Alayne White
44 | spa owner, writer, photographer | married with one son | Bristol, R.I.
In your business, where do the best referrals come from? My website first, then word of mouth reinforcement from our client base. When I added my second location last year, I ran short of cash flow for the type of advertising campaign that I had planned. I decided to invest whatever money I could scrape together on a more advanced website that could also produce cash for me. This proved to be a very positive choice as most of our new business comes from people locating us first with a search engine like Google, but then when they see our site, it usually creates an impressive impact that demonstrates who we are. I also came up with a creative instant gift certificate page that allows last minute shoppers to e-mail or print their own certificate.
What helped you understand how to effectively retail your skin care products? When I went to Catherine Hinds [Institute of Esthetics] in 1987, Catherine would come into the class and speak randomly about this business. Many students would roll their eyes, but I tuned in most of the time. One of the most important things she said was that when we all got out of school, to try and work in a department store first to gain sales knowledge. That is exactly what I did. I worked at a counter at a small department store for about a year and that training shaped my concept of retail. Afterwards, I had the pleasure of working for an Aveda distributor for over 12 years at their infancy stage and was exposed to retail and better business practices that molded my vision for what is now alayne white spas. Aligning myself with Dermalogica would be the icing on the cake as their company speaks solely to stong principals in building a successful skin care business. Their ongoing mostly free education has been invaluable in helping “seal the deal” with training my young staff to understand that retail needs to be at least 40 percent of your total business.
What inspires you to continue working within the aesthetic career? I wake up every day with one purpose: to upgrade the image of this amazing industry by creating a company that values a team by paying them fairly, rewarding them appropriately, and servicing them like I expect them to service our clients. My mission is to get people to think about an aesthetics career as an alternative to college or in addition to college rather than its current perception in this country as a step down.
How many conferences/trade shows to you attend yearly?One to two, and I have at least six team meetings a year where we have a variety of guest speakers come and speak on anything from yoga to goal setting and personal mission statements.
