By Scott Nichols, salon GM and consultant

Covid-19 has been devastating on our industry to say the least. I don’t know if there is a worse time or not for this to happen, but I can say losing more than half of our busy season is something some will struggle to overcome. My hope is that all salons come out of this and as an industry we grow stronger. When I think of our industry strengths during Covid-19 and how these strengths can help us, I do feel very optimistic about the future. Our industry has some major advantages other industries don’t.

The first strength that I see is how we have always kept a clean salon. After every tan, it is our job to clean not only the tanning bed but also the room. I know the sanitizer that we use in our salons states right on the bottle that it kills the coronavirus!

Now is the time for us to step up our cleaning procedures even more. I recommend talking to local health officials and following CDC guidelines for best practices. We are in a new era, and we need to use that towards our benefit.

Part of our in-store marketing has become promoting our cleaning practices. When restarting your business, having a clean salon, in my belief, is more important than any promotion you will want to run. Letting the customers know and understand what your cleaning procedures are needs to be on posters, handouts and what comes out of your employees mouths. The customers are going to want to feel safe and you have the ability to make that happen.

The second strength that I feel this industry has is our EFTs! In my opinion, there hasn’t been another time where EFTs have been more important. Other than gyms and tanning, there isn’t an industry that I know of that can restart like we can. If you don’t have a strong EFT business or you don’t have one at all, I strongly encourage you to begin one as soon as you can.

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