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SMME EP 410: Launching and Selling More Retail Through Events with Emilie of Team Addo | Otter.ai

SMME EP 410: Launching and Selling More Retail Through Events with Emilie of Team Addo

Daniela Woerner31min

Speaker 1

00:00

Welcome to Spa Marketing Made Easy, a podcast for spa owners who want to step up their leadership and business skills and step into the role as spa CEO. I'm your host. Daniela Woerner, CEO of Addo Aesthetics and Founder of the Growth Factor Framework Program, where we teach, coach and guide spa owners in scaling their spas to the next level of growth and unlocking freedom in their life and their business. I'm so glad you're here now. Let's dive into the show. Okay, so how would it feel to bring in $8,000 in retail sales in one day? And what if I told you that those sales were all pre orders, so your cash is not getting tied up on those shelves. Pretty amazing, right? And the most amazing part is that the prep for this pre sale only took about five hours. Well, that is exactly what Emilie, who is one of our Addo certified coaches here at Addo Aesthetics, she did this in her spot. She's done these mini events and retail events multiple times, and she is joining me today to share with you exactly how she did it. So, yes, Em is a coach here with us. She is also a licensed aesthetician with over 10 years of industry experience. She has a spa called the Meta Esthétique. Forgive me if I'm pronouncing that wrong. She is French Canadian that is a brick and mortar spa. It's actually been in operation for 40 plus years. Her mom started it and she took it over, which is incredible in her spa. Em is very focused on membership, and she's absolutely an expert at client retention, loyalty and the treatment plan approach. She has really mastered this skill of mini events and has successfully launched a private label line. So when you listen to this episode, I mean, my mind was blown just talking to her, if you're already coaching with em, I want you to bring this up with her on your next call, because it's such a powerful, no brainer way to boost your profits. And if you're not coaching with em yet, but you want to, we've got a link at the bottom of this episode where you can learn more. You can purchase a call and get a call booked with her. All right, so let's go ahead and jump in to all the good stuff, and best of luck when you launch this retail promo in your spa. Well, hey, em, hello. I love having the team on the show. It is fun. And we're having you on today. I mean, yes, of course, you are a coach on our team. You've been a coach on our team for quite some time now, but you also operate a med spa, and that Spa has been in operation for 40 plus years now. Your mom started it legacy business, which is probably like a whole episode in itself of how cool that is, I love, I love hearing that. And we've heard from a few of the members in our community that, yes, they also have legacy businesses, which is just special, but we're bringing you on today because you have really, you kind of took this concept of many events and have run with it. And I know, like this whole idea of operating your business with ease and not having the time or space to and I don't mean physical space, I mean like mental and emotional space to have a huge event, because you know me, like, I, I, like, I need, like, some prep to get in front of people, because it's, it really takes a lot of energy, you know, yeah, and when you're seeing patients in the day to day, and you get event hangover, I mean, I don't know another word for it, so we kind of got really excited about this concept of many events. We kind of worked through it, you know, in growth factor, and had talked about it, and you kind of took it and developed it in your own way that works for your business. And in the past two years, you've generated $150,000 of mini events, yep, from mini events, from many events, which is amazing, and the the one that we're going to talk about, specifically today, is a retail launch you recently. Did $8,000 in one day of retail sales. It's important not to mix, you know, service and retail. But this took you about five hours to Yeah. I would say, tell me, tell me, tell me. Tell everybody, yeah. So, I

Speaker 2

05:15

would say, so this was our, just to give, like, a little bit of a background to the story, we have private label since May this year. So may 2024 we launched our first product. Back in May, we did an in person event. It was great, and now we came out with our second one. So for myself, again, like we said, sometimes you just don't have the mental space to have people in your space, and it takes a lot of time to prep an in person event. So for the launch of the second product, I decided to do a virtual online event, which, all in all, once I knew I was going to do it, probably took me about five hours of prep. I only used organic marketing because it works for us. So I know that's not for everyone, but for me, that's how it works. And I was able to successfully launch cashmere, which is our serum. And I am still sold out to this day in pre orders, because I keep ordering stocks, but I keep selling it because it's, it's just working like, Okay, so

