Roger Yelvington, Sunbright Tanning

From banker to business owner, Roger Yelvington has been building a legacy of success. His trusted manager Kelsey Cook focuses on daily operations while he implements the big picture ideas that ensure the future of this upstanding business. In his Smart Tan exclusive interview, Roger shares some of his best business practices:

I wanted Sunbright Tanning to be a place that did things the right way. Early on, that meant sacrificing the easy road. We wanted to make sure we didn’t cut corners, and that we established a culture that made us different from other salons. Part of that was finding people like Kelsey, who share that vision of being the best – that’s the biggest key to success.

We want to offer what’s best for clients. They know what they want, and they can tell what the best is. We assume that our clients want the best, and we have a passion for providing a high level of service.

Another one of our best practices is running reports. There is always room to improve in that area, but we track things so that we can improve. That’s one of the reasons we use the customer referral cards, because we can track them. Kelsey also runs a monthly report on new memberships and cancellations. She looks at what we did the previous year so we can see if the salon is slowing down.

We try to do something new every year to keep things exciting, and this year has marked our biggest investment regarding tanning equipment. Our salon has a relatively small footprint at 1200 square feet, so we don’t have many higher end beds. But we are trying to meet demand for upgrades by bringing in new high pressure equipment. The result is an esthetic upgrade and a pricing upgrade as well. We should be finishing up those changes this month. We try to make each the rooms for each service level nicer than the last, because people pay for the experience as well as the upgraded tan.

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