Posts

Discovering The Heartbeat Of Your Small Business

Discovering the heartbeat of your small business

Most companies today recognize the need to articulate their core values. Core values provide the compass that guides the business. While business strategies should constantly be evolving, core values, like true North, don’t change. In stormy times of stress and change (hello!) Core Values provide a secure anchor. They can remind us of who we are when we are considering compromising our principles. They can help us focus on what’s truly important. They can help us make decisions and set priorities. They can be used as a touchstone when coaching an employee and a measuring stick when hiring a new team member.

But where do Core Values come from? Jim Collins is one of the world’s experts on the importance of core values in organizations, having researched them extensively for his books “Good to Great” and “Built to Last.” He writes “… you cannot “set” organizational values, you can only discover them. Nor can you “install” new core values into people. Core values are not something people “buy in” to. People must be predisposed to holding them. Executives often ask me, “How do we get people to share our core values?” You don’t. Instead, the task is to find people who are already predisposed to sharing your core values. You must attract and then retain these people and let those who aren’t predisposed to sharing your core values go elsewhere. I’ve never encountered an organization, even a global organization composed of people from widely diverse cultures, that could not identify a set of shared values. The key is to start with the individual and proceed to the organization…”

Who should create your core values? Management teams or owners usually initiate the process of clarifying and identifying values, but as Collins points out, this can’t be a top-down activity. If Core Values are simply handed out to the team, they are often ignored or even ridiculed as more silly management-speak, or worse. (As the cynical Dilbert proclaims, “values are a type of emotional illusion common to children, idiots and non-engineers.”) Identifying Core Values is a process of discovery, and for that process to be relevant and resonant in the lives of your team members, it needs to involve as many of them as possible.  Agreeing upon your most cherished Core Values is a ritual that, when properly facilitated, can bring all an organization’s members closer together. Articulating core values is not simply an exercise in word-smithing. Word-smithing is important, but it actually comes last.

How do you identify core values? We like to compare the process of identifying and articulating an organization’s values to diamond mining:

  1. We collect a lot of ore, filled with rough diamonds
  2. Together, we sift through the ore and carefully select the best gems
  3. We polish and cut the best gems
  4. We proudly set and “wear” our gems

How many Core Values are enough? Good management is a lot like parenting, according to business “growth guru” Verne Harnish of Gazelles (gazelles.com).  He says, “have a handful of rules and repeat yourself a lot.” That “handful of rules” are your Core Values. Three to five concepts is more than enough for people to remember.

 What if I don’t like the Values my team comes up with? It’s extremely rare to have the Core Values process deliver Values that are different from yours. Why? The people in your company ultimately reflect and agree with your true Core Values—that’s why they’re there. One important reason to work with a facilitator in this exercise is to ensure healthy balance in the Values. For example, when you talk about Core Values with your team, especially teams from hospitality and helping professions, expect the conversation to get fairly animated. Teams that deliver intensive customer service are highly interdependent. Positive interpersonal relationships are crucial to their happiness. Their values tend to focus on interpersonal relationships with one another.

The facilitator ensures that all stakeholders are strongly supported by at least one of the Core Values: employees, customers, and ownership all have slightly different needs and agendas. The “kumbaya” values of your team may not acknowledge the necessity of making money, for example. An easy way to describe this is to think about the “three relationships” each team member experiences in the organization:

  1. Relationships with co-workers
  2. Relationships with customers
  3. Relationship with the business

Rather than establish these limitations at the beginning, we try to encourage a very unstructured discovery of personal values as they relate to work. Too many rules early in the process can restrict the free flow of conversation and ideas. Instead ask

  • What’s important to you at work?
  • Why do you work here?
  • What’s usually happening when you’re having fun at work?
  • What do you like most about your coworkers?
  • What do you like most/least about the organization?
  • What behavior do you think expresses a true professional?

If you’d like help articulating and capturing your company’s core values, we’d be happy to help. Contact us at consultants@wynnebusiness.com, subject: Core Values! And we’ll figure out if it’s something you can do yourself or if you might need to have your process facilitated by an expert. Either way, prepare to see your team in a whole new light. And prepare to keep that light burning bright for a long time!

Spa Directors Management Intensive

Spa Director’s Management Intensive 2011

 

If you own, manage, or plan to open or acquire a spa, this program is a must!

