break that mold or start hiring staff when you’re not quite sure how to go about doing it. So there’s definitely some guidance that’s needed there. But it’s really that next step, once you’ve reached multiple, six figures, and you’re wanting to scale and grow, and you have different services in mind that you’ve considered offering that you think would complement everything else you do. So well. And so you need that guidance financially on how to get there.

       

      12:36

      Does the CFO, you know, one of the questions that has been asked regularly with our Growth Factor clients now who are doing kind of what is my exit strategy? What does that look like? And, and so much of it, especially as a small business owner, you know, a lot of these businesses are single member LLCs, or, you know, LLC filing as an S Corp. And your personal finances are very much involved in that. So does the CFO of your company, you know, if you hire a CFO, are they looking at your entire financial health and well being including? You know, like the finances of your spouse, when you are wanting to retire? If you have children? If you’re saving for college? Is that a CFO? Or is that financial advisor? Like how do you piece all of those things together to set the goals for your company based on what you’re wanting to create for yourself?

       

      13:41

      Right, so a CFO in a traditional sense, working directly for a company, they’re focused on that company, some outsource CFOs, myself, in particular, we have a big discussion upfront about personal goals, and where they are and where they want to be personally, because it all flows into the business. And what you decide to do financially affects your personal side as well. And so there’s an element of Yes, it’s easy to make a decision based on immediate bottom line impact. But you also have to consider what that means for your life and does it fit with everything that you want. So I definitely include that as part of the process.

       

      14:28

      So walk me through what your onboarding process is like when you bring on a small business.

       

      14:36

      Yes, so I like to have an initial consultation. I like to make sure that we’re a good fit. You need someone that you can work with and trust to help you in that strategic direction. And you need to be fully aligned on where things are going to go and how you’re going to commit to the process to make things happen and reach those goals. Maybe adjust as needed as time goes by the last year and a half has taught us how to adapt to change quickly. So, you know, it’s, for me, it’s about finding a good fit to, and you want someone who’s going to meet all of the needs that you have in mind for this type of service. And so what I do is first consultation, make sure we’re a good fit. And I also make sure that, you know, the spa owner is fully committed to the process, open to making changes to make things happen, open to potential investments in technology. And just being part of that process, and committing to meeting every month, so that we can work through things and know where things are going and where we stand and what we’ve done well, and what needs to improve. And then we read me on a regular basis. But there’s also ongoing support in between, they can pick up the phone or send me an email. So we can talk through things. Some clients prefer like a Google Sheet with objectives and tasks so that we can update each other regularly, without having to interrupt the day to day. So what I love about what I do is that is truly different for every client, I like to really customize based on the needs of my client. So usually, in that initial consultation, I can identify three to four key areas that we can really work on that would help reach those financial goals. So that’s kind of what drives how we set up what we’re doing.

       

      16:46

      That’s great. And this is, as I’m listening to you talk, I’m just thinking like, this is the definition of working on your business, you know, when everyone talks about like working on your business, rather than in it, this is like one of the key pieces, you’ve got marketing, PR fulfillment, and finance as really like the core areas of any company. And finance is something that, you know, it’s not uncommon for me to be talking with an aesthetician and then to have no idea what they’re even what their revenue is in October. And it’s like they’re pulling their stuff together for taxes. And it’s just one of those things that, you know, numbers can be scary for a lot of people. But it is it gives you so much power and so much peace of mind to really understand and own that part of your business. And shift the shift the the story or block or whatever it is around money that I’m not good with money, or I don’t like numbers or whatever it is like when you pay attention to it and learn and grow. It shifts that story. And that shifts so many other things in just your day to day operations of how you’re running and operating your business.

       

      18:08

      Yes, definitely. And, you know, part of the process is reverse engineering what you’re doing. So with business owners, I often get them to shift their thinking on expenses. What’s the benefit of that? Are you making a return on that? And so, you know, you talk about wanting to have a certain amount of profit, well, how do we get there, we have an idea where our sales are going to go based on history and trends, and you know, seasonality during the year. And so you have that, and you know how much you want your profit to be. And so then expenses, it really becomes going through those big expenses. And is this benefiting me? Or is it something I can live without?

       

      18:56

      Right isn’t an investment that you’re actually getting an ROI on? or… 

       

      19:01

      Yes.