Speaker 1

06:16

let's, let's first talk about, I think it's important to distinguish the two, the in person. Yes, that was appeal, right? Or but it

Speaker 2

06:26

was the, it was the physical product, though. So it's still, it was still a retail event, but I got people in to try the peel on their hands. I didn't do a peel party that way, but it was focused around retail, really. Okay,

Speaker 1

06:39

yeah, okay, yeah. And how much did you do at that in person event?

Speaker 2

06:44

I think we did. I'm I'm gonna say five, around five. We did 5000 or which isn't great, which is great, right? Yeah, oh my gosh, yeah.

Speaker 1

06:54

And then, okay, time goes on. You're busy, busy, busy. It's in busy season, you're in this treatment room. Just don't have the this, don't have the capacity, the space to be able to host an event. No, you say, Okay, well, we're going to launch this virtually. And I think that this is such a creative way too, because so retail is the thing like, you know, 2020 has been or, see, 2020 I'm like, it's like subconscious. 2024 has been a challenging year. And when we were in 2020 you know, all of that that we don't ever want to go back to retail was the thing that really pulled us through. And when people, when there's fear of recession or inflationary issues, or, you know, insert whatever thing that is causing, kind of a constriction, people still buy retail. Always, always buy retail. So it is such an important part, such an important vertical of any spa to make sure that you have products that align. Now you as you've kind of, you know, obviously you guys have been in operation for 40 plus years. I think that that really does. I know the spas, even the spas that have been in business 20 years, they do so much more organically. It's, yeah, you just do you, you're an establishment. You've been there for a specific period of time. People know you in the community. There's other clientele, yeah, there's people that just go there, because you've always been there, and that's great. I do think that, and I'm always curious, like, what if, if you

Unknown Speaker

08:44

did 8000 with this, what would happen? I know,

Speaker 1

08:47

I mean, 8000 is still a very I mean, in retail, that's phenomenal, yeah.

Speaker 2

08:54

And like I said, No more, no labor required post sale. So it's a physical product. They pick it up. It's like online shopping, and you don't have to do the treatment. You don't have. There's no time in the treatment room. So it's added, it's added income, basically on top of your treatments. So it doesn't matter if you're busy and you're 100% booked, this is still something you can do if you have the right point of sale system, and you know how to, you know, do your marketing? It's, it's a no brainer. Okay,

Speaker 1

09:25

so let's talk about the marketing. Yeah, how are you creating FOMO? How are you getting the word about about this new product? Like, what is your timeline that you're educating? Walk me through that

Speaker 2

09:38

process. So I'm someone probably kind of like you. I'm very type A I like to, like, prep my things in advance. I like to find one another, right? Yeah, I like to sprinkle the teas way in advance. Like I'm just that person, right? So in my head, I'm thinking, Okay, we're gonna do this in October, but I'm thinking about it. In late August, September, right? So I'm already, when I'm seeing clients in the practice, I'm already, oh, just so, you know, our new product is coming out, but it's only in October. I'm not saying anything. You know, it's talking about it in the marketing.

Speaker 1

10:13

We call that seeding. Seeding. There you go. Yep, you're

Speaker 2

10:17

seeding the word even in the emails, because I always do emails with the spa. I try to just do like, Okay, remember, in October we have something coming. Like, there's the seating that I always do very much in advance. But when I'm really fully into the four weeks or three weeks before, that's when I do more action, action related things. So I'll just be super clear about this is how the logistics of the event. So I'll be like, this is happening. We have a new product coming out. I educate, always educate, always bring more value, obviously, to what I'm selling. And then I do my social posts. I basically would add, oh, I do what Adam recommends. You know, I just do the 33333, the 333, the the reels, the social reels,

