Business Practices to Adapt During and After the Covid 19 Crisis: Accept, Adapt and Move Forward

The truth is that there are many events that occur both globally and personally to each and every one of us which creates unique, life-changing challenges which call on us to either overcome or succumb.  The recent Covid 19 health crisis has challenged us all to accept and adapt in order to move forward.  For Repêchage, an international professional and consumer skin care company made in the USA and based on sustainably harvested seaweed,  this has meant finding new ways to help our customers and clients by implementing new services and even creating entirely new products, all within the span of a couple of weeks.  As we confront our new normal, it is heartening to see how in a compressed period of time we have faced and overcome challenges and created new adaptations to our everyday business life.  These new initiatives are not only providing us with a means to keep going, but are  also providing a blue print for how our company will continue to grow and thrive as we move through this crisis into the future.

Webinars and Virtual Consultations

One of the biggest initiatives implemented by our company and partner estheticians during this pandemic is moving into the virtual space.  This means providing educational webinars and Zoom calls for our clients and consumers.  Our company quickly moved to fill the void created by cancelled international trade shows and education by implementing open access to free education and stepping up our popular webinar series.  These have included topics such as performing facial massage, Classic European and Clinical Facials and how to address the needs of sensitive and sensitized skin—a very important skin concern for today’s population.  This has not only provided our clients with the opportunity to hone their skills while sheltering at home, but have also provided us with an incredible vehicle for sales promotion and brand immersion for Repêchage.  Finding new and innovative ways to educate through webinars, creating a monthly schedule and providing diligent outreach and follow up via email regarding webinars has now become essential to creating successful and long term partnerships.

Our partner estheticians have also reached out to perform virtual consultations using these platforms.  In as little as ten minutes, I have found, as have our partner esthetician, that we can assess the client’s skin and recommend products to help alleviate the symptoms.  This has led to an increase in sales, all while staying in the comfort and safety of home.

As estheticians we are not only seeing the physical toll of the pandemic, but also the psychological toll of the prevalent anxiety and worry.  As a result, we are seeing astronomical increases in stress reactions in the skin.  This can manifest in breakouts, dryness, irregular patches and irritation.  Many clients may not have ever presented these pathologies to their esthetician, and are in a state of panic because not only are they freaking out mentally, but so is their skin!

This ten minute session can be expanded to include self-care tips to help reduce stress and prevent the skin reactions, including at home facial treatments and massage, body care and spa treatments that can be recreated in the home, and even tutorials on using hand-held devices to help provide real spa-level skin results at home.

Some of these suggestions have included:

– A relaxing anti-stress sheet mask such as the Repêchage® Red-Out® Soothing Sheet Mask which can be done anytime, anywhere, and provides soothing, calming and hydrating ingredients.  Masks to suggest can include ingredients such as nutrient-rich Seaweed, and ingredients that help calm the appearance of redness and irritation such as Silver, Quercetin and Rutin.

– At-home sheet masks complemented with the use of a facial massage tool such as a Repêchage® Silver Ball Massager, which provides a gentle massage without touching the face with fingertips. This tool can be demonstrated in an online tutorial via Zoom or a webinar.

– Instruction on how to do self-massage using tools such as a Repêchage® Kansa Wand, an Ayurvedic wooden hand-held massager, in conjunction with Repêchage® Hydra Dew Pure™ Face Oil, a hydrating oil formulated for hyper-sensitive skin that contains Seaweed and Mastic Oil, an ingredient from the Greek Island of Chios that is known to help reduce signs of irritation.

– Tutorials or instruction can be given on how to use other hand held devices to complement the client’s skin care program as needed.  These can include an at-home iontophoresis device such as the Repêchage®  Ionto Massager which uses polarity and stimulates the surface layers of the skin to help with product absorption and hydration.

– Body treatments can also be demonstrated for doing at home.  This is so important now, because everyone may be sitting for long periods of time.  Simple, easy-to-perform techniques such as a revitalizing dry brush massage in the morning and evening to exfoliate and stimulate the surface layers while it helps to get the circulation going can have tremendous physical and mental benefits.  This can be followed with a bath or self-massage with relaxing and hydrating oils such as the Repêchage® Vita Cura® Triple Action Nutrí Oil or Repêchage® Hydra Dew Pure™ Oil that contain a high level of hydrating ingredients such as Seaweed, Mastic Oil, Hyaluronic Acid, Shea Butter as well as botanical oils such as Mafura Oil.

This new method of engagement is creating better client-professional bonds that will last through out this crisis and as we move forward.  The customers literally can’t wait to see us and our esthetic partners again in person, but in the meantime, they are reaping the results of their sessions while our business and our partner’s businesses are growing.

E-Commerce Solutions

But, with this first challenge overcome, a second challenge may emerge which again requires new thinking and adaptation: how to provide the customer/client with the proper products and equipment?

Some salons and spas have the ability to provide e-commerce, and have instituted curb-side pick-ups, but a segment of estheticians do not have this ability.  This has lead to a new and very successful adaptation, the new Repêchage Partners Program e-commerce partner program.  This provids  us and our partners with an entirely new venue for business growth through this crisis and beyond.  Through this program, estheticians can refer sales to us to fulfill while they earn a commission.

Hand Sanitizers for All

In response to the critical need for highly efficient hand sanitizing and hand wash products, Repêchage® created and launched Repêchage Hand Sanitizers  within weeks of the emerging COVID 19 health crisis.  Repêchage made it a top priority to formulate and manufacture these as a great need and scarcity emerged with the COVID 19 health crisis in our area. As a member of the NJ and Greater New York community, and as a manufacturer made exclusively in the USA, we considered it essential to stand with and support both our local community as well as continue to provide for our customers through-out the US and the world.   But we didn’t just make one.  We made six, available in hygienic spray form and refill size that has been featured in New York Magazine and named “The One Hand Sanitizer You Should Buy Immediately!” by shefinds.com.

In addition, 5% of the Repêchage® Hand Sanitizers is donated to the First Response Community, including EMTs, Firefighters and the Police Force, of the City of Secaucus, the NJ location of the Repêchage® ISO 9001:2015 certified headquarters and manufacturing facility. As a result, Repêchage was presented with the Hero Award by Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli, members of the Secaucus Town Council as well as representatives of the Hudson Regional Hospital.

All of these initiatives are not just for profit.  These initiatives, performed in a New York minute in a time of uncertainty, you are becoming a stronger company while you are demonstrating that you are there for your employees, your clients and customers, and your community.  You are not only there for your potential clients to provide sales and services, but are there for them through thick and thin.  This is powerful message today, and one that will help you build clientele that will stay with you into the future!