Presented by Lisa M. Starr and Peggy Wynne Borgman of Wynne Business Spa Consulting

 

If you’re already involved in spa operations, you’ll find solutions for your toughest management challenges. If you’re planning a facility, you’ll leave this program with a clear-cut strategy for business success. If you’re considering a career change or advancement into spa management, the Spa Director’s Management Program will put you miles ahead of the competition. This fast-paced, information-packed program is full of original, innovative but practical concepts that are actually at work in top spas. We work hard to make sure the days you spend with us are extremely rewarding. You’ll also take home our exclusive text, an incredible reference you’ll use again and again. This includes tools you’ll be able to put to use the day you return to work. You’ll have a chance to meet other spa industry professionals, a diverse group of people, from all over the world. Participants typically represent a variety of industries and greatly enrich the program with their input. You’ll create a support network that will prove invaluable as your business or career grows. The small size of the class ensures individual attention and maximum interaction.

Financial Management

  • Managing by the numbers: understanding financial statements
  • How productive is your spa? An accurate way to measure
  • Compensation Design: the key to profitability
  • Owner compensation: what’s fair?
  • Plugging the profit “leaks” in your spa operation
  • Discounting: is it right for your facility?
  • Staying out of trouble: proper accounting practices for spas
  • The raging gift market: taming the tiger

Marketing Mastery

  • “One-to-one” marketing: cheaper, better, faster
  • Customer retention: your best marketing tool
  • Calculating your actual cost of customer acquisition
  • A formula to instantly boost your sales by 33%
  • The power of PR: developing your media kit
  • Positioning your spa to survive intense competition
  • Essential components of great spa brochures

Successful Programs

  • Developing a compelling service program
  • Long-term programs: the new spa package
  • Programming for profit: which services to emphasize
  • Two key trends that must guide your program design
  • Staging spa experiences: the perils of packages
  • Workflow: managing its impact on quality and morale
  • Scheduling for maximum productivity.and quality

Leadership

  • Recruitment: effective strategies for hiring the best employees
  • Why the customer comes “second” in a successful spa
  • Why you’re doing everything yourself.and how to stop it!
  • Managing communications issues in your spa team
  • Why you can’t motivate your staff and what to do about it.
  • How to produce great staff meetings
  • Managing conflict between technical and support teams
  • Getting your support team to “think on their feet”

Quality Management

  • What customers value most: it may surprise you
  • How to manage quality in the “closed door” spa environment
  • The three essential ingredients of world class service
  • Training = quality: building your in-house program
  • How to instill a “quality” mindset in your entire team
  • Customer relations: resolving complaints
  • Comps, refunds and redo’s: how to use them wisely

Retail Success

  • Harnessing the awesome power of retail sales
  • Teaching spa therapists to sell
  • Tools and Techniques that support retail sales
  • Do you need a Home Care Consultant?
  • Creating a profitable retail mix
  • Retail Trends
  • The Spa Store: Visual Merchandising and Display
  • Mail order and online stores: Are you ready?

Seminar venue: The charming Inn at Saratoga, along the banks of Saratoga Creek in the historic village of Saratoga. Nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains, the Inn at Saratoga is a peaceful Silicon Valley hideaway. Just 20 minutes from San Jose International Airport (SJC) and 50 minutes from San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

If you would like this course offered LIVE in your location, please reach out to us at seminars@wynnebusiness.com

to discuss or access our online Spa Directors Management Intensive here.

Mastering The Reservations Call

Front Desk Training: Mastering the Spa Reservations Call

Registration for this webinar has closed and below are the topics which were discussed. This training is available online as Part 2 of The Spa Concierge Finishing School. Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for this and other trainings.

The first in our “Moments of Truth” series for your front desk team, this one-hour session is perfect for honing skills, building sales awareness and enhancing the service mindset.

Guests who are calling you for reservations are not just looking for appointments, they’re seeking a “preview of coming attractions.” Does your team handle your reservations calls like ho-hum, routine transactions, or do they strive to create a positive and memorable experience for every guest? This training session for front desk and reservations employees and their supervisors is an eye-opening journey into what it takes to provide five-star reservations service while growing sales.

Agenda:
• Are you “filling an order” or “creating an experience” for your guests?
• Moments of Truth and why they’re so important to guest satisfaction
• The Three Elements of every great service experience
• Getting the Greeting right
• Finding your voice: what your guest wants to hear
• Creating rapport with callers who have different “social styles”
• Making the best possible first impression
• Essentials of telephone etiquette
• The do’s and don’ts of the “hold”
• Using the guest’s name effectively
• How to answer those tough or tricky questions (like “who’s your best massage therapist?”)
• Shortcuts for creating rapport quickly
• Active listening techniques
• What your returning guests need from the reservations call
• What they’re really saying when they ask, “How much are your facials?”
• Spreading the love around: how to make sure all your guests get great care
• Offering alternatives when their selection isn’t available
• Upgrading gracefully
• The best way to discuss “gender preference” for massage appointments
• How to communicate your cancellation policy without ruining the mood
• Helping ensure a smooth first visit: pre-arrival orientation
• The Fond Farewell

 

Inspiration For Spa Leadership Challenges

Productivity Secrets of Busy Spa Directors

Registration for this webinar has closed and below are the topics which were discussed.  Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for our offered trainings.