Speaker 1

11:05

three, uh, three. Feed posts, stories, yeah, um, three times a week, yeah, exactly or three weeks prior. I guess

Speaker 2

11:15

it's fully into it, 33333, that's what I do. And I think a lot of, a lot of the Well, I think every event, I usually do this, but I do, I do pre sales, so I have my lists ready to go, and I just tell my best clients, my VIPs. I'm like, Listen, this is going to sell out. So I want you to tell me what you need, because this is a retail event, so obviously, you know, inventory, things like that, I like to be prepared, and it works for my clientele. I just tell them this is happening. Can you give me your list in advance? This will guarantee you XYZ and sales, and I have their sales done for the day, like I just pre, I don't know how to call it pre sell, pre list.

Speaker 1

11:55

Yeah, you're pre selling. So yeah, of that five hours that it takes you to prep, are you including in there the pulling of the list, the because are you calling them? Are you talking to them when they're coming in to receive their services? So,

Speaker 2

12:10

because I have membership and clients come in every month, I tell them like the month before when they come in. So I do face to face, and if, for some reason, I have, I do have clients that are not on the membership and only come seasonally, but I reach out to them. I just either call or email, okay, and

Speaker 1

12:30

yeah, all right, so you're kind of multitasking. They're coming in for the service. It's something that you're talking about. Are you doing any type of shelf talkers or loop videos or so that in the spa. So

Speaker 2

12:43

this is the fun. You know, I'm again, I've been around for a long time. So, you know, sometimes I do things differently. But the funny story is, I, I made the private label product a good two months ahead of time, and I still didn't have it physically in the spa until the day of the event. So, so, I mean, I had to, I was like, Oh my God. Like, it's fine. We're gonna, I'm still gonna sell my stuff. It's, it's okay. So I had to be creative to, like, show a mock up of the product online, in the reels and all of that. So literally, I had nothing on my shelf in terms of visual but I know that's not like a traditional way of doing it,

Speaker 1

13:27

but something else, because it also it alleviates the cash flow problem, yes. So you know, it's a big risk to say I think I'm gonna sell well at our first event, we sold 5000 so maybe I'll buy $5,000 worth of product, and then you get into the point where it's like, oh shoot, I'm sold out, right? And then that's not a great feeling. It's kind of like a Oh. And so if everybody is a pre order, you can make the size of order that you need, and then get whatever additional you need for this for the shelf, but you know that that's already sold now you, I'm assuming that you were able to test and feel and play with, oh

Speaker 2

14:09

my gosh, like, like, six months ago. Okay, I already knew the formulation was good. We loved it. We used it ourselves, so I knew it was fine. I didn't have an issue with that. You didn't talk about

Speaker 1

14:21

it. It was just, yeah, you can to be able to do the to do the reels, or to show the kind of like in person shots and all of that. My

Speaker 2

14:32

graphic design skills came in, so I had to do the mock up on Canva of it, and it looks the same. So I just, you know, I was like, All right, good job.

Speaker 1

14:44

Okay, so you do this initial launch event, you get the 8000 now, how are you continuing to promote this product? Was the timing of it? I mean, you're in Canada, so there's obviously, um. Pretty strong seasonal changes. And yes, you know, you're going to need to adjust your skincare regimen as the weather changes. We need more hydration, all of those things. So was this timed kind of accordingly? To go with that.

Speaker 2

15:14

It was because the cashmere is kind of like this. It feels like a seal of hydration on the skin. So throwing it in the middle of humid July would have not been the best idea, and we had the formulation back in the spring, so I knew that this was going to be a nice fall slash winter product. And I, a lot of my clients have mature skin, so I'm sure it's going to be an all year round thing for them. So, but the launch specifically, I was like, this is going to be a fall thing for sure. Because, yeah, the weather does affect and

Speaker 1

15:50

tell me how you are kind of managing your inventory with because I know you guys in general have kind of leaned into this pre order as a way to kind of manage your cash inventory, right? Cash flow and cash flow, yeah. So tell me how you go about that. Like, are you just, do you have anything that normally sits on your shelves? Or is it all pre order? Or tell me,

