EMPOWERING YOUR TEAM 2026

“HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY!” THE KEY TO SUCCESS

Every successful Beauty Therapy, Laser Clinic and Medi-Spa will be aware that they must immediately elevate the knowledge of skin by understanding it, applying scientific thinking to it, and offering solution -based selling and customer focused results in their business plan.

Hope is not a strategy!

The role you have in business is to empower, educate and lead both your staff and your clients. Be pro-active in this process of becoming solution- based or as the Leader, your own in-salon positive energy will be ground to a frizzled flat battery! You will feel the weight on your shoulders of new industry technology and you may easily feel swamped under this new wave of knowledge that is flooding the market. Scientifically based corneotherapy, the results based outside- in approach to skincare, is fast becoming main-stream. I am keen to ensure you are all keeping yourselves up to date and are “growing” the base knowledge of your staff and in turn your clientele base.

For those of you who are not focussed on in-salon education every year, what follows? Staff leave because the team culture does not embrace new ideas; their roles are not empowering, educating, or providing them with growth as team members. In turn the clients become despondent with therapists writing, “ditto, same as last time”, on the client treatment record histories. Clients require scientific- evidenced based skin type treatments that are results-orientated as much as the providers of these treatments need this approach to keep them enthusiastic and empowered. It is imperative in business to appreciate and empower all individuals in salon, staff, clients, leaders and suppliers to that business.

As Salon owners and managers, it is truly advantageous to create a set of procedures in salon that enable every Beauty/Dermal skin therapist to walk on a visible, scientifically knowledge-based pathway.

1. A Burst of Questions.

In the industry this is referred to as The Consultation. You will need to give this your full attention plus add the necessary timeframe it requires in your booking allocation. You are aiming to engage your client into thinking about their skin and the leading causes for that skin condition that you are investigating.

Not all questions have equal potential to lead to novel solutions, but all questions must be asked. Explain to your client why you are asking them, e.g. How old is the client? (You must know the chronological age of our client as well as their cellular age in order to create solutions and results that are exactly what these skin needs that you are attending to). Resist offering solutions at this stage and resist burdening the discussion with assumptions! Questions are most productive when they are open verse closed, short versus long and simple versus complex.

In 80% of this consultation time, you will get one answer that will usually totally reframe the problem and gives you a new angle as to solving the “leading skin cause” for your client. Now this is exciting as you now both have a more meaningful skin challenge to conquer.

Teach your staff this efficient path to fresh perspectives and creativity.

The consultation process gets easier the more you do it.

• You can feel awkward asking new clients all of your questions, but the new client wants results and value for money, as you would, so get on with those questions.
• The tough questions need to be asked. Do not overlook a major issue on the face or body that is clearly visible. I refer to this as the, “elephant in the room”! Ask the question…

2. Use your visual skin analysis equipment.

Look at the skin in detail. Discuss the colour, the texture and the secretions with your client. Put on your thinking cap and ask yourself; why is this happening on the surface? What cells and systems are responsible for creating this? How will I deal with this in this skin of my client? Is this response happening in the epidermis or dermis? What is creating this havoc on the skin?

Hold onto those questions in your mind and bring in the innovative technology!

3. Your Skin Analysis Technology is the third taxi off the rank!

If you do not have visual skin analysis equipment – most of you will have a cellphone or an iPad to take, at the very least, a daylight visual of your client. Start with these technologies as you work towards acquiring the necessary equipment.

Now you will have a clinical daylight visual to show your client. Expand the screen to show skin barrier disorders and visible pigmentary disorders as a discussion point with your client. You are now at the beginning of your solution-based journey.

Please note -In order to be effective, you must relate these clinical visuals, from the OBSERV Skin Analysis device to the client in a conversational manner as opposed to a confrontational manner. We need to offer relevant, achievable solutions in a way that will allow our client to visualise the results they will see in order for them to

• achieve their goal,
• solve their problem [that elephant in the room] and/or
• satisfy their skin or self- esteem, need.

Your role is to assist your client to get a positive result. Your responsibility as a skin therapist is to study all of your in-house skincare in order to create an affective prescription, including information on how to use the range as well as relaying the benefits of the products you have chosen. Add the clients’ cellular age-based time frames around your prescription and use the clinical visuals to prove before and after results when your client returns on the agreed upon date.

Clients love to buy but dislike feeling sold to

Your client will resent pressure. Ask your client skin related solution-based questions that show respect to your client. The answers will lead and build to a suitable solution that will then be encapsulated into an in-salon [ 6 -12 monthly] treatment programmes and a result driven homecare retail package.

Using innovative technology means we create awareness around being customer focussed and become aware of ‘solution needed conversations’ based on a scientific process with a cellphone or an iPad or a skin diagnostic device proving clarity, understanding and proof to our clientele. Getting beyond, pushing hope in a jar!

I have found that with my own OBSERV Skin Diagnostic device work over 5 years that all of my client’s resistance is overcome as I show them with their own clinical visuals, how to generate the results they want and desire for their skin!

4. Final Step in this Process is accountability for results.

Both the client and the therapist must hold themselves accountable for the results. The client must take responsibility for the home regime required. The therapist must take the responsibility to record all the information, and to create programmes of action that match the clients’ concerns and emulate the required outcomes expected by the client.

It is your professional responsibility to provide the latest scientific data to your clients. Embrace the new wave of innovation and thinking and become solution providers. You will revel in the joy and positive energy this creates for your staff, your clientele and yourselves.

Enjoy the journey beneath the skin.

Article created by Margaret Walsh, Margaret Walsh Consulting