It has been about six weeks since I last communicated and I wanted to both keep in touch and ask you for some feedback.
First of all, I am in the midst of presenting a series of interactive workshops to licensees of one of the major hotel companies. This session on differentiating one's hotel in a highly competitive market is being well received. I have also been invited to lead discussions or keynote at several associations in the coming months.
Second, I have been working with a western US University that is enhancing its hospitality program. The potential is enormous and this has been an enjoyable project to date.
Finally, I continue to contribute to a number of online publications on a range of topics with very favorable reader input. DEFINING HOSPITALITY was a short article I recently posted and your feedback on this article is my request to you. I asked readers to share their definitions of HOSPITALITY and the scope of answers has been remarkable.
My request to you is go to the link below, read the brief message and share with me (and other readers) your definitions. I believe sharing the collective definitions will add to the quality and embrace more of the tremendous diversity of roles we all play in this industry.
Here is the link and I thank you in advance for your prompt consideration.
http://ehotelier.com/browse/news_more.php?id=14587_0_11_0_C
or
http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/news/newsroom/detail.html?sid=34706
Dear Professional Friends,
I am happy to report that IECSC events has positively responded to my suggestion that education for the independent esthetician become a fixed feature of their class lineup! This is truly exciting news for our under-represented but important professional segment of the esthetics industry, and a badly needed resource for those of you that feel educators and vendors mostly pay attention to larger potential customers. Having begun my career as a solo esthetician and, other than many years as a spa owner/employer, I too knew firsthand the special concerns and needs of independent practitioners. I also know how difficult it can be to find the time to check out all possible educational resources when you personally manage the responsibilities of both treatments and business. No small task!
The IECSC asked me to submit a selection of presentation titles for the solo esthetician training track, which I enthusiastically completed. These programs are designed to help you advance your careers, locate and build clientele, improve client/practitioner communication and many other important business growth skills. I sincerely hope that you will attend as many of these classes as possible so they can be included in IECSC events long into the future!
I congratulate the organizers of the IECSC, and my friend and colleague Nancy Griffin in particular, for having the foresight and generosity to provide presentation time dedicated to the many independent estheticians that attend their wonderful shows!
Meanwhile, be sure to check out The Preston 100 Club for esthetics career mentoring guidance. The special members of this one-of-a-kind program will certainly be tomorrow's high achievers in the increasingly competitive world of professional skin care. See you there!
http://www.spaclique.com/component/option,com_groupjive/task,showgroup/groupid,12/
My best,
Douglas Preston
Preston Inc.
The Preston 100 Club
It's important that we all realize the impact such legislation will not only have on natural product companies like, Scandle Body Candle LLC, but on our rights as consumers.
Show your support and contact your local congress people today!
Hi friends,
Lisa, I and the Preston product team have been overwhelmed by the many, many e-mails and telephone calls of support regarding the unfortunate and illegal promotion many of you received from our former partner Keith West recently. The confusion and anger that ill-conceived move created among our loyal clients and colleagues has been thoroughly expressed and gratefully, if regrettably, received by us here at Preston Inc. Many of you in the spa industry have felt the sting of losing or dismissing an employee only to find that they are working overtime to attempt pulling your hard-won customers away, sometimes by stealth or deception. This is why we use non-compete clauses in our employee contracts, a means of trying to protect our valuable client relationships from this unethical activity.
Preston Private Label and Preston Inc. has been and always will be an original product, supported by caring and generous individuals that are dedicated to your business health and future. We stand by every claim and believe that nothing less than complete honesty and integrity should be offered to our industry and those among you that depend upon us and it. We've been in this field of business for 26 years now and have worked with a great many of you over that time. Our credentials are real, our history is solid and documented, and our accomplishments are neither manufactured nor inflated. We're the real article! Please make sure when dealing with others that their business values appear wholesome right from the beginning, and do not trust claims and promises that are untested and possibly not up to the quality promoted. Cloaking an advertisement in spirit and conservation does not prove anything in and of itself. Logos and photographs can be cut and pasted from anywhere. You need to know fact from fiction and should demand authenticity when you require it. We know better here and we care about you!
Thanks again for the kind letters and messages of support. Believe me, all of us here greatly and deeply appreciate every word of it! You're the best doing the best!
Scandle will be featured on Mix 100.7 in Tampa, FL tomorrow September 17th. Beauty School Wednesday airs between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. Eastern time. They stream live.