Speaker 2

16:16

No, no, I have. I have retail shelves. I do, like I have. I have quite a bit of my best sellers. I know what sells. I know what works. I've seen

Daniela Woerner

16:24

them, but I just, I know,

Speaker 2

16:26

I know, I don't I mean, the my mentality is, if you online shop, you don't have the physical product right away anyway. So why would I not? Why would I stop myself from selling something that my client needs, that I know I can just order if I don't have it on my shelf. Like, why? I know it's not like you like to walk out with your product, but if I know it's the perfect product and I just happen to be sold out of it, I'm just gonna make them pay pre sell it. Order it for them. They have it three days later.

Speaker 1

16:58

So and are you guys shipping it directly to their house. Are they picking it up? We can

Speaker 2

17:01

we? Can we offer it? Shipping is a little different in Canada than the US. You guys have, like, very cheap shipping rates. Canada is just insane to ship everything around. So clients usually are very understanding of, like, Don't worry, I'll just pick it up at my next appointment. I'll just pop in. It's fine, or I offer to ship it to them if they live far. So

Speaker 1

17:24

Canadians are so nice, I know. Okay, so talk to me about the person that is like, Okay, I'm intrigued. I love this idea of doing events with ease. Maybe they're a solo and they're like, maybe they're in a solo suite and they're just like, I can't have an event. I can't have an event. Like, that's a even though there's been plenty of people that have done it in a solo suite, it's still like, if that's a block for them and they need to do something like, this is such a great way to kind of test out what kind of skills do you think they would need to have? Obviously, like you have to be comfortable asking for the sale. Yes,

Speaker 2

18:11

I think mindset is going to be a big one, because I feel like when we talk about retail, a lot a lot of providers are comfortable talking about treatments, because it's just natural to them. But when we talk about retail sales, a lot of them get overwhelmed, and it's a mindset thing that right

Speaker 1

18:28

there's money blocks around retail, but not as much around the treatments, exactly,

Speaker 2

18:33

because usually treatments are way more expensive than products, in a way, you know. So for me, it's, it's never been, I've never thought of retail that way. For me, it's like I'm offering you something that can treat you and give you more results at home. So why would I not tell you about it? You know, so for that, if someone's listening right now and they're a solo they're super busy, they don't talk about retail when they know they should, or they have a busy practice that providers are all booked up, but they don't have good sales. This would be a great way to test out the retail we

Speaker 1

19:10

can get some extra cash. And I think, you know, in general, it's great to kind of build this strong retail vertical in your company, it's going to be a win, win situation, but especially now if you have clients or patients that are like, Oh, I'm gonna, I have to go to quarterly, or I have to go, you know, like, I'm not coming in as frequently. I've got to cut back. I've got to whatever. Like, this is a way to serve them where they're at to support them, to stay top of mind, so that when they're ready to come back, which I don't think will be that long, no, then you know they're you're still like, they're not going to feel bad or not going to feel like. Like, yep, you know, like, Ooh, is it okay if I go back or, you know, like, there's, it's such a strange thing, because, of course, we want to see them. But like, think about when you go to a hair person, like, if you haven't been in forever, or you have, it's like,

Unknown Speaker

20:12

the shame, the shame, right? Like,

Speaker 1

20:15

let's get rid of the shame. Let's go the shame. And hey, we're happy to help you wherever you're at,

Speaker 2

20:22

exactly, yeah, and yeah, I think retail, like, you know how we always talk about you should never put your eggs in one basket. You should never have just one stream of revenue. Well, in Spa, you've got treatments and you've got retail, and retail can expand to having e com as well, you know, like, which is a whole different it's label,

