As any spa owner knows, getting clients to make the initial phone call is getting them one step closer to walking through the door. Once they call, a good over-the-phone experience can potentially drive a business to success. Here are a few quick tips to help your staff improve their phone etiquette.

When you think about a brand that elicits a powerful response, are all your senses heightened? Brand Sense: How to Build Powerful Brands Through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight & Sound (Free Press, 2005), by Martin Lindstrom, discusses how some of the most powerful brands today are built through a process called sensory branding. This practice heightens the brand impact of a company's product or service by fully utilizing all of potential clients' senses. If you want to bring this kind of powerful branding to your spa, look no further than your local florist and consider the powerful, multi-sensory appeal of plants.

Owning a spa in this changing economic climate can be challenging. Because the majority of services offered in this industry are considered a luxury, you must be extremely attentive to all aspects of your business in order to be profitable.

AS a spa manager or owner, you've probably spent much time and effort collecting the right pieces to make your spa successful. Selecting a talented, dedicated staff and choosing the right location, decor, color palette, robes, and towels are a big part of that effort. For some, designing a laundry area within their spa facility and choosing the right equipment for it is often treated as a lesser priority. Savvy spa owners, however, understand the importance of the laundry area, as its implementation can make or break a spa. Indeed, the look and feel of linens have a direct impact on clientele and can keep them coming back for more. Even the best spa experience can be diminished by towels that smell like bleach or are spotted with residual oil. By contrast, robes with a fresh scent and soft, fluffy feel can cap off a fabulously pampering visit and reinforce a spa's quality reputation. "Hotels and spas rank at the top for requiring the highest finished quality in their linens," says Dan Bowe, national sales..

It probably wouldn't surprise you to learn that massage treatments account for the majority of services provided in today's spas or that larger clients are becoming more common. But did you know that worker's compensation injury claims from massage therapists are on the rise? Treatment tables can play a key role in each of these issues, and you can make better decisions for your business by understanding the available options. A good table allows therapists to provide ergonomically correct—and therefore better—services. It also allows clients to relax in complete comfort and security, while helping you protect your business from undue risks.

Thanks to innovative spa software, access to valuable information about your business is just a few quick keystrokes away. Want to know what treatments are standouts on your menu or what therapists are superstars in your spa? The right software can tell you that and more. It's your spa, and nobody is better qualified than you to decide if a particular software program can help you run your business better. As you survey the many options vying for your attention, here are some things to consider.