How to write a spa business model – 7 things you need to include
“You can manage without a business plan, but not without a business model”. This phrase is derived from the nation that a business model is the heart of a business plan, and without it, the business plan will fail without exception. While having ONLY a business model is obviously not optimal in any way, shape, or form, a business will still be able to make do.
But what is a spa business model, and how do you write it? In this article we will cover 7 different things you need to include in your spa business model to help you succeed and make your spa profits and business flourish.
What is a spa business model?
A spa business model is a description of how you plan to create different types of values. Or as the financial journalist Michale Lewis once described it in a simpler way: “All it really meant was how you planned to make money”. A spa business model simplifies and concretizes the most important part of a company’s value-adding processes. The groundwork for a spa business model lies in your company’s business idea where it should answer:
- What you’re offering
- Who you’re targeting
- How you’re planning to sell it
- When you’re selling
- What need in the market you answer
- What makes your company unique compared to your competitors
- Why the customer should choose your spa business
- Who you are and what knowledge/competence you possess
7 elements of a strong spa business model
Creating a spa business model isn’t simply about completing your business plan or determining what offer you should pursue. A spa business model is about mapping out how you will create ongoing value for your customers. Here are the 7 things you need to include in your spa business model.
1. Identifying your target audience
Throwing out a wide net to try and catch as many prospects as possible might seem like the way to go, but it is anything but. While you will most likely reach more people, the resources and time spent on throwing a wide-spread net will undoubtedly result in a lot of wasted resources since a lot of them will simply not be interested in your specific products and/or services.
Instead you should try to narrow it down to two or three so called: “buyer personas”, people you think and know will benefit from your offering. Start by outlining each persona’s demographics, common challenges, and what solutions you can offer to solve them.
Example: Home Depot might appeal to everyone since they carry a lot of everyday products, but their main target is in the end homeowners and builders.
2. Establish your spa business processes
Another important part is to have a good understanding of the activities required to make your business model work. You will need to determine your key spa business activities by first identifying the core aspect of your spa businesses offering.
Example: The online ticket exchange marketplace, Ticketbis, key business processes include marketing as well as product delivery management.
3. Record your key spa business resources
What resources do you require to carry out your daily processes, how to identify new customers, and to reach your business goals? By documenting all your necessary business resources, you will ensure that your spa business model is adjusted to sustain the needs of your spa business.
Examples of common resources include:
- Website
- Capital
- Warehouses
- Intellectual property
- Customer lists
4. Create a strong value proposition
This step is about answering questions such as: how will you be able to be competitive on the market? How will you stand out from your competition?
What are your strong points? New and innovative services? Experienced spa personal? A new or old twist on the spa concept?
By establishing your strong point and how you’re simply better than the competition, you have begun creating a strong value proposition to support you through your everyday processes. Once you’ve defined a few value propositions, link each and every one of them to a specific service and/or product you offer to determine how you will be able to continuously support and create value for your customers.
5. Determine key business partners for your spa business
Very few, if any, businesses can support themselves without a few key support partners who contribute to your business ability to cater to your customers. When you’re creating your spa business model, try and identify and select a few key partners such as:
- Spa product suppliers
- Advertising partners
- Strategic alliances with other companies relevant to the spa industry
Example: Home Depots partners include key business partners such as lumber suppliers, parts wholesalers, and logistics companies.
6. Create a demand generation strategy
How and where will your customers find you? More importantly: what should they do once they’ve found your spa business? You need a strategy that helps build interest in your business and generates leads, that is the demand generation strategy. It creates a blueprint of your customer’s journey while it also documents key motivators for them taking action.
7. Room for innovation
Finally: remember to leave some room for innovation. While launching a new spa business, trying to make your spa profits flourish, your business plan will be based on a lot of assumptions. Because in the end, until your business is live and you’ve got some paying customers, you don’t truly know if your spa business model will actually be successful. For this reason alone, you need to make some room for both innovation, and adjustments.
The biggest mistake you can do is to think that your spa business model is a static document. The most important thing to remember when creating a spa business model is: be flexible. Review it often and implement changes as needed.
Need help creating your spa business model?
Contact Raison d’Etre today and we’ll help you achieve your ideal spa and make it flourish. We’re an industry leading spa consultant firm where we believe that the success of any spa is based on three simple factors:
- A strong, inspiring, and creative concept
- A sensible planner and operationally supportive layout
- A systematic, sustainable business approach in combination with a steady and heartfelt leadership
Strive for excellence in every detail of your spa with Raison d’Etre’s spa consultancy services today.
