Watch this video before diving in!
How often do you meet with your supplier or brand partner?
Are your meetings focused and strategy driven?
Do you leave those meetings feeling like you have accomplished something?
Your meetings with your brand partner are a vital part of effectively running your business. I don’t like to call them suppliers because they are not just suppliers they are partners in your business. Ultimately your brand partner can better your profits and help you with your staff but you need to allow them to do that and not just see them as someone you order from and drop products.
The closer your relationship to your brand partner the better your bottom line. THIS IS FACT.
Take a few minutes to quickly complete the questionnaire below, simple yes or no answer will do. 
You should have ALL YES answers. If there are any NO’s, well you know what you have to do. I will guarantee you that if you turn the NO’s on this checklist into YES’s, you will see a dramatic turnaround in revenue and staff morale, and you will also notice that you get a lot more attention from your brand partner than before!
So these meetings you should be having should have structure to them to maximise the benefit of the meetings. 30 minutes will do, one hour is even better! If you want to socialize because you are friends, then book a second session but this is “LETS GET DOWN TO BUSINESS” session.
Here is the Agenda
- Review the past month figures. This means the following must all be ready: unit sales of the brand, unit sales per therapist to see who is selling the most, treatment sales of all treatments using the brand, and treatment sales by therapist.
- Stock take. For maximum benefit you as the owner/manager should have done a stock take and printed out the values ready for your supplier. The days of the supplier taking stock for you are long gone so be prepared and you will get more benefit out of your time together.
- Any incentives due.
- Top performing therapist for the brand for the previous month.
- Any problems/challenges that require supplier intervention/assistance.
- Book/confirm training as required. Training should be booked three to four months in advance so this point should be confirming the next months training.
- Go over the next month marketing and promotional activity.
- Finalise any future events.
- Finalise the next quarter promotions.
- Set next appointment date.
This should take you 30 minutes if both parties are prepared and don’t waffle. What’s important here is to get the business done and dusted and then have coffee and social catch up. The social element of the visit is very important so don’t leave it out, but I do find often that doing the social element first leaves very little time to actually gain full benefit from the information the supplier has to share.
Every single visit should accompany time with the therapist team. At least 30 minutes if not an hour. Remember your brand partner will bring a different dynamic to your team, so whilst the brand partner is not responsible to train or motivate your team they are there to support and help so lean on them and allow them to help you.
I have one final word to say on this subject. I encourage all managers to put their egos aside and actually get the type of benefit from their brand partners they can get by spending time with them and listening and learning. You never know what you can learn or what new insight you gain from that time.
Speaking of how to run effective supplier meetings in just 30 minutes, next week Marisa Dimitriadis will be our coach to speak with us on “Marketing 2023! planning is everything”, she will be giving us some insight into her own experience as a supplier meeting planner.
REGISTER NOW and come join us
Spa Professionals Guild hosts two online coaching events per month as part of our membership where we bring you the best the industry has to offer at a global level. We invite 50 non members FREE of charge to each session to come see what we offer and how valuable it is.
See you soon!
Marisa xxx