With two degrees and another in progress, work experience in education and marketing, and now a business to call her own at age 29, Mrs. Delaware 2015 has proven again and again that she’s so much more than a pretty face. After previously working in a salon and doing mobile airbrush tans, all while getting her education, working and pursuing her pageant dreams, Christine Rich has finally gone all in on indoor tanning. Bringing so much to the table personally, there was never a question that Christine would endeavor to create a tanning business that would provide nothing short of the total package.

Just four months after opening its doors, Blue Palm Tanning has proven itself worthy of recognition with dedication to smart tanning practices, commendable business practices and providing a one-of-kind, luxurious tanning environment for its Middletown, DE clients.

“I needed to get the best in the industry and get the best technology and the best education for our salon and our employees so we could break the mold of the traditional tanning salon,” Christine says.

From the Start

While they only started serving clients in April, Blue Palm displayed remarkable foresight and devotion to its mission by beginning preparations and ramping up marketing efforts more than a year in advance of opening. The salon’s social media presence built considerable buzz before the salon was officially launched.

“With my background in marketing, that was the first thing I did,” Christine says. “We were supposed to be in way earlier. I used that as an opportunity to slowly build the anticipation of us opening. Any time a [Smart Tan] magazine came in, we would talk about the articles. We were using all that time to build up our clientele and hopefully set us up for a wonderful opening week. Our social media was created a year before we opened our doors.”

The salon’s focus on smart tanning practices also provided a major momentum boost when its local newspaper extolled Blue Palm’s Smart Tan certification and “smart” tanning equipment a month after the business opened. The article did receive some online backlash from people with negative perceptions of tanning, but in Christine’s eyes, that only worked to extend the relevance of the new business and launch beneficial conversations about the value of indoor tanning.

Click here to read the entire article in the latest issue of Smart Tan Magazine online.