Because of the economy, you will need to be more vigilant of your kiosk’s operations and focus on running a tight ship, so to speak. Perhaps you will need to work more hours yourself as opposed to hiring extra help. If business seem slow, try running a sale on tats. You may want to try offering glitter tattoos and crystal body tattoos for added options.

If you have negotiated your contract with the mall on a month to month basis, you are only locked in for one month. If you give it your best shot for one month and feel that it is not working for you, you can pull up stakes and go back to fairs and festivals.

Malls are the place for our customers, preteens and teens, in the summer. We have had some very successful customers operating kiosks in malls. If this seems like a good fit for you then I encourage you to take that step and try it.

Good luck!

Bonnie

Unless you are hiring people you already know, it can be difficult to tell the character of your employee by reading an application or conducting a one on one interview. Background checks can be expensive. So how can you hire and get the best out of your employees?

I would say first of all go with your “gut”. If your first impression of someone is unfavorable, you are probably right. Trust your gut. Secondly, let your employees know the checks and balances you have put in placed to keep track of sales. These may include placing signs in your booth/kiosk stating “If you do not receive a receipt, your tat is free”. Let employees know the mall requires a copy of the “Z” tape from your cash register at the end of each week and mall employees will be randomly checking on everyone’s cart to see that all sales are run through the register. As I said before, let your employees know the value of the equipment they are using. Tell them they will be held accountable for damage due to misuse of equipment. It is your responsibility to see that every employee is properly trained and feels comfortable with their skill level before applying a tat to a customer. Make yourself accessible to your employees by leaving your cel. phone number in the register drawer, in anticipation of any problems that may arise. Have each employee sign the Affidavit that is included in the marketing portfolio you received with your system:

If you let your employees know up front what is expected of them, there can be no doubt. Chances are, any potential irresponsible employee will be put off by all the conditions of employment and you will be left with the responsible candidates. The responsible candidates will appreciate your professional standards.

Before we started the business of TAT International, we operated a tat kiosk at the local mall. At the end of the season, the owner of the kiosk next to ours asked if we planned to be back at the mall the following year. We told him that we would not be back at the mall since we had decided to start the business of TAT International. He purchased the right to take over our kiosk the following year, and supplies to get started. His business was extremely successful. He opened his kiosk every April and closed every October. He did this consistently year after year. He discontinued his other kiosk operations and only ran the tat cart. He was doing very well and more than a few times we regretted giving up the tat kiosk to him.

A couple of years ago we noticed his kiosk was not up and running. Out of curiosity, we approached the mall office and inquired about his absence. Since they knew us, they told us the unfortunate story of our replacement. An employee at the tat kiosk had applied a tat to a young girl in an inappropriate location. The young girls’ parents somehow saw the tat. They were, understandably, extremely upset. They went to the mall and complained to the mall management. The mall management personnel responded by immediately closing the tat kiosk. The owner of the kiosk was banned from ever operating a business in that mall again. The mall management said they would let us operate the kiosk but they wanted a cooling off period of a year before they let any one apply tats at that mall.

Who was responsible for the mistake, the employee or the employer? The employer definitely paid a high price for the mistake.

Very sorry,
Benn

*– Awesome Bonnie Post –*

I promised this week to address the issue of hiring additional help to work at the kiosk. The information I will be sharing was obtained from Andria, a TAT International employee, who ran a very successful airbrush tattoo operation at the local mall for us when we first started this business.

Initially Andria was the only employee working the cart. Her experience was what you would define as Baptism by fire. She set up her cart, and went to work without any experience spraying tats. Her first customers were her Guinea Pigs. After she felt comfortable spraying tats, she started her search for employees.

Here are the criteria she used for hiring: The employees need to be friendly, outgoing people. She required that they have some artistic talent and must be open-minded. She encouraged her employees to show off their tattoos and body piercings. She wanted to hire people who were “approachable”. Her definition of approachable was people who were like most of us; average looking, a little over weight perhaps, a little too short or too tall. Her reasoning was that the majority of the population is not perfect and she didn’t want a potential customer to feel intimidated by Mr. or Ms. America applying the tat, or deciding not to get a tat because they felt self-conscious.

Her first employees were friends and acquaintances that met her hiring standards. She would always work with the new hire, during a time when the mall wasn’t busy. During their training session, she went over everything with the newbie, how to take the airbrush gun apart and clean it (This was before the Power Palette or Spectrum Color Changer), how to prepare the customers skin for the tat, how to clean the stencils, sales techniques and up-selling. She trained the newbie on how to apply a tat and watched to make sure they did it right. After she and the new employee felt comfortable with their ability, she would let them work on their own. She gave them her cell phone number and was always available to take their calls.

During the time she ran her kiosk at the mall, the minimum wage for Michigan was $5.25 an hour. She paid her help $7 an hour and eventually hired a manager for the cart at $9 an hour. She did not pay commission.

