Walking into Sunset Tan’s West Los Angeles salon, Haman and Bozz’s passion for their business is obvious as both immediately begin taking our team on a tour of the facility. From the sleek waiting room to high-tech tanning beds that look straight out of a science fiction film, it’s clear that this isn’t your average tanning salon – but this is precisely the point. “Before we opened we knew we had to set ourselves apart,” says Bozz explaining that he and Haman took special care to make sure their salon had an “edgy” almost “lounge-like” feel that customers would find unique and enticing. “When people first walked in and we’re like, ‘Wow! This doesn’t look like a tanning salon,’ we knew we did something right,” Bozz adds.
Prior to opening the first Sunset Tan location back in February 2003, Haman and Bozz were friends through the event promotion circuit. “We knew each other for like 10 or 15 years,” says Bozz. “Devin has an event background, and I used to go to a lot of his events. About five years ago, we started talking one day and we thought about starting a tanning salon – and from the time we began talking about to the time we opened; it was like almost overnight. It was so fast.”
Both credit good connections and promotional experience for enabling the opening of the original Sunset Tan location in West Hollywood. But its popularity really grew when the salon became a favorite among celebrities including Britney Spears, the Hilton sisters and Nicole Richie. Soon, Hollywood’s elite was flocking to the posh tanning hotspot to get that coveted California glow. A mere two to three months after the West Hollywood opening, Haman and Bozz began thinking about their next salon.
“Our original goal from the beginning was not to just open five or six – or even 10 salons. Our goal when we opened the first location was to master that salon so we could franchise within the next five years,” says Haman. True to their business plan, Haman and Bozz opened a second Sunset Tan salon in West Los Angeles just eight months later and the chain’s success continued. In just five years, the team opened five more salons with locations including Santa Monica, Studio City and the newly opened Las Vegas salon at the Palms Casino Resort. For the Vegas spot, Haman and Bozz pulled out all the stops to ensure their salon would be the height of luxury. “For us we had to have the best location and the best equipment. If you want to be different and set yourself apart and be the best, you have to offer the best,” says Haman
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The high degree of success Haman and Bozz enjoy as a result of their growing business venture can perhaps best be attributed to the pair’s unorthodoxed marketing strategies and keen sense of product branding. As regulars on the club scene, Haman and Bozz had a strong understanding of the demographic they were targeting prior to opening their salons and used innovative tactics to get the word out. Street teams comprised of attractive women often help inspire interest in the salons along with clever marketing events like their annual Miss Sunset Tan Pageant. “We didn’t want to use traditional means of advertising. We thought that to be different, to be edgy, we had to think outside of the box,” Bozz explains. The guys have also enlisted the help of Larry Rudolph, former manager to Britney Spears, to further assist in company branding and franchise endeavors.
Branding and marketing aside, the company’s best advertising tool to date is most likely their reality show on the E! network. After a magazine article featured Haman and Bozz as top entrepreneurs, E! approached the guys with the idea of doing a reality show based on the glitz and glam (and challenges) of running a top tanning salon in the city of beautiful people. After filming a few episodes, Sunset Tan the television show stood in competition with 13 other shows for two network programming slots. Not only did the show make the cut, it soon became E!’s top-rated reality program and has a second season already
in the works. Staff employees have now become celebrities, luring fans of the show to experience Sunset Tan themselves. But while it may be a genius marketing technique, don’t think the reality show has changed how business is conducted. Sunset Tan is a company first and foremost. “Our first intention is running a business correctly not generating TV show ratings,” says Bozz, adding that Sunset Tan requires all employees follow a strict training procedure before working at any of their salon locations. Still, both gentlemen recognize the show’s immense profit potential and have successfully negotiated credits as coexecutive producers. Because of the show’s success, Sunset Tan franchise opportunities have now cropped up worldwide, and both Haman and Bozz are hoping to cash in in the near future.
With Haman focusing more on the business end of the company and Bozz acting as the self-confessed “people person,” the team offers the ideal combination of business savvy and infectious charm. “The synergy that Devin and I have is great,” says Bozz. “For whatever reason, it works.”
By Jillian Gordon
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