TENANCY AND LANDLORD PLAN

We have 22 landlords and we’ve found that landlord assistance has varied greatly depending on the landlord. No 2 landlords have been the same.

Action

We’ve kept updated and taken the time to understand the government guidelines, grants and acted quickly.

We’ve reviewed a copy of all our leases and taken the time to understand our lease obligations. Especially the ‘Make Good’ or ‘Personal Guarantee’ obligations if we were thinking of exiting a lease or walking away.

Communication

We’ve talked to our landlords – Considered their position – Many are in a world of pain too.

For tenancies that were close to the end of their lease we have and are still currently negotiating new lease terms with future a COVID 19 type closure plan and large incentives. For example one landlord has given an incentive for 100K on a 5 year lease of $70K per year.

Post Covid Rent Relief Plan

We’ve taken the front foot with our landlords and suggested how the rent relief process will work. We treat our landlords as a business partner, as we are in business together and we both want the business to work and be successful.

Review

Tenancies are bought and sold and landlords change. We submitted an overview on the history of each clinic including how each of our clinics had traded previously and how we see our clinics trading into the future.

Some areas we reviewed: How long has our business been established? How many team members we employ? What services we offer? What changes we’re making to change our business to fit the ‘new normal’?

Action

We’ve asked landlords for a 12 month rent relief / working together package of rent relief equal to the % downturn from 2019’s numbers. For example if turnover was 50% down on the same month last year, we’ve asked for the rent to be 50% of what we would normally pay. This only applies to base rent, not outgoings or marketing levies.

We created a spreadsheet with our clinic turnover figures for calendar year 2019 compared with 2020 – We enter our monthly sales figures EX gst and submit to our landlords within 7 days of the end of the month.

We support these sales figures with a printout from our CRM or point of sale software but not all landlords require this information.

We ensure our sales figures match with our BAS statements as some landlords want to see this information to verify our sales figures are accurate.

SUPPLIERS

Suppliers have been open to working with us and have been understanding and positive about payment plans and helping and assisting us wherever they can.

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We’ve contacted suppliers and organised realistic weekly and monthly payment plans.

We’ve sold excess stock and equipment that we no longer require.

We’ve discontinued the use of some suppliers and external consultants.

We’ve refined our IT systems and CRM/POS to ensure that we have the best technology for the best price.

TEAM RE-ENGAGEMENT

We have experienced some challenges with team member re-engagement, but overall it’s been great to getting back to doing what we love with our amazing team and customers.

Initially we had push back from a few team members with regard to the consistent implementation of PPE with regard to wearing masks and PPE as we made this compulsory before it was a government requirement.

Some team members did not feel safe to come back to work and choose not to.

Some team members requested to remain at home on JobKeeper.

We’ve seen a marked increase in it being unacceptable to be in the workplace with a slight cold and as a result more sick days for team members.

We are prioritising the use of team members who qualify for Job Keeper. We’ve consulted with some non qualifying Job Keeper team members to take unpaid leave whilst the business rebuilds.

All team members have signed the relevant HR forms and agree to take part in any useful work whilst receiving Jobkeeper.

CUSTOMER RE-ENGAGEMENT

Action

The customer COVID 19 safe plan is highly visible in clinic and we recorded a customer facing video to reassure customers that they would be safe.

We’ve updated our website with the COVID 19 safe plan and message to customers.

We have actively promoted treatments in clinic that are contactless like LED treatments.

We’ve developed a new role for our clinic team members who were unable to work in clinic due to the government enforced closures. The role was a Virtual Beauty Advisor which serviced our customers by providing online skin consultations.

What we have found with customer re-engagement

Some customers have still chosen not to return to clinic as they feel unsafe having person to person contact treatments.

We’ve seen a marked increase customer cancellations due to illness and customers self selecting not to attend appointments is showing any cold like symptoms.

We’ve found that our customers really want to support us as a brand.