Hannah and Bryan Hipps, Sun Station Tanning Studios

With nine years in business and four locations in the Charleston area, Hannah and Bryan Hipps are highly invested members of the indoor tanning industry. The salon’s focus on infrastructure has helped it succeed through changes in the marketplace. Hannah shares how their hiring practices, in particular, have helped the business develop a great team.

Managing a health club gave Hannah valuable insight for starting a team from scratch. Developing thorough policies and procedures have been the key to making sure her team receives a consistent education, and that her customers receive the best service.

“We pretty much have a procedure for everything. I have four stores, and I can’t have them doing things differently; we create procedures and policies to help every store be more similar than different,” says Hannah.

In Sun Station Tanning Studios, everything flows from good infrastructure. Hannah’s attention to organization has allowed her to oversee all four of their locations successfully. When someone new is brought into the business, the first thing on the docket is to have new hires complete thorough training on the handbook she created. This covers everything employees do on a day-to-day basis. This is followed by a customized online review that Hannah created suing the Smart Tan MyTrack system. Implementing this online training has eliminated the problem of coordinating schedules to get her new employees educated. Now trainees have access to their training 24/7.

After they pass the handbook test, each employee goes through the Smart Tan UV Certification and several other custom online trainings that explain their rewards program, policies, upselling and account balances. This accelerated course of education only takes about 30 days, but Hannah says the results are long lasting and very effective:

“[Training] gives them more confidence. The more knowledge they have the easier it is to feel confident about what you’re doing. My staff goes through my processes, takes the trainings, and works alongside a manager. During that time they go from overwhelmed to confident, but we are always a work in progress. We do training almost every quarter.”

Maintaining the education of her team is important to Hannah because, in addition to educating consumers, she gives them the opportunity to grow within the company. She is proud to provide jobs in her community and takes that responsibility seriously.

For more information about the salon, visit www.sunstationtan.com.