Connections! in SW Florida - Featuring Bridgett Chandley with Spavia Naples

Good Friday morning, and Bridget, I'm honored that this is how I get to round out the end of my work week with you.

Oh, it's my honor.

My name is Renee Han, and I'm here with Connections in Southwest Florida, and the whole premise of Connections in Southwest Florida is to connect local businesses with local people. We are so privileged in Naples to have such a diverse group of entrepreneurs who choose our town to share their talents and passions. And as I said, it's an honor today to have Bridget with me. And Bridget, what I'd like to do for the audience that's either on with us live, or maybe they're back at work now and they're going to watch us through the replay later, tell the audience a little bit about yourself, if you don't mind.

Well, thank you, uh, Renee, for having me and showing Spavia, uh, today on this beautiful Friday. So, um, a little bit about myself. I moved to Naples in 2004, so I feel like I've been here for a lot of the Naples growth. Um, I am a mom of 3 and, um, a wife. My husband and I opened Spavia about a year ago in April of 2019. And we're just really excited about being here. We are involved in a lot of our things with the school and local charities and things like that. And yeah, I'm just busy doing mom things most of the day, and then also coming in here and trying to support our team here at Spa Via.

That's fantastic. And I told my family last night, we were out eating on Naples Boulevard last night at Fuji. And we were eating outside and I put it across the street. I said, I'm showcasing them tomorrow. So it was very timely. And welcome to Naples. Again, we are so privileged to have entrepreneurs like yourself serving our community and our, you know, and our residents, both full-time and seasonal. So Bridget, tell us a little bit about Spavia. And I wanna start, if you don't mind, I like to start with the vision for it. What, you know, motivated you to, go down this path and create this business? And then we'll talk about the products and offerings.

So, you know, this is another extension of what we were doing already. We were in the health and wellness space before. We were, my husband and I were both active in more the fitness area and we were selling products online that help support athletes. And we decided, and we both love massages and facials and those kinds of additional wellness opportunities that you have to—

I was gonna say, who doesn't, right, Bridget?

No, no, I was like—

Well, I know one person that doesn't, but it's very unusual. Go ahead, please.

Well, I, one, love getting massage and pampering myself and really just using that as a way of an extension of a wellness program for myself. And so when we were thinking about how we could incorporate something like that different in that spa wellness space here in Naples and really put some roots down. We kind of thought about, okay, well, let's, let's look at some opportunities that might be out there. And we came across Spavia, and that was really something that we felt would be such a great fit for this Naples community because what it does is it brings those amazing customer experiences that we have for a lot of us, maybe we have them once a year on a vacation at a resort with amenities and, and locker rooms and just that kind of getting away feeling that you can really truly relax. And then we incorporate, incorporate that with a membership model that makes this luxury very affordable. So we thought that that kind of hybrid model that didn't exist here in Naples would be a good fit for our Naples residents.

That's fantastic. And, and so let me ask, is Spavia an— on a— is it a national brand that you guys have brought then to the Naples area?

Yes, so Spavia was actually started in, um, uh, Denver, Colorado by our founders, and then Mark and I, my husband and I, we purchased the rights to develop the— in Collier County The, uh, and so we'll, we will eventually hopefully be opening up additional locations. This is our first location. It is on the, located on Naples Boulevard, and it really is, we think about our flagship location.

Now that's great. And I can't imagine, so you're in your first year of business, life is going good, and then COVID hits and all of a sudden you can't touch people, which is a key part of your service. How have you guys dealt with that in your first year?