       

      19:02

      Yeah, that’s huge. That’s for sure. 

       

      19:05

      Yeah. 

       

      19:06

      Okay. So any, what advice in wrapping up? What would you What advice would you give to an aesthetician who’s kind of on the fence and saying, Is this an expense to hire a CFO? Right? Is that an expense? Am I in that space? What benefit Am I going to get? Like? What would you say to that person?

       

      19:29

      Yes. So the intent of my process is to get a significant return and help give you that clarity so that you know where to go forward. And so, you know, if if we’re not getting a return, there’s a problem that needs to be fixed right away. And usually, if there’s a little hiccup in the process, it’s because there hasn’t been the full commitment to tracking and meeting those goals. Anytime you skip a monthly meeting or you know you’re not tracking your goals, you’re kind of letting things slide a little bit. So the point is when we have set meetings every month, there’s accountability there. When there’s tracking of goals, there’s accountability, to make sure that things are happening.

       

      20:20

      Love that. Perfect. So where can people find you follow you stay in touch with you? 

       

      20:25

      Yes. So I have my own website. I’m listed as Katie CPA LLC. And I’m also on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

       

      20:37

      Perfect. Well, we will include all of those links. I encourage you spa owners to check Kristi out, do some research, you know, look into your finances, ask yourself, Am I giving my finances the attention that they need that they deserve? to really take me to the next level, because that is such an important piece in your company. So if you want to keep this conversation going, please head on over to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group we’re going to we talked about all kinds of good stuff in there, around structure, around finance, around sales, all of these cases, head on over in the group tag us if you have any questions and we’ll catch you on the next episode. 

       

      21:25

      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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      EP 234: Excelling with Ecommerce in the Beauty Space with Matt Edmundson

      Ecommerce has been the spa industry’s hot topic ever since last spring when the pandemic forced spas across the globe to close, however, ecommerce is nothing new. 

      Now, that begs the question: have you already missed the boat on starting your own ecommerce store? 

      Well, slight spoiler, but the answer is “NO!” 

      And my guest on this week’s episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy, Matt Edmundson, shares why (among a plethora of other tips and takeaways you can’t miss). 

      A quick intro of Matt — he is a real-world eCommerce entrepreneur as well as a coach who shows newbie and seasoned entrepreneurs alike how to leverage the power of ecommerce. 

      As the CEO of the Jersey Company, a group of health, wellness and beauty companies that deliver products and services to over 120,000 loyal customers and has achieved global sales of $75 million, it’s fair to say that Matt is a true ecommerce expert. 

      But beyond the monetary success metrics, he’s walked the journey of ecommerce entrepreneurship since 2006, an era where online shopping was still a bit of the Wild, Wild West and you could get away with the “if you build it, they will come” philosophy. 

      In this interview, Matt shares not only his story, which illuminates just how much of an opportunity there currently is in the ecommerce beauty space, but he also provides a wealth of tangible tips and takeaways that will be helpful whether you’re in the considering-jumping-into-ecommerce phase or looking to scale what you started last year.

      In this episode, you’ll learn: 

      • How ecommerce has shifted in the last decade (and how it hasn’t), and why now is one of the best times to jump into building this arm of your business
      • Where ecommerce can fit under your existing brand as an extension or how it can become an entirely new business altogether 
      • Matt’s top tips for those considering embarking on their ecommerce journey and how to set yourself up for future success
      • The triangle of business and which two qualities will be most vital for your brand and growth
      • Matt’s key metrics that he advises every ecommerce business keep their eye on and the top digital marketing strategies he would deploy if he was just starting today 

      References Mentioned in Episode #234: Excelling with Ecommerce in the Beauty Space 

      As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you! 

       

      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!

       

      If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked! 

