Peggy Wynne Borgman

The Wall Street Journal Headline reads, “Retailer Turns in Loss on Increase in Markdowns.” They’re referring to Talbots, which over the past three years re-imagined its famously frowsy fashion label. Despite some high profile successes in 2010–Michelle Obama wore a flowered Talbots dress, reportedly spurring catfights over the item in stores–the Chief Creative Officer has left the company.

The WSJ item goes on to explain that Trudy Sullivan, the company’s president and chief executive will “take over creative duties” (love that phrase!) while a search is carried out. Ms. Sullivan has a long history in the middle-of-the-road fashion business.

“While we have made progress in executing our brand vision and product design, customer acceptance needs to improve,” Sullivan is quoted as saying in this piece. If there was ever a quote that epitomized corporate cluelnessness, that has to be it. Our problem is that “customer acceptance needs to improve,” rather than “no one wants to buy our stuff.” Customers, did you hear that? Get with the program!

Meanwhile, yesterday’s WSJ described the ascendancy of Tori Burch, a brand that seems to get it right, to the tune of $500 million in annual sales. There, “creative duties” seem to be much more of the former and much less the latter. Significantly, that company is still helmed by Ms. Burch, who showed her first collection to a Bergdorf’s buyer in her living room.

It’s hard for real creativity to thrive in corporateAmerica, which is enslaved to focus groups and testing, ensuring that we get endless iterations of the Same Stuff, sold by the Same Stores, the usual suspects of retailing. Take a risk? Why, that would be a disservice to our shareholders. (Tori Burch is still a private company.)

It’s hard for an economy to recover without creativity, too.  Can you clamber out of a deep hole without risking falling back in? If you could just step out of it, you wouldn’t be in trouble in the first place. Yet our marketplace is filled with depressing crap that looks like last year’s depressing crap, with a detail or two changed. I walked through a Macy’s recently and was overwhelmed by the awful, petroleum stink of its cheap Chinese-made merchandise. The salespeople looked depressed. The customers looked depressed. There wasn’t a lick of creativity anywhere. There wasn’t a frisson of fun.

Apple is a weird, wonderful exception. Pricy iphones fly off the shelves in the middle of the Decession. The stores are always jammed with rapt shoppers, heads bent in benediction over tables covered with sleek and lovely devices.

Do you think Apple trumpets its “customer acceptance”? Of course not. The only acceptable response to Apple’s products is love, pure and simple.

An article in the San Jose Mercury News today sniped about the shape of Apple’s new building, an enormous ring whose diameter surpasses the height of the Empire State Building. So big you would never know it was a big circle, unless you flew over it in an airplane. This, the article concluded, was ridiculous and wasteful–why bother building a round building if you can’t tell, from standing next to it, or being in it, that it’s round?

I suppose Apple should have built something incrementally better than today’s corporate headquarters, perhaps a “progressive” design with some new features and benefits that could be bullet-pointed in a press release. But I can’t wait to read about how amazing the new building looks from the air. Creativity may look wasteful at times, but in the end, it’s the only thing that makes a difference. Incremental change simply can’t save our bacon. We have a duty to be creative.

For more business articles and posts, visit www.wynnebusiness.com .

Stacy Conlon

What is a brand?  In technical terms, the American Marketing Association defines a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.”  While this is true, there is more to branding if you want to stand out from your competition and increase your profitability. 

There are three main elements of a successful brand:

—–A clear and consistent look, feel and message across all marketing channels that accurately reflects your brand and is specifically designed to attract your target market.  This includes things like your products, services, logo, tagline and mission statement.

—–Conveys your unique selling position (USP), the true essence of your business to your current and potential clients.

—–Delivers a real life spa experience that accurately reflects your brand message.  It must be valuable and satisfying for your customer who now expects your brand.  Give it to them and then some.

You might be asking yourself, how can I do this?  While there are many angles, here is a concept I find to be important when you are considering how to effectively brand your spa.

Be Remarkable in Your Marketing Mix
In today’s saturated marketplace, unsuccessful spa entrepreneurs attempt to market to everyone and end up blending in. On the other hand, successful spa owners realize it is not possible to be all things to all people.  Instead, they distinguish themselves by communicating a remarkable brand message to their target market.

