Do Everything You Do With Passion!
On my recent travels around the globe I held a seminar in Milan, Italy. I always take the opportunity to look at the people and their culture while visiting, to see what I can learn and use within my business.
This trip was probably one of my most enjoyable and memorable. Not only did I get the opportunity to visit the beautify Sicilian town that my great grandparents left when they immigrated to America in the early 1900s, but also I enjoyed two fantastic seminar days. One was in Sicily and the other, which was the actual business highlight for me, had over 150 salon owners and technicians spend the day with me and the rest of the team I traveled with. We stayed in an absolute fantastic and stylish hotel in the heart of the fashion center of Milan.
The most obvious trait I observed in Italy was the passion of the people; whatever activity they happen to participate in its how they drive, they dress, east and most importantly for me, how they feel about the nail industry.
The food in Italy was fantastic, the way the people dressed was stunning and how emotional and committed they were about the things that matter to them is something that was really noticeable — tangible. I couldn’t help thinking how the two were linked and how, if we only lived with half of the passion of the people I met in Milan, this could have an impact on our lives in and around the rest of the world.
Without a doubt if you live your life with passion and you transfer that to your business, then you will have a much better chance of being successful in the long term. I gave this a lot of thought on the way home from Italy and thought about exactly how this passion could be transferred into the day-to-day life of a salon. Of course passion for your industry, products and customers is not exclusive to the Italian people — this is a passionate industry all over the world.
We all need to make sure that our customers know how passionate we are about giving them the best service they can have from the moment they visit to the time they leave the salon/spa. We must all strive to ensure that they give the best of ourselves in everything we do and in the work that we carry out. I, for one, am going to make sure my customers and suppliers know how passionate I am about my business, how much I care about the products I supply, how much I care that you, the technicians, get the best support possible, so that you can take our passion and turn it into your own.
With word of mouth being the best form of advertising, how great would it be and how great is it, for your satisfied customers to be able to say to their friends and relatives that the person who looks after their nails is extremely passionate about the quality of service, the experience and the products that they offer.
When times are difficult and we are all looking for a way to make our customers understand the difference between the service we provide and the service our competition provides, think long and hard, and if your products are the same, you operate from your original training and have provided the same service for many, many years, why not make your passion the difference and see what effect it has on your business and your customers?