Who are you to limit someone’s “feel good” ?
It frustrates me when I hear massage therapists say that they don’t sell products at the spa. I think “but why should you have to ‘sell’ if you’ve really engaged your guest? If you’ve opened the channels of communication effectively and your service was excellent, why wouldn’t you simply make a recommendation? Who are you to limit their ‘feel good’?”
Almost everyone who gets a great spa treatment wants to extend their experience. It doesn’t matter if it’s in their hotel room or home, in some way they want to recreate the magic. Chances are, your guests will be receptive to your suggestions of what you believe will help them. Mine always were.
Spa therapists are some of the most compassionate people in the world. As a former therapist I know how proud they are. They would rather not do something than to do it poorly. As an industry we’ve dropped the ball. From the outset no one teaches therapists how to engage or sell. We assume that the skill naturally exists.
But reviewing an intake form is not a substitute for engagement. And product training is not a substitute for selling.
I’ll discuss this issue in my presentation “Introverts: The Secret of Increasing Retail Sales” at ISPA 2017, Las Vegas on October 18. I’ll share easy methods to increase therapist’s engagement quickly. Hope to see you there.
Linda Harding-Bond