      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, Daniela here and welcome to another episode of the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. Hey, were you hanging out with us for the Spa Business Bootcamp? Well, if you were on day five, when we were talking about the scale phase, I was telling a story about a gentleman who started an ecommerce store and had done 75 million in sales to date $75 million in skincare sales from his ecommerce site. Incredible. That gentleman’s name, that man’s name is Matt Edmundson, and he is the guest on our podcast today. Now, Matt shares some interesting marketing ideas and strategies on how to promote your store and simultaneously help people solve their skincare problems. I love that bit. He was also really honest, and saying that whatever time you think it’ll take to grow your ecom store, which is essentially starting an entirely new business, right, you should actually double that. We always think, oh, if we, I want to start an ecom store, and I want to start a private label winer or I want to become a spell coach or whatever those things are. It is essentially starting a whole new business. And there’s so many more things that go into it. That, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know. So I was I love that he was just really honest and saying, you know, you should actually double that. If you’re wanting to have, you know, the wide reach that that he was and I know so many of you are. So let me just do a quick read of his bio and then we can jump into all the good stuff. 

      01:58

      Okay, so Matt is a real world ecommerce entrepreneur and coach, His goal is to show aspiring entrepreneurs, sure and simple steps in getting a digital business off the ground and seasoned entrepreneurs on how to take their business to the next level. Matt is also the CEO of Jersey company, a group of health, wellness and beauty companies that deliver products and services to over 120,000 loyal customers. The group includes the e commerce business jersey beauty company, which went online in 2006. And since then, has achieved global sales of $75 million. That’s over 7 million products shipped. Matt also has a podcast where he chats with experts in the field of ecommerce on how to grow and develop online businesses. Alright, there it is, you guys, this is a good one. Without further ado, let’s go ahead and play that interview. 

      02:53

      All right, Matt, welcome to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast I’m so excited to have you on because ecom has just been it’s been exploding, I read, I read an article that ecom grow advanced five years, just in the pandemic of the technology. And, and I know in our community in the spa world, there’s so many people that are wanting to add this additional stream of revenue to really not have all their eggs in one basket. Right. And we’ve seen a lot of success. But I think that your experience your background, you know, we briefly did your bio and the intro, but you run a beauty ecom site, it’s done over 75 million in sales you’ve been in from the beginning from you know 2006 even before that you’ve got a love for spa like what what are your thoughts on what has happened in the past year, like what has been going through your mind as it goes to ecom you know, like seeing all of these people and seeing everybody trying to jump into this, this business model?

      04:04

      Yeah, it’s an interesting one, isn’t it? I think you’re right, the the amount of people that have decided to ecommerce businesses over the last 12 months has has shot up at some incredible rate of knots. And of course, the amount of people wanting to buy online has also shot up. And so I have not read that stat that is accelerated five years in the last year. But it wouldn’t surprise me if that was actually the case. Because I mean, you’ve seen it yourself. You’ve done it yourself. How much more stuff do you now buy online? This, you know, compared to this time last year?

      04:37

      Yeah, I think Shopify did an article about it. Well, we’ll put the link below this episode. But yeah, I can send it to you as well. But it was a really interesting article that Shopify did about just the advancements in ecom and how comfortable people are and you know, now we’re seeing grandmas on Zoom. And, you know, before it was one of those things, that’s like, ah, So what do you think is the biggest difference between the ecom world in 2006? versus the ecom world today?

      05:08

      Oh, geez. So very good question. I would say everything has changed, but nothing has changed. And it’s a really, I appreciate that sounds like a bit of a strange statement to make. But everything has changed in terms of the way you do marketing, for example, has changed, but the principles haven’t changed. The way you run your ecommerce website has changed, but the principles behind it haven’t. And this is this is one of those things that I think people find hard to understand the basic principles, the fundamental principles of business, give a great product, give a great service, be kind to your customers, gentlemen, give good value. those principles are still true in e commerce are true in 2006. They true in 2021. Okay, so those things still the same, the way we fulfill that the way that we do that has probably changed a lot since 2006. The classic example for me would be Google AdWords, you know, when we first started, Jersey, Jersey beauty company in 2006. Honestly, it was back then a case of if you build it, they will come. Because that’s what happened. We we literally set the site live on evening in August. And I had not told Google I you know, we there was no such thing really as Facebook marketing back then. We just literally set the site live. And then the next day, we come in and find out people have sort of somehow found it an ordered product offers. And we were amazed that that doesn’t happen anymore. You know, I mean, very, very rarely. I mean, we were very lucky with our timing. But yeah, so I’d say the principles are still the same. The outworking of it has changed quite a bit.

      06:47

      So being lucky with the timing, do you feel like this is a good time? or a challenging time to get into ecom?