In order to be remarkable, it is important to develop a strategic business plan that includes marketing efforts that support your spa’s brand niche.  Traditionally, this marketing mix includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Promotion and Place.  But marketing guru Seth Godin adds a 5^th factor to this set.  You might have heard of it.  It’s called the Purple Cow.

Every day, consumers are faced with a lot of boring stuff (otherwise known as brown cows) but you can bet they won’t forget one that’s purple.  This “Purple Cow” concept is inherent to a brand: it’s either there or it’s not.  You can be remarkable or be boring.  From a spa branding perspective, this means you must be something fantastic, something exciting all the while fulfilling a need for your current and potential clients.  As a result, your brand will become worth talking about and increase the probability of your success. 

Take Bliss Spa for example. The highly respected Bliss brand is known for its sense of humor with whimsically named products and treatments such as “Quadruple Thighpass.” Furthermore, the “Blissgirl” character is central to their brand, an illustrated icon that appears throughout Bliss-branded channels, including Bliss catalog covers and blissworld.com.  She is usually depicted using beauty products in playful ways to align with Bliss’ playful brand personality. This is a remarkable and successful spa brand.

There is no denying that strategic branding takes a lot of work and effort.  Do you think companies like Apple, Nike, Volkswagen or Bliss are enjoying great brand success because they took the quick and easy route?  No way.  But even if you are a small spa business, think about what your brand means to you and how you can be a Purple Cow in your marketplace.  There is more business out there for you.  Your target market just needs to hear your spa’s unique message exactly the way you intend convey it. 

Action Exercise: Branding Consistency Checklist
Whether you have an existing brand or are looking to create a new spa brand, use the checklist below to make sure you have consistency across applicable marketing channels.

Want to learn more about marketing? Visit www.thezengirl.com.

Nancy Griffin

Last week, French Skin care company Clarins launched a Facebook game called Spa Life. A virtual world populated with avatars, Spa Life is a time management game that recreates the challenges of running an actual spa. Players must manage an ever-increasing flow of visitors in search of facials and pedicures.

The Clarins brand is not overtly promoted until later into the game, when players can opt to treat their customers to Clarins rather than generic products to make them happier. Players are incentivized to purchase upgrades using Facebook Credits (i.e. real cash) as they would be in a non-branded game like Farmville. They can eventually redeem points acquired in the game for real products and samples from Clarins.

Jonathan Zrihen, CEO and president of Clarins’s North American division, says it was the demographics of casual gamers on Facebook that first attracted him to the idea of developing a Clarins game. (The average social gamer is a 43-year-old woman.) “I was also impressed by the level of engagement these games create.” (More than 100,000 people have already installed the Spa Life app on Facebook.)

Zrihen says the company is also considering attaching game points to Clarins products to encourage sales among those who become truly hooked on the game. The goal is less about pushing online sales through the game, however, than about increasing Clarins’s fan base and engagement rate on Facebook. “We don’t want to be pushy on this,” he says. “If we have more people following Clarins [on Facebook], it will have an effect on our ecommerce sales, but the main goal is to increase awareness of the brand.”

Have any Spa Insider readers played Spa Life on Facebook? What are your thoughts on social media gaming as a form of branding and marketing?

Marti Morenings

As I’ve said in my earlier blogs, I have toured City of Hope and it is amazing that within the park-like campus just northeast of Los Angeles, resides one of the most advanced biomedical research institutions in the world.   Renowned for transforming elusive clues into scientific discoveries, City of Hope brings groundbreaking research and compassionate care under one roof, as it has for almost 100 years.   

Here are some interesting facts about City of Hope:
 

—–City of Hope researchers participate in approximately 800 collaborative studies with other top institutions around the world, working together to accelerate potentially lifesaving medical advances.

—–City of Hope is a national leader in using genetic screening to empower women to take their health into their own hands. Its program alerts women if genetic factors raise their risk for breast, ovarian and other cancers and counsels them about options to prevent these diseases.

