An interview with Ms. Jasmine Ye, Founder and CEO of 1855 BEAUTY BRAIN
High-end club spa 1855 BEAUTY BRAIN is widely hailed as the top online star in Shanghai. It has been ranked the first among peers at Dianping.com many times. The Founder, Ms. Jasmine Ye, graduated from Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management, majoring in luxury management, and holds an EMBA degree from Shanghai Jiaotong University. She is the author of best-seller “Where is Youth from – My Date with Essential Oil”. Over the past twelve years, she has accumulated rich business operational and management experience and team leadership ability in running high-end clubs, and has formed a mature approach of her own.
Jasmine always places the need of customers and staff as the top priority. SpaChina interviewed her about the health and beauty needs of modern young people and also spa operations and team management.
Please tell us about your career and your spa.
I joined the industry in 2004. It has been sixteen years so far. Before founding 1855 BEAUTY BRAIN, I worked as an agent and was quite famous in Chongqing and Sichuan province. The earthquake in 2008 motivated me to think about the meaning of life and also gave me the courage to come to Shanghai and start my own business.
Over twelve years, my team and I have made 1855 a well-known high-end spa in Shanghai and won wide praise in the industry. Some time ago, Dianping.com set a case study team to explore how we manage to win so much praise among the customers and get 4.95 (Full:5) of customer average scoring. Meanwhile, 1855 has been chosen as the filming site for beauty and wellness related scenes of many TV dramas including Nothing But Thirty (三十而已), Ode To Joy(欢乐颂).
My vision is to make 1855 BEAUTY BRAIN a high-end brand with a craftsman’s spirit. My team and I keep walking on the road of revolution and innovation.
What new health and beauty concerns and requirements can you see from today’s customers compared with those 5 years ago?
Our target customers are female entrepreneurs, wives of politicians and successful businessman, and female managers. In the past, we set our target on the age group of 35-55 years old. But in the past two years, we see more and more young people, including those born after the year 1995 visiting our spa. These young customers are usually overseas returnees with a high education background. In the past, when customers came, they simply asked for a relaxing treatment. However, young customers today will directly challenge us with questions like: what benefits can you give me? Is it truly as effective as you promise? How much time must I spend to achieve such an effect? So facing such changes, we adjust our products and services accordingly.
What I believe is if you fail to create true product value, you will never be able to make a profit and achieve success in your business.
What are your signature treatments and services?
Currently, “personalized solution” is what we want to give to the customers. In my opinion, personalized solutions are defined by your expertise, your procedures and your standards. With our continual efforts, now most of our customers are visiting 1855 quite regularly, basically twice or three times a month. When such a virtuous circle is formed, the membership cards are sold more quickly and meanwhile, when the customers see the effects, they will be happy to repurchase.
Today’s guests show increasing interest in medical beauty treatments. So I often advise the industry peers to launch packages that cover all the services before, during and after medical beauty treatments so as to form a closed loop. I find that high-tech equipment is highly favored by young people, especially those born after 1995 because such equipment can meet their requirements for efficiency, time-saving, convenience and effect. In addition, immunity boost and personalized vitamin solutions are hot trends. In the future, more females will show greater enthusiasm to pursue health. This requires high-end spas to give them a total solution for health and beauty enhancement.
We see more and more young staff recently. What’s your experience in managing a team of young people?
I believe that building trust is the most essential thing. We should try to understand our staff from their perspective. I always put the staff in the first place. But it needs your devotion of time and energy to foster such a relationship of trust.
I’d like to share two aspects here. Firstly, it’s more important to select the right person than to train one. Sometimes, we train staff for a long time and then discover they are not the right persons. So in order to improve efficiency, we must set a standard of personnel recruiting. I understand that different companies have different cultures and employment standards, but we must set an accurate employment criteria for every position.
We often discuss what our customers’ needs are. But do we know what our staff’s needs are? Have we met their needs as well? Without the satisfaction of staff, how can we have the satisfaction of customers? Operators many times are caught in the wrong direction of seeking profit only. We truly need to spend more time seeking out what our staff need and considering how we can help them and empower them.
These young staff born after 1995 are in fact the apple of the eyes of their parents and grandparents. So when they come to work with us, they are eager to be recognized and respected. Maybe we are not able to give them a very high salary, but at least we should give them a sense of recognition. It’s also a good way to improve the cohesion of the team.