      06:59

      Oh, good question. Yeah, I would say both. It’s good, because there has never been such a demand for online as there is right now. Nor has there ever been such an acceptance of online as there is right now people have gotten used to buying online. And not just, you know, beauty products and buying literally everything you know, the local restaurant has is now doing takeout, you know, you can order online, whereas before you had to go in the restaurant and sit down. But I think people have gotten used to this idea that actually online is much more accessible. So you’ve got a much bigger, much bigger market, I would say it’s challenging, because actually, it’s like I said before, you know, we had this, if you build it, they will come. It’s not like that anymore. I mean, we were talking about that before you started recording. But the It’s not like that, you have to when you build your ecommerce website, when you build your ecommerce business, you have to approach it as a business, which is more than just throwing up a website and hoping it works, right, you’ve got to be much more strategic, you’ve got to have a plan, you’ve got to have an understanding of what you’re doing. Because there are 1000 other people now doing the same thing, you know, all getting trained for that consumers attention. 

      08:16

      Really understanding the competitive advantage. And like building an ecom site is essentially starting a completely separate business. And if you’re a spa, right, if you’re a brick and mortar spa, it can be an extension of your brand. But your ideal client, you know, you may be worth your brick and mortar, you may be marketing to those in a 10 mile radius of your spa. With econ, you could be marketing to the entire country. Right? 

      08:46

      Absolutely.

      08:47

      How you’re communicating with them how you’re going to stand out from the other spas, what types of services are you offering? How are you going to stand out from other e commerce sites? These are all things that need to be thought about. And and I think, I don’t know, I’m curious about your thoughts on this. But anytime someone starts something new in their company, I always say give yourself at least 20% more time than you think you’re going to need. Because there’s always something additional that comes up. There’s always something that you’re like, Oh, I didn’t think about that. Or I didn’t you know, it just always takes longer and more resources than you had originally imagined.

      09:27

      Yeah, it’s very, very true. I would say actually, you’re being very generous with the 20%. We always say to clients double it, you know? Yeah, whatever time you think it’s gonna be double it, because that’s probably a slightly more realistic, especially if you’ve never done it before. Because there’s so much you’re learning you’ve got to do to sort of figure out your way through Does that make sense? And so that always takes a lot longer than you expect it’s going to it’s unfortunately not a case of watching a YouTube video in your master right? It just doesn’t work like that.

      10:02

      Part of what you do on the consulting side of your company is you help brands with their econ. Right? You’re helping them with that. So, with your clients that you are helping with econ, what do you feel like are their biggest challenges when they’re launching their brands?

      10:21

      The biggest challenge anybody ever faces when they’re launched an ecommerce business, and this is especially true for people in the spa world, in the beauty world in that coffee is if your aim is to sell product, you know, like a beauty products, it is incredibly competitive, and is probably the most competitive industry online, or certainly one of them. And so, the where I see most people fail 99% of the time, is the way they approach ecommerce, it’s like, they’ve not thought about the product. Fundamentally, ecommerce is an online shop where people buy a product, or a service or a digital product or a download or something, they’re buying something. And you’ve really got to think about that product that people are going to buy. Okay? If you don’t think that through and take the time necessary to get that right. You’ve got no chance. And this is where I think a lot of people fail. And this is where I think a lot of people are going to struggle in the pandemic, they’ve just literally thrown anything online to try and generate some cash, which I totally understand, but it’s the wrong approach.

      11:35

      So when you say they’ve got to think about the product, how are we clearly communicating? Are we having reviews up there? Are we having multiple images? Like that type of thing? Or like how you’re positioning like positioning?

      11:49

      Yeah, think think about all of it. Okay, so let’s take a typical product that someone’s going to sell in a spa, what would that be? 

      11:57

      A moisturizer,.

      11:58

      A moisturizer, okay? So if you take a moisturizer, and is that moisturizer, a branded moisturizer? Or is it a moisturizer that is either created or white labeled by the spa? 

      12:10

      Yeah, let’s say a white label a private label. 