—–Numerous lifesaving drugs are based on research pioneered by City ofHope scientists. These include two of the leading anticancer drugs, Herceptin for breast cancer and Rituxan for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, as well as Avastin for colorectal cancer.

—–City of Hope researchers aim to make sure that women’s lives after cancer are whole and healthy. These scientists explore ways to reduce long-term side effects, fend off recurrences and lessen the challenges that survivors can face.

—–Research led by Leslie Bernstein, Ph.D., now a senior scientist at City ofHope, broke new ground by establishing that regular long-term exercise reduces the risk of breast cancer, the most common of women’s cancers.

—–Grape seed extract could help defeat cancer in two ways, according to studies at City of Hope, by blocking the action of a protein that helps cancer grow and spread, and  suppressing another protein linked to most breast cancers.

—–City of Hope scientists found that a cinnamon extract interferes with a protein that helps tumors establish a blood supply — potentially choking the life out of cancer.

—–In City of Hope labs, blueberry extract showed promise in fighting a particularly aggressive and difficult-to-treat type of breast cancer.

—–City of Hope investigations show that mushroom extract may slow the growth of breast tumors and lowers the level of a hormone linked to prostate cancer. Another study tests medicine derived from shiitake mushrooms that could help fight lung cancer.

—–Recent City of  Hope research revealed that chemicals in the pomegranate may help fight breast cancer, colon cancer, and diabetes.

—–City of Hope focuses on speeding up the process that turns scientific discoveries into new and better treatments — and potential cures. Researchers look at cancer on a molecular level to understand how it works and how to beat it.

So please join our fight against breast cancer by helping us raise research funds for City of Hope.  Spa Professionals across the US are now wearing Pink Gloves and are promoting the “Ask Me Why I’m Wearing Pink Gloves” campaign.  For every box of Pink Gloves we are able to sell, $1.00 will be donated to City of Hope. 

Here is how you can make a difference, with just two simple steps!

1) Substitute our Pink Gloves for your standard white vinyl gloves and wear them in your spa.  You can order your Pink Gloves for professional use by calling 800-558-5571 or by visiting www.universalcompanies.com   

AND

2) Display our free “Ask Me Why We’re Wearing Pink Gloves” marketing material in your spa or on your website, and talk to your clients about the many uses of pink vinyl gloves at home such as cleaning the grill, washing the dog, chopping garlic, or working in the garden wearing Pink Gloves?  Encourage them to purchase their own box of gloves from www.thepinkglove.com

Marti Morenings

Everyone wants to make a difference when it comes to finding a cure for breast cancer, especially the natural healers who make up your core spa staff.  How can you ignite their natural passion and contribute in a meaningful way to support breast cancer research, treatment, and education that makes a difference?  Join thousands of spa professionals in the “Ask Me Why We’re Wearing Pink Gloves” breast cancer campaign. It’s fun, it’s heart warming, and it demonstrates to your clients that you care about fighting the disease that is killing our mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends in record numbers. 

To make it simple for you to quickly implement, we’ve created everything you need to engage your team.  And there is no cost to you.  Here is how to start:

1) Substitute our Pink Gloves for your standard white vinyl gloves and wear them in your spa to make a fashion statement at the same time!   You can order your Pink Gloves for professional use by calling 800-558-5571 or by visiting www.universalcompanies.com   

AND

2) Display our free “Ask Me Why We’re Wearing Pink Gloves” marketing material in your spa or on your website, and talk to your clients about the many uses of pink vinyl gloves in their own homes.  Wouldn’t they look more fashionable cleaning the grill, washing the dog, chopping garlic, or working in the garden wearing Pink Gloves?  So encourage them to purchase a box of gloves from www.thepinkglove.com

That’s it! 

For every box of gloves sold, Universal Companies will donate $1.00 to City of Hope.  Imagine what we can accomplish if we all work together to make this happen. City of Hope needs the resources to find the cure to end this destructive disease.  They are getting close, and with our help, this may be the year! You and your staff can help us make it happen!

The images below are a couple of samples of the marketing materials you’ll be provided.