I know some of these hiring pointers are contrary to what is advised on our web site, such as requiring a person to have artistic talent. This issue was important because it said more about the individual applying for the job than the fact that it does not require any artistic talent to apply the tats. An artistic person may be more enthusiastic about applying tats than an accounting student and this enthusiasm is not lost on the customer.

Another contrary point from our website is the pay rate. Our employees were making more money than other kiosk workers at the mall. Our employees made $28 for a four hour shift, while the person at the kiosk next to them only made $21. This made them feel more valuable and happier about going to work and not sad that they would be working the kiosk during “dead” time. The manager did not have to figure out percentages either.

Well, we are not done yet. Next week we will be looking at day to day operations of the kiosk.

One aspect of operating a tat business in a mall as opposed to doing fairs and festivals is that you have the mall to answer to. If your kiosk is not up and running during mall hours you could get fined by the mall. If you have an employee who leaves the kiosk unattended excessively, you could get fined by the mall. So hire responsible people to work for you.

It is important that your employees know the value of the equipment they are using. Hold them responsible for damage to equipment caused by misuse. This is why you will need to do a good job training your employees. If employees are trained on the proper care and use of the equipment, you should not have a problem. When we had our kiosk we did not hold the employees responsible for damaged needles or cones but everything else, they were responsible for and we never had a problem. Again I say, “Hire responsible people to work for you”.

I think if I were doing a mall again I would have one complete system and a back-up Power Palette, compressor and two or more back-up airbrush guns. This extra equipment will allow you to set up another work station if you get too busy, and you will also have a back-up if something breaks down. I would also have additional airbrush gun parts, especially extra needles and cones. If your equipment breaks down and you don’t have a back-up, you are out of business. I would recommend having a single airbrush gun set up to spray only black tats in addition to your Power Palette. Now if you have customers waiting in lines, you have another station ready to spray black tats, which are the most popular.

As Kirk stated in his article on malls, 1/3 of your business for the week will be generated on Saturday, 1/6 on Friday and 1/6 on Sunday. You know the busy times so schedule for them. Plan on stopping by the mall on the busy days to relieve a worker, collect money and insure everything is running smoothly. Whenever we did malls, we only had one worker scheduled, even for the busy times. We did have lines of customers waiting for tats but our workers were experienced and pretty fast at applying tats. If yours are not, you may want to schedule two people to work during the busy times.

I would have a sign at my kiosk advertising that I did parties and private events. However the mall may object and ask you to remove the sign because you are generating outside business from your mall location and the mall will not get any of that money. This is why you printed your name and phone number with “We Do Parties” on the back of the “Care of tats” paper that you will give each of your customers. You may also want to direct their attention to the fact that you do parties when you hand them the care of tats paper.

I have one final note regarding the economy. People are still going out to dinner, shopping at the mall and looking for a good time. They may be scaling down but they are still buying. It’s true they may not be willing to spring for that $100 “real” tattoo but the $10 tat at the mall will satisfy them. People may not be taking the kids to Disney World but they will go to the mall and buy them a tat. Teenagers still want to be rebellious and hang out at the mall during summer vacation. People will still go to the mall to cool off on hot summer days and take the kids to the mall on rainy summer days and people still want to celebrate a special event with a unique party.

I live in Michigan. The unemployment rate for the rest of the country has now reached the level it has been in Michigan for the past few years. Right now the unemployment rate for Michigan is over 11% the rest of the country has an unemployment rate of just over 7%. When I go to the movies, I have a hard time finding a place to park, when I go to the mall on a Saturday afternoon; I have to drive around the lot looking for a place to park. If I don’t want to wait for a table at my favorite restaurant, I have to go there on Sunday night. As dismal as the economy in Michigan may seem, people are still spending money. Our tat kiosk in the mall had an awesome money making track record. I think today with the addition of the party tat business, it would be even better. Don’t be discouraged about the economy; there is still a lot of money to be made in this business.

We have had all of our employees sign our Affidavit, stating that they will not place a tat in an improper place on the body. Failing to follow these guidelines could result in prosecution. As a guide line, a tat can be placed on any area of the body where the customer could walk around the mall with the tat exposed.

We have made copies of the care instruction sheet provided in the marketing portfolio. On the reverse side of the care instruction sheet we have added our business name, phone number and in bold, black letters we state “We Do Parties“.

We placed a sign on our kiosk stating “If you do not get a receipt, your tat is free”.

We have $100 in our cash register for a start drawer.

We have placed an “evidence book” at our kiosk with pictures of some of the tats we have sprayed on other customers. If you don’t have any pictures for this book you will want to have a camera at your kiosk to take pictures of your customers’ tats. Always ask the customers’ permission before you take their picture. The evidence book gives people waiting at your kiosk something to look through while they wait.

We are now open for business. It’s a little slow at the mall but people are beginning to wander about. To get things started we ask the worker at the next kiosk if they would like a free tat. They jump at the opportunity. We begin spraying and now we have a show going, people are coming over to watch and ask questions. We are in business!