      12:13

      So we’ve got a white labeled product in the moisturizer space, okay. Now I run an online beauty business. I know. I mean, I know how complicated it is to try and get somebody to switch their moisturizer from one that they’re currently using, especially if the one that they’ve got is working. Okay. So if they’re buying a moisturizer already, and that’s working well for them, getting them to switch to your moisturizer, that is gonna take a lot of thinking. So you have got to position that product. So so well. And you’ve got to think about how do I get them to switch? What is it that’s going to take them to switch? What’s the language that I use? When I’m talking to somebody in the spa? How do I get them switch? Normally, my experience here is they have a sample of that product, and they try it and they go, yeah, this is great for my skin, the price is a good price for what it is that I get. I like the therapist that selling it to me, there’s a relationship there. How do I do that on my website. And so that, when I say that needs it, when you think about, you’ve got to think about the product, that’s what you’ve got to do, you’ve got to get yourself in the head of a consumer. So if you’re, if you’re putting your ecommerce website up, and you’re selling to your existing customers, awesome, that’s going to be really straightforward. But if you’re wanting to build that business out, and you’re wanting to sell to someone on the opposite side of the country, how do you do that? That’s a really fascinating question,

      13:45

      I think as aestheticians and beauty therapists, as you guys call them in the UK, and I think that we do have the advantage of building relationship on a different level. And we’re seeing a lot of these complimentary virtual consult. Let’s hop on Zoom, let’s look at your skin, let’s do a custom home care regimen. And it’s by someone who’s trained in this space. And so I think that for spa owners, how do you position that to be to create as much of an experience as it’s like going in the spa, but create that in your ecom site? where they can look at things they can ask questions, they can feel like they’re getting something customized to them. I think that that is really the powerful piece and and having a very, very dialed in brand. And who are you targeting? Right? are you targeting 40 year old moms that drive a minivan or are you targeting a single 30 something that lives in a city that you know what I mean? Like just the more niche you can go, the better because I believe the brand that does everything is the brand that does nothing.

      15:03

      And so exactly right. And it’s much harder to advertise the products and let’s be real, you’re going to have to do some kind of paid media to grow this 100%. So yeah, you, the more you can niche your audience down, the more you can niche your product to a specific audience, the better your advertising is going to be. Because you can then gear your landing page all around that product for that person with the right imagery, the right language, the right copy, you know, the right price, all of those things. You’re right, the more you can niche that down, the more likelihood you’re going to get in that sale.

      15:40

      So I want to hear a little backstory of Jersey Beauty Company. So you said you know, timing you got right. What else did you get? Right?

      15:52

      We, we built a business. It was a let me be totally fine. We were quite lucky I’m going to be I wasn’t an ecommerce expert in 2006, we were just a little bit lucky. And we thought, you know, if we could sell, we launched in August 2006. And we thought by the end of 2006, if we could sell 10 grands worth of product, we would be stoked, we would be super happy German, we would be on target. And so by the end of December 2006, we didn’t reach a 10,000 pound target, we’d sold 400,000 pounds worth of product, right? That’s about what 700,000 US dollars worth of product in four months. It was crazy. It just absolutely blew up overnight.

      16:40

      Are you doing paid advertising right from the beginning? Or not? I mean, I know day one, you said like people found you. But once people started finding it, when did you start doing the paid?

      16:52

      We did, we did Google AdWords, which looked very different back then. And that’s how we started to reach an audience. And the other thing that we tapped into, again, quite by accident was the forums. And so there’s a forum in the UK called mums net. And one or two of our customers posted things on Mumsnet. And that’s when it took off. Everybody from that forum saw these posts, and then they started coming to us in the thousands. And just buying the products, which was fantastic.

      17:24

      So logistic,

      17:26

      Like, I know, I know, you’re saying okay, luck, but you don’t sell $75 million of product with like, there has to be some business acumen behind it. Right? Like, yes, you knew what to do, like, logistically, when you go from zero to 700,000. There’s a lot and fulfillment and distribution in all of that, like, were you just really flying by the seat of your pants and making decisions every single day?

      18:00

      Yeah, I wish I could say, you know, is different. But no, we were totally flying by the seat of our pants. And every day was a challenge every day was and don’t get me wrong, it was a beautiful problem to solve. You know, it was it was it was a much better problem to have to solve. How do I do this today? How do I solve this logistic problem? How do I get the shipping cost down? How do I get the product quicker? How do I inform the customer better. And one of the things that we realize what happened between 2006 and 2010, and the company grew, right. And it grew really, really quickly.

