Susan and Richard Krebs, Tan Medford and Tan Ashland

Since the young age of 16, Susan Krebs knew she wanted to own a tanning salon. The dream didn’t come to fruition until a while later, but her two locations in Oregon are doing well thanks to Susan’s dedication to excellence. Diversifying her business and creating a visually pleasing environment has helped the salon succeed in the long run.

Q: How is diversifying working out for your business?

We learned about the body wraps at the Nashville show. It was great because it was something new and different for our market. The challenges are working on the marketing for it and training people. It takes more time to explain that we are not just tanning, and show them that they should try something different. Sometimes we are slammed – the body wrap has been doing pretty well. You see an increase when people are going on vacation and around the holidays.

There aren’t a lot of vibration machines in the area, which actually turned out to be a good thing. We have some chiropractors recommend that their patients use it. We keep it in the lobby to get people looking at it and trying it. I think just because it’s a little uncommon that there’s a little more of a learning curve.

Sunless has been really popular, especially around proms and weddings. It’s just a matter of letting people know that it’s changed. Some people tried it years ago and had a bad experience – I know I’d never get the nice brown I wanted. But you don’t see that problem anymore, and you just have to let people know. That’s also a matter of training your employees and your customers. We offer a discount for the first session, and that has been doing well.

Q: What changes have enabled you to do better business?

We have worked with salon marketing designers to develop professional looking materials instead of the dry erase boards and chalk boards that were up before. The difference is clear, and we look a lot more professional now.

In addition to using my husband’s talents as a contractor, he helped us with the accounting. At first, the salon was operated using papers, notecards and books, but the first thing we did was put computers in both locations and that made a huge difference.

It’s only been five years, so there has been a lot for me and my staff to learn. I have leaned on Smart Tan as well. Using the Smart Tan training gave my employees the benefit of more experience than I could ever give them. Now they have something educational to do on the computer when is slow time at work.