Vegas and iSpa was a blast – check out my personal social media pages for an update of the fun.
My biggest takeaway from the entire conference?
BECOME UNREASONABLE.
Is that a weird thing to say?
OK, let me clarify… Become unreasonable in your delivery!
Will Guidara, restauranteur of the world number one spot, Eleven Madison Park, shared his lessons about service and leadership in a POWER keynote. It centered around taking ordinary transactions and transforming them into memorable experiences.
How did he do it?
… by becoming UNREASONABLE.
I’m always looking for ways to be unforgettable and teach this in every aspect of running your spa and salon business. But Will has me hooked on my new favourite word. So, I’m going to focus on ways that we can deliver unreasonable service and memories to our clients.
How do we do this in our Industry?
This is the question everyone wants answered. So, over the next couple of months this will be a recurring theme in all our coaching sessions. Whatever the topic, we are going to dig deep and discover how to make it UNREASONABLE. This has got me more fired up than you can imagine. Guaranteed it will help you transform your business and result in more money and referrals!
While we are on this point, before I tell you a little more about my ISPA discoveries, please diarise the following coaching session dates.
That’s May 25, June 8, June 20 and July 18. Don’t forget to mark them in your calendar!
Let me quickly share the main highlights of my ISPA discoveries.
1. Red Light Therapy
This seems to be growing and changing from a facial LED or red light to a full body treatment with many health benefits. There are now mats or red light blankets that can be upsold during facials or massages for added full body benefits. There are also red light therapy pods offering a totally therapist free treatment that can be booked every 30 minutes as the session is only 15 minutes.
2. Salt Therapy or Halotherapy
Salt therapy or Halotherapy inhalation rooms are also making waves. With major health benefits too, again a relatively small space is sufficient to deliver this experience. You can combine sound therapy or VR during salt inhalation to offer a full treatment. What amazed me is that I was sneezing and had a congested runny nose, went into the salt inhalation room for 10 minutes and afterwards I had no congestion and my headache was gone. It was actually incredible.
3. Organic, Natural, Freshly Farmed Ingredients
This was definitely a highlight. Everything is more natural and more organic and more vegan and even freshly farmed at the source of manufacturing. This is an area to watch even though interestingly for me all the samples I took with me to try are glorious but I found them all to be unstable meaning a lot of separation and smells turning rancid and products really smelling terrible. So I guess the way forward is to figure out how to keep these natural formulas from getting unstable and separating and going rancid. Watch this space! Even natural materials like salt is being used to make tools like salt stones instead of traditional stones to massage with. I see a lot more tapping into nature and getting more creative on the rise.
4. Sound Therapy
Sound therapy seems to be a hit this year. With all sorts of sound being added to different modalities. For example sound chimes, singing bowls, head sets with specific sound therapy added to salt inhalation, red light therapy, even massage tables and pedicure chairs coming with added sound options. Sound and smell has always been a focus for me and I was so happy to see that finally the senses are the leaders in creating memorable experience. In fact, I know you can use the senses to become unreasonable in your delivery to make you number 1!
5. Fabrics and Spa Wear
This really surprised me! I have never seen so many gown options from styles to fabrics as well as spa wear. Yes, clothing to wear to a spa or at a spa. I loved this and cannot wait to see this evolve into a category of its own. I see a whole spa wear movement happening soon.
I’m going to unpack and expand on my discoveries at our next coaching session on May 25. Be sure to JOIN US to hear all the amazing stories I collected for you, plus all our exclusive photos, and ideas on how to incorporate some of these discoveries into your offering. And yes, we are going to use these learnings to become unreasonable!
See you soon!