Duncan Berry tells Elite Franchise how interest in ‘self-care’ has grown during this challenging Covid-dominated year.
Despite being deemed a ‘non-essential’ business by the Government, spa810 has weathered lockdown “pretty well,” according to its director Duncan Berry. Duncan, who has managed a number of leading franchise businesses during his career, described spa810 as “remaining resilient during these challenging times.”
He said: “We did not see any detrimental impact to our business from any of the recent measures put in place, such as the ‘Rule of Six’, or 10 pm curfew for restaurants and bars. During September, spa810 totalled 86% of their monthly revenue target (which was set at the end of 2019!) while, in October, we set a new monthly record with revenues at 95% of target. spa810 has recently focused on the message of ‘self-care’ and the importance of looking after yourself during these times.”
Duncan and his wife Tania launched spa810 in February 2019, while also purchasing the UK master franchisee rights for the company. Over the next 20 months, spa810 unveiled a number of new treatments from their base in Harrogate, north Yorkshire. And with an eye on the future, spa810 has recently added an experienced aesthetic therapist to their team at Royal Parade.
Duncan realises he doesn’t have a crystal ball to provide him with a vision of life during the coming few months, but he is confident that business will grow: “The spa810 model is robust and profitable, and we offer valued results-driven treatments to clients, so I believe the brand is well positioned in the market.
“Confidence is high that our new franchisees will see a strong pick-up in revenue. It’s also worth bearing in mind that it would probably take brand new franchisees three-to-four months to be fully onboarded into our system by which time we should be well beyond the impact of the second spike.”
As for re-opening in the summer, following the first UK lockdown, Duncan added: “We hit the ground running and achieved total sales of over £40k for July and August. We traded 14 out of 27 days in July, and 20 out of 25 during August. We have also seen a marked increase in the number of enquiries being generated via our website. This is a clear indication of interest arising from new business leads. But it also shows that our digital marketing strategy is working well with our Google Ad campaign.
“All of which gives a really strong indication that, despite the wider concerns of Covid, it is not stopping people wanting to look good, or feeling confident in their appearance.” Using first year trading data from his Harrogate business, to provide a statistical breakdown ‘per treatment type’, Duncan said: “Over an average 30-day month, new franchisees would need three clients per day, which is certainly feasible.”
He also pointed out that new franchisees can benefit from his and his wife’s own learning experiences during the past 18 months: “We’ve really benefitted from developing our SEO-optimised website that can be used for Google Ad campaigns. There is also the ability to offer finance options right from the start. And you can start using Facebook adverts the moment you start trading. Unfortunately, for us, we didn’t do this until month number 10.”
This article arrives courtesy of spa810, an exciting management franchise business in the beauty sector that provides results-driven aesthetics treatments using only FDA-approved devices.