It was something obviously none of us were expecting to happen, let alone when we were like, when we were first starting hearing about it, we were planning our 1-year anniversary, which would have been on April 12th. And so it was, okay, we took a deep breath and thought, so we can't do that right now. And my husband just jumped in and he was really quick to say, let's put some packages together for some opportunities for people to come into the spa or do it like a carryout service so they could buy at-home facial products and things like that. So that was one way that we kinda tried to still serve our members and our guests with products and self-care at home. And then another way was really, was about thinking, well, what happens whenever we are allowed to reopen? What are we gonna do different? Not only to keep, to continue our business, but to make our, so our team is safe that work here and that are in close contact with the public, and then having our members and guests feel secure that we are doing all the necessary things to keep them safe as well. And so we really were looking at products that we could come in and disinfect. You know, we have all of our team members wearing masks. We have masks for our guests if they don't have one with them and they so inclined to use it during their service, that's totally up to them. We've also teamed up with a company called Clean Republic and they have a disinfectant that is a spray. Here's, I have actually one with me right here. And we use this throughout the spa after, before and after each guest. And this was a brand new product. And we were actually looking for a product prior to COVID that would help us clean the spa in a non-toxic way. Because, you know, like we're using this Clorox wipes and all these different harsh chemicals. And we just thought that really doesn't align with the wellness aspect. A lot of people, all of our guests are looking for natural products or organic products. And this is completely safe. It is, it's just an ionized, like a salt water. And when it's sprayed, when you spray any surface, it kills COVID, MERS, SARS, any of the viruses within 10 seconds. So we are using products like this to keep our members safe and feel that they understand that that kind of sanitation is very important to us. It always has been, but now we have to, we had to take it up another level.

No, that's great planning. And let me ask Bridget, does that mean, is Spavia open for services now?

We are. I'm so excited. We're still on a limited basis. We have to adhere to those guidelines from this, from the state. So we're still at 50% capacity, but we are open. And again, we're make, how we're doing it a little bit differently than we've done before. We have this beautiful retreat room for both the ladies and the gentlemen that they can enjoy before or after their services. So we're staggering the appointments so that they have the full use of those, of the changing areas and the locker rooms, and then the retreat area all to themselves.

Well, that sounds great. So what I hear you saying, Bridget, is the experience for the customer hasn't changed because they can still come in and do everything they would under very normal circumstances. How you're managing it has just changed, and obviously that affects your volume. How, out of curiosity, how many appointments can you book in a day then that are available?

—right—

under the new guidelines?

Depending on, depending on how many service providers that we have. But right now, I mean, I think we can probably book very easily because we have 11 treatment rooms, and it's just a matter of staggering our appointments. But we have the ability to service 30-some appointments a day at this point, even with that limited capacity that we have to adhere to the, to the state guidelines. Great.

So that's a great segue into Bridget. I'd love to hear about the different offerings that you can have if somebody's interested in, and look, let's be honest, after people have been cooped up in their homes, we can't hug anyone, or at least many people aren't comfortable with it yet. We are craving some nurturing luxury services right now. So what if somebody was interested, could, could they do types of services at Spavia? And if you would, when you're talking through that, you talked about the membership-based, if there's any other variations to that, we would just love to hear more about the services available.

Oh, great. Yes, absolutely. So the services that we provide here are multiple modalities of massages, as well as we have a really nice catalog of facials, including advanced skincare, which would be the chemical peels and the HydroDerm, which is a microdermabrasion. And then we supplement once we kind of slap off all that dead skin and really clean the skin. We put in some beautiful serums that are customized for the customer or the guests when they're here. We also have body treatments, which are amazing. I mean, that's like an all-over head-to-toe facial that includes a warm scalp massage. I mean, after all the shut, you know, being inside and the stress of keeping us physically safe, I think right now makes the perfect time to come in and get some mental health relaxation services. And I really believe that that's what we provide, the ability to come into a place that you know is safe, spend an hour, spend 2 hours with us, and let us just take care of you. It has been extremely stressful for so many of us over the last few months dealing with the uncertainty of COVID And again, like you were saying, how to behave now that we're back into the public and how to keep— but still keep us safe and kind of get back to some normalcy. So I think that has more stress on people's mental capability, you know, their mental health right now than we probably even realize. There's gonna be aftereffects after we are cleared and maybe even have that vaccine that we're looking for. So I want people to come in, do a body treatment, a facial. We even have waxing services. And we have this beautiful spa boutique. I'm in it. I can't really turn the camera around, but we have the beautiful spa boutique that offers everything that you smell, see, and touch in our spa. You can actually take it home with you. So if you're not feeling comfortable, like you wanna come in for a full spa service, day, what you can do is call us on the phone, tell us what your concerns are. Maybe you, you need a great new cleanser because you have dry skin or oily skin. We can put a package together for you after asking you some questions, and basically we can bag up the spa and we can take it out to the, to the parking lot and deliver it to you so you can have that opportunity to do the spa experience at home. We even sell our robes and our warm lavender-infused neck pillows for our guests to take home for them, and they make great gifts.