Tent Card

Counter Card

Nancy Griffin

I don’t know about you, but I’m noticing that many spas are stepping up their game and creating “wow” factors in the treatment room. One day spa owner who is always ahead of the pack is Blanca Caballero, owner of AvantGard Spa. “We take our guests on a relaxing getaway journey with culturally themed, uniquely named treatment rooms that bring guests to another country and practice.”

The design of each and every treatment room at AvantGard’s has been given thought and attention. The treatment rooms are inspired by Blanca’s international travels. Each of the ten themed rooms features special touches like handcrafted Balinese figures, Moroccan lamps, and a 60-year-old Japanese kimono.

AvantGard used Spa Pantry to develop custom treatments and signature menus. Combining active ingredients, essential oils, herbs and exfoliants with base carriers, muds or masks, the spa is able to develop custom products to target clients’ individual needs. Client’s “relaxology” journey begins at the Wellness Blending Bar using Spa Pantry and ESS Essential Oils. Massage therapists concoct specialized tea blends, salts and herbs in a show-and-tell format.

Tell us about your spa’s journey to wellness. How are your spa treatments beating the low-cost massage alternatives? Smart spa operators that think outside the box—share your stories!

Also, would you like to know how to score a “wow factor” treatment room when working on your capital expenditures? Try Universal Companies’ ROI calculator!

Dori Soukup

I remember when I first joined the spa industry 12 years ago while consulting with Pevonia and getting ready to launch my first Spa business educational program.  I thought the best way to promote it would be via email.  So I set up a meeting with Pevonia’s IT department. I was excited about showing them the HTML ad the marketing department and I designed for an email blast to all Pevonia clients.  The excitement quickly drained when I found out only 10% actually had an e-mail address.  I thought I entered the dinosaur age!  It turned out the spa industry was not very high tech 12 years ago. 

But things have changed!  Most spas now have software programs. They are tweeting, they are on face book, some are even blogging.  What I am most proud of is their webinar participation!

Have you attended a webinar?  What is a webinar anyway? 

A webinar is the most economical way to participate in training and professional education.  Webinars are becoming very popular within our industry.  We are seeing a large increase in on-line registrations.    I remember the first time I attended a webinar. I thought, “Wow, What a brilliant way to reach people!” Right away, I knew we needed to offer webinars to our clients.  Today, we still come across people who have not attended a webinar yet.  It’s fun to walk them through it and have them participate in this great educational platform.

When you take your team to a traditional live seminar, normally you have to pay for transportation and travel time; food; and, seminar tickets on a per person basis

When you attend a webinar, you don’t have to worry about all that!  You pay a flat fee, go in an office or a meeting room, watch the computer screen and listen.  Participants get to hear the webinar leader, watch the presentation and choose to participate by asking questions.  It’s as if you were in a live traditional seminar, but without all the costs!  Now don’t get me wrong, there are times when live seminars are necessary. Live seminars are still very much in demand and are irreplaceable; but webinars are a great way to keep the team tuned-up and fresh! They give the team a performance boost with minimal investment.  Having your team attend a Webinar every month keeps the team motivated, engaged, and productive!

To help you further, I thought I would share with you some of the most frequently asked questions about webinars:

Do I need special software to participate in a webinar?
No special software is required. The person hosting the event will send you an email invitation. You simply click on the link and join the webinar during its scheduled time, unless it’s on an demand webinar, then all you have to do is click and learn. I have a couple of webinars on Universal Companies’ website: “Spa Reception and Profits” and “5 Steps to Developing an Effective Marketing Plan”.  You can locate them by visiting the Content Library under Learn & Grow/Webinars/Spa Management.

What do I need to do to attend a live webinar?
Have internet access. If you have audio on your computer, you can listen via computer. If not, you can call into a conference number to listen and participate.

How long are most webinars?
Most webinars are about 1 hour long with 15 minutes of Q & A.

Will I be able to ask questions?
If you are participating in a live session, you will be able to ask questions. 

What are the international requirements and additional charges for overseas participants?
Not normally unless you are using a phone line. 

You can view a complimentary Financial Building Block webinar by simply registering and clicking on this link.

