Want to improve your mental and physical wellbeing?
The Float Spa in Hove is a multi-award-winning health and wellness centre based in Hove, and offering a range of services, from the signature flotation therapy to massages to yoga, infrared saunas to acupuncture and more. Their offering even extends to workplace wellbeing strategies. This is to help workplaces to understand how to look after their staff and why it is so important in modern society.
The Sussex Business Show are thrilled to have The Float Spa as a sponsor for this year’s show and know that the shared prioritisation of mental health and wellbeing is critical for businesses, both large and small.
Camille Pierson, Founder and Managing Director of the Float Spa, kindly shares more about her business journey, her top tips and more.
What’s one thing your business venture did that you didn’t expect?
Way back in 2014, we spent ages looking for a property – commercial property was like a needle in a haystack. Eventually we found the main home of the Float Spa, and it was much bigger than I ever anticipated it to be. It was almost like starting from zero but jumping straight to year five from the get go and it was incredibly nerve wracking.
I’d had no experience running a business, and probably was not still 100% myself mentally after my breakdown, so it was super scary. And then actually opening the doors and people coming in, that was incredibly surprising and amazing and overwhelming. To be where we are now with clients who came in way back when we opened our doors in 2015 is pretty epic.
What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing in your role and business right now?
My biggest challenge at the moment and has been for a very long time has been our current premises with a challenging landlord and major leaks on the premises. So, in November 2023, we made a big decision to start looking for new premises.
I’m very excited to say that the future of the Float Spa is actually 500m away in a brand new, stunning three floor building, which is a 19th century bank that we’re going to renovate and nurture to create Hove’s bank of wellness.
When we move, we’re going to add in some new services, and expand the offering that we’ve got.
What’s your favourite productivity hack for entrepreneurs out there today?
Don’t work too much. I think when you get into business, especially in the infancy stage of a business, everybody panics and feels they’ve got to work seven days a week and constantly be connected with the outside world.
I run a business that is open seven days per week and 90 hours per week and I can tell you I do not work those long hours. I set really clear boundaries. I set boundaries with my team and I encourage my team to set boundaries back.
And it’s the same with clients. If they send an email at 5:00 in the evening, it might take a couple of hours to be responded to. It doesn’t say to them we don’t think your email is important, it’s just educating them on boundaries and how important that is.
There’s lots of things that you’ll be doing in your life that you’re doing two and three and four times without even realising. My favourite example of this is checking emails.
Do you have your work emails on your phone? Do you get up in the morning and check your work emails? And you know full well that you cannot open or action an email until you get to work. But you’re wasting precious thinking time, you’re wasting family time, you’re wasting your own mental health by thinking about this email that cannot be actioned until you get to work. So the question is, did you need to check that email?
So my hack for you as an entrepreneur is take a break, enjoy the breaks, set boundaries, and really take care of actually what you’re using your time for.
If you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be?
I suppose I could probably say an amazing woman in business, but I think my personal life and my hobbies are possibly one of the things I would prefer to be remembered by. I love sport and I was told as a child I shouldn’t do sport because I was born with a very unusual heart defect and I was told I wouldn’t live past 40 unless I had major surgery. I was very lucky to have that surgery in 1998, which then has given me this second chance to live a really active and healthy life. And yes, I think I would like to be remembered for the fact that I am pretty tough.
I’m obsessed with multi-sports. I run marathons, I like to do long endurance sports marathons, Ironman marathon swims.
I just want to be remembered for the fact I’ve got a lot of tough grit, resilience and a load of determination.
What are three books you’d recommend to our audience and why?
- Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg.
So I read this book in 2019 and I then went on to train with BJ Fogg during COVID as a habit coach. Understanding behaviour, science and human behaviour was paramount to understand why we should act in a certain way, how we change, how to be the best possible versions of ourselves. And Tiny Habits is a great introduction on how making things smaller can have a huge impact on your life.
- Raw by Chloe Sims.
She is amazing. The one thing I think is missing in modern day sport, is the impact of hormones on women’s sport. At the start of Chloe’s book, it says women are not small men. Her book goes on to talk about hormonal fluctuations, how training on day one of your cycle is very difficult to training on day 20, for example. And why is that the case? So instead of us women beating ourselves up because we’re suddenly less powerful, or we can’t run a PB on a certain day, we are different. We don’t have the same hormonal fluctuations daily like men do. Ours are huge fluctuations over the month. It is a brilliant book.
- Ten x is better than Two x by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Harvey.
So this is a pretty recent book for me, and it really has helped me understand how we have a linear growth model versus, like, big, giant step taking models. And as an entrepreneur we can coast along and we might be happy with 10% growth each year, but actually imagine if we could get 100% growth. It was understanding how to let go of 80% of the stuff that you’re doing in your life in order to focus on the 20% that’s going to give you massive growth.
It is an absolutely stellar book and one that I would recommend to anyone in business.
What are you proudest of when it comes to the Float Spa?
So the first thing I should be proud of is our clients. Since we opened our doors in February 2015, we have amassed nearly 30,000 clients, which is amazing. And I never, ever envisaged to have so many clients when I was thinking about opening the Float Spa. But it’s the feedback from the clients which is really important. The comments that we receive are just mind blowing and it’s amazing.
And as well as the clients, I would say our biggest asset and the one thing I’m really proud of is our team. We have an incredible bunch of people that work behind the scenes, front of house, and also teaching and the therapists.
Some of our team members have been here a very, very long time. Sarah took a massive plunge when we first opened and joined the Float Spa team two weeks after opening in 2015 and has never left and has obviously progressed to be Head of Customer Love and Manager.
And the rest of the team joined a very long time ago now. Some have been clients and then have joined the team. Some have been clients and then gone on to become teachers and then join the teaching team. And we also have massage therapists and teachers who have been with us since 2016. In our industry, that is unheard of. So the fact we have this group of people that are loyal is incredible.
Come meet Camille and the team
To meet the incredible Camille and the rest of her team, come join the Sussex Business Show on September 26th 2024. The Float Spa are the Wellbeing Sponsor and they will be spreading the message of wellbeing to the community and are looking forward to meeting everyone.
