Jenny Backman, Carolina Tan Factory

In the tanning industry since she was 17, Jenny Backman has built a name for herself in her small town community. Delivering “big chain worthy” services with a small town approach, she prides herself on the quality of her salons. At Carolina Tan Factory, she maintains both salons’ successful reputations with a few different approaches. In this Smart Tan exclusive interview, Jenny discusses a few of her strategies:

In order to operate more than one location, you have to have good management. The bigger you are, the more you have to find those key people that are going to be there and help you – you can’t do it alone. I have two people that keep my salons running and that is my husband Wesley, and my manager of 17 years Courtney; they know what I want before I want it.

Also, it’s important to keep everything in my salons uniform. This simplifies everything for me; if I have the same levels, beds, and offers it’s consistent for my staff since they rotate between locations. If everything is the same for everyone we’ll stay on the same page, and we’ll be more successful.

During the slow season, I like to do some sort of change and test it out before the rest of the year. This time around, I’ve decided to provide a free month of tanning to friends of clients that were referred to us. I decided to do something more aggressive, and now I’m tracking its success. The success of these changes gives me an idea of what specials I’ll want to run during the busy season.

In order to improve, Caroline Tan Factory invests a lot of time in our staff. Each month, management and I write notes for things we need to train or improve on for next month. Then, we use our notes so we know what to focus on during our monthly meeting; I like my staff to feel like every time we meet it matters. I also make an effort to spend time with the girls on weeks that we’re slow; it’s important that I continue to improve my relationships with them.

I like to make sure my staff is encouraged to be successful. We do quarterly evaluations for employees to assess how they’re doing. If they’re struggling in a particular area, we’ll personalize the training for them so they can improve. I like to invest in people, not hire and fire them, so if they’re struggling in one area, but are great in another, I’d rather build them up not kick them out.

In order to motivate my girls to sell our products, I make sure they have all the knowledge they can. If we are featuring a new product, I email the girls a link with the information so they can educate themselves on it. Also, each time a new product is brought in, one bottle is given to the staff to try out; they have to know what it’s like, and the best way to get them to sell it is to let them try it first.

I treat my salons as I would my home; I continuously keep up with what needs to be updated. Also, I try to view my salons through my clients’ eyes – what do they see when entering Carolina Tan Factory? To continue our achievements, I think it’s important we always remain consistent with our improvements.

For more information on Carolina Tan Factory, visit their website at www.carolinatanfactory.com