If you’re currently offering retail in your beauty business, you may already know how beneficial it can be to your client’s overall experience, while also creating an additional stream of revenue for yourself! However, if you haven’t started retailing, it’s definitely something we recommend to consider when wanting to grow your biz. However, having retail items available to purchase is only the first step in using these items to help grow your business. You must also be intentional about selling the retail you choose to carry in order to make it a worthwhile investment. Offering retail means you must be intentional with sales, especially when carrying items that have an expiration date. If you end up letting these items expire on the shelf, it does nothing to help your bottom line. WIth that being said, it’s not lost on us that putting on a sales cap is not every sunless biz owner’s favorite role to take on. If the thought of sales makes you cringe, you may find yourself neglecting to have those crucial sales conversations during your appointments! We never want to come across as too “salesy,” but there are ways to make retailing in your beauty business feel more effortless. 

Focusing On Paint Points

Knowing more information about your client’s unique situation will help make it easier to recommend products to them. In order to know which products you should be recommending, you first need to learn about their pain points and what benefit you can offer to make their spray tan process experience better based on their needs, wants and lifestyle. The reason most business owners have a fear of sales is really because they have a fear of coming across as pushy. Many of us never want to act like we are forcing someone to feel like they should spend more money with us. In order to stay away from feeling this way,  it’s beneficial to initiate the sales process around the goal of creating an exchange of information. In order to do this, start by asking questions to learn more about the client’s lifestyle, the reason they’re getting a spray tan, what their skin type is, etc. By learning more about the client’s unique situation, you’ll be better equipped to recommend a product that you carry that will cater to the specific needs of the client. When you base your recommendations around information you’ve gathered based off of that specific client, the recommendation feels more organic and genuine not only to you, but the client as well. Through this approach, you’re able to feel more comfortable about setting up the sale which will allow your client to be more open to your recommendations. The pre-tan consultation at the beginning of the appointment is a great time to start a natural conversation that leads you to gain knowledge on the client’s pain points.

Post Appointment Retailing

Having a routine with your appointment schedule is just as beneficial to having your own routine during the actual spray tan process. Always start out your appointments with a pre-tan consultation and end them with five to ten minutes spent retailing. Structuring your appointments this way can make a huge difference in the amount of retail sales you make! During that post appointment retail conversation, you can take all of the information you gained at the beginning of the appointment and apply it to what products you recommend to the client. Staying on a schedule with post appointment retailing ensures that you always have time dedicated to talking about retail items instead of feeling like you’re trying to find the “right time” to sneak in a product recommendation. At the end of the appointment there’s already been some rapport with your client, which allows for a level of trust that may not have been there during the pre-tan consultation. That trust is what’s going to help your clients feel more open to accepting your recommendations and closing the sale.

Be Conversational 

If you’re struggling with sales, remember that sales should feel conversational rather than just a pitch being done by you to the client. At the end of the day, your main goal is to try to improve your client’s results and overall experience. In order to make this goal come to fruition and allow retailing to be a more seamless process, conversations should be focused around educating your client on how whichever product you recommend will help improve their results. For example, if you have a client that will be on a tropical vacation where they’ll be spending a lot of time in the water, you then have the opportunity to communicate the benefits of offering a product like a tan extender to increase the longevity of their tan while on vacation. Circling back to the unique circumstances of your clients lifestyle or reason for getting a spray tan and continuing the conversation to explain why your retail item will help give them the ultimate outcome for their investment will give the client a clearer vision of the benefits your recommendation offers. 

Selling shouldn’t feel hard! However, if you are struggling with sales and it’s stopping you from offering retail in your business or from selling more retail and making additional money, know that there’s a way to go about sales that doesn’t make you feel like a door to door sales lady! As a spray tan expert, your job is to provide the most flawless sunless glow to your clients. The best way to go about providing this level of service is through offering education on pre and post tan care. Without providing this knowledge, you’re doing a disservice to your client and to the growth of your business! At X-Tan Sunless, we want you to reach your business potential. That’s why put extra emphasis on the ingredients we formulate into all of our professional and retail products so that your clients are sure to fall in love with the outcome of each and every sunless experience they have with you. To explore all of our wholesale options for sunless business owners, visit the X-Tan Sunless Pro Shop today! 

Xoxo,

Kelly