      18:36

       2010, we had a major step change in our business. And this was when I, I pretty much took over the running of the company at this point. And we we wanted to change the business model. And this was I think, really, really pivotal for us as a business. A friend of mine drew on, on a napkin, a triangle, so you can kind of picture this in your head, you may have seen it before he drew a triangle. And in one corner, he wrote the word price. And another corner, he wrote the word service. And in another word, another corner, he wrote the word quality, so price service and quality. And he said to me, You can only pick two because you can’t do all three. In other words, you can’t offer a quality product at a low price and still deliver good quality customer service. Okay. You can’t offer you know, your customer high customer service and a high price but then deliver really poor quality product. Do you see what I mean? You’ve got to you’ve got to pick, pick which ones and we were at that time, I would say we were a price quality model. We had a quality product which we delivered very cheaply. And that’s part of the reason why we grew. But our customer service wasn’t great. And so in 2010 we switched our business model and we said what we’re going to do is we’re going to become a quality service business. In other words, our prices are going to go way up. But we are going to invest an awful lot more into delivering customer service. And so if you track our sales from 2010, so to 2011, we made this decision sales for slightly, I was very nervous at this point, I’m not gonna lie, because sales are different. But 2012, we had the best year we’d ever had, it took about a year for that, that model to change and for customers to understand what was going on. And 2012 was our best year at that point. I mean, it just totally exploded.

      20:36

      Do you think that is because focusing on that high level of customer service, you’re retaining more customers and getting them to repurchase from you?

      20:46

      That’s exactly right. Yeah, and that’s exactly right. We, we understood, we got to the point of thinking where we’re like, we looked at how much business was coming from repeat customers. And we thought man alive, it’s so much easier to sell to a repeat customer if we could invest in our customer service. So now over, I think over half of our income comes from repeat customers. So you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a massive part of our business right now.

      21:14

      I’m such a believer in client retention and keeping your existing clients feeling like VIPs. And so often in the spa world, and I think in businesses in general, it’s how do I get new clients? How do I get new clients constantly on that hamster wheel, but there’s so many studies out there that will show like, it’s so much easier to sell to an existing client you’ve built that know, like, and trust factor. And yet, we are just constantly on this, like, new client special or, you know, like, first time client thing, and it’s really just missing the boat on like, how do you go deep, instead of going wide?

      21:56

      Yeah, so important.

      21:57

      When you do that, what we discovered quite quickly was those customers that had great customer service, the ones that come back time and time again, not only do they spend more, not only does their lifetime value go up, they’re the ones which will share you on social media, they’re the ones which will tell their friends to come buy from you.

      22:16

      What are the main KPIs that you’re tracking? So you you’ve mentioned lifetime customer value? But what are the main KPIs that you’re tracking? In an ecommerce business?

      22:28

      Where you’re going to track the obvious ones? You’re going to track? How many people are coming to your website? How many of those people are converting into buyers? What’s my conversion rate? Is that going up? Is that going down? You’re going to come you’re going to track things like we call it on ramping. So if you for example, if you go to a product page, and you’re not ready to buy the product, what else can I do to connect with you? which is normally getting an email address out of somebody? What How can I do that. So you want to measure how successful your main call to action is, you want to measure how successful your onramp call to action is the sort of secondary one, you’re going to want to measure how long people are on your website, you’re going to want to measure things like bounce rates and other sort of standard Google Analytics stuff. I think you’re going to want to measure all of those, but you’re gonna want to measure things like how many of our customers are recommending us to other customers? How many customer service emails have we got, gentlemen? And how many? How many times… 

      23:27

      How long does it take us to respond to a customer service email? 

      23:30

      Yeah. And how many times do we get asked the same question, you know, that’s always a bit of a telltale sign, it means you’re not giving the information out properly in the first place. So you’re going to whatever works for your business, you’re going to find these little nooks these little crannies, as we like to call them and go actually, if we do well here, it really benefits. So you’re going to want to measure the main ones turnover, for example, how much are we actually doing in sales, but it’s the other ones, you’re going to want to measure? The three main ones I was always taught to measure. And I think it’s still true today. There was only three numbers you really needed to be aware of number one was how many customers have you got number two was the average order value, and number three was the average order frequency. And so if you understood those three numbers, and you could grow any one of those three things, you would grow your business. So if I increase the number of customers, if I increase their average order value, so how can I increase the spend when they come on the website? And the third one average order frequency, how can I get them to come back sooner? Rather than if my average gap between orders is six months? How do I get that down to five months? How do I get that down to four months? What can I do to increase those three things? And I think if you focus on those three things, you can build a really, really great ecommerce business.

