You’re not just selling time in a tanning bed or a bottle of lotion. You’re selling a service that’s all about the experience, and the experience includes the service, the products, and the results – in short, the tanning experience.

When you create and sell the tanning experience for your clients, it consists of four components:

• Appreciate your client right from the start.
• Evaluate your client’s tanning goals and needs.
• Educate your client on Smart Tanning and your salon.
• Perpetuate your client’s business with proper follow-up.

It sounds very much like the sales process, right? Consider the similarities. When you greet them, you appreciate them. When you collect information and determine their needs, you are also evaluating their goals and needs. When you present services and products, you educate the customer. And when you discuss their decision and close the sale, you perpetuate their business. But don’t get caught up in thinking they’re all the same steps. They are steps that complement each other.

The Beach Ball Beach Analogy

If you were just selling beach balls, for example, you could use all five of the sales steps in a rather simple process. Here’s an example:

Step 1: Greet and Engage. “Hi, welcome to Beach Ball Bonanza! How can I help you today?”

Step 2: Gather Information. “What kind of beach ball are you looking for?”

Step 3: Present Product. “We have this really great red one and this really cool blue one.”

Step 4: Discuss Decision. “Oh you’re not sure which color is best? Well how will you be using the Beach Ball? At a concert or at the beach? Okay, at the beach. Then I’d recommend the red one, because you can see it better against the water.”

Step 5: Close the Sale. “How many red beach balls would you like to take with you today?”

Well, that was simple. But here’s the lesson. When you’re selling tanning products and services, you’re not selling something as simple as beach balls – you’re selling something as complicated as the experience of the beach!

Think of it this way. People have many reasons for going to the beach; some go just to relax in the sun, some go to play in the water with the family, some go to build sandcastles, some go to ski or take out the boat. But everyone at that beach will be exposed to one common element – ultraviolet light. Taking it further, the beach and the tanning salon have the following three common elements:

1. Every person at the beach or the salon is exposed to ultraviolet light.
2. Ultraviolet light affects each person differently.
3. Every person at the beach or the tanning salon is there for his or her own specific reason.

To sell the tanning experience, you not only have to know the five basic sales steps, you also have to know why that person wants the service (tanning), how that person’s body reacts to ultraviolet light, which products will enhance the body’s reaction to ultraviolet light, and you need to figure out a way to get them to repeat the experience.