About
Learn the most effective strategies to grow and manage your spa business
Running a successful spa is hard work – you need to be able to take care of your clients, manage staff, run the financials, handle marketing and social media. You might be spending more time managing the day-to-day operations of your spa than growing your business.
I created Smart Spa Business to help spa professionals like you implement the right systems and processes to grow your spa successfully – without having to work yourself to the ground.
Smart Spa Business is your one-stop shop for content, training, and resources designed with one thing in mind – helping spa owners and managers develop themselves and grow their businesses.
My background
Hi there, I’m Carmen.
I have over 30 years of experience in the beauty and wellness industry and have worn many hats.
I started my career as a beautician working as a beauty therapist for a cosmetics manufacturer.
My curiosity about the product’s ingredients led me to join the brand’s research and development department, where I helped develop new products and treatments for the market.
I later became an international trainer on cosmeceuticals and non-invasive beauty equipment, traveling throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia to train the staff of highly renowned spas and distributors in the region.
Looking back, I realize that this is where I discovered my love for teaching. Seeing students understand the things I teach and making them understand why something works the way it does still gives me a huge sense of achievement.
Since then, I have (co-)founded and managed several spas, MedSpas and beauty clinics. I worked with spa owners on how to improve their businesses, consulted for spa investors and helped brands improve their operations to scale past 7 figures in sales.
I’m not here to tell you how easy it was, because running a business of any type isn’t easy.
I’m telling you this to help you understand that it is possible.
What makes this blog unique from other online spa resources?
I use this website to teach others how to succeed by documenting things that I did in the trenches that actually work.
I also realize that some of the things you need to do to run a successful spa business cannot all be done by one person. I don’t claim to know it all. That is why I bring in experts in fields like financial specialists and marketers to help fill the knowledge gaps that I had when I was trying to run my spas.
By stumbling on this blog today, you’ve found someone who is simply sharing her success and failures in the spa business since 2003. I’ve had many highs, many lows, many accomplishments, and many disappointments.
All in all, I believe that people in our industry can only benefit from sharing our knowledge with each other, and I’m absolutely thrilled you’re here. The best thing that can happen is that you leave with more knowledge than when you came in.
A few things to know about me:
- After training distributors on cosmetic products, I became the regional trainer for a prominent equipment manufacturer. I spent years working with and training staff of spas and beauty clinics on equipment for non-invasive beauty treatments.
- My thoughts and reviews on products and equipment that you find here are based on my personal experience working with them.
- I founded several spas, some of which failed, some that were sold and some that are still huge successes today. Unfortunately, I lost dear friends along the way, but it taught me valuable lessons about the not-so-pretty side of doing business.
- A few months ago, my daughter helped me realize that the stuff I learned over the years could actually be valuable to others. At this point, I realized I could finally do what I set out to do when I first started, which was to teach other people how to have success with their own businesses.
- Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been focused primarily on growing this blog to share all of the things I’ve learned to have success in the beauty and wellness industry.
My goal is to teach you and others how to achieve the success and freedom you deserve and that I desperately wanted when I started. The best emails I get are when people thank me for teaching them the skills they needed to free up time so they could spend it with their kids, stop worrying about their next mortgage payment, or even something as simple as finally finding joy in their work again.
I hope I can do this for you.
Thank you very much for taking time out of your busy day to read this, I don’t take it for granted. See you on the blog!
Carmen