Speaker 1

20:44

private label, you know, it's, there's so many, I mean, even education, there's a lot of estheticians that are getting into education. There's even, like, I've seen a lot of estheticians that are doing workshops out of their spas, like hands on workshops, it's all good, like, I celebrate all of that, because I think that, again, there's more than enough for everybody, and it's so important to figure out what you desire, what you're called to do, and not have all your eggs in one basket. Because if I mean, we saw even with a different example, when they had the iOS 14 updates couple years ago. And like everybody, everybody's traffic just stopped, you know, everybody's emails that were doing emails, they're like, I have no idea what this data is even telling me anymore. Thanks Apple, you know. And so it's like, if you had all your eggs in that basket, then you're starting from zero. But if you've got revenue coming from here and and I even would argue, um, or propose, I guess, that your events can be a stream of revenue, absolutely, you know, by having this, like, Okay, well, I'm seeing my patients. That's my like, that's the foundational, right, yeah, but I've got membership, and I've got events, and I've got E com, and I've got, you know, all of these different ways that I can reach people and generate revenue. It's not just me sitting in the treatment room doing services Exactly. Yeah, love it. Okay. Anything else you want to add?

Speaker 2

22:33

I feel like we should probably give. It would be nice to give like a walk through a simple walkthrough of how someone could listen to this and apply it to a retail launch. Oh, you're so smart. Well, yeah, I mean, people are listening to get tricks, right?

Daniela Woerner

22:48

Okay, so walk them

Speaker 2

22:50

through the whole process. Okay, so you can do this if you have private label, is great, because you can just make up your own product and launch it. That's one way of doing it. The other way of doing it would be to if you bring in a new product line, that could be another way of doing it, or if there's a new product that is coming out in a current line that you have now, you

Speaker 1

23:11

did this with environ. I did, yeah, okay, I've been

Speaker 2

23:15

doing this for a while, so I like retail events. I think they're really fun. But I did do this with environ I did. So you gotta just pick one of these to make this work. Once you know what your offer is, we're gonna make like a tier offer situation. So I like to kind of give options, because not everyone's gonna just have one offer like you. It's nice to have. If you buy more, you save more, right? So the way I did it is that they had to buy, you know, cashmere to get access to the deals. So example, first tier was you buy one product, the cashmere, and then you get another product, whatever it is, you get 10% All right, that's simple. Another one. You buy cashmere, you buy two products, you get 15% and then you buy cashmere, you buy three or more, you get 20% so you do like a tiered offer. So people, they buy more, they get a better deal, which makes sense.

Speaker 1

24:16

And by the way, people that buy three or more products have a 90% likelihood of coming in for a service Exactly,

Speaker 2

24:21

exactly. Okay, yeah. So that's kind of like the offer that you can make it super easy, super straightforward, and then what you can do on top of it, which I always do, you do a fast action bonus that, or you just offer them. I always do this first 10 people that buy X amount of money. So I think it was 250 I think or 299 I don't remember what my threshold was, but the first 10 people that bought 10, 299, worth of retail, they got a mystery bag worth $75 of value. And it was a mystery bag, so they didn't know what was in it. But it's fine. This extra stuff. And is,

Speaker 1

25:01

what is, what did you put in your mystery bag sample? Gosh, I had, I

Speaker 2

25:05

had travel sizes, I had sheet masks, I had bath bombs, and I had a really nice makeup bag, like, it was a very luxurious makeup bag that everything was in, and people loved it.

Speaker 1

25:20

Yeah, I mean, it's going back to, like the Clinique marketing, right, that you just when you were, like a teenager, you it didn't matter what you bought. You just needed the bag Exactly. Yeah, I'll buy whatever you need as long as I get that bag Exactly, yeah. So

Speaker 2

25:34

that can be your offers. And then for you to make it successful, all you need is a proper way of passing invoices. So either you have an online shop that's already set up and but I know sometimes a lot of people don't have it. So are

Speaker 1

25:50

you doing this through mango mint? Are you doing this through Shopify? Yep. So

Speaker 2

25:53

the way that I have both, I have an online store and I also have mango mint, and for me, it was just easier to get my lists in advance and pass it everything in mango mint, just because in Shopify, doing the tier was kind of a tech situation. And for me, if my hairdresser would say, hey, Emily, I'm having an event and we're having 50% off everything, and would you like to take advantage? Sure? What do you need? I'll just pass it on your card and reserve everything for you. How does it make you feel as a client? Ease like you're just like, oh my gosh, I don't even have to put it in my schedule. She's gonna do it all. So on your end, you're just like, ching, ching. You're just passing the invoices, and it's easy.

