Snow and Ice - An Insurance Nightmare Waiting to Happen in Your Spa’s Parking Lot

When you own a business where customers are continuously coming and going, you need to always be aware of the many dangers that can present themselves to your customers throughout the year. Not only do you need to keep your customers safe, but you also need to protect yourself from unnecessary lawsuits. The National Safety Council estimates that slips and falls cause over 300,000 injuries and 1,500 deaths every year.

Winter weather can pose some of the most dangerous situations for your spa, particularly due to snow and ice accumulation in the parking lot, on pathways, or steps. In order to make your spa as safe as possible, there are several things you can do to protect your customers and your staff from falls.

If possible, when ice is present, have the parking lot salted regularly to melt slippery ice. Consider installing handrails and non-slip surfaces for steps and ramps. You might also want to install additional external lighting, especially if your spa is open after sundown.

Inside the spa’s entrance, you should have water absorbing mats on the floor to keep snow or ice from pooling on the floor and creating additional hazards inside your spa.

ISM Announces Open Enrollment for January 2008 Spa Management Program

Due to the severe shortage of quality, trained managers in the spa industry, the Institute of Spa Management (ISM) opened its doors to provide this well-needed training to individuals around the world. With its self-paced, online educational program, people looking for spa management training flocked to the school’s website (www.spacollege.org).

Since August of 2007, more than 2000 people have requested information about the program and the October and November classes were filled to capacity. As of this date, there are two spaces available for classes beginning in December and 18 available for the January 2008 classes.

The great thing about ISM is that even though there is a high demand for these seats, the school continues to focus on individual student learning by only accepting 20 students each month into the program. This allows the school to provide one-on-one assistance to students while providing them with the type of high quality services they will be expected to provide once they’re working in a spa environment.

Even though it is an online program, this personalized approach makes it feel as if you’re attending a bricks-and-mortar school while also allowing you to work at your own pace on your own time.

ISM Flooded with Applications for Spa Management Program: The Need is Real

The Institute of Spa Management (ISM) is as hot as the spa industry is right now! This is evident with the flood of applications that ISM has received since they opened their doors less than three months ago. The spa industry is severely lacking quality trained spa managers, but fortunately ISM is now providing this well needed training to highly motivated and career oriented individuals who want to make the spa industry better than it has ever been before.

More than 200 applications have been received for the 12 full tuition and 25 partial tuition scholarships being offered by ISM to qualified spa management candidates each year. The competition is tough, but even if you don’t get one of those scholarships that doesn’t mean you can’t study at ISM. With their easy payment plans and study at your own pace scheduling, ISM is the perfect fit for any budget or busy schedule.

Soon, these students will be entering the spa workforce as qualified and trained spa management experts, so if you’re looking to get into this ever-expanding field, now is the time to start! So, what are you waiting for?

Unique Ways to Keep in Touch with your Spa Clients Between Visits

One of the most difficult things you have to deal with as a spa manager is keeping the lines of communication open between your spa and your clients between visits. Attracting and maintaining returning customers should be your ultimate goal if you want to remain successful. However, this can be a challenge and coming up with new and exciting ways to get your clients back into the spa can be difficult.

One simple thing you can do is to send out birthday, anniversary, holiday, or thank you cards to your clients throughout the year. Along with a handwritten note from the spa manager or owner, include a coupon for free products or discounts on their next visit. Customers like to feel appreciated, so personally reaching out to them on special days will get you noticed and will keep you in their minds.

You can also have special customer appreciation days several times throughout the year and invite special clients in for complimentary massages, prizes, food, and drinks. Rather than just mailing out advertisements that get tossed in the trash immediately, give your clients incentives to open your mail by offering special discounts that make your clients feel valued.

Compensation for Spa Staff: A Look at Different Options for Therapists and Aestheticians

Deciding how to pay your spa employees in order to best benefit the spa while also keeping your staff satisfied can be a difficult balancing act. While you want to make the spa as much money as possible, you also need to remember that your employees are there to make money too and if you are not fulfilling their needs then you will create a negative atmosphere and a continuously revolving door.

There are different ways to pay your staff, including hourly, salary, commission, performance-based, or even team-based profit sharing. All these methods have positives and negatives, so choose what works best for your spa.

In order to keep your employees vested in your spa’s ultimate goals you might want to invest into theirs. Offering health insurance, paid vacations, and a retirement plan can go a long way. You might want to offer other benefits, such as education assistance, credit union affiliation, or daycare assistance.

You can also offer bonuses such as free spa treatments, appreciation parties, performance awards, or weekly training sessions to improve their skills and knowledge. All of these efforts will benefit both the spa and the employees by creating a positive, motivating, and empowering work environment.

Let Go of the Past: The Spa Industry Changes So Fast - Managers Must Keep Up or Get out of the Way

The spa industry is a fast-paced, exciting, and ever-changing business. Spas are rapidly moving from being considered the occasional luxury to a necessary part of everyday life for a wider range of clients. No longer are spas reserved just for the elite. Today the spa client includes the working class, the stay-at-home mom, the blue-collar dad, and the stressed-out teen, so you need to come up with new ways to accommodate this new and diverse clientele.

However, many spa managers don’t understand that with this new acceptance of the spa lifestyle they need to keep up with the latest trends and treatments in order to meet the demands of evolving attitudes. Spa managers should let go of past assumptions about clients and services and keep up with the hot products and services or else they will be left alone in the dust.

It’s more important than ever to keep up on the latest spa trends and truly understand what the client wants and expects from their spa because if they don’t they will find that their competition will be more than happy to accommodate their potential and current clients’ needs.

Why Spa Management Training from ISM Can Quickly Advance your Spa Industry Career

Becoming a successful and effective spa manager is something that takes experience, skill, and training. While experience and skill will develop and grow over time, the level of training that is needed to advance your spa management career can often be difficult to find. Fortunately, ISM makes it easy to obtain the necessary training needed to become a successful spa manager in a fast and convenient program run by experienced and qualified trainers.

Whether you’re new to the spa industry or have been working in the field for years, ISM can quickly give your spa management career that added extra boost it needs to flourish. A spa manager is required to have a unique set of skills and knowledge to be successful and ISM can teach you those skills in the comfort of your own home and at your own individual pace.

With ISM you will learn how to hire and maintain employees, set spa goals, work successfully with clients, plan for short and long term profitability, create high level marketing campaigns, and apply specialized business management skills to your spa business in order to attract, maintain, and keep clients while also making the most profit.