We’d love to hear your webinar experience and how you like webinars. Leave your comments for me here. And, if you want to learn more, please visit our website: http://insparationmanagement.com/.

Marti Morenings

Six years ago I was honored to be a on a fund raising committee for City of Hope, a bio-medical research and treatment center located just outside of  Los Angeles dedicated to the prevention and cure of cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, and other life threatening diseases.  Having toured the facility and getting to see firsthand the progress that this world renown biomedical research center was making, I was happy to commit my time to help raise funds to further their great work.  I have lost some wonderful women in my life, including my own mother, to breast cancer, and the thought of helping in some small way, especially with an organization that truly believes there is a cure, it’s time well spent. 

We were able to raise a few thousand dollars that year, but it just didn’t seem like enough, so I began to think about the possibilities of how Universal Companies could use its 28,000+ loyal clients, its 300+ vendors, and its 120+ caring employees to create a sustainable campaign that could generate substantial donations, not just once, but year after year.   After all, doesn’t it make sense for our nurturing industry professionals, who are serving the clients in the demographic most affected by breast cancer, to join in to help find a cure?  I knew that if we could create a product that everyone could use, and if we made sure all the profits were being donated (not just a few pennies), a lot of money could be generated. 

After brainstorming with our product development team, the idea of the Pink Glove was born.  In October 2006, thousands of spas across the country began replacing their standard white vinyl gloves with Pink Gloves to show their customers that they were helping to raise funds for breast cancer research. Over the years, similar pink glove campaigns have sprung up in the health care industry, such as the original pink glove dance and the live performance of the pink glove dance.

This year, we would like to ask for your help with a very special campaign called “Ask Me Why We’re Wearing Pink Gloves”.  In this campaign, we are asking spa professionals across the country to wear the Pink Gloves while performing spa treatments and then to encourage their spa clients to purchase their own box of Pink Gloves to use for household chores in their homes.  Our vision is that spa professionals across the country will become the promoters of this do-good campaign and challenge their clients to go to www.thepinkglove.com to purchase their own box of Pink Gloves. After all, vinyl gloves have many practical uses at home.

Imagine how much we can donate if millions of consumers begin to wear Pink Gloves?  There are 100 gloves per box, each box costs $7.95, and Universal Companies donates $1.00 for each box sold to support City ofHope.  If each person purchases just one box, the impact can be tremendous. 

Since 2006, over $100,000 dollars has already been donated through the Pink Glove campaign, and we feel that is only the beginning. 

Will you embrace our vision and help us this year to find a cure?

All you have to do is contact Universal Companies at 1-800-558-5571 to purchase your own Pink Gloves to wear at the spa.  While you are on the phone, ask about the free marketing material that we can send you to help you encourage your clients to order their own pink gloves at www.thepinkglove.com.  It’s that simple. Just think of the possibilities!

Leslie Lyon

I think many of us waste too much time on negative thoughts, and even how we will cope with situations that haven’t even happened…and may not ever happen…

I attended an educational event awhile back, which was a weekend getaway centered on higher ground leadership. I participated in numerous workshops that weekend, but this one in particular I will never forget.  I love this story.

In this workshop, our Presenter (let’s call him Dave), told us that in his own business travels, he had learned that there was a Prophet, or Spiritualist if you will, in India, who held great wisdom and in fact was said to know the secret to condensing time.   

Immeasurably intrigued by the possibility that he himself might be able to learn this coveted secret, Dave decided right there and then, that he must commit to the journey and find this Prophet.  He resolved to travel whatever great distances and to whatever great lengths necessary, in order to seek the wisdom of this individual.

He embarked on an unforgettable journey of self-realization, where he found himself enduring many long tortuous days of travel and seemingly un-surmountable circumstances.  As he travelled and searched, he began to fear that this Prophet was only a fictional character, dreamed up by someone with too much time on their hands.  But he persisted, and eventually he tracked down the Prophet, aided by what he thought might even have been “divine intervention”.   

Reaching his destination, Dave and the Prophet were finally seated cross-legged in front of each other.  The weary traveller was anxious for a mystical commentary that would uncover this coveted life secret and solve many of the challenges he himself faced in his every day life.  Looking deep into one another’s eyes, the wise Prophet smiled at Dave and said with a calm, quiet voice, that the secret to condensing time was to stop thinking stupid thoughts.   

