When was the last time you “shopped” your store? When you visit, keep in mind the things that matter to the customer:

• Is it easy to navigate? Can they find what they are looking for?
• Does it feel “bolted on” or does it express your spa brand?
• Are there product reviews?
• Is it integrated with your Facebook Fan Page and other social media?
• Is the shopping cart and checkout process fast, smooth and secure?

If it’s time to revamp your store, keep in mind:

• This is not an overnight process. Even with the new, simpler templatized solutions, it may make sense to hire someone with experience in that platform to set it up and train you in its use. After that, you can update and maintain the store in house, or with minimal assistance.
• You’ll need to customize the store template to ensure that it reflects your spa’s colors, images, branding, etc. Preston Wynne Spa worked with a programmer experienced in the Big Commerce platform to refine the look of its store template.
• You can’t get all the bells and whistles on your wish list with a templatized store solution. Be prepared to compromise here and there; you save a lot of money. As the store’s sales grow, invest more to customize and improve it.
• Product pictures must be consistent in appearance. Do the backgrounds match?  Are they clean? Use a “drop out” white background and you’ll find that many of the product images you need can be provided by the vendor. The rest should be done by a photographer (unless you are one.) Freelance product photographers are inexpensive, consistent and fast.

Need help starting? I’m part of the project team that can remodel your web store, and even update your website (on an platform that you can maintain yourself.) We also assist spas with their social media programs. For more information, contact Wynne Business. Or if you have a question about your web store, drop me a line at erin@prestonwynnebusiness.com.

But there’s one unintended consequence of all this discounting that doesn’t seem to be on the radar yet: inflation.

Money, like water, finds its level.  If dizzydizcounts.com grabs 50% of my 50% off service, and I’ve gone down that coupon road, ultimately I’ll be raising my suggested prices to enable constant discounting. Department stores have done this for years, knowing that a substantial percentage of their fashion inventory will have to be sold at discount.

As well, as small businesses turn to mindless, cattle call extreme discount marketing, their profits will drop. What do you do when you’re staring at a P & L and the bottom line has dropped out? Hey, let’s raise prices and sell more coupons! In the ecosystem that is the free market, endless discounting will just lead to endless price increases.

We’re already seeing “discount fatigue.” Discounts are sexy when they’re deep…and rare. When they’re deep and common as dirt, they lose their cachet for more affluent consumers. Once tickled by the novelty of a shocking discount, even the customers from the Affluent demographic recognize that the spas who pimp themselves this way are not the ones you take home to mother.

Churn is very hard on a quality spa, and discounting can turn your facility into a churn-factory. It’s hard on employee morale to work with demographically unqualified customers, people you can’t retain no matter how happy they are with your service. It’s hard on employee morale to have your compensation discounted for the promise of future business.

If you’re going to go down that road, any deeply discounted offer you concoct should still be at the net price point of a full-price treatment, i.e., if you’re giving 50% off, it should be on two treatments, not one. And for heaven sakes, unless you just opened your doors, you have a database full of inactive clients who’d love to receive your very own 50% off coupon, and share it with a Friend. They are far more likely to be retained than Newbie McNotip.

Seriously–if you’re gonna get naked, do you really need to pay Groupon to take off your clothes for you?

Discounts encourage a mentality that is the exact opposite of what a clientele-based business wants to cultivate. Discounts train customers to want more discounts, not to be loyal to that kind and generous business that offered them a discount last year.

My last conversation with a Groupon rep lasted for about an hour, an entertaining bit of gladiator combat that I initiated. I was impressed by his passion and we had a fun and lively debate. Here’s what I told him the Groupon promise boils down to: “We’re going to fill your spa with a giant Caterpillar tractor scoop full of dirt. In that huge scoop of dirt is some gold, and it’s your job, Ms. Spa Owner, to find it. If you don’t find it, it’s because you’re blind, not because it was, in fact, nearly 100% dirt.”