      24:48

      Yeah, it sounds like digital marketing is such a huge piece in any any ecom business. It’s it’s really understanding paid advertising, understanding. funnels and email marketing and all of those pieces really, really play into it and are skills that I think would greatly benefit any business owner that’s wanting to go ecom.

      25:14

      I would say yes, if you’re wanting to grow quick, if you’re wanting to grow organically, it’s not as important. And the reason I say this is because when you use words, or when I’ve used not new, but when I’ve used words in the past, like funnels and digital marketing and paid advertising, it scares a lot of people off. So it’s like, I don’t want to do that. I’ve heard too many horror stories. I don’t want to, I don’t want to go down that road. A few years ago, we we set up our own beauty brand. So we had our own branded moisturizer. And we were like, right, how do we sell this? We could do the paid media routes. And that is, you know, if you know how to do paid media, definitely go down that road if you know what you’re doing. But you can be creative. So one of the things that we did, we had a girl at the time working for us, Esther, a beautiful young lady, who was part of our customer service team. And we just said to Esther, listen, I just want you to spend all day on Twitter. That’s what I want you to do. I want you to go on Twitter and see if anybody is writing on there. Oh, my skin’s feeling a bit dry today or my I’ve got a breakout…

      26:22

      Amazing stuff that people write on Twitter about their skin, right. And so we just hit set some alerts, which was always searching Twitter, when something popped up. We try quite quickly to respond. Hey, listen, sorry to hear about that. We’ve got some samples of a product, which I think is going to really help you with dot dot dot. Would you like me to send them out to you? If you’d like, I can send them out to totally free of charge, just head over to the website to this page, use this code. And I’ll make sure you don’t pay anything to get them and just all I ask is you just let me know how you get on. Do me know whatever works for you. And we must have got 10-20 leads a day just doing that.

      27:02

      Wow. Yeah, it’s kind of like the Gary Vee strategy. Have you? Do you listen to Gary Vee at all? He’s a Yeah, started his company by just listening and responding and helping on social media.

      27:16

      Yes, this is incredible, right? So don’t let the funnels don’t have a digital marketing, the paid media and all that sort of stuff, put you off starting because you can start very simply, you can start organically, you can say right, what I’m going to do is, is actually make sure we service our own customers super, super well online. And I’m going to reward them if they share it out to their friends, right, you’re not going to grow as quick you’re not going to grow as fast. But it will be that organic growth. whilst you’re figuring out the funnels whilst you’re figuring out the paid media. You don’t have to know everything before you hit the ground, you just have to know a few things really well. And I still think the best marketing strategy is taking care of customers.

      27:54

      I love that advice. Anything else you want to add for spa owners aestheticians that are wanting to jump into the world of ecommerce for you to make this episode feel complete.

      28:08

      Oh, there’s so much we can throw out there. I think the bottom line is, you know what do it get online, because because it makes an awful lot of sense to take this opportunity because I don’t know how often these opportunities are going to come around. But as things currently stand, setting up an e commerce business makes an awful lot of sense. And don’t let fear or anxiety put you off doing it. You can just literally go to Shopify and set up an account. You don’t have to spend lots of money or Squarespace or you know, whichever one you prefer. And you can set up an account very cheaply and very easily, you usually don’t need any coding experience to get going. You just need to be consistent and show up every day. And I think if you do that and look after your customers, well, all the other stuff, all of that you can learn to remain. But get your fundamentals right get your product, right your product images, your product, copy the positioning of it, you know, definitely do a product video talking about the product, all this stuff, which you can do in your voice that no one else can do. Just like you were talking to a you know, a client in the room in your spot, figure out a way to bring that voice to your website. And I think you’ll do super super well. I love the idea that you mentioned earlier the online consultations I think that’s great. And doing those kinds of things. If it was me, I would be doing a Facebook Live pretty much every day, especially if my client clients were in there sort of 40s if that was my main my main range, I would be like you know what I’m going to be I’m going to start getting into live streaming where I can start doing q&a as if my clients are younger. I’m probably going to do it on Instagram because I can do that. You can do that with a mobile phone. Everyone’s got a mobile phone, right and just start building your tribe. that’s fundamentally right just to attract people, they’re going to start asking you questions, build your tribe. And then the other thing that I would say is don’t limit your e commerce business, to just product. Now, what I mean by this is, if I was in the spa business, and I do know this bar industry quite well, if I was in this bar business, there would be a number of things I’d be looking to sell online. 