Dave didn’t move.  He could barely breathe.

…..back in the workshop, listening to Dave as he revealed this coveted secret to condensing time, our whole room full of participants went silent…and so did he.  He just looked around the room at all of us, deliberately studying each of our reactions…wide-eyed and waiting.  Our silence, coupled with the occasional nervous laugh, was shouting volumes.  We were saying “I’m having trouble processing what you just said.  I’m not sure if this is a trick, but it wasn’t at all what I expected, and I think I’m disappointed “.  And we were disappointed, we wanted more.  We wanted to hear something utterly profound; something that would move us to a place we’d never been before…a place of personal awakening…a secret solution.

As seconds passed, a gradual realization took a hold of our group. Slowly, some began to grin as the gravity of the “secret” sank in.  And then a certain awakening did occur, just not quite the way we had expected.  One by one we began to realize that this secret to condensing time really was quite profound…and that it might actually provide a solution to more of our daily challenges than we had originally thought.

“Stop thinking stupid thoughts”.  Okay…how much extra time would you actually have in the day if you stopped thinking stupid thoughts?  And let’s take this one step further; what if you even stopped preparing for outcomes that these stupid thoughts might hypothetically produce?  

If you don’t need to stop thinking stupid thoughts to save time in your day, then maybe you just need to stop thinking them, so you can have more peace in your day.    

Peace.  And take the next step to get rid of those stupid thoughts.  Physically wipe them off your shoulders and walk away.

Leslie Lyon

Sometimes it just feels like all I do is research…then write…research…and then write some more, and so on and so on…business manuals, reports, power points, webinars, programs, articles, blogs, whitepapers, eBooks, eNews, emails, press releases, tweets…what have I missed?  All in the name of content, right?  Because I know that content really is king, and it needs to be well managed if I want to see a pay cheque.  But I’m eco-conscious, isn’t there a way to recycle, reuse, and re-purpose the mass amounts of information I generate each month?  How do I do that, exactly?  I need details.

Don’t get me wrong by the way, I LOVE to write.  In fact it might be my most favourite thing to do in business, but clearly I need to drop some of my perfectionism quirks, because there is simply no longer time to be perfect, is there.  So if there are a few typos in this post, pleese know that it’s better for my sanity if we just let them slide.

And as I race to keep up with all that’s new on my desk, I wonder…how the *%#@ will I ever find the time to cook another nice meal…take a leisurely walk…watch American Idol?   I really do need to get the contents of my life under control….and soon, because I’m also a control freak …I need total control of my desk (and other things) or I get this little pulse in the corner of my right eye that will speak to me all day.  You would be able to see it right now if you skyped me. 

So I start researching some more, to find out ways to control my content management dilemma.  I think I want auto-responders for my precious clients so they know I’m not dead or dying; and I’m pretty sure I need a social media dinger bell thingy, that tells me when it’s time to tweet; and because I still have sand in my hair and under my figure nails from summer, I also figure it might be a great idea to get a facial, manicure and hair cut before you see me in my next video sequence, or on that skype call.  Heaven help me…all in the name of content management.

And then I came upon this wonderful blog.  I swear I heard a choir sing…………do you hear it?

Also being a bit of a spreadsheet junkie, I’m sure my eyes bulged and pulsed too, when I saw the most beautiful site…a Content Calendar on an Excel Spreadsheet!  Everything I’d been fretting about and so much more, was right there in front of me: 

How to track content ideas, such as planning your writings around takeaways from an event: http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/2010/08/content-marketing-editorial-calendar/

How to re-purpose content and stay consistent http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/2010/08/how-to-repurpose-content-to-stay-consistent/;

Finding the right keywords for content marketing http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/2010/08/content-creation-and-promotion-is-more-effective-with-seo/ 

And even how to speed up your buying cycle with content mapping http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/04/content-mapping-b2b-marketing/

I’m feeling more in control already.  Wait…I think I just researched and wrote again.