In other words, the only reason our discount lovin’ Groupies won’t toss away that next 50% off coupon for Trollop Spa, and offer to stay with you and love you forever, is that you didn’t provide them with a quality service.  Groupon,  a company that’s blessedly virtual, unsullied by the bricks-and-mortar, blood sweat and tears work of delighting actual clients in the real world, would have you believe that if their customers don’t return to your spa at full price, it’s because you suck.

Groupon is the fastest growing company in history, and it’s not surprising. Parasites usually grow faster than the hosts on which they feed.

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. Because it’s difficult to retain more than three concepts, we strongly recommend limiting your Core Values to three—a handful, if you will.

Some companies use single words, others prefer to use phrases that explain the behavior expected. For example, at Preston Wynne Spa, our Core Values are

1. WOW our customers 100% of the time
2. Build and protect a fun and harmonious work environment
3. Achieve our goals and keep our commitments

 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 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?

Engaging people to talk about what’s bothering them also helps uncover core values. For example, the “A Player” individual who feels she is burdened by teammates’ lack of responsibility will help articulate the need for teamwork.

Core values are aspirational, too. In other words, you don’t have to be perfect at “living” your Values, 100%, to claim them as yours. You can all agree on what’s important and essential and use this to move in that direction.  The purpose of Core Values is not to simply say “this is who we are,” it’s also to say, “this is who we all want to be.”

How long does it take and what happens?

While a traditional Core Values process can take a long time, we’ve developed an approach that is surprisingly quick and remarkably effective. By effective, we mean that participants feel heard and respect the outcomes.

A Wynne Business Core Values retreat is a process that usually takes one day. We’re able to work with even large groups because of the process we use.

AGENDA

9:00 a.m. to 10 a.m.         What are Core Values and why do we need them?

This introduces everyone to the purpose and importance of Core Values and helps everyone to understand their role.

10 a.m. to 11 a.m.            Core Values “Mining”

Individual and group exercises. For the group exercises, employees are divided into cross-functional teams of about six persons

11 a.m. to 12 p.m.            Core Values “gem selection”

Through a fun and interactive “Post it Vote” process that effortlessly creates consensus, we narrow down the gems to three value concepts.                             

12 p.m. to 1 p.m.              Core Values Polishing, first phase

A facilitated discussion to ensure that our three “rough gem” concepts work for the team. Adjourn general session

1 p.m. to 2 p.m.                Lunch break

2 p.m. to 5 p.m.                Core Values Polishing, final

Following the final polish, we discuss the publication, use and reinforcement of the Values through the company’s systems. For example, will team members be evaluated against the Values during performance appraisal? How can management employees make Core Values come alive? What methods will be used to publish and share the final polished Core Values? How can we coach using them?

5 p.m.                                   Adjourn with your new Core Values!

So what’s the difference between a theme and a vision? A theme is superficial at best, and vulnerable to whims and frequent changes of direction. Themes are bright, shiny objects that may briefly attract attention. Visions inspire your guests as well as your internal customers–your employees and other vital stakeholders in the organization.

Visions can’t be created by outsiders, no matter how talented a consultant is. A vision is an organic expression of the shared creativity and dreams of the people within the enterprise.

However, there is a process that ensures that your vision can be birthed and articulated. It’s called a Strategic Vision Session.

“Oh, brainstorming,” you say. “We did that.”

Brainstorming is just one step in the Strategic Vision process–an important one. But what comes before the brainstorming dictates the quality of the brainstorming session. Have you planted the right seeds? That storm may be watering the wrong crop.

What comes after brainstorming determines whether that deluge of creativity can be channeled into appropriate action. Which will benefit your crop more, a flash flood or an irrigation system?

An SVS includes a progression of specific processes, each one building upon the last. It begins by helping the group articulate the current reality and “conditions on the ground,” as well as the organization’s strengths and potential threats to its success. The outside facilitator helps participants get past habitual thinking and enables them to overcome roadblocks and even taboos. A good facilitator orchestrates participation from the group, preventing stronger contributors from dominating the session, and bringing out the creativity and insights of less-bold individuals.

