Planning & Preparing for a Stellar Spa Business in 2020

We are coming into the time of year where most business owners start their strategic planning for the upcoming year. This is one of the most exciting times in our entrepreneurship because it’s the creative idea stage when we get to throw caution to the wind and dream big!

Creating an effective strategic plan means you will need to block out a day, possibly even two days of quiet time in a calm space. If you are cramming in a few minutes here and there, you will never be able to see that big picture view of your business. This “Eagle View” is where you get to have fun and play with your spa business.

Eagle View is also where you can see new opportunities for your spa business.

What could be your spa business opportunities for 2020?

Adding new revenue streams: This could be new services, products or an online shop. Maybe you've even been thinking of becoming an educator and sharing your knowledge. There are so many ways that you can add and layer to your revenue streams!

Investing in new equipment: Spa technology sure has come a long way! LED, microneedling, skin scanners, microcurrent, radio frequency, microdermabrasion, laser, and fancy electric spa tables are a skin therapists dream come true because it means being able to offer a completely different level of service and results. But you need to be strategic about your spending or risk stressful cash flow issues.

Polishing up your brand: As you morph and grow in your business, your brand will need to follow suit. A brand polish might come in the form of a website redo, a new logo, or even new colors. 

Creating an exit strategy: If you are feeling really tired of the entrepreneurial hustle and are ready to retire (or pivot to a different job if your spa biz doesn't jazz you up anymore) an exit strategy would be a good idea for your 2020 planning. There’s loads of systems that will need to be analyzed and streamlined for your spa business to look great for a potential buyer. Make a plan for how you’ll systematize your business in 2020 to sell in 2021.

Developing a strong digital marketing strategy: If you’ve been investing time or money into social media but not email marketing, sales funnels or paid ads AND you spa needs more bookings and sales, it may be time to strategize a stronger, broader marketing plan to ensure your local consumers see you. It takes 7-11 times of seeing your brand for consumers to even pay attention to what you have to offer!

Creating a plan to get you out of the treatment room: I say this with the utmost love; the only thing holding you back from doing this is your own ego. Your clients will be totally fine with one of your other team members if you have trained them in service and sales protocols effectively. If you don’t have a stellar training system in place right now…that should be one of your 2020 action steps.

Designing a recruiting & hiring system to strengthen team success: If you’re thinking of quickly hiring on a new team member to “take the overflow”, you’re in for a rude awakening because there’s so much more time, energy and money required of you to build a team. If you are going to go from team to solo, you need to have a strategy for recruitment, training AND payroll (because having a team is expensive until they’re producing…which can be months & months).

Assessing & clearing spa systems blindspots to optimize growth: If you’ve spent the past few years getting your spa business organized with systems and an ideal team, your next step is to dig through all those processes and explore the areas that can be improved. This may be the year you don’t add anything new, but instead you optimize what you already have to create an outstanding guest and team experience!

Improving your leadership and team culture: What is your plan for becoming a better leader and stepping into your confidence? This is a bit of a loaded question because it’s more of a personal growth initiative that affects business development. If there are leaders you want to spend more time with in your community (online or in person) make an offer to work with them (paid or volunteer) to get an intimate view of how they think and act. Hire a coach to support stronger, more effective spa business decisions and actions. Read books about personal growth & leadership and practice what you’re learning. My favorite book for women & leadership is Tara Mohr’s Playing Big.

Developing a CEO success mindset: I’m convinced the final frontier for business & life success is actively nurturing a CEO mindset by exploring old belief systems that haven’t been serving your full potential. Not easy work, mind you. A decision to work on your subconscious programming means digging into the past to discover & root out negative thinking that’s been keeping you small. I’ve personally spent the past 10 months working with a Hypnotherapist to get a handle my “monkey mind” and limiting beliefs about what I’m capable of in business. I gotta tell you, I’m still a bit shocked about what 2019 has delivered to me; I’m working with my Ideal Clients every day, I’ve double my 2018 earnings by October 2019, I have a marketing agency that quietly serves the spa industry, I was asked to speak at 2 major spa conferences in the US, I have an awesome virtual team after working solo for over 10 years, and there are more growth opportunities showing up than we can handle at one time. All of this has happened without feeling super stressed and I attribute it to collaborating with my subconscious rather than being a slave to it.

How will you plan for 2020?

October & November are common months for businesses to set aside a few days (yes, a few DAY'S!) for creating their upcoming yearly strategic plan. You need that kind of time and space away from the spa to get into that creative/strategic head space.

If you can, I would highly recommend that you get together with an Esty Besty to do this planning session. Have someone that you jive with and trust to bounce ideas off of and collaborate with will make planning out your spa business strategy stronger for the year 2020 and, it’s way more fun! 

Next month I have two full days booked with my Esty Besty for strategic planning. We are blending business strategy, collaboration, self-care and fun at a retreat-style planning weekend. We have purposefully organized the time to be as physically, emotionally and mentally rewarding as possible because a healthy mindset & body can perform at much higher levels.

Let’s plan your 2020 spa business strategy together!

Because I know this work is so much more effective when you’re collaborating with someone else, this year I've opened four spots for a one-on-one Half-Day Strategy session with me to get your 2020 plan laid out on paper and with action step to.

So what happens at a strategic planning day?

• Brainstorming, discussing & documenting yearly goals

• Assessing the "broken" areas of the business that need attention and creating solutions for them - broken down by category or system

• Reverse engineering solutions to map out action steps & resources needed (money, people, things)

  • I like to break these down into quarters (what will be happening in Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4)

• Creating timelines for deliverables - how will you be accountable?

• Having a plan if you get stuck

• Assessing & finding solutions for time management because this is THE sticky spot for making sure your strategy is actually executed!

I know you want 2020 to be even better than 2019, but if you know you won't/can't/don't want to create your 2020 plan on your own, we can do it together. And to be honest, collaborating on strategy is way more fun AND gives you ideas and tactics you may not have thought of before! If you are interested in this offer, please reach out to me. This offer is filling fast - I only have 2 spots left!