If you’re running an incentive programme to motivate employees to higher productivity and client retention (and I recommend you do), then it’s important to establish the ground rules from the get-go as to who the sale belongs to.

Not doing this will result in disputes and bickering which ultimately hurt the culture of the business and invariably impacts the clients. Completely avoidable.

Let’s talk about these ground rules with 3 people in your business:

• Lydia – a beauty therapist
• Joanna – a beauty therapist
• John – the client

1. Start with the conversation around integrity
The most important value that needs to be exercised by the whole team is integrity. Everyone wants to win but winning at someone else’s cost lacks integrity and character. And there should be no room for that in your business. Your team need to know that you are behind them all the way and that inherently, you’re a team and everyone must remember that

2. Who wrote the prescription?
We’re all aware that the client doesn’t necessarily buy the same day the recommendation is made especially when a full prescription of maybe 10 products or more is written. If Lydia writes a prescription for John and on the day, John buys two products, it’s a no brainer, the sale belongs to Lydia. So what happens when John comes in 2 later and purchases 2 more products from the prescription is served by Joanna? Does the sale belong to Joanna? Absolutely not! In this scenario, Joanna is simply acting as an agent or representative for Lydia and the sale belongs to Lydia. It’s Joanna’s job facilitate the sale to the best of her abilities and even go as far as seeking to extend the sale by further supporting Lydia, taking any opportunities to sell more from the prescription and if need be, book the client on Lydia’s behalf. Both the sale and the rebooking belong to Lydia.

3. Upsells by another therapist
What if Joanna upsells something that is not on the prescription? Say a hand cream, a gift item? Then of course the sale would belong to Joanna. It’s not interfering with Lydia’s prescription.

But what if Joanna recommends something that is not on the prescription and it does interfere with Lydia’s prescription? For example, Lydia’s prescription recommended the Vitamin C Eye cream for the day and the Vitamin A Eye cream for the evening, but Joanna sells John a hydrating eye cream? Big no no! Lacks integrity on Joanna’s part and should simply never happen. Even if Joanna feels that any part of Lydia’s recommendation was wrong or harmful to the client, Joanna should be having a conversation with Lydia about it and a resolution between them needs to be found. Never, ever should Joanna give the client reason to believe that she disagrees with a fellow therapist. Poor form and unacceptable to the health of the business.

4. Product not on a prescription
What if Joanna sells a product to John and Lydia says that she already made recommendations to John but didn’t have a prescription for John or there were no history notes about the recommendation?
One of your expectations as the owner/manager should be that every client has a formal prescription written up and client history notes are updated after every client visit so that NO opportunities are ever lost.

Therefore, I’m afraid that the sale in this case scenario most definitely goes to Joanna. No one can claim a recommendation if it wasn’t made and documented formally. Not only is Lydia not following an important business protocol which is bad for business but she wants to claim a sale that is most likely not hers. If she really did make the recommendation but failed to record it, then hopefully this will only happen once, and she’ll make sure that she follows protocol in the future.

5. A therapist wrote a prescription but never sold or followed up
Ok, so this does happen more frequently than it ever should. Lydia can’t just write up a prescription without servicing the client, just in case the client ever does purchase and the sale belongs to her.

Won’t happen. If Joanna sells to a client that never purchased off the recommendation of Lydia, the sale will go to Joanna. Again, integrity prevails here. When this happens and there’s a dispute on who the sale belongs to, it needs to be taken to the owner/manager for resolution.

6. Internet and Phone Sales
The same argument as above applies. If Lydia has been doing all of the right things, working hard to bring John results, followed the protocol, and John for the convenience purchases his product over the internet or phone, the sale belongs to Lydia.

LAST WORDS...
Here’s what you as the business owner/manager never want to do. You never want to discourage your therapists from working hard to get the client results, making the right recommendations and documenting them, if there’s a chance that all their hard work won’t pay off.

It’s all about the client. What’s best for him/her. The client needs to be looked after. Equally, your team need to be looked after. When you follow the base rule of integrity, you can never go wrong.