Talking to… Emma Williams

Emma Williams’s spa director career has taken an unusual turn. The former national health and beauty manager at Virgin Active has gone from the helm of the national, multi-site spa chain to independent, one-door business, Joshua Tree.

Williams left the spa chain at the beginning of this month, to take up the role of general manager at the Nottingham-based salon and spa. “I have loved seeing the department become strong in spa,” she says, reflecting on her nine years in charge of Virgin’s spa operations. “I am looking forward to using the skills I’ve gained during my time at Virgin Active to focus on a single site and hopefully make a significant impact.”

As salons go, Joshua Tree is a decent size, with six treatment rooms, plus nail and hair stations. Clients can also use the pool and thermal facilities at the adjacent Roko health club, which allows Joshua Tree to offer full day packages.

However, compared to managing the 38-strong spa chain that forms part of Britain’s most recognisable conglomerate, this will certainly be a change of pace for Williams.

A typical week at Virgin Active would take her across the country for meetings at the brand’s London head office with finance and marketing departments, and visits to various Virgin Active spas or contracted suppliers. “Within that there is quite a lot of administration,” she explains. “The role is a strategic one. You are planning for the business three, four, or five months in advance.”

It’s a very different set up to overseeing the day-to-day running of a salon from the ground. But Williams is excited about the prospect of affecting real change in her new role, which she has already made a start on by inputting into the salon on a consultancy basis since the end of last year.

“In a corporation like Virgin Active, they want the Virgin name to be presented in a certain way, which means planning to allow time for approval of any ideas,” she says. “Whereas, at Joshua Tree, if we decide to put something out on Facebook in two hours’ time, we can do it and get a response. That’s what is so exciting about it but it’s taken a little bit of time to get used to.”

Management speak
Salons are usually small businesses, but most could benefit from a manager that thinks with a big business mind-set, and as Williams discusses her plans for the new role, she talks about profit margins, benchmarks, and growth opportunities.

“We’ll benchmark many areas of the business and manage the team on their individual performance. There are certainly some areas we can improve on, so with focus I am confident growth will happen,” she says.

Beauty treatments at Joshua Tree are already strong, but part of Williams’ role will be to find new ways to boost revenue so the spa side of the business is as strong as the hair side. She is hoping to increase the six-strong therapist team, and take on new brands to achieve this.

One marketing initiative she will introduce to help boost loyalty and increase spend is a monthly workshop to help clients get the best value from the products and services they buy at the spa. “It is fine to share the expertise of the team without people having to pay for it,” she explains. “We want to give them the opportunity to learn from us.”

Joshua Tree has already trialled an evening of one-to-one skin consultations using the Wood’s lamp Williams bought for the spa. “That has been revolutionary because you are able to talk to clients in depth. You can highlight where there is dehydration or sensitivity and what you can do to prevent it,” she explains.

Popular haircare workshops include showing clients how to recreate the salon blow-dry at home. “For every recommendation we make in treatments and homecare, we’re also making educational recommendations,” she explains.

Wax on
One of the first treatment changes Williams has made at Joshua Tree is to take on Outback Organics as the waxing brand, and for her, this is about much more than a different name on the packaging of basic service stock. “It is important for us to be using brands that are experts in their field,” she says. “We want to be a centre of excellence in waxing.”

Waxing may not be the sexiest of treatments to champion, but from a business point of view, Williams says, it is the most important service on Joshua Tree’s menu. “It is a really quick and easy one to affect,” she says. “Waxing makes up about 30% of the business, so it didn’t make sense that we weren’t using a really good product to do it. We are expecting turnover to really increase in that area.”

The salon uses Aveda as its main brand for hair and skincare, and Williams wants to familiarise herself with it before deciding where the gaps are in the salon’s offering. “There is a golden opportunity here to get more serious about skincare. We have already seen an uplift in retail since we bought the Wood’s lamp. Skincare is quite a low percentage of the treatment mix but if you’re going to run a decent spa you’ve got to be really serious about skincare. You need to know your products to get better client loyalty.”

She is considering complementing Aveda’s natural skin-care with something more advanced, “so we can provide a more sophisticated treatment range for our clients”.

People power
Championing the quality of treatments at the spa is also key to keeping the team motivated, and Williams is keen to make sure her therapists are invested in Joshua Tree’s success.

“I think the staff are feeling more involved in the business, and are responding well,” she says, explaining that the decision to take on Outback Organics was in part down to the team’s enthusiasm for the brand. “The team fell in love with it. I thought it was important to have them involved in the decision, so they feel they have got something they want because they are the ones using the products and talking to clients about them.”

Joshua Tree’s senior therapists will take Outback Organics’ advanced training, and Williams aims to have her team known as the go-to waxing specialists in the area. Similarly, she says, having a senior therapist role below spa supervisor gives junior team members something to aim for. “We train them in additional services that a regular therapist could not do, such as the more deluxe Aveda spa experiences,” she explains.

For Williams, the team must be happy in order to do their jobs well and for the business to flourish. One of the biggest shifts she’s noticed in the nine years since she started at Virgin Active is a rise in the standard of treatments across the industry, with increasing competition meaning beauty professionals have needed to up their game to keep clients coming back.

“No matter what type of spa or beauty operation you are, it is people who make any business successful,” she says.