Whether you’re a new spa, a turnaround project, or even a vendor, a Strategic Vision Session ensures that your efforts will not be forgotten with the press release. The product of an SVS is a Vision Brief, which guides the work of the entire team, across every function. Because it is co-created by your team as well as skilled facilitators, everyone has a stake in the outcome. It’s not “his idea” or “her idea,” but “our ideas,” powerful, distilled concepts that represent the DNA of the business. A Strategic Vision is not just the flavor of the month.

You may be surprised at who makes profound contributions to a new vision. We were in a session for a relaunching hotel spa in which the head chef made one of the most remarkable and powerful contributions of the entire day, something that grew into one of the key vision elements. This is why we insist that companies include as many of their stakeholders as possible. This usually annoys them–it’s not convenient to pull people away from their work for a day or even two (larger groups usually require longer sessions.) Sometimes more powerful players don’t see the value of including representative (or all) frontline employees. But the more participants, and the more time committed, the richer the outcome. The work that’s done during this period can guide a company for years, not months. It’s well worth the effort.

In new and relaunching spas, the Vision Brief guides the work of everyone from architects to marketers to hiring managers who choose the therapists and support staff. Everyone, literally, is on the same page, but they’re expressing the Vision through their particular function. The Vision touchstone is the place to return when conflicts or confusion arise about priorities, because that happens in all projects. At that point, the parties involved pull up their copy of the Vision Brief and looks for a way forward that honors the work that has been done together.

Not surprisingly, the Strategic Vision Process is one of the most satisfying and morale-boosting experiences employees will have in a company. Nothing creates ownership like participating in the birth of an organization’s vision. An SVP  doesn’t always include an entire organization; it can be done for a group or team. We’ve just found that the more people involved, the better the quality of the output, and the more people with a serious stake in the outcome.

Not to mention, the more fun it is.

According to a terrific new study of 1350 spa guests from Coyle Hospitality Group, “people problems” are the predominant issue in every spa. Coyle, the leading mystery shopping firm in the hospitality industry, undertook a survey to determine the most common spoilers of spa experiences.

The summary notes that, “62% of the respondents mentioned ‘People’ as a significant contributor to the bad experience…Nearly two out of every three people that have a bad experience at a spa are talking about staff behavior. This is most interesting because most spa owners feel that the quality of their staff is their most significant competitive advantage.”

This is a bad news/good news situation. As the Coyle report points out, behavioral problems, unlike issues with your plumbing, are usually inexpensive to fix. However, unlike a one-time fix, correcting people problems–and keeping them corrected–requires focus, discipline, and follow-through. It sometimes requires a cultural shift. It sometimes requires more supervision. It always requires training.

Hearing what guests actually experience is an eye-opener. The top complaint in the Coyle study? Over 100 of the respondents indicated that the “staff was not listening, responsive about special needs, or accommodating,” and 100 more felt there was “too much conversation.” 64 guests experienced “unfriendly, impersonal, robotic staff.” Others noted that they were “ignored by staff during treatment; not checked on,” and a significant number encountered, amazingly enough, “offensive, demeaning” staff. (We took pains to include some of these issues in our customer service training DVD, including role play examples of the wrong and right way to handle various conversations.)

If like many spas you’ve been focusing on promotions to get new guests in the door, there’s encouraging news–and perhaps a cautionary tale–in one statistic. “Only a total of 35 out of 1,350 respondents spoke about value…the price paid is not at the heart of the problem” for most dissatisfied guests. This rogues’ gallery of poor communication skills, in short, has more to do with a lack of repeat business than economic conditions.

This is counterintuitive during a major recession, when discretionary spending has shriveled. The new generation of social-networking discount promotion sites, like Groupon, may seem tempting to a spa with lots of empty space on its books. But focusing on quantity over quality will quickly erode any perceived value that remains for your customers. Taking the high road–staying focused on delivering a stellar guest experience–is a healthier strategy for a spa that wants to be in business in 2011.

