Get your salon ready for summer

Are you sunbed season sorted?

It’s here folks. Spring has sprung and with that comes the annual surge of tanners, all focused on getting their base tans sorted or simply boosting their pre-summer glow. It only gets busier from here on! With that being said, it’s time to ensure that you are fully prepped and ready for this year’s increase of sun worshippers. So, have a look through our tanning salon checklist to make sure you have your salon ready for summer!

Spring cleaning

It may sound menial, however there is no better way to prep your salon for the busy season than to give it a deep clean. This ensure top quality cleanliness and give a sparkling impression to your clients. Additionally, this will also make you look closely at what could be improved to enhance your clients’ experience. This should include all of the dusting areas of the salon which aren’t cleaned on a regular basis such as skirting boards, display units and storage areas.

This should cover your basic salon cleaning as well as your sunbeds and other equipment:

• Sunbed acrylics must be cleaned after every use to ensure the best hygiene standards for your clients. This also prevents any cross contamination of lotions.
• The underside of sunbed acrylics should be cleaned weekly. This will prevent any build up of dust from blocking UV radiation and ultimately affecting your client’s tanning experience. To do this, simply unscrew the acrylics and clean like you would usually using an acrylic cleaner. We recommend Smart Clean. 

Tip: Please don’t use a household cleaner to clean your sunbed. Acrylic cleaners have been designed to ensure deep cleansing of your acrylics without fear of harming them. Household cleaners are much more likely to damage your sunbed acrylics.

• If you have a lay-down sunbed, its filters should also be cleaned weekly. Additionally, this should be at the top of your spring cleaning list. These filters prevent dust from entering the machine through ventilation shafts. However over time, the collection of dust can prevent air circulation and lead to sunbeds overheating. To do this, simply remove the filter, clean off the dust using a vacuum cleaner and then replace the filters.

Stock up 

With busier days, comes the need for more cleaning supplies, paper towels and other generic salon essentials to ensure your salon is ready for summer. Providing protective goggles is compulsory and strictly monitored by the authorities. Therefore, keeping tabs on your stock of these is necessary. We recommend Wink-Ease as disposable eye protection and Australian Gold’s Peepers for traditional goggles, both of which are CE approved.

Other items to stock up on include: Trigger Spray Bottles, Client Record Cards, Tanning Loyalty Cards, Stick-On Feet, Floor Mats, Disposable Underwear and Disposable Gloves. All of these items can be viewed here.

Lotions

As the amount of clients increase, so should your lotion sales. Now is the time to stock up and ensure that you can provide what your customers are looking for. This should include both sachets and bottles as well as Tan Extenders.

To ensure you have a good variety of lotions and Tan Extenders, have a look at what our lotions expert, Juli would suggest here.

SPFs

Have you considered catering for your clients’ outdoor tanning needs as well? Although SPFs can’t be sold in direct correlation with tanning beds, if you have clients who are visiting to build a base tan before going on holiday, sun creams could be a great cross-sell. We recommend Australian Gold’s range of sun screens and aftercare. 

Sunbed maintenance

Minimise any likelihood of limiting the time you can offer sunbeds for by checking things such as the lifetime of your tubes. The hours your lamps have done can be tracked by both token boxes and salon management systems. If lamps are coming to the end of their lifetime, it may be a good time to consider whether you should squeeze the last few remaining hours of out of them, or alternatively if it would be wise to retube and start the season off anew. New tubes can be an attractive selling point for local tanners as having new lamps promises a great tan. What’s more, this could also place you above any competitor salons in the area.

If you are having an issue with finding out how many hours your sunbeds have done, contact us and ask to speak to our lamps expert, Alex.

Refresh your staff

Nothing will sell your lotions better than staff who understand the products and can speak passionately about them. So it’s important not just to get your salon ready for summer but also your staff! Here at Cyrano, we provide complementary product training to all of our salons. These training sessions refresh you on old products and educate you on new ones. There is direct correlation between training and an uplift in revenue, typically of 40%. Another way to refresh staff is with New Sunshine webinars which cover all Australian Gold, JWOWW, Swedish Beauty and Designer Skin products. For more information on all training and webinars, click here.

Where were you this time last year?

Look back to your success last year. How did you achieve this? And more importantly, how can you replicate and build upon this success?

Have a look back at how you marketed your salon. Did you offer any promotions at the start of the season to encourage people to become regular customers? How was your social media presence? Looking at your position last year and reflecting on what could have been improved can help to push your salon forward into the spotlight more. This will also prevent you from repeating past mistakes.