InTouch

It takes focus to meet your business goals.

No doubt when you told friends and family you were planning to launch your own business, several asked you, "What are your goals." It's a fair question. Your answer more than likely related to how much you wanted to earn, how big you hoped to get, how much time you planned to spend working. Of course achieving those goals meant having a business strategy. How do you get customers, what is your service offering, how do you keep clients coming back from year to year? You need a plan to make all this happen...

Who could ever forget Apple asking us to "Think Different" or Volkswagen hoping we'd "Think Small." Call them mottos or slogans, whichever your prefer, what's important is that these messages are embedded into our memory. Company slogans, when they are effective, as these two clearly are, "touch the hearts and minds" of your customers and prospects and seal your brand...

Cultivating an advisory board should be a top priority for anyone who plans on succeeding at business. It's only natural that my advisory team is comprised of my clients. If I listen carefully and pay attention they will let me know all I need to about the everyday things like what music to play, what complexes to blend, what massage mediums are worth stocking and what services to offer. They even influence how I invest back into my practice...

Our recent celebration of Earth Day is an important reminder to be good stewards of the earth. As business owners, I believe it's our corporate responsibility to do our part to conserve natural resources and protect the environment...

So many people walk around with coffee in hand these days, I have to wonder if the traditional coffee break is a thing of the past. Actually, coffee breaks, as I learned through a search on Google, emerged in the early 20th century when they were part of an overall movement to reform what was then a pretty grim American work place...

At the recent New York Spa Show we had a great dialogue during our class on "Designing Your Dream Practice". One of the main topics of interest was how to attract and cultivate your ideal clients. I always emphasize the first step is to discern who those clients are, and then learning all you can about them including their needs and goals. The second thing is to deliver exemplarily customer service and build trust. Simply put "Undersell and Over deliver."...

Who doesn't want your business to grow? Even if things are going well, it's good business to do what it takes to make the next year even better. Complacency doesn't work well in the business world. As we've learned these past few years, a sudden downturn in the market might be just around the corner. It doesn't take much to be on top of the world one day and feel that it's crashing down around you the next...

I often talk about the reward of getting to the point in your career when you can begin to choose whom you want to spend your time with and offering the services you prefer to perform. This has been one of my primary business goals from the moment I decided to enter into this profession...

Who doesn't want to save money to boost profits? The recession has made all of us more careful about the dollars we spend to run and promote our business. But if there is one area where you don't want to cut corners it's on the products you use...

It seems every year around this time I find myself busy with the idea of Holiday promotions. People are out buying for the ones they love, and I have, what I consider to be, a valuable service to offer...

Do you know the 80-20 rule? It maintains that 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your customers. That might be high for your practice, but bottom line, the rule suggested that among a key group of customers, there is opportunity to up sell spa services and products...

There's nothing more powerful in new business development than word of mouth. Yet with the pressures of today's economy, you can't depend solely on referrals. You need to step up the promotion to be as visible as possible to potential clients - and even current ones...