Ep. 64 - What Q2 taught me

If you've ever wondered what actually goes on behind the scenes of a profitable, multi-practitioner spa, not the polished version but the real one, this is that conversation.

Every quarter, I sit down and do an honest debrief: what I tried, what worked, what surprised me, and what I'm taking into the next 90 days. Here's what Q2 looked like inside my spa.

Monday Morning Huddles Changed My Team Culture

Earlier this year I started running Monday morning huddles with my full team: estheticians, support staff, virtual assistant, everyone. The rule: five minutes max, never more than ten. Fast, focused, and intentional.

The goal was simple. Get everyone on the same page at the start of the week. But what I didn't expect was how much it would shift communication across the board. My estheticians started understanding what the biz ops assistant actually handles. My VA started picking up on what was happening on the floor. Suddenly, people stopped coming to me for questions that someone else on the team could answer better.

And the thing my team said they look forward to most? The emoji prompt at the end. Every week I give them a theme and ask them to react in Slack. Silly? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely. When your team genuinely enjoys showing up, that's not an accident. That's culture.

I also shifted our monthly team meetings into dedicated esthetician training sessions. One month it was dermaplaning. Most recently, we did scalp massage technique because one of my girls felt like she wasn't giving her best in that area, and she asked for the training herself. That kind of ownership? That's the team you want.

I Raised My Prices 10% and Nothing Bad Happened

I'll be honest. I hadn't raised my prices in two to three years. Life happened: two babies back to back, maintenance mode, survival mode. But I knew it was time.

I raised prices by 10% at the start of June, our busiest month, and I braced for pushback. It never came. Not one complaint. Not one lost client. We're still bringing in 25 to 30 new clients a month without skipping a beat.

If you've been putting off your price increase because you're worried your clients will leave, they won't. In eight years of owning my spa, I've had exactly one client comment on a price increase. She's still a client today.

Your prices need to reflect your value, your cost of supplies, and your growth. That's not selfish. That's smart business.

I Created a Hybrid Role I've Never Tried Before

My team is close to 80% booked. I knew I needed both an esthetician and support staff, but every applicant coming in was an esthetician. So instead of forcing a choice, I built a role that covers both.

The idea: hire estheticians who spend half their hours in a support capacity, turning over rooms, greeting clients, following up, and the other half taking overflow clients. As their books fill up, they transition fully into the esthetician role. The revenue they generate eventually funds a dedicated support hire.

Is it a perfect system? I don't know yet. But I'm willing to try it because the alternative is waiting for the "perfect" hire while my team is stretched thin. My goal is to have both new hires at least 50% booked within their first 90 days.

The Mindset Shift That Made Everything Click

Q1 was hard. My youngest hadn't turned one yet, and the brain fog was real. But when he hit that one-year mark and started sleeping through the night, something shifted.

I set a hard stop at 2pm every day. My alarm goes off and it literally reads: Time to focus on your boys. And then I take a shower, not just to clean up, but as a ritual. I'm washing off the CEO and stepping into mom mode.

Here's what I learned in Q2 that I didn't have language for before: there's a difference between being overwhelmed and being overstimulated. Overwhelmed is mental, too much on the to-do list. Overstimulated is physical, every sense is maxed out at once. You can't solve overstimulation with a to-do list. You need a physical reset. That shower is mine.

Taking care of yourself isn't separate from running a great spa business. It's the foundation of it.

Listen to the full episode of the S.P.A. Business Podcast to hear all the details, including what Q3 goals are on deck.