According to the National Federation of Independent Business, under the new card-check system mandated by the Employee Free Choice Act, “a union gathers authorization cards signed by workers that express their desire to unionize. The unions would be able to collect these cards from your employees and independent contractors for as long as it takes to get 50 percent plus one,” says author Lena Anthony, who penned an article on the topic for the current issue of NFIB’s My Business magazine. (www.mybusinessmag.com)

Under current law, the “card check” system is a voluntary option for companies. However, the preferred method for most employers is a secret ballot, which is supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.

“The NFIB believes a secret ballot election administered and supervised by the NLRB is the only way to protect the integrity of a worker’s right to vote because it is a more accurate indicator than authorizing cards of whether employees actually wish to be recognized by a union. Each employee’s choice is made in the privacy of a voting booth, with neither employer or union knowing how the individual voted,” explains Anthony.
Enabling employees to vote privately on whether to unionize seems to be the best way to prevent manipulation and intimidation by either the employer or union organizers. The bill, named the “Employee Free Choice Act” (remember the “Clear Skies Act”? Sounds like the same folks named this one) there is an implication that employees currently don’t have a free choice. Hello? Secret ballot? Reminds me of how we elect…a President!

Call me an idealist, but my belief is that if all businesses were run well and run ethically, we wouldn’t have a demand for labor unions. Alas, we know that there are plenty of badly run businesses out there, and employees that are badly treated, and in a bad economy, things will likely get worse.

I think it’s a testimonial to the core values of the spa industry that there are few unionized operations. However, unions would take a dim view of my perspective because like all other institutions, they now exist, in part, to perpetuate themselves as institutions. They need and want more money, like institutions do.

Yet union coffers have been dwindling since the 1980′s. Perhaps the decline in labor union dues is a sign that the “price value” equation offered by unions has lost some of its appeal–after all, union representation is a service that employees pay for.

However, the conclusion that’s been drawn in Washington by politicians that rely on union support is that this decline is due to the fact that it’s too hard to organize. Hmmmm. I realize the President owes a debt of gratitude to organized labor for his victory, but I would like to finally see a President who pays more than lip service to the idea that this nation is sustained, built and ultimately healed by small business. And I’ve yet to meet a small business owner that thinks things run better after their company was unionized.

As hard as it is to make a go of it now, if the Employee Free Choice Act becomes reality, your path to profitability will be that much steeper. Don’t think you’re safe because you’re small; it’s actually easier to unionize small businesses. Under the card-check system, you won’t even know you’ve been organized until you receive the notification that your spa is, voila, a union shop, says NFIB Executive Vice President Dan Danner. “Then the clock starts ticking for you to agree on a contract. If you can’t agree on a contract within 120 working days, the Employee Free Choice Act mandates compulsory, binding arbitration on the employer and the employees as part of the collective bargaining process.”

If they’re forced into a collective bargaining situation, I know plenty of spa owners who will throw in the towel. We all know that there are easier ways to make a living than by employing people, even without having to navigate the delicate protocols of operating a union shop. Many an esthetician-turned-spa owner will likely just turn esthetician again, and slip off into the peace and quiet of a more profitable private practice. (And heaven forfend, we’ll have yet another batch of spa consultants flooding the market!)

Personal service businesses are old school, old economy, and often labors of love. When labor doesn’t love us back…beleagered small business owners will find other ways to express our entrepreneurial urges. And I guarantee you they will involve fewer, if any, employees.

Unfortunately, we small business owners are a squirmy bunch. We’re independent, we don’t play well with others and we’re politically all over the map. (Instead of lobbying, we’d rather do something productive–like generate two-thirds of the jobs in this nation.)

If our new government is serious about job creation, the first order of business is to ensure that it’s easier, not harder, for companies to succeed, and to keep employing the workers we currently have. I desperately hope that one of President Obama’s first “shovel ready projects” isn’t digging a grave for small business.

Please contact your US Senator, forward or excerpt this blog wantonly, and learn more about the Employee Free Choice Act.