The TanWall Blog

Tanning salon businesses across the nation will feel the effects of the new health care insurance bill as early as July 1, 2010. Indoor tanning salon patrons will soon be charged a 10% tax to help fund the $940 billion health care overhaul.

President Barak Obama signed the new law into effect only yesterday, marking a pivotal, and surely controversial, moment in our present history. The controversy is mainly fueled by unclear, and seemingly miscalculated—or at least under-estimated—budget cuts and tax increases; not to mention measures to impose insurance coverage on those who choose not to carry any, the banning of insurance companies to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, the banning of insurance companies to drop coverage of an individual due to severe illness, and banning limits on lifetime or annual benefits. Read more…

The Venture:
Michael Loomis began working on a business plan for a new tanning salon, soon to-be- called Tantations. As a first-time salon owner, Michael wanted an easy, efficient, and cost effective solution for his build-out needs.

The Challenge:
Tantations needed to be more then just a one-store-wonder. Michael wanted a build solution that was so cost effective he could see himself expanding his business from one salon to a multi-location operation. Conventional construction methods for his rooms and walls just wouldn’t cut it, once he considered time and money. So Michael started exploring the possibility of using a modular wall system instead. And that’s when TanWall came into the picture about 6 months ago, when Michael approached us to consider the construction of a healthy number of rooms for his brand new tanning salon.

The Solution:
TanWall’s Modular Wall System was exactly what Tantations needed. TanWall proved to be faster, easier and less messy then other construction methods. After some careful and thorough research, Michael soon discovered that TanWall’s system provided the flexibility, efficiency, and cost effectiveness in order to expand and develop Tantations into a competitive brand.

“I chose [TanWall’s Moduar Wall System]…” Michael explained, “…because they look amazing, pave the way for possible franchise opportunities and save money as you do not have the added expense of a contractor, building permits, or [missing] your deadline due to construction delays.” He went on to finish by saying, “Overall, TanWalls are one of the smartest investments you can make when building a salon!”

For Tantations, Michael chose Rosewood TanWalls with Bronze framing and stained the doors an upscale color to compliment the Rosewood walls. Michaels order, from approved to layout to manufacturing, took 2-3 weeks.

The Conclusion:
We can’t argue with Michael. TanWall’s Modular Wall System is the best investment you can make into your tanning salon.

Kristina Admire, National TanWall Design Manager, had this to add, “I hope many more entrepreneurs in the tanning industry may come to see TanWall as a simple way to build out a salon that creates a brand image along with a fast and repeatable process for future stores.” She also had this to say to Michael of Tantations, “I was so happy and excited to help you develop Tantations. I wish you all the best and look forward to seeing the growth of your business and brand.”

Some salon owners we speak to are having a hard time driving additional traffic to their business.  I would like to share with you some ideas to increase the amount of revenue and customers to your salon.

There are several simple ways to drive additional traffic to your salon with little or no money.  In an earlier topic I spoke about understanding your market place.  There are a few ideas that you could push in your community to drive traffic and help the community.

Every community has a college of some sort or another.  All of them are looking for revenue streams to help them gain more money for their schools. First I would like to touch on a school that has a sports program.  If the schools have sports program they may also have a cheerleading squad, booster program, volleyball team, gymnastics program or other ancillary programs to their school. 

You could print coupon books right from your computer and revive them to each of these programs to sell.  In return you would pay them for each coupon sold. In addition, the top producer in sales of these coupons could receive $500.00 toward scholarship money or even an annual pass to your salon for free.

In doing this, there are several angles you can leverage in the media.  The first one would be the school newspaper.  Invite the school newspaper over to interview you on the new program.  This would provide exposure to you and your salon for free. The next step would be a local newspaper, TV station and other news organizations that you have in your town.  When you provide scholarship money for students or even an annual pass it will drive the sales.

Let’s walk through the math real quick.  If you normally charge $40 per month for monthly contract, you would be selling an annual contract for $480 per year. Therefore, you could give the school $5 for each month sold. If they sold an annual subscription they would receive $60.  That is big money for school and if they sold 200 annual subscriptions they would make $12,000 and you would make $84,000.00 in revenue.

In addition to schools, there are many other organizations that could benefit by selling your services to help them make money for themselves and you making even more money. There are some organizations such as Churches, Shiners, Glee clubs, marching bands, Country Clubs, and hundreds of other non profit organizations that could benefit.