Well, and we all know what's coming up in a couple weekends. It's Father's Day, and that is a great— I can remember, I think, I think it was Father's Day, not his birthday, when I bought my husband his first spa treatment. And, you know, as, as manly and grisly as he was about it, it won him over. He just— his friends weren't getting it, so he didn't think that was a guy thing. Very close-minded in this century, but he has been convinced. And you had me when you talked about scalp massage because that is— you talk about a stress reliever, that is, you know, if you're one that carries your stress in your upper body, your shoulders, your neck, it can just give you a sense of release. So excellent, excellent.

Absolutely. And you make a good point, you know, Father's Day is just around the corner and I was even surprised when we opened how many men are coming in for services to what we call a traditional spa. We think more that more of a ladies' luxury item, but men are taking care of themselves and Spavia really does. We have men's facial, specific facials for men. We have a lot of men coming in for waxing services, as well as probably, you know, the traditional massages, sports massages and stuff like that.

Now that's great. And with it being membership-based, it almost forces you to make sure you're taking time for yourself because otherwise we get busy, life happens, and before you know it, it's been 3 months and we're wondering why we're running ragged, right? Because we haven't paused and taken a moment for yourself. And, you know, whether it's at the beginning of your day, the middle of your day, or sometimes easier at the end of the day, you know, being able to have that standing appointment on your calendar is gonna, again, make sure that you're taking time for your own wellness.

Absolutely. You know, we do the membership because it just, it saves our guests if they know they're gonna come in for maybe that monthly massage like you said, or the monthly facial, it saves them $30 per visit. So if you're gonna go ahead and do and use those kind of services throughout the year, it certainly makes sense. Do you need to be a member? You don't. You can come in for that once a year birthday day if you want, or just not sure if the membership is quite right for you, The great thing about our membership that maybe is a little bit different that people might be interested in learning is we only have a 3-month commitment. So sometimes people are like, "Oh, a membership, I don't want to get locked into that. I've done that before. It's hard to cancel." It's a minimum of 3 months because it really is, it's kind of, we think about that first time you go and you go, "Wow, that was really good. That was amazing. I want to do this every month." And then the second time it's like, Was it really that good? I'm gonna go back and try that again. It was like, oh yeah, that was really good. And that third time, they're usually like, I need to do this every single month. But one thing is, I, that I do love about our membership model is we have a family share program. So you, like you said, your husband enjoys getting a massage, you may enjoy also getting a massage, you can have one membership for your household and share it. So there's no transfer fees or anything like that. A lot of couples use it. So they come in together. We have a couple's room, a tandem couple's room. So they'll use it together. Or again, you don't, you're busy, Renee, you don't get in. So your husband can use it or vice versa. So that's something that's a little bit unique to Spavia is our family share program with our membership.

Yeah, no, that's a great idea. Let me ask a question about that, Bridget. Do they then purchase a number of spa visits that get used over a period of time, or is it more of a once a month? What are the different options if somebody wanted to come more regularly? Tell us about some of the packages.

Right. So we have our traditional monthly membership, which allows our guests to then just, they can pick whatever day of the month that that membership automatically withdrawn or put on their credit card. So they can come once a month and they get one service. And we have 3 different membership levels. So we really talk about customizing it. How are you gonna use this membership? How do you see yourself using it? Do you like— some people just like to come in and get that 60-minute relaxation massage once a month, and that's really gonna be what's gonna fit what their needs are. Other people have may think that they're gonna be using it for that deep tissue and they want maybe an 80 or 100-minute massage once a month. So we will, we'll make sure we steer them to the plan that makes sense for them. Again, if they're gonna be utilizing facials, we may be, ask them to say, let's consider the Premier Membership because that gives them access to every single facial that we have on a monthly basis. And those really are a way that we can talk with our customers about what makes sense for them. If they're here seasonally, we do have what's called a flex membership where they can pre-purchase member— uh, amount of, uh, services or treatments ahead of time. So 3 or 6 at a discounted rate, and then they don't have to worry about if they forget and go back to Ohio or Michigan or wherever they go during the summertime that they're going to have those recurring charges on a monthly basis. So again, or if they are don't want to be locked into a membership, again, I wouldn't call it locked in because we're very flexible. It's only 3 services. They can pay the à la carte prices and we can, we can do that as well.

