Behind the Brand: Mindbody Serves the Wellness Industry with Innovative Experience Technology
Mindbody is a leading experience technology platform for the wellness, beauty, and fitness industries, offering software solutions to help business owners better serve their clients. Businesses use Mindbody's software to run, market, and grow their brands while consumers use Mindbody to more easily find, engage, and transact with wellness providers.
The company not only serves the wellness industry, but is also committed to core values aligned with the industry. We caught up with Mindbody Founder and Executive Chairman Rick Stollmeyer to learn about the story behind the brand and his top advice for wellness businesses.
Rick Stollmeyer, MindBody Founder and Executive Chairman
Can you share a little about the story behind Mindbody?
We founded Mindbody in my garage in 2001 to serve the emerging market of boutique wellness businesses. Initially focused on the needs of fitness studio entrepreneurs, we soon expanded our focus to include innovative spa and salon business owners, whose locations were most often found in the same neighborhoods as the fitness studios. We believe wellness isn’t just about physical fitness, but also about doing those things that support mental, emotional, social wellbeing – which is exactly what the best salons and spas provide.
Since our inception, the Mindbody Team has distinguished ourselves by carefully listening to the needs of wellness business owners and bringing forth the focused innovations they need to run and grow. In the early days, we were the first to integrate electronic scheduling, customer relationship management, staff management, point of sale, payments, online booking, and multi-location management into one easy to use software package.
A few years later, we took all of those capabilities to the web with Mindbody Online, the world’s first cloud-based wellness business management solution. By 2010, only a few years after iPhones and Android Phones emerged, we were releasing our capabilities to those devices. And, only a few years after that we were aggregating available classes and appointments, so that consumers could find, evaluate, and book classes and appointments as easily as they could a restaurant or hotel.
My point in reciting that history is to point out that technologies and consumer habits are constantly changing, often in unpredictable ways. Salon and spa owners need a technology partner committed to keeping up with the changes, so that regardless of what happens your business management platform is always capable of empowering your business success.
Mindbody’s BOLD Conference is an inspiring educational and networking event for leaders in the world of wellness, beauty, and fitness. Pictured: Mindbody BOLD Conference 2021
What are some of the top offerings/solutions that Mindbody provides wellness and beauty businesses?
We have released many powerful new tools in the past few years, including the Marketing Suite, which features automated email and text messaging that keeps your clients engaged and coming back, as well as Messenger[ai] a game-changing system that catches inbound client phone calls that your staff might otherwise miss, and engages them in a chat conversation that automatically books their next appointment. This affordable and easy to use capability reduces your staffing costs and increases customer booking and satisfaction.
A conversation with Jameela Jamil at Mindbody’s BOLD Conference, 2021
What is your top piece of advice for building a wellness business that lasts, especially with the modern challenges of today?
As the world slowly emerges from the disruption of COVID-19, people everywhere are assigning more value to their wellbeing than ever before. Whether it’s getting our hair and nails done, receiving a therapeutic massage, or moving our bodies more, we are all realizing that we need to take better care of ourselves. This presents a huge opportunity to the spas and salons that survived the pandemic. You have more demand and less competition than in any time in recent memory.
So, focus on the clientele you most want and craft your services and experiences to delight those people. And don’t be afraid to charge more! The best salons and spas help their clients live healthier, happier lives by delivering high quality services in a nurturing environment with real human contact. We all need that more than ever before. The best is yet to come!
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[Images courtesy of MindBody]
Lizzy Sherman is an award-winning digital content writer/editor. She has been a featured guest speaker at Cal State University Northridge, Digital LA and The National Association of Audience Marketing Professionals. When she's not writing, Lizzy enjoys yoga and playing guitar. Follow her on Instagram: @zillizy