Additionally, the likelihood of your target audience using the Internet and responding to your marketing efforts should also be considered into the equation. This article will outline the potential for success in an Internet marketing campaign. Read more ...

Having produced the annual Day Spa Expo in Las Vegas for the past five years, Patrick Witherspoon, President of Bentley International Group explains why the need for regional events. “Request from attendees has prompted us to plan a series of regional events to bring the Day Spa Expo and Business Forum closer to their area. With the financial restraints being what they are, it makes sense for attendees not to incur a lot of travel expenses to see what’s new for the Spa and Salon industry. Atlanta has been slated for the first regional event because of its proximity to major cities that are within a short distance from Atlanta.  A three to four hour (or less) drive includes: Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. A short flight widens the range for many more attendees from the Eastern Seaboard, the Midwest and other USA regions”, stated Witherspoon. Read more …

In honor of National Melanoma Cancer Awareness Month, I interviewed a dozen folks who have been diagnosed with skin cancer. I digitally recorded their stories, and our photographers took lifestyle photographs. Their stories and images tell their story in the following slideshow.

Surprisingly, I noticed something different in these cancer survivors than other people I had interviewed with other types of cancer, such as breast cancer. The survivors’ attitude upon diagnosis was almost systematically laissez faire at first.

While the diagnosis of any type of cancer is so difficult that generations of people still whisper the word or refer to it generically as “C,” most people I interviewed were more intrepid about treatment. Their thoughts weren’t on radiation or chemo. Read more …

NEW YORK, July 9/PRNewswire/ — The Spa & Resort/Medical Aesthetics Expo (www.spaandresortexpo.com) has been redesigned this year to give attendees an enhanced experience that focuses on new resources, tools, treatments and professional education that will help their business grow and succeed. This empowering event will be held September 28-29, 2010, in conjunction with the HBA Global Event annual Beauty Week™, at New York Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

New show floor features include the Industry Education Theater, which will platform leading manufacturers demonstrations on new products and advance treatments. During both days of the event, attendees will be able to participate in interactive “how to’s” and learn about the latest skincare or body care products that they can offer their customers and businesses. Read more…

Playing it safe is not usually associated with great success. It’s that whole, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and the risk is worth the reward sort of thing. And in this business, you’re surrounded by risk-takers. Of course by the time they get to us, the risk resulted in regret.

In the midst of a recession, we launched a laser tattoo removal business in Houston, Texas. There were already over 100,000 people unemployed in our little part of the world, so needless to say entrepreneurial ventures were looking particularly intimidating. Read more …

FAIRBANKS — In the quaint beauty parlor on Wilcox Avenue in west Fairbanks, a mother and daughter share a warm effervescence that has defined their family cosmetology business, Belle-N-Beau Hairstyles, since 1979.

You would never know Susan Murphy, 50, had donated a kidney to her mom Marge Murphy, 71, just four months ago. Except for one anomaly.

“Now she gets cravings for food I liked,” said Susan, a blond mother of three who works full-time as a cosmetologist and is finishing a master’s degree in social work.

Two summers ago, Marge had a physical exam reporting perfect health. A few months later, in October 2008, her urine had turned dark brown and she wasn’t feeling well. After being misdiagnosed with a bladder infection, she went to see a urologist.

“He said, ‘I think you’re in kidney failure,’” Marge said.

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – Fairbanks mother daughter share salon business and kidneys

It is a fact of human nature that which we receive for free is valued less than things we have a vested interest in. If you have ever been to a Convention or a trade show you know what I am talking about. You walk around picking up items that you may or may not need or want. You bring a bag full of “stuff” home and you may or may not ever use any of those things. But if you purchased an item at the show you would keep track of it and use it as soon as possible.

Have you ever been out doing massage at an event and have someone ask you if the massage was Free? Why do you think they do that? Massage Therapy is growing by leaps and bounds. We have employed several approaches over the years to nurture this growth pattern. In the mid 1980’s our tool was Sports Massage. We took massage,via Sports Massage events, into a very public forum with a high level of success. Doing this permitted people to view massage happening in a favorable light…the light of day. Read more …

The design of a medical spa should be viewed as an important aspect of the market position and brand message of the business.

The starting point to a great medical spa design is to have a clear understanding of your mission, concept and program. This should then dictate all of the design elements within the spa. Remember that the interior design communicates your brand message on a very personal level, a level where clients are intimately interacting with your brand using their five senses.

In addition, the moment you attach the word spa to medical, as in “medspa” or “medical spa,” you build client expectations that need to be met through many facets of the brand, especially the design. Communicating a brand is about taking the intangible and presenting it in a tangible form that can be perceived easily by your clients. And what better form than the interior design elements of color, texture and shapes? Read more …

June 9, 2010 from Surface Medical Spas

1. Before anything else, speak to your state’s accreditation department to learn the state laws about laser technicians. Each State’s rules can vary. For instance, CA only allows doctors, physician’s assistants and RNs to carry out a cosmetic laser treatment. Some states require immediate direction from a medical doctor throughout each procedure.

2. Develop your business plan. From it, point out tips on nearby competition and their procedures, together with insights on how you intend to be competitive. Build a new expense plan of estimated purchases to include the Intense pulsed light and cosmetic lasers, (you should evaluate all of the newest cosmetic laser reviews and look into used cosmetic lasersbefore buying), the expense of renting a medical clinic along with all of the essential features, procuring a doctor to work on your workers, obtaining education as well as the required permits, and lastly advertising your laser clinic. Figure out how you are going to procure financing for your company, like a credit union or bank loan, close friends, or maybe an angel investor.

3. Depending upon the specific state, become a registered laser technician and / or Master Esthetician. Choose a credentialed education course which allows for hands-on training. Learn the biology for the dermis and hair, possible effects, laser configurations, hair growth cycles and ways in which to help assist customers about dealing with their skincare before every chemical peel, injection or cosmetic laser treatment.

4. Establish your laser clinic or medical spa as being a C corporation or limited liability company. Register your corporation with the state, obtain a Federal Tax number and purchase liability insurance for your medical spa business.

5. Rent the location for your medspa. Move into an old dermatologist’s medical practice or find acceptable space to make a waiting room, reception area and back office, meeting room, and procedure room.

6. Hire the team. At the very least, a new med spa team includes a assistant, a laser technician or esthetician to operate the laser, plus a physician to oversee operations. Your state will determine the degree of involvement essential from your medical director. He might only oversee treatments and be around in the event of a serious event, or be needed to be in the room for each and every procedure.

7. Buy an FDA-approved laser or IPL. Lasers range from the Ruby, Alexandrite laser, to the Diode, along with Intense Pulsed light (IPL) or CO2 fractional lasers. Various lasers respond in different ways to certain skin types. Communicate with top rated manufacturers such as Candela, Cynosure, Cutera, Lumenis, Syneron, ESC Sharplan, Palomar and Sciton to make it easier to find a cosmetic laser. Once you’ve purchased your laser, have your main office staff go through the education supplied from the laser company. It will be important to pay for separate instruction for each technology.

Fifteen years ago, it was “The Rachel.” Twenty years before that, it was “The Farrah.” And those are only two examples of iconic hairstyles that have graced thousands of heads over the last hundred years. But can there be another? With today’s trend toward individualism, colorist and Matrix Artistic Color Director, Patrick McIvor, and stylist and L’Oreal Professionnel Portfolio Artist, Amit Abraham, say it isn’t likely.  Read more…

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