That's great. And Bridget, what if somebody starts out with maybe they were overzealous and they wanted the monster package with the really long massages, but then things got busy for them. Do you have the ability to shift your membership levels over time to take a real estate agent, right? So in the summer they may have more time and they may want to indulge a little bit more, but during their busy season maybe they need to cut back to a shorter service. Can you do that? Absolutely.

Every single time we can customize your— or switch your membership how it fits you best. We also have that ability to suspend your membership. So if you know, Renee, come January and February you are so busy with season and your clients and you just don't envision yourself having the ability to come into the spa, we can suspend it up to 6 months. So that's what a lot of our snowbirds do is they come in and then they just, they just put it on hold and then when they come back in, back into town, they give us a call and say, "I'm back in town, can you start my membership up again?" And we just, it's very seamless, it's very easy to do. But again, if that is something that you find that for whatever reason you're not able to come in, and which I say, but let's figure out, let's pre-schedule, let's just put it on your calendar, let's make it a, make you a priority so we're not pushing it off. But if things do come up, we'd be happy to suspend a membership for a short amount of time for you that makes sense. Again, we want you to use it, we want you coming in and utilizing it and taking care of yourself, and we'll absolutely work with you on that. That's fantastic.

What, Bridget, is your favorite service that you offer?

Oh my goodness. So I have, so right now I've been back at the gym the last few weeks. So right now my favorite service is, I had an 80-minute deep tissue with a CBD full body boost the other day 'cause I am so sore. I was really trying to be good over COVID and work out. I went out in the garage and I had, you know, my, different workout equipment, but I, when I went back to the gym, and, and boy, I was hurting. So I came in and did an 80-minute CBD. CBD is a new massage that we're offering to our clients. You can just add it to any of our— so you can add it to a hot stone, you can add it to the hot tissue, or the deep tissue. I went ahead and added it a full body to the deep tissue, and it was amazing, and it was exactly what I needed. But I love our facials, and especially, again, not to go on and on, because I don't know if there's a service that I don't love that we offer, but the Vita-C Radiance is my absolute most favorite facial. It has these citrus, orangey smelling, cleansers in it and masks. And when I leave, I— my face is just glowing. I just feel— I, I— my skin looks truly beautiful, um, from the, you know, in 60 minutes. It's amazing how quick that, that can happen. So that's probably my favorite facial.

It sounds great. I love— you're right, the sense and the, the sense as they mesh with the physical experience can be so much more enhancing. Are there other, you know, it's probably not the right word, but I talk about sort of add-ons or enhancements. You talked about the CBD. Are there other ones like that that somebody can add on to a massage? Oh, well, absolutely.

So one of the things again that we differentiate ourselves with is the ability to completely customize your massage or any of your services here. And one of the things like kind of piggybacking on the scents is our guests, when they come in, they get to choose the scent of the massage lotion that is used in service. So people really enjoy that because I think if people have gone in and had a, not that it was a bad smell, but they just didn't love the smell that the massage therapist used on their body, they didn't have the best experience they possibly can. So we have these beautifully scented Pure Fiji, which is an amazing botanical natural blend that uses all these antioxidants and has these beautiful ingredients in it. But then we have scents like guava and coconut. We have a beautiful, more manly scent called Mana'i. It's manly and it's just really beautiful, but none of them are really heavy, so it's not like you're gonna walk out smelling like a fruit or a flower or anything like that. But those are different things that you can do to really make the service completely your own. And then, so yes, we have the CBD, so that is one of the add-ons that we have right now. You can also add like to a facial, you can add the neck and the décolleté to your facial if you would like to extend the facial down to your décolleté. And then again, you can change the different massages that you want each time that you come in.