Speaker 1

26:41

And are you creating, how are you how specifically are you doing that in mango mint? Because I know people have asked about different like, discounting different levels, or, like, how you know, how are you setting gonna

Speaker 2

26:53

be? It's gonna be a manual situation. So you're just gonna do your invoice, you're gonna put the products that the client is buying, and then you're manually gonna go in, and there's like, um, there's like, a little button that you can press that says, like, change the price, and then you type in the discount. So 1015, or 20, you're just gonna have to go in on each product to do that. But

Speaker 1

27:16

no, they launched coupons. Have you did was this, oh, before the episode that we did with Daniel, he said they're coming out before Black Friday. Oh,

Speaker 2

27:25

this was way before, way, way before, yeah, way before, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I'm the I'm a manual person, so I just did it manually, but it works. It's fine. It's not like you have 10,000 people in front of you at reception. You just do it right? So it's, fine. So with mango man, it's easy, credit card on file, great.

Speaker 1

27:45

I love it. Yeah, love it, love it. And so were there any differences in your offer? I mean, probably in your margin, in doing this with a private label versus,

Speaker 2

27:58

yeah, margins are better, for sure. I don't necessarily want to talk margins, because if clients listen to this, I don't know,

Speaker 1

28:06

we don't have to talk margins. Okay, cool, yeah. Like in

Speaker 2

28:11

general, everyone knows that. You know, like environ margins are going to be different than private label margins, for sure, so And yes, better margins,

Speaker 1

28:23

and rightfully so, because you're taking the place of all of that work exactly the brand is doing. You're just fulfilling a different role. So it's not like, Oh, this is the easy way out. There's a lot of additional, oh my marketing and branding and packaging and all of those things that are filled with your time. So, you know, it's you're just fulfilling a different role. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Okay. Um, anything else, I think that's a great step by step. I love the offer. Love that you have continually done this. I think it's such an inspiration to generate, you know, more than six figures through these mini events that and especially like. So right now, in your practice, you're, it's just you at the provider, right? Yeah, so like, having just you like, that's why I would like you guys to know what is possible when you're a solo, if you're a like these numbers are available to you. You know, don't let your current situation, or if you just are thrilled being a solo, and that's how you're the happiest, don't look at that as a limitation to what is possible for you. You know, you know, you obviously have a team of people around you, supporting you, helping support administrative and all of those types of things, which I think is extremely important. But as a provider like you're the one in the room doing the treatments. So I think that that is just a. A great bit of inspiration

Speaker 2

30:03

to know what is possible for you. Yep, you took the words out of my mouth. I was just going to end it with, Hey, if you're really busy and you don't have time to do this, and you always block your mind, I can't do an event because I'm booked out and I don't have time. Get that out of your head, because that's where I am right now, and I was able to do this with a few hours of work and it and I mean, they're still the sales are still coming in, so it's great. I

Speaker 1

30:33

love it all right. Thanks, em. And of course, for all of you listening, if you want to know more about this. You can connect with em. She does our one on one coaching. She's doing some events across the country with us this year. So super excited about that. We'll have all the links below this episode and give it a try. Give it a whirl. As always. If you want to keep the conversation going, I want you to head on over to the spa marketing Made Easy. Facebook group, the number one free resource out there for estheticians focused on business building. We've got weekly marketing tips, a monthly goal setting and planning session, monthly esthetician business book club, plus a community of 1000s of estheticians committed to business building in the spa industry. I'll see you there. Bye.

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