Comprehensive spa business education at IECSC Las Vegas

IECSC Las Vegas 2010 began early, with a full education program on multiple tracks.  No matter what the type of beauty business you are in, there was something for everyone.  The Advanced Education Workshops featured multiple classes within the track of Spa Business, Wellness, Solo Practitioner, Medical Esthetics Business, Medical Esthetics Procedures, and Makeup, in addition to 3-hour Advanced Education Workshops, Cidesco and ASTECC continuing education, and there were also dozens of Manufacturer classes.

Peggy Wynne Borgman started off the day with a presentation entitled “Reading the Tea Leaves: A Field Report on Spa Industry Recovery.”  Borgman elaborated on the changing habits of spa-goers in the new economic reality, and gave strategies on how to position a spa business to take best advantage of current consumer trends.

InSPAration Management’s Dori Soukop presented on “Tapping into Profits with a Wellness Program,” and gave lots of practical advice on looking at your current revenue streams and devising programs to draw in clients in new ways with wellness initiatives such as integrative medicine, nutrition, stress management, supplements and wellness cuisine, among others.  She also recommended that owners become integrated with their communities and use expanded programming to meet financial goals.

Douglas Preston of Preston Martin skincare delivered back to back seminars to a packed house of estheticians on how to build client relationships through consultation and treatment programming techniques.  Ellen McGinnis of Innovative Spa Management gave a dynamic presentation on using data collection and analysis to improve profitability.  On the Wellness track, Sunny Griffin of Astara gave a passionate presentation entitled “Aging Beautifully Through Raw Nutrition,” highlighting the lack of raw food and enzymes in diets today and the resulting health imbalances.

Carol Phillips gave one of her idea-packed seminars entitled “Sales, Marketing, Advertising, Retail & Training for Success.”  Whew!  So much information, even 3 hours wasn’t enough to fit it all in.  Bryan Durocher gave ideas about menu design in his session, “Designing Spa Services that Build Your Bottom Line,” and both Bryan and Carol are presenting multiple classes during IECSC.

My last stop of the day was to see Alfredo Carjaval of Universal Companies and Blake Feeney from Canyon Ranch encourage attendees to think about the similarities between restaurants and spas, and to create spa menus that both enable upselling opportunities and deliver on the expectations of clients who visit the spa.

Unfortunately I could only sit in on this handful of the almost 90 classes that were offered this first day.  Many more to come over the next two days!