Three Top Tips for Developing a Successful Spa Strategy
Creating a successful spa strategy has never been more important.
As travel restrictions continue to change, staff reconsider their work/life balance and businesses hope to recover financially, there's more pressure to achieve your goals. We also have to consider how peoples’ mindsets have changed — what are they looking for that they weren’t looking for before? What can we offer that caters for the new gaps in the market? In this sense, it’s an exciting time to strategise. There’s opportunity at every corner for creativity and, on a wider scale, positive change in the industry.
Before diving into the annual strategy season, knowledge is key. When we know our business inside out, it’s easier to achieve success while maintaining realistic expectations. Keeping this in mind, the following three tips will ensure you’re on the right track to achieving your goals.
SWOT up
The process of developing a strategy is essentially putting in place a pathway from A to B, which requires you to have a crystal clear idea of what your business is like now and what you would like it to become. It’s only then that we can fill in the journey, figuring out how we turn any weaknesses into strengths.
SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis is an excellent way to analyse the current state of your business. This technique helps you to break down and assess four major aspects of your spa, helping you to understand what you're missing and eliminating any issues that could hinder your future success. It will uncover more opportunities and provide a solid framework from which to build your strategy.
Safety in numbers
Once you have established where your business is at currently and where you want to end up, the next step is formulating how you are going to get there. The answer? Only data and insights can tell us.
Numbers and statistics give us measurable evidence of success, failures and everything in between. Drilling down into them can reveal incredible insights, and in turn the strategic opportunities that can move you towards your goals.
When reviewing data, it’s important to maintain a realistic perception of your business parameters, landscape and guest type, as well as understanding any bigger picture objectives within your property so that you can start to get creative.
Ask questions, get answers
Quite often you can ask yourself the same five questions to solve any problems that arise from your data analysis:
Do I have the same number of therapists/receptionists/treatment rooms as last year?
Has my guest type changed from last year?
Has my treatment mix changed from last year?
Has my average treatment length changed from last year?
Are there external influences impacting business in my area/globally?
From here you can find the solutions needed to provide strategic direction. For example, if your resources (therapists/receptionists) are low, you can then look at a number of options such as recruitment, further training, career development, management of staff turnover, staff retention or an employee package.
If the guest type has changed from last year, explore whether the treatment menu or retail on offer can be adapted to meet different needs. Similarly, if the treatment mix has changed, review your treatment menu and see if it still holds its own with your guests and competitors. Also, are your receptionists confident in selling the right treatment? Do they understand yield and upselling or is it time to retrain?
If treatment length has changed, this could indicate a changing guest need or lack of confidence in the reception team. However it can also indicate that maybe you are not offering enough opportunities for your team to upsell.
Lastly, if external factors have changed, look at the areas of flexibility within your business that allow for change to be actioned. If there’s difficulty getting a product line into your spa, change it out for something local. Travel restrictions placed on your location? Explore the day spa market and introduce local membership.
Questions can sometimes send us in circles, but when inspired by insights and a solid understanding of your business, they open up a world of opportunity to be more innovative, strategic and, ultimately, successful.
For more, in-depth annual strategy guidance, download our new free 5-Step Success Worksheet.