Expanding into wellness doesn’t happen in one buying season. It takes a plan, a clear picture of where you’re headed and the discipline to make every purchase pay its way.

But it does need to happen. Tanning built this industry. Tanning and wellness together will carry it forward.

Most salon owners can’t write a check for four new modalities, convert half their rooms and relaunch their business in a single year. That’s no reason to wait. Hesitation won’t change where the industry is headed. It only delays your arrival. If you’ve waited this long, it’s time to think about the long game. Map out a plan that runs three to five years and start now with the first step you can afford.

Building a robust wellness portfolio isn’t only practical for large, multi-location operators. Janet Lonas of Sun & Soul Wellness Spa in Buckhannon, West Virginia, and Lori Van De Wall of The Beach House in Olean, New York, are prime examples of single-location owners who have made it work on a grand scale. Both built their wellness offerings one piece at a time. Both lead with red light. And both say the results have fundamentally changed their businesses and bottom lines.

“It’s been the best two years in our entire existence,” Van De Wall says. Her salon starts its 25th year in 2027, and over the past two years, it has more than doubled its revenue.

“We’re killing it,” Lonas says. A year after rebranding as a wellness spa, Sun & Soul is outpacing last year’s numbers and regularly hitting sales benchmarks by the second week of each month.

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