Well, and not only did you have me at head or scalp massage, but now I'm envisioning, especially since none of us can get away for any real vacations, we had one that we were planning to Hawaii, and that's just not going to happen this year. But I'm thinking, okay, if I could go in and get some coconut, have my scalp rubbed, get a facial, it may for at least a moment in time, Bridget, feel like I am on the beaches of Hawaii, right?

Absolutely. And one of the things that you could do that I would— even to heighten that Hawaiian experience right here in Naples is I would— you can choose the, um, the music that you have in the room. We have a Sonos system, so every room has its own speaker system. And when I walked into the spa this morning, I could hear the crashing waves and I was like, "Oh, that's so—" Like, to me, I love the more natural sounds of nature. That really soothes my soul when I'm in getting a treatment or when I need to relax and have that white noise going on versus maybe some beautiful instrumental. Some people would more prefer that or the traditional spa music. But I envision for you, coconut Pure Fiji lotion, a beautiful massage with the add-on enhancement of the warm scalp massage, and we'll have some beautiful nature music playing in the background.

And then I'm gonna have to go get a piña colada when I leave, so we'll have to— I think there's some nearby places I can do that too. Rachel, talk to us a little bit, you know, a lot of people have been to spas So they may have preconceived notions of what that is, which may or may not be representative of Spavia. And many people have never had the experience. So can you walk us through sort of what the experience would be like from coming in and going through what they're interested in to— you talked about the special room. Walk us through, you know, as though we were coming in the spa and what that experience would be like, if you don't mind.

Absolutely. So really when we think about your experience in spa, it starts on the phone. Um, and, or you can go online, but we really want you to customize what, you know, under, so we can understand what your goals are for you coming in. So we may ask you quite a few different questions because we really want to provide you with a service that you, um, just, you're looking for and reach your goals. So after we establish a time and date and then also a recommended treatment for you, when you come in, you'll check in during our, in our spa boutique with one of our guest advisors. We have welcome forms prior to you coming in that you can then add some scents or your music selection. We'll also ask you your sandal size and things like that so we can again be prepared and be, just have this beautiful experience. And we're here waiting for you when you come. So when you come in, then we'll check you in, we'll make sure everything is filled out properly, and then we will escort you back to the retreat area. Again, we have one for the gentlemen and we have one for the ladies. They are, um, separated by a door so that you can have your privacy. Um, and then what you'll do is we will show you around there, we will offer you tea or water before your service, and then we'll take you into the the changing area, you will have a locker waiting for you. And all of our lockers now have this sign here that says that the locker has been sanitized, so you know. And inside that locker, you will find a spa robe and spa sandals for you. Those have been sanitized. And then in the ladies' room, we have a small jewelry box that they can put their jewelry in so they don't accidentally put them in their robe pockets and forget them. And then they wait for their therapist in the retreat area. There they can enjoy the lavender-infused neck pillow that's warmed and waiting for them. They can enjoy their tea or their water before their service. And then their specialist will come, they'll greet them, they'll escort them back to the room. And during that time, that's when they're gonna start having that consultation of, this is why you're here, Renee. We see that you have, you know, a deep tissue, a 60-minute deep tissue, tissue with the warm scalp massage enhancement with it. And they'll go over those items, and then when they get to the room, they are going to ask you, do you have any concerns, anything we should know about, any areas that are bothering you to make sure that I spend an extra, some extra time on, or anything like that. You'll, um, after that consultation is done, you will then get comfortable. They will leave the room. You'll You'll change, you'll get onto the therapy bed, and then you'll be able, then you'll have your amazing, you know, 60, 80, 100-minute massage or whatever your treatment looks like. And then you'll be escorted after your service back to the retreat area. You can stay and just extend that relaxation and escape for as long as you so choose. And then when you leave, you'll check out. We will go over some of the things that recommendations from our specialists. There may be areas of concern. They may recommend that you come back given what your goals are, or what your— if you had some particular muscles that we need to work on at another time, they'll make that recommendation about when they want to see you back, or what products you may want to consider taking home with you. Again, it's kind of like working out. If you have specific goals, or you, for instance, I have a lot of stress in my neck and in my traps. So they may recommend me taking home a bottle of the CBD cream and utilizing that on a daily basis just to extend that relaxation and the inflammation that, you know, try to pamper that inflammation that's going on in my neck, you know, even longer. So it's just like going to a gym. You don't go to the gym once a week and think you're gonna get results. You have to do some things at home at home as well if you're working with a trainer, and that's what I would recommend that our guests, if they have areas of concern, they can go ahead and maybe purchase some things at home, or maybe they can just talk with the therapist, hey, maybe you have some mobility products at home, when should I use this, how do I use it, you know, oh yeah, I forgot I had that sitting in my closet, maybe you have a foam roller or something, they can go over some stretching techniques that you might wanna utilize when you're at home. And so again, and then they'll ask you, "Hey, so let's schedule your next appointment. Let's keep it on the books." I think that's probably the most important thing for each and every one of us is if you go ahead, I know people kind of struggle a little bit with making that commitment for the next appointment. 'Cause they're like, everyone that says, "I don't know what my calendar looks like next." month. But the important thing is to just get it on the calendar and make your health and wellness a priority. If something comes up, we only ask for 24 hours, you know, to give us a call so that we can put someone else in your place for our therapist. But right as of right now, also, I just want everyone to know that I know there's a lot of uncertainty and, and we're out and about and we're like, well, I hate to know, I don't know if I'm going to be well, if I'm gonna be sick next month. I mean, that's kind of still in the back of our minds right now, and we, we're just asking our guests, if you don't feel well and it's the same day, give us a call. There's not gonna be a cancellation fee right now. We want to keep our team safe, we want to keep our guests safe, we want you to be safe. So if you have, if you wake up and you're not feeling well, give us a call. Please don't come in. We don't need to expose anybody, and we will be waiving those cancellations, those late cancellation fees that we typically see if it's not within that 24-hour window.