As you know, it's been a brutal hurricane season for people in pockets throughout the southern United States (luckily the hurricanes have had minimal impact here in northern Texas where Scandle is located). If you're an aromatherapist and/or aromatherapy products manufacturer, Scandle Body Candle LLC was told about a great way you can help. The United Aromatherapy Effort (UAE), a non-profit organization that was founded by aromatherapist Sylla Sheppard-Hanger in response to the 9/11 tragedy, put out a call to action this week. The UAE's mission is to provide stress relief and aromatherapy to relief workers during emergency work and afterwards. They have teamed up with Emergency Response Massage International to bring aromatherapy treatments along with massage to the disaster field in service to the responding heroes.
According to the UAE, they have immediate critical needs in response to Hurricane Season: any ready to use products including: gallons of bug spray, empty sprayers, inhalers of all types (uplifting, allergies, sinus, stress, sleep, etc.), aromatherapy sprays or roll-ons, balms, lotions, shampoos and monetary gifts.
In business, it's always a good idea to get it in writing. Whether it's a contract, the correct recipe for a new product or the directions to a new restaurant in town, you are better off always if you get it in writing. Fighting the draft of the FDA Globalization Act of 2008 is no different. Now is the time to take action and make an impact on this pending legislation, and it has to be done in writing.
Kayla from Essential Wholesale recently posted a wonderful "How To" on writing to your local and state governments about the pending legislation. Click here to find out how you can join Scandle Body Candle LLC and thousands of others (yes, we are thousands strong) take action!
Would you like a incredibly effective free marketing opportunity? Well here it is!
We have flown SpaClique off the proverbial new business run way and are now in full climb out to what we expect to be a fairly lofty cruising altitude. As with any new business there has been some bumpy air and a few surprises.
One small surprise has been the limited number of new Spa Bloggers we have. I know it's not because the Blog has gone unnoticed, as you can see by looking at the hit counter under each of the posts entered so far, most have been read hundreds of times. That probably explains why those who have contributed to SpaClique's blog, return to post again.
So just in case you didn't recognize the opportunity, let me point out again that contributing your thoughts in this area makes for some great, free advertising. Now before you go digging for you old press releases and look for the the copy and paste buttons in our text editor, know that we won't publish that kind of thing in the Spa Blog front page or in the news letter. Shameless PR post won't get read much anyway.
Good bloggers know that their content needs to be original, informative and entertaining in order to attract readers. It should also be first person conversational, letting your personality show is good thing as is your sense of humor.
We use a World Press syle format which is very easy to use and should be familiar to some of you. Getting started with your own Spa Blog is as simple as 1 - 2 - 3!
After Logging in go to follow the "My Blog" menu item on this page or the one on your "My Spa Space" page.
Enter a description of your Blog under the preferances tab.
Start writing. As you write, notice that you can insert images and You Tube clips.
Questions about blogging? Post a comment below or ask them here.
n today's cosmetics industry, there is no more pressing issue than theFDA Globalization Act of 2008. It's the wrong policy, the wrong law andthe wrong time.
On Tuesday, the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics, of whichthe Environmental Working Group is a part, issued a petiton supportingthe FDA Globalization Act and asking for even stronger legislation. Butthe law will do nothing but put small businesses out of business.
Makeno mistake about it, if passed, this will put the majority of smallcosmetics business, out of business with the stroke of a pen. Anycompany unable to move their products over to private label with us orable to shoulder the costs of the new red tape will be shut down bythis legislation if it becomes law.
Recently, when meeting with fellow business owners in the service industry, we got into an in depth discussion about managing client relationships. We were discussing how to repair a client relationship, specifically those where things have gone wrong, for example, clients whose expectations are unrealistic, clients who are abusive towards the staff and those clients who, for whatever reason, have become dissatisfied with their service.
The Wall Street Journal had run an article on entrepreneurs a few years back where I was quoted as saying,"My New Year's resolution as a business owner is to only work with people, places and things I really care about and that respect my team, work and over-all business ethics."
If you have done all your work working with your clients or business partners and have defined what you can achieve and there are still insurmountable problems, then it is time to re-evaluate whether that client is appropriate to have.
Would you like a incredibly effective free marketing opportunity? Well here it is!
Spa Blogs 
n today's cosmetics industry, there is no more pressing issue than theFDA Globalization Act of 2008. It's the wrong policy, the wrong law andthe wrong time.
