Dear Jane,
My background is in make-up. I was a professional make-up artist for many years, and recently earned my aesthetics license because I love skin care as well. The two girls who work my front desk and retail area are wonderful sales people, but not skin therapists. How can I help them totruly meet the needs of clients in terms of selling? We get walk-ins who do not necessarily want a treatment that day, but who do want to buy the “right” cleanser, mask, etc.
~ A. Pierce, Long Beach, CA
Dear A.,
You raise a question, which is of particular importance to me, since I believe firmly that skin care products should only be sold-in fact, prescribed-by qualified, licensed skin therapists such as yourself. This is said with no disrespect intended to your sales team-good sales skills are also crucial to an effective skin care center’s success!
But your team is at a disadvantage, because they cannot examine the skin of the client. This examination, both by eye, using a mag lamp, and by touch, using the ungloved (please!) pads of the fingers, is in my opinion the most essential part of any skin care experience. The combination visual and tactile examination, informed by how various conditions look and feel to the therapist, is an invaluable part of our art-something, which no dermatologist, with all due respect to my own, can offer. As the therapist, you should, of course, be conducting this sort of exam prior to every treatment, and keeping a running file on the client’s condition, much like a medical record kept in a doctor’s office. Every inch of the face and neck must be considered, and the subtlest data (heat, cold, dryness, grittiness, slackness, tightness, oiliness, flush, congestion, irritation, etc.) noted and recorded as the basis for treatment and take-home product recommendation.
That said-your sales team are not qualified to conduct this exam, and so walk-ins who do not have the opportunity to meet with you cannot be examined in this way. Should you have the leisure, which I doubt, or should you ever hire another therapist at your premises, I strongly recommend that you offer this face examination process, which takes no more than 10 minutes, as a free service to anyone who enters your facility, with no pressure to book an appointment or purchase product. In spite of this no-pressure approach, it’s a great way to build business and generate sales.
A real breakthrough I’ve witnessed in this area is expanding the concept of the product tester unit. A couple of tubes and pots on a stand are really not all that helpful to the client, especially when she is trying to diagnose a condition with very little information.
For this reason, think about creating a larger, more interactive area, similar to the Skin Bar, which we designed for the Dermalogica flagship in Santa Monica, California. This is an area like a sushi bar, with ergonomically correct bar stools. Four or five people can sit at the bar, and we encourage people to linger as long as they like. While at the bar, they are served a cool or warm beverage (no coffee, sodas or alcohol), and provided with a personal steamer, a stretchy hairband to whisk their hair back, an endless supply of hot steam towels, cotton balls and swabs, and an array of products to explore and experience. There is no obligation to buy, but I tell you that no one ever leaves empty-handed. Even if your staff is not therapists, talking with clients at the Skin Bar is an excellent way to learn about an individual’s needs and offer correct and constructive action.
What you must do in the interim is to script a meaningful dialogue between your sales staff and the potential walk-in. In the future, make this line of questioning the basis of a written questionnaire to be completed prior to the examination. Until then, by strategically directed verbal questioning, the sales team can at least direct the sale with some degree of expertise.
Developing this menu of questions will require work on your part. You will need to consider common conditions and causes, and then present these in the form of questions, which relate to available product technology. Of course, while your team is selling inventory off the shelf, they also should be positioning the client for future treatment as well.
Once you have the questions in mind, then you must commit to a training regimen for the team. They will become de facto skin care experts – and, ideally, you will experience such tremendous success that ultimately you may be able to offer some support in terms of assisting them in becoming licensed therapists.
First, you may need to do some re-training. If your sales people are accustomed to selling on the basis of cute packaging, gorgeous aroma, brand snob appeal, etc. – they will need an attitude-adjustment! The only reason for a client to purchase a product, and the only reason for you to sell it is with a strong belief that the product will support and improve the client’s skin health.
Before launching into a barrage of questions, the seller should ASK if she might ask some questions. Today’s client is often stressed, overscheduled, and also a bit sensitive about self-disclosure in today’s world of identity theft! A key question if someone is having skin problems is to ask if they are taking medications prescribed by a dermatologist, such as Retin-A or Accutane. You must discuss in depth the implications of these drugs with your team.
More general questions have to do with diet and eating habits-for instance, the Atkins menu may be tough on the kidneys, because of its astronomical protein level. Animal protein is notoriously difficult for the body to process, especially as the metabolism ages; the accumulated protein wastes may result in dark circles under the eyes, for example, which cannot fully be treated with any topical application. If a client complains of dark circles, ask her how much red meat and whole dairy food she’s eating.
Another key lifestyle issue to discuss is stress. The Buddha said, “We are our thoughts.” Therefore, if you ask a client to measure her level of stress, whatever she says is true, because this is her perception. Stress ravages the skin, as well as the entire system. Stress, for example, may be the cause of “mysterious” acne or breakouts along the jawline and upper throat. This corresponds directly to the adrenals. When adrenal function is exhausted, the desperate adrenal glands flood the body with cortisol and other hormones. This flooding commonly results in blemishes clustered quite specifically along the lower face. If your client is experiencing this, ask her if she has recently changed jobs, moved, taken on a new responsibility, etc. – the answer most likely lies in better time-management and stress reduction, as well as congestion-clearing products.
Ideally, these questions should be asked in a relaxed, intimate manner. The sales person should be able to walk around from behind the desk, take the client’s arm or touch her shoulder in a reassuring way, offer her an herbal or botanical drink, or a “smart” water, and talk through a few of these issues as she guides the clients through the retail area.
This is unlikely. More often, the client will charge in, panicked because she’s illegally parked, and demand, “What can I do about my dry skin?” To answer her fully, as you know, really requires a lifetime of study. But the client can’t wait that long.
The heart of client service is to respond with compassion as well as mere information. For this reason, especially as you transition from a purely sales-oriented sales team to a more service and information-oriented team, I recommend that you keep a good inventory of free trial and sample sizes. Sometimes the only course of action is to allow the client to experiment, if an appointment with a therapist cannot be booked.
BUSINESS TIP
Skin therapists often are shy people. I’m not, I admit! But many are, and really feel most at home in the semi-darkened, hushed, botanically scented recesses of the treatment room.
However, optimum client care requires that the therapist be forthcoming with clients, to greet them warmly, solve problems effectively and professionally, and represent your company and brand with strength.
As part of your performance review cycle, ask all employees to identify their greatest professional fears, and then make the mastery of those fears an objective for the next cycle.
Consider treating your team to executive confidence-building retreats at least once or twice a year. These are usually participatory physical experiences, things like wailing away on goatskin conga drums, or rope and rock climbing. Breaking through the fear barrier-because shyness really is about fear – not only is a tremendous bonding experience for your team, but the enhanced confidence will make each member more positive, comfortable, and successful with clients as well.
Jane Wurwand established The International Dermal Institute, a postgraduate skin and body care training center, in 1983. Jane teaches her innovative education and product philosophies throughout the world. Under Jane’s continuing direction, The International Dermal Institute is the research and development center for the Dermalogica professional skin care line, introduced in the U.S. in 1986 and currently distributed worldwide. Jane can be contacted through The Dermal Group at 310-352-4784, or by e-mail at janewurwand@dermalogica.com.
