Rick and Donna Austin, Always Tan

With 25 years in tanning and even longer in the business world, Rick and Donna Austin have learned many lessons on the path to success. In a Smart Tan Magazine exclusive, they share some of those important discoveries and reveal the actions every salon owner should take to help themselves in the long run:

We work with people as much as we can. Once people know you are monitoring exposure and following the rules exactly, they want to work with you. I work very closely with the Texas Department of Health by talking about what’s going on in the industry. Recently, they called me up to discuss the under-18 ban and wanted to know my opinion about what I thought it would do the industry. I became a go-to person for the Department of Health because they know that our salon is one they can reach out to for factual, blunt information.

We also learned about backing up consumer data the hard way. Four years ago we had a power surge so strong it fried our computers and our backup system – it even damaged some of our equipment. We lost every piece of customer data on the computer. Fortunately we had paper backups, but it took three months to get it back into the system. It was an expensive nightmare. In response, we have many different backups offsite with plenty of safeguards on it.

Having the right technology also helps our salon look professional to the Department of Health. It’s harder for them to monitor you and know that you’re doing things properly if you don’t have some kind of monitoring software. In my opinion, it hurts our industry when we don’t have software that monitors and shows how we do business.

But really, if you don’t do these things, you’re leaving yourself open for your competition to take advantage of it. Our single salon is up against corporate competitors. They have power in numbers and can afford to do all kinds of advertising in a cost effective manner. But if you don’t stay ahead of the curve, you open the door for the competition to come in and take advantage of your weaknesses.

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