Since we have hired outgoing people they are interacting with the people who are getting a tat and people waiting in line. They point to the framed tats with crystal accents and ask if they would like to add any extra crystals for $1 per crystal. After spraying the tat, the money is collected and the customer is given a copy of the care instructions.

We keep our kiosk neat and clean. We clean each stencil before we place it back in the file. The waste basket is emptied when the maintenance person comes by to empty the trash. If it gets full before that time, we simply empty it in the trash container placed in the mall. When business slows down a little, we check the appearance of the kiosk and make sure it looks clean and appealing. To get business to pick up again, we announce a mini special to the people who are “just looking”: $3 off the next tat, $2 off the following tat and $1 off the third tat.

To close the kiosk at the end of the day we will need to run an X tape from the cash register. Most malls require a Z tape once a week but an X tape will give us our daily cash total. We always keep $100 cash in the drawer as a start for the next day. All money over $100 is counted and given to the kiosk manager. We check to see that the actual cash total agrees with the total number on the X tape for that day. We lock and cover the cash register, take all the items sitting on the counter of the kiosk and lock them up in one of the drawers.

All equipment is cleaned, shut off and placed in a locked drawer. Here is where the Power Palette is an advantage. We simply run alcohol or cleaner through the airbrush gun and turn the dial to the dead spot and we are done. When Andria first started out with our kiosk at the mall we had a seven gun system and the workers always had to start to clean up one hour before closing time in order to be out on time. That is one hour of lost revenue. But that’s another story…..

Turn off the lights and we’re done for the day.

I was watching the reality show True Beauty a couple of weeks ago. I know it’s sad but what can I say, I got hooked. In the segment the contestants were divided into groups of three “beauties” per group. They had to prepare for a fashion show and were required to go out and purchase the clothes and shoes that they would be modeling on the run way. The catch was that each group would only be given $100 to buy three outfits and they had to restrict their shopping to exclusive Melrose Ave. This task would be next to impossible even if they were shopping at Goodwill.

Of course they let us watch each group’s brain storming session and the one group that stood out came up with the ingenious plan of simply finding a store that would loan them the outfits. Oh sure, like that pie in the sky idea is going to work. But it did work! They got everything they needed to look positively outstanding on the runway, free of any charge.

The point is – THINK BIG and don’t be afraid to ask for the moon and the stars.

Let’s now move on to setting up the kiosk.

I think a picture is worth a thousand words. Check out our entire picture display of carts in malls. Go to the home page and click on “information”, then click on “carts in malls“. I have chosen this one because I think simplicity is best. On this cart we covered the posts with black felt and wrapped them with chicken wire. All the posters are hanging from the center of the cart. This leaves the surface of the cart available for any additional signage or other merchandise you may want to add to your cart. I would caution you to keep your focus on tats, anything else you are selling can be a distraction for the customer and they may walk away from your cart without having purchased anything. The cash register fits nicely on the end of the cart, leaving the sides open for clear viewing of the posters. The work area for applying tats is at the end of the cart by the cash register. You will not want to be too far away from the cash. You never know what can happen when you are swamped with customers and everyone is milling around your cart. Expect the best but prepare for the worst. Purchase some nice looking, unbreakable containers for your cotton balls, make-up squares, powder, Q-tips and alcohol. These containers will sit out near your work area.

A nice way to display additional tat designs, for example, the children’s stencil designs, would be to spray several designs on a piece of heavy weight 8½” x 11″ paper and place the paper in a simple, inexpensive black picture frame with no glass. Place the framed designs around your cart on the lower shelf so the kids can easily see the designs. If you do this, remember to add the stencil number and the pricing dot to the picture.

Following the same display idea as the children’s stencil display, I would also spray some tat designs and add crystals to the designs. Check out the picture! This simple idea worked so well for us at the New York Beauty Show. I hope everyone will implement it for their tat business.

Most kiosks have a few extra large drawers for storage. In ours, we put the compressor in one of the drawers and the cleaning and tat supplies in another. One item you will need to add to your supply list is light bulbs. The mall will usually supply you with your first set of light bulbs for the cart but since the lights are on all the time they do burn out fast. Lighting is very important for your cart. It helps to keep your cart bright and cherry and this attracts customers. Most of the lighting on the carts is adjustable. Adjust your lights so they are not shining directly on the posters so they won’t reflect a glare. I would also purchase a Swiffer dust wand. You will be surprised how dusty your cart will get.

With the simple cart set up that we used, we did not need to purchase a tarp to put around the cart and lock it up at night. When we closed up the cart, all we needed to do was close out the cash register, lock it, put our Power Palette in the drawer and lock it up. If you use picture frames for some of your tat displays as I suggest you may want to put those in the locked drawer also. The less work you have to do at the end of a long hard days work, the better. Keep it simple.

Next week we will look at hiring extra help.