smart Tan Magazine is the leading source of information for indoor tanning salons, covering everything from the newest tanning technology, Vitamin D and the lastes tanning lotions to detailed ways to improve your salon's success.
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INSPIRED IDEAS VISION Preparation is everything. Being educated about your industry, your clients and how quickly the market is changing is the best preparation any business owner could ask for. Melissa Gallion, vice president of sales and 19-year veteran of Four Seasons, works closely with account managers, client salons and product vendors. Just for our readers, she shares her insight on education and staying ready year-round. Q: What is Four Seasons known for and how do you deliver on your reputation? A: We're known for our friendly and caring service, proven busi- ness advice and overall dedication to making salons successful. And we stand behind our reputation. We're always the industry's choice for favorite distributor, best customer service, things like that. Our education, training, order accuracy and ability to pro- vide products in a timely manner, particularly this time of year, [establishes our positive reputation]. We're dedicated to follow- ing through, delivering on our promises and standing behind our word. Q: Are there any unique challenges associated with being a distributor? A: In today's market, salons have many distributors to choose from. For the most part we're providing the same products at similar price points. The challenge is to distinguish ourselves. We do that through added service and value. We constantly thrive to add services that other distributors cannot offer, like an auto- matic order fulfillment system, a demographic analysis for our customers of a specific market and many other services. You really have to be proud to be a Four Seasons sales rep. Most of all, you have to stand behind what you promise your customers once you've established a relationship. Q: How did your Four Seasons University program develop? A: We've always recognized that education is important to our industry and we want to share our knowledge on successful salon building, regulatory issues and selecting the right products and services to create repeat business for salon owners. Some of the educational resources offered to our customers – like our monthly newsletter, marketing ideas, demographic studies – help them with their advertising choices. We've recently added a blog site to give clients a complete resource to get the kind 115 SMART TAN MAGAZINE [ SmartTan.com of information they need more of, based on our research and feedback from the salon owners. Q: How did the Four Seasons expos develop and how do they lend credibility to your company? A: It's an opportunity for us to put our résumé on the table, so to speak. There are a lot of times people who come to our expos aren't necessarily customers of Four Seasons, or maybe they buy a little bit from us. The expos are just another extension of our commitment to provide support. Our objective for offering these expos is two things: basic busi- ness skills and product knowledge. Our last show had over 1,000 people attend. We appreciate the salon owners who bring a willingness and an eagerness to share their success stories with other salons. We hope customers leave feeling reenergized, with a new business strategy and a renewed confidence to further invest in the tanning industry. Q: When is the busy season in your market and what do you do to prepare for it? A: We like to say we don't participate in any kind of slow season, so for us it's busy throughout the year. Obviously we do coincide with the industry's busiest time of the year, but we try to maximize every opportunity we have the last six months of the year. We don't want to be fixing things in January and February. Our management team is constantly developing our employees and our systems through education, training, upgrading equip- ment and software – different things like that. That last six months are the time that we can make sure everything that needs to be fixed is fixed, and everything is primed so when the salon busy season does hit we're prepared. For more information about Four Seasons, visit www.fstanning. com or call 800-325-2769.