Great. Well, Bridget, thank you so much for sharing Spavia. I've got— the half an hour goes quickly, and so I just wanted to give you an opportunity if there was anything else. We covered a lot of ground, but anything else that you wanted to share in closing with our current viewers or those that may revisit this later? Absolutely.

So I just, again, I think wellness is important for everyone. Even if you don't feel like you're a typical spa goer, it's amazing with 60 minutes of just taking some time to yourself to recharge and relax and then go back out into the world. If anything, I always, I kind of laugh and tell the joke that if I could just make someone a little bit more of a relaxed driver out on the roads of Naples, I've done my job because I mean, it's just stressful out there right now. So take some time for yourself. And if you are interested in coming to Spavia, please, or looking at what we offer, we, you can find us on our website that you have on our, down below. It's Spavia Day Spa, or you can just do Spavia Naples and we'll come up. It's @SpaviaNaples on Facebook and on Instagram. You can follow us there or just give us a call at 239-333-8888. 3938. We'd be happy to answer any of your questions.

Fantastic. And if you didn't catch that earlier, Spavia is on Naples Boulevard. It's right in front of the— near the, the movie theater, the Regal movie theater. Um, so Bridget, thank you so much. I know you have a busy schedule, and we were honored to get to spend some time with you and learn a little bit more about you and your wonderful company. So I wish you continued success as we come out of this COVID situation. And, um, you know, again, thank you so much for sharing all the information. And everyone, thank you for joining us. If you know of an entrepreneur or you are an entrepreneur and you'd like to have your program, your business featured on this program, don't hesitate to reach out to me at Renee, R-E-N-E-E, at yournaplesexpert.com, and I am happy to to do a feature just like we have today with Spavia. So thank you everyone for joining.

Thank you Renee for having me and letting me talk about Spavia. And thank you to everyone who, who watched and please be safe.

And don't forget gift certificates or spa treatments for your significant other coming up for Father's Day.

Absolutely, gift certificates are always a way, a great way to give somebody a day of relaxation, whether it's Father's Day our birthday or an anniversary. We love celebrating everyone here every single day.

Perfect. Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful weekend and be safe. Bye. Thank you.