      30:26

      Number one, I would be looking to sell products, okay, I’d be looking to sell my own branded products, and I would probably go out there and get some branded products to sell on there as well just to start to build traffic and get people in. 

      30:39

      The second type of product I’m going to be selling, okay, is a digital product. How, how can I create a digital product that’s going to help my clients, for example, we’re working with a lady here in the UK called Joan Jewett. And she is she is a really, really fun, beautiful lady. Okay, she’s in her 60s. She won’t mind me saying that at all. She’s from the northeast of England and has a really strong accent. She is just as straight as a diamond. The way she talks you either love it or you hate her. She’s we in England we say she’s like Marmite, German, you’re either turned off or you’re turned on by. And I just love her. She’s just great Joe. And Joe is fascinating to me, because here’s a here’s a lady who is a professional makeup artist in her 60s. And when you read her client list, right, so you go down. Madonna is interesting. Bette Midler. Okay, Princess Diana, to remain especially in the modern world. Everyone’s fascinated with Harry. Well, he was Harry’s mother, she was Harry’s mom’s makeup artist. And so we build a website tried selling the products or products thing didn’t really work. But what is starting to work for Joe is her facebook or her Instagram lives, where she’s showing how to do makeup tutorials online. Okay, guess what, guess what’s being developed. Now we’ve got some digital products being done, where she is going to go in depth into doing these tutorials. And they won’t be that expensive, maybe 27 to 37 bucks to get into. But she can do those and people want them to see what I mean.

      32:18

      I can’t tell you how many times when I was practicing as an aesthetician and doing makeup. How do you do a smoky eye? Right? It’s like this question of and putting something up of a tutorial. That’s that low price point. I’ve known a few makeup artists that have done have done things like that and done very well. So yes, I love love that advice.

      32:39

      Yeah, digital products work. You have a knowledge you have a skill that people want. And if you present it in the right way people will buy it. And that’s another big learning. I think under COVID a lot of the digital ecommerce business has gone crazy. But one of the products which is outstripping every other product is digital products, the online course. And what can you do that would generate, you know, an extra income? What kind of course could you create? You know, what kind of tutorials? What kind of lessons could you create? And I think it’s a it’s a fun is a phenomenal opportunity. Right now. It really is a phenomenal opportunity. So I’d be selling products, I’d be selling digital products. And I would actually be selling services online as well. 

      33:28

      I’m into your spa or, or Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 100%.

      33:32

      Yeah, absolutely. And if you know, people like across the country, if there’s like four or five of you that can get together and it’s like, well, we’ll get we’ll get together and we’ll, we’ll form like a little group. And it’s like, Well, okay, we’ll sell, you know, massage. And you can get it here, here, here or here. You know, wherever you are in the country. Create, you know, create the nice days of people can fly in and do and you pick them up from the airport. You know, it’s why not? People are interested in that sort of thing. 

      33:57

      Why not?

      33:59

      That’s a great way, a great way to close this episode. So Matt, tell everyone where they can find you follow you stay in touch with you. Keep learning from you. where’s the best place?

      34:11

      Well, yeah, you can reach out to me at mattedmundson.com that’s my website or if you go to Instagram or Facebook or any of them really into search for me, you’ll find me. We have a weekly podcast called the ecommerce podcast if you want to know more about e commerce where we were a bit like you I get to interview some some phenomenal guests. And so you can you can get into that. Of course, I have a digital product. Why would I not right? But yeah, all the information is available on my website madness.com. You’ll find it all there.

      34:42

      Perfect. Thank you so so much. I really appreciate it. We’ll include all the links below this episode. And if you guys want to keep this conversation going, be sure to head on over to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group. We’ve got tons of additional resources and love answering questions and keeping the conversation going. Alright, I will catch you on the next episode. 

      35:04

      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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