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Create your free business website! www.ascpskincare.com 25 HYDRATE Create a hydration station in your reception area with flavored, infused water and healthy teas for your guests. Feature different combinations of fruit or herbs each week and remember to encourage your guests to drink water daily for skin health. Share each week's recipes on your social media sites. EDUCATE Host a local expert to present a free class at your spa— perhaps a chef from a good restaurant, a nutritionist, or a staff member from the health food store. Even in a small reception area, you can hold interesting cooking demonstrations, such as making healthy smoothies with a blender. Send guests home with recipes. SOCIALIZE Samples of prepared food from a wellness partner's business will also go down well with spa guests. A regular "Healthy Happy Hour" is a great way to welcome new guests, reconnect with established ones, and cross-refer. If these events prove popular, consider a more comprehensive partnership with a nutritionist so your practice can offer an expanded initial consultation that includes qualified nutritional advice, along with your usual skin care analysis and recommendations. Capitalize on Consultation In addition to simply providing treatments, one of your most effective tools to promote wellness services to clients is to offer your skin care knowledge as a consultant. Connie Carbary, cofounder of Advanced Health Spa in Little Rock, Arkansas, has created a special consultation facial for new clients. Like most estheticians, Carbary provides a comprehensive skin assessment before and during the facial, but she goes a step further by inviting guests to bring in their current skin care products for evaluation. Assessing home skin care products is an important component of wellness. Many people are confused by product ingredients and may be using items that impact more than their skin health. If you have other wellness professionals working in the same practice with you, each guest's consultation should include as many of those specialized areas as possible. At Carbary's spa, guests have the option of coordinating their skin care concerns with chiropractic, nutrition, stress management, and weight loss services from qualified professionals in each of those fields. "We believe wellness and beauty are created from within," Carbary says. "We strive to support our guests to live lives that reach their full potential." Expand into Wellness Retail You can boost both guest satisfaction and your bottom line by expanding your retail inventory beyond skin care products. Just a few options: aromatherapy products, clothing, natural brushes or sponges, and teas. If you sell sunscreen, why not add hats and sunglasses? Many skin care practices sell CDs of spa music to help guests re-create the experience at home—expand your offerings to include meditation/relaxation CDs, or DVDs on any other topics that might appeal to your guests and match your spa's focus. If you have special expertise, use it! Grace Mosgeller, owner of Espri Skin and Body in Evergreen, Colorado, is a certified life coach, black-belt martial artist, and fitness fanatic, in addition to her qualifications as a licensed esthetician and massage therapist. Mosgeller created a daily home exercise program called Face Fitnez, a series of exercises, techniques, and skin care habits to combat the negative effects of aging and the environment. She offers classes in her spa, at a local community center, and as a group workshop, but also sells the Face Fitnez program as a retail item. Her guests can purchase it as a download or on DVD, and even participate in a daily online workout session through video conferencing. By including a wider range of products in your retail inventory, you are creating a wellness boutique that encourages guests to think of your practice as more than just skin care. Think of the Whole Experience Begin to add wellness services on a small scale first. Small changes yield big benefits, and there are many products and services you can include in your daily practice without additional personnel or financial investment. It is the complete experience, combined with your expertise, that keeps guests returning to you again and again. One way to add true wellness value to your practice is to use the power of intention by asking each guest to share what she would like to achieve in her session. Harnessing the power of the mind is a wellness tool for success. Treat your guests well and they will become ambassadors for your brand. Adding in thoughtfully created wellness components will enhance your guests' satisfaction, as well as your bottom line. Patti Biro is the owner of Patti Biro and Associates, a consulting firm specializing in creating brand enrichment in the spa and wellness industry through special events, retail consulting, and education. She is a frequent presenter on the trade show circuit, as well as an avid writer. Contact her at info@pattibiro.com.