Opinion on Spa Owners?

[o batido de leite]

We did $26,000 just in gift certificates in one day, at Christmas on year.

Do you think Spa Owners just put GC sales money into their personal pockets? Please. GC's have to be redeemed at some time, and in many states it is illegal to place on expiration date on them. The $26,000 the sold in one day is no different than $500 worth of work each week of the year. And at the end of year, the 26K ends up being about 4K on the bottom line. That is the difference between profitability and cash flow.

was so established (18 years), and so good at making money and paying as little as they could possibly get away with, the owners were married and did indeed "take home" around that much per year. Both worked there and paid themselves, as well, there were profits in the company that were entered into that figure.

So let me get this straight - a couple that has put 18 YEARS into building a business should not be allowed to earn more than how much? And its not like they just sat there - according to you they WORKED. So WORKING for 18 years (and I do not have to BE THERE to know they worked a little more than 40 hours a week), building a business, creating jobs is worth how much in your estimation? How much should you be allowed to earn if you were in their shoes, Jill?

but you have to undertand, I was there.

Ok, so what was the commission paid to the hair stylists and massage therapists? It would have to be 30% in order for your assertion to hold water.

Spa owner making a nice profit margin, does little to nothing, except for that cash bar Christmas dinner each year to actually maintain what could be much better conditions for the employees.

Does little to nothing? Sorry. Lots of offense taken, and anyone who owns a business should be offended by such thinking. You can complain all you want, but no one will take you seriously if you think Spa Owners whose operation grosses over $1M per year do "little to nothing."

Gee, by your thinking, a massage therapist who only does 4 appointments per day only works half as hard as the bag boy at the grocery.

 

[Susanne R]

I just wonder some days if "the shoe fits", R& R.

And, whatever you do, don't try to pin on me, that I think they shouldn't earn something or lot's of somethings. My comments were basically to show what many of us see on an ongoing basis.

Business booms and people don't make the environment safer, or better. They just keep taking. Sure, you can ride on the coat-tails of success. You can even work in your business. But if you aren't actively taking care of those who work for you, especially in some of the ways mentioned above (ergonomic places to STAND for the receptionists - a small one among them) -- then you are not a good business owner. You are a good Profit Margin-er.... but the "person" is what we're talking about here.


Ugh. And while we're at it... What is $32 on a $100- $110 service, plus being expected to be at work all day rather you have those services or not? At most, I think we got $36 on a few "special" things and less on any "packages" that were sold.

I think it comes out to LESS than your expected margins. Stop trying to proove me wrong on my knowledge of what has been going on for years at that place and maybe... since you want to defend them so much, you should consider how you can start to make profit margins like this place. Ugh!

I am tired of playing your game of you know what all spa owners are capable of making. Please stop defending ALL spa owners, especially the ones you don't even know, it only shows you trying to start ... what was the word I was looking for? Picking... nits!

I know I don't have to answer your questions, so this is more for the others out there who are wondering why I have such a poor attitude in general about spa-owners who are also jerks. The ones that don't have to be and CHOOSE to be are just bums in my opinion. My experience in this particular case and many of the other cases I have seen, were just this... working for bums. This is about my experience. I can't and won't quantify it any more than this.

My original post was to try and show that I have worked for someone who COULD afford to do something right and better, and chose not to. And that over the years, I continue to see this occur. Taking all the money and numbers out of it (that were mainly to try to show that I wasn't talking about someone who "might" have been able to do something) my insights still hold. This is just one example and probably the biggest one I know of in my little world. Across the board, "spa owners" chew 'em up and spit 'em out.

Hopefully we as therapists and potential "spa owners" and business owners can learn from this. That is what I'd like to take from this conversation. Some learning instead of trying to tell someone how wrong they are when one of us wasn't even there.

 

[yahoos little helper]

So WORKING for 18 years..., building a business, creating jobs is worth how much in your estimation?

A net loss to the world, if those 18 years were spent building an unconscious business, creating bad jobs.

"Ooh you employed some people, and then you treated them like crap? Please. Don't do us any more favors."

I don't know if this was her point, but what I take from the story is: a business' success should uplift everyone involved in it--owners, employees, customers, community--not further separate the ones in power above the rest. That's what we call an abuse of power. I would call it unacceptably mishandling the stewardship that we colloquially call "owning" a business.

I'm sure there are some good spa owners out there. I haven't met any yet. I'm tickled to be about to start work with a company that's interested in conscious business, what the owner calls "twenty-first, not twentieth, century business".

 

[hidden]

We did $26,000 just in gift certificates in one day, at Christmas on year.

Do you think Spa Owners just put GC sales money into their personal pockets? Please. GC's have to be redeemed at some time, and in many states it is illegal to place on expiration date on them. The $26,000 the sold in one day is no different than $500 worth of work each week of the year. And at the end of year, the 26K ends up being about 4K on the bottom line. That is the difference between profitability and cash flow.

I do differ with you on your numbers in the above post.

First, $26,000 in sales in one day is different than $500 worth of work on a weekly basis -- doesn't matter how you choose to bottom line it on your P/L statement.

Secondly, saying they are making about $4K out of $26,000 in GC sales suggests there is an 84% cost in expenses in selling GC's. We're not talking about selling actual services here...we're talking about the potential of selling these services through GC's. The profit margin on GC's is more than 16%. It is important to remember there is a pretty hefty perceneforum.xxxe of GC's that are never redeemed which means that money is about 98% profit for the company selling them. Let's just say for fun that one third of GC sales are not redeemed. On $26,000 that's $8500+ of gross profit to the company selling the GC's. That pretty much blows the $4K theory out of the water. Even if your state requires you to hold the money until it is redeemed it can be put in an interest bearing account where the company is making profit on the interest earned on the money being held.