During the holiday season, your salon could donate a toy to the toys for tots program for every annual contract in their name. People love to donate and that could provide you the edge to get new customers into your salon.

Remember, there are a million ways to drive business to your salon. The only thing holding you back is execution. That’s it….

One of the biggest mistakes that any salon owner makes is to not understand their customer.  The most successful salons understand what’s important to their customer.  The things that you may think are important are not. We all heard the saying “the three most important things in business are location, location, location.  Although the location is important I don’t think it’s the most important in most cases. I will talk further about that at a later time.

Knowing your audience’s likes and dislikes is extremely important. The simplest of questions never seemed to get answered when a business owner opens their salon.  One of the questions you need to ask your self and your customers are

What makes you choose one tanning salon over another? 

There are several answers that can come with that question.  You need to know the answer in order to be successful.  Some of the answers that you may receive are comfort, security, cleanliness, price, location, appearance, and how the staff treats me.  These are just a few of the answers that you may get from your clients.

How do you get this information?

There are several ways to obtain this information from your clients.  If you’re a new store and have not opened yet, you can visit other salons in the area and put a flyer on each one of the cars in the parking lot and asked them to fill out a survey online.  There are many survey companies online that are free.  You can use companies like survey monkey.com to develop and track your surveys.  In return upon opening your provide them with the first month free for providing you with survey results. Just so you don’t break the bank on the first month you can limit it to the first 10 who do the survey.

If you are an existing salon owner, you can do something similar however you can distribute this flyer in your store.  If you have a large chain you can select 10 customers and put them all in a customer board. What is a customer board you ask?  This would be a group of your customers that could meet once or twice a year at your cost at a local hotel ballroom where you could feed them lunch and listen to their feedback.  They could recommend changes likes and dislikes and could build your business into greatness.

When you get the answers the next step is acceptance.  One of the hardest parts for a business owner to grasp is criticism.  Always accept the criticism no matter how much it hurts.  Your denial of reality from your customer’s perspective can be devastating.  We all have an internal button to make excuses for other people’s opinions.  These are the people that are giving you money or could potentially give you money. Listen to what they say and accept it.

Putting criticism for action is vitally important.  After you’re finished being hurt, and insulted, take action, instead of making excuses.  Capitalize on the things that your customer does like and work on the things that they don’t like. Most of the criticism will be simple to solve. For example, one of the things that you’ll hear most is “the person working the front counter is not very friendly”. That’s a pretty easy one to solve, isn’t it?  It is unless it’s your wife’s sister who was working the front counter.  No matter who it is they need to be either properly trained or replaced. It’s never about the people it’s about the management of people.  Most people want to do a good job they just don’t know what that is.

We could go on forever about the trials and tribulations of any business.  But if you’re the owner, it’s all your responsibility.  If it’s not working, “it’s all your fault”.  Accept responsibility and make the changes necessary to make use business successful.

Tanning Salons Walls Are Now In Black

The fast growing Tanning Industry is a business where image is everything. Tanning Salon Owners are in the trade to tan their clients giving them a healthy glow making them look and feel fantastic. Well it doesn’t stop there; Salon Owners are continually striving to achieve a great ambience at their salons as well to attract their clientele.

TanWall’s design team spends a lot of time researching what looks are hot and in demand for salon owners to make sure their salons stand out against their competition. What TanWall found is Black is Back! “Due to the overwhelming request by salon owners to create a lounge feel, Black was being asked for continually by our Salon Owners.” said Kristina Admire National TanWall Sales Manager. Kristina continues “My job is to make Salons look great and be successful; I listen to what the Salon Owners want and get my designers to make it available. A visit to the new TANWALL website will treat you to a variety of different colors and looks to match your brand identity including now TanWall’s new Black Licorice TanWall’s.

TanWall Modular Walls have been offering Salon owners an incomparable variety of upscale looks to choose from since inception. TanWall Modular Wall colors rage from contempory, to sheik wood grains to the new lounge inspired Black Licorice. Salon owner Lukasz Dabrowski comments “Going with TanWall Modular Walls for our 2 salons was an easy choice for us. We were trying to coordinate so many different vendors when you open a new business it was nice know that the TanWall’s were going to come already finished with the color on them. Lukasz continues “The TanWall’s instantly transform your salon in to ambiance you want a lot easier than hard construction with thankfully no painting!!”

For more information, you may visit the company website at WWW.TANWALL.COM or Kristina can be reached toll free by telephone at 866-TAN-WALL (826-9255) or at kadmire@tanwall.com.