You only have so many hours in a day. And in a busy spa operation, you lose lots of those to crisis management. How can you cross more items off your “to do” list while not losing sight of the bigger strategic picture, and ensuring that your team gets the “care and feeding” they need? In this era of downsizing, with many spa directors spending more time on the operations floor, can you really increase your effectiveness?
 

 

This fast, free webinar will help you get much more out of your next day at the spa, and every day to come. The session is just 35 minutes, with a 10 minute live Q & A.
 
Joining me will be guest panelist Tatia Davenport of DeluxeSalonSupply.com. Tatia is an amazing businesswoman who operates two successful California spas, is Business Development Executive for DeluxeSalonSupply.com, and a former executive at e*trade. Her insights into productivity, gleaned from real-world experience operating spas and from corporate America, will help you take control of your time. This is a great webinar to share with your supervisors, too.
AGENDA
  • How your “to-do” list is sabotaging you–and what to do about it
  • The common task that starts most people’s workday–and why it should never start yours
  • The biggest source of “rework” and how to improve it
  • Process improvement made simple
  • Are you constantly interrupted, or constantly interruptible? Managing communication with others to protect productive time
  • Avoiding phone tag/e mail tag with a few simple techniques
  • “They can’t do anything without me!” Avoiding the trap of being the Answer (wo)Man
  • Delegation: the three-step process you must use so that items you delegate don’t end up back in your lap
  • “Inspect what you expect”
  • Block and Tackle: “batching” tasks
  • Good e mail “hygiene”
  • Simplify the Buy: why the way you source may be all wrong
  • The magic of Five-Minute Meetings
  • Time-saving (and easy to master) technology tools
  • Understanding the “highest and best use” of your time and energy
Mastering The Reservations Call

Moments of Truth: Mastering the Spa Reservations Call

Registration for Moments of Truth: Mastering the Spa Reservations Call webinar has closed and below are the topics which were discussed.  This training is available online as Part 2 of The Spa Concierge Finishing School. Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for this and more of our offered trainings.

Guests who are calling you for reservations are not just looking for appointments, they’re seeking a “preview of coming attractions.” Does your team handle your reservations calls like ho-hum, routine transactions, or do they strive to create a positive and memorable experience for every guest? This training session for front desk and reservations employees and their supervisors is an eye-opening journey into what it takes to provide five star reservations service while growing sales.

Agenda:
• Are you “filling an order” or “creating an experience” for your guests?
• Moments of Truth and why they’re so important to guest satisfaction
• The Three Elements of every great service experience
• Getting the Greeting right
• Finding your voice: what your guest wants to hear
• Creating rapport with callers who have different “social styles”
• Making the best possible first impression
• Essentials of telephone etiquette
• The do’s and don’ts of the “hold”
• Using the guest’s name effectively
• How to answer those tough or tricky questions (like “who’s your best massage therapist?”)
• Shortcuts for creating rapport quickly
• Active listening techniques
• What your returning guests need from the reservations call
• What they’re really saying when they ask, “How much are your facials?”
• Spreading the love around: how to make sure all your guests get great care
• Offering alternatives when their selection isn’t available
• Upgrading gracefully
• The best way to discuss “gender preference” for massage appointments
• How to communicate your cancellation policy without ruining the mood
• Helping ensure a smooth first visit: pre-arrival orientation
• The Fond Farewell

Live Spa Staff Training

How can I train my front desk team without any time and budget?

Virtually every spa has cut back on meetings and education during the downturn. There’s good news, though. Training your team is less expensive, and more convenient, than it’s ever been, thanks to–yes–the miracle of modern technology.

We’re talking about online training. These are almost-as-good-as-being-there presentations that will engage and inform you and your team.

We suspect, if you’re reading this blog, that you’d be willing to spend $15-$25 per person to get your front desk team world-class training in the following subjects:

  •  Mastering the Mindset of World Class Service
  •  Mastering the Reservations Call
  •  Checkout that Maximizes Revenue and Retention
  •  Mastering Complaint Resolution and Service Recovery

These are part of our Wynne Business Spa Concierge Finishing School and each includes a Powerpoint presentation and audio lecture, full of fresh, use-it-tomorrow content. They’re just $69 individually, and $234 for the complete set. Choose one segment for a specific need, or for even better results, spend an hour or two each week bringing your entire support team through the series. It will be especially impactful when they learn together, and you should see an immediate improvement in focus and results from this crucial group of staff, who are often overlooked when it comes to training, and yet are one of your strongest links to building a loyal repeat clientele.

To access these as well as others in our training library, click here.