How do you currently check the pulse of your spa or esty business? What kinds of reports do you utilize from the programs and software that help your business run smoothly? Are these reports offering you enough insight to inform your business decisions?
Running the right reports — at the right frequency — is essential to developing sound future forecasting, creating proper budgets, outlining effective marketing plans, and more.
We recommend looking at four essential reports on your esty or spa business, and our experience says that you should be running them on a monthly basis:
- Topline Business Summary Report
- Scheduling and Employee Utilization Report
- Client Retention Report
- Retail Sales Report
Let’s take a look at what each of these reports…well, reports…and how that information can help you make more informed business decisions.
Topline Business Summary Report
The two most common reports business owners use are a balance sheet and a profit and loss report. A balance sheet includes cash, assets, and bank balances. It also shows your liabilities — a salon mortgage, any owned equipment, and already-owned retail inventory, for example.
A profit and loss report (P&L) will provide more detail about where the balances on your balance sheet come from. This report provides an explanation of your sales and expenses.
Most owners choose to run both at the same time and call it running their financial statements. These reports offer a bird’s-eye view of the overall health of your spa or esthetician business.
Scheduling and Employee Utilization Report
Your business is built on the resources of time and service. Servicing clients throughout your set business hours maximizes your revenue potential. Although it is unrealistic to expect every appointment to be filled 100 percent of the time, this is the ultimate goal, right?
Reviewing your scheduling and employee utilization reports can help! They offer a peek into scheduling gaps and allow you to adjust your sales and marketing strategies to fill them.
If your spa business is regularly reaching that 100-percent mark, that’s great! In fact, this more than likely signals it’s time to expand.
Client Retention Report
Client retention reports are often lumped in with either general sales or scheduling reports, but we like to call them out separately. This is because client retention is essential in maintaining an overall strong client base. Long-term clients offer stability and allow you to expand.
When client retention is low, it’s an area that deserves undivided attention. If your clients don’t want to return, chances are slim that your business will survive long-term.
If you’re suffering from this issue, you must get to the bottom of why your clients aren’t coming back on a regular basis and then address any issues head-on if you want to ensure longevity in this business.
Retail Sales Reports
Retail sales have always been a huge revenue generator in spas and salons, accounting for as much as a third of average monthly income (and more in 2020, for obvious reasons).
Seeing dips and spikes in your retail product sales can be great indicators for marketing direction. What’s more, some studies show a direct correlation between retail sales and client retention.
Maximize Your Spa Business Potential with Minimal Effort
One of the most common mistakes spa business owners make is to believe they can operate with little to no change over time. They set the business side of their operation on auto-pilot and assume things will be fine as long as they keep their appointment books full.
You can do better, though — and not for a whole lot of extra effort.
Run these essential monthly reports and don’t ignore what you see. The level of information about your esty or spa business you will find in these numbers is something that you can’t get any other way. Use them to your advantage!
If you are unsure how to run these reports or what to do with them once you have, reach out to NewMed Concepts for advice. We can help you utilize the tools you already have to their fullest potential.
