The end of the year is a time of celebration but shortly after the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, a whole new year awaits with fresh new challenges. Whatever plans you have for your spa or massage practice for 2022, such as adding new services or expanding your retail selection, you’ll want to incorporate them into an annual business plan that helps you focus and prioritize activities. Your plan doesn’t have to be lengthy, but it should set realistic goals and benchmarks for performance. Unrealistic goals about revenue, new client acquisition or additional services that you want to offer can lead to increased overhead, which can damage cash flow.
Business plan elements
Strategic business planning includes several key elements to assure you reach your goals:
Analyze the market and your offering
Make sure your services and your target customers are aligned. Before expanding into new areas, such as sports massage, trigger point or reflexology, be sure these are services clients want. Whatever you decide, consider what team training or equipment is necessary.
Also, assess the competition, including both long term players and new market entrants. Take time to research social media and review sites to find out what the marketplace is saying about other spas and massage practitioners. Assess your advantages and disadvantages against the competition so that you know your opportunities and challenges in the coming year.
Include primary research. Ask clients directly or through a direct mail or online survey how they feel about your offering. Getting client feedback will help determine where you need to make changes.
Review marketing activities
Evaluate your marketing activities both on and offline. If you have been conducting direct mail or email marketing, you should have reports on response rates to determine the most effective promotions throughout the year.
Analyze how much your web traffic has grown and where visitors are coming from, such as email marketing, online ads, social media channels or blog posts. As part of your web traffic analysis, you can see where most of your visitors are spending time on your site to determine if you need to make any content changes.
Based on your research and your goals, determine what activities you want to continue or launch next year and set a budget for each.
Assess operational efficiency and productivity
Analyze your operations from your lease, if you rent space, to equipment and supplies. Identify what changes are needed for improved efficiency and productivity and to enable you to meet growth goals. You’ll need to decide not only who you need to hire to meet projected goals but what areas of expertise new team members must have to service new client targets.
Finish with financial performance
Review financial information for your spa or massage practice over the past three to five years, if applicable. Break down total sales into different service areas and retail products and determine gross profit margin for each. Include figures on capital expenditures and make sure balance sheets and profit-and-loss statements are up to date. Using this information, forecast your financials for the next three years. You’ll probably want to work with your accountant on this section.
As part of your planning, include input from your team. Their contact with clients can provide insight to help goal setting and planning.