Company of One: Book Review (And Why You May Not Need to Hire to Grow Your Spa Business!)

Let’s face it: we operate in a world where the majority of entrepreneurs associate bigger with better. Now that we’re officially into 2020, most spa business owners are buckling down on their growth initiatives. Those can often take the form of wanting to do more— hire more staff, gain more clients, rent more space, do more marketing… In this “bigger is better” mindset, external and internal pressure to grow your spa business nag you to grow your business outwards. 

However, what if I told you that that’s not going to be the case for you? What if I told you that, maybe, the most successful way for your spa business to grow is upwards rather than outwards?

When it comes to your growth initiatives, I urge you to consider whether expanding your team, space, and/or resources is the best decision for both your profitability and your sanity as an entrepreneur. It can be all too easy of falling into the honey trap of “expansion will equal success” before you factor in your business’s needs, goals, and current systems.

If you know that expanding your team or location is, in your heart of hearts (and is supported with data), the most effective growth strategy for your spa business, then go with your gut; if you’re uncertain, however, you may want to stick around to hear what prompted this epiphany for me personally. 

Company of One

Reading and ruminating on Paul Jarvis’s book “Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business” this November reaffirmed to me what I already recognized about growth initiatives: that the issue with growth is its unshakeable complexity. More team members, clients, marketing, etc. means that you need to take the time to develop more systems and either change or refine the current structure of your business. 

Instead, Jarvis pitches an idea that is revolutionary in its simplicity. Jarvis not only defines a company of one— such as a solo esthetician or a small company run by one person with no partners or shareholders— but also emphasizes that these “companies of one” actively question growth and “resist it if there is a better, smarter way forward.”

Wow, right? Even when I first walked by this book and saw its tagline, I knew that this topic would resonate not just with me, but with all of you due to the urgency I know you feel day in and day out about optimizing your spa business. Rather than a “growth at any cost” mindset, like I know I (and many of you!) have inadvertently been locked into, Jarvis promotes a growth synonymous with looking for areas of your business to leverage without adding complexities.

So What Does This Look Like in the Spa Industry?

As we know, there are two types of spa business owners: solo estheticians (or “solopreneurs”) and spa teams.

As a solo esthetician, following Jarvis’s advice entails developing a stronger retail sales strategy, simplifying or niching your services, and/or delegating tasks to a virtual assistant or subcontractor in order to free up your time.

As a team, taking this mindset onboard looks like organizing your business structure in order to hire and train ideal candidates, refining your staff retention systems, hiring spa attendants to enhance turnover time, and/or expanding your spa business’s hours. It can also entail clarifying job descriptions to simplify your role as leader or hiring a spa manager to help you manage both your team and your business. 

An added benefit of being a company of one is the sense of personal fulfillment that can come with it. Not everyone has the desire to run a large company, but, despite that, most entrepreneurs are made to feel unmotivated if they aren’t pushing to grow their business larger. As we know, however, pushing for growth regardless of the cost is exhausting, especially for us spa business owners: if you lose your spa business mojo, running your business can suddenly feel like a job— which is exactly what we were trying to get away from when we took the leap from employee to entrepreneur!

Your Next Steps for 2020

Even by following Jarvis’s simplifying “Company of One” approach, many of us can feel overwhelmed at the changes we need to make within our leadership and our business structure in order to leverage profitability.

By keeping your spa business “small”, it can offer your spa business resilience and the ability to quickly course correct when facing difficulties because your processes are uncomplicated; rather than seeking the next “shiny new promotion” to attract more clients, they are consistently improving their internal structures in order to thrive in the long-term. With that being said, the pressure to constantly improve your business’s guest experience, client care, team culture, and sales funnels can be daunting to even the most seasoned spa business owners.

As the former owner of a brick-and-mortar spa business and then, later, this successful coaching business, I never get tired of seeing the missed opportunities that have been hiding in plain sight for my solopreneurs and team coaching clients; get in touch with me today to hear how I can help you apply simple organizational efficiencies to increase sales without taking on big expenses or complicated processes.