Practical Notes for Corporate Revolution

MOMO makes me do this…

Geom Alfieri — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:20:48 +0000

Howdy guys,

Searching for Davines in Youtube.com I came across this hilarious video.

As a brand we should not underestimate the effect of a video like this! Yeah, maybe the girl had a few too many, maybe the language is not what we would use in Marie Claire, maybe the tattooed fella is not the typical testimonial for a beauty industry brand… however, this is real, honest and simple… something that people relate to easily in Social Media.

The girl is giving you a superb line talking about your product: “MOMO makes me do this…” We definitely can work with this!! What do you think?

BTW: Dora (d0rka03) is an hairstylist from US. She’s not from Mars, but one of Davines’ customer!

“Amish gone Wild” is her YouTube Channel. She uses and loves your products, took the trouble to make a video to let people know… in her own way

We love her for it!!!

What does MOMO make you do???

Get that Geek out of my SPA!

Geom Alfieri — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:46:27 +0000

A few pointers that came out during our Education Innovation Day were as follows:

1) Brands have to use a NARRATIVE approach. Telling stories means that the focus is no longer on push sales, but rather pull. Get enough buzz around, people will talk abut you and your products, right before they go buying it. Gotta get them to talk about us!

2) Surprise people and use the FUN element in a new way. Fun is a vital element for both people working for the company (remember the amazing video made by Brian!) and the end users. The beauty of unexpected can work magics in getting people to relate to your mad/courageous novelty!

Well guys, I’m still stuck in the “Why Not Inn” where you left me. Here’s a thought:

The Beauty Industry is a quite exclusive area of operation, maybe a bit stiff and dreading for many less sophisticated men like me. Certainly for most of us that are passionately active on the net (namely the ones that can really make your brand visible online) is a no-go area.

Don’t you think that often this means that Beauty Ind. is self celebratory, (auto-referenziale) and not all-inclusive. You won’t like what I’m about to say but maybe the Beauty Industry takes itself a bit too seriously

What about getting a Geek in one of your SPA and see what happens? (Geek: a Nerd like the ones in Napoleon Dynamite)

Follow the story on camera, do an interview before, during and after treatment. The potential is great and we could try this easily in 2 hours basically free of charge. Teach him about the products, he will ask questions (intelligent ones) even if he’ll feel totally uncomfortable.

What do you think guys?

Don’t just dismiss it on the basis of what you know until now… remember think of the above in your “why not” mind-set.

Let’s hear from you… At least let’s discuss it!

Social Media is people not technology

Geom Alfieri — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:06:34 +0000

This video proves what people use S.M. for:

Social Network in Plain English

Geom Alfieri — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:04:29 +0000

Another excellent K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) Presentation:

Social Media in Plain English

Geom Alfieri — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:02:25 +0000

Excellent presentation we watched together:

Welcome to the “WHY NOT INN”

Geom Alfieri — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:09:46 +0000

People always wonder WHY, we started wondering “WHY NOT” instead.

Education that nurtures creativity

Geom Alfieri — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 09:58:29 +0000

Hi guys, sometime we are just in the mood for some special words… something that help us keeping faith in what we are doing. Please take 20 minutes out of your busy day, sit down, get a cold drink and have a look at the video below:

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

“Kids would always take a chance, they’re not afraid of being wrong…

If you’re not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original

… by the time they get to become adult most kids have lost this capacity, have become frightened of being wrong. We run our company in the same way, we stigmatize mistakes. Nowadays mistakes are the worst things you can make.

The result is we are educating people out of their creative capacity”.

This man is an inspiration and a role model for many, he doesn’t sell anything (do not worry) but speaks about educating our children in a funny and clever way.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The To Do List

Geom Alfieri — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 09:40:11 +0000

At the end of the Education Innovation Day, this is the participants’ “To Do list” :

Increase pre-post classes actions (tools – post phone calls – mebership on-line
Use foursquare potential for education – spas – academies
Inviting people to our social media pages
Tutorial blog video for master trainers and final clients
New launches tutorial set up
Art of training tutorial
Iphone & Ipads for teachers
e-learning
Change way of evaluation
Surprise people
Technical videos for trainers
Blended learning on off line education
Kit of simple tools
Corporate policy on “how to teach”
Regular meetings
Create an environment which stimulates ideas
Short text on social media and web

Am I missing something?

Thanks everybody for this meeting. Your comments and thoughts are welcome!

Education is touching People

Geom Alfieri — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:48:27 +0000

“Let’s find out What’s going on?” These were the first words said by Andrea D. while welcoming us at the event.

That’s a good start! 12 people locked up in the beautiful Borgo del Casale discussing how corporate business could evolve through Education and innovation.

Dieter and Alison from Urban Healing were the first to have a go. Here’s an abstract from their excellent presentation:

“Half of population lives in hurban city, stress pollution noise, detached from nature. By nature we are all regenerating ourself, but in hurban centers healing get’s difficult, nourture one self is important.

We should focus on People development, well being at work, sustainability, ethical responsibility, service eccellence as much as Business skills (i.e.Finance, marketing).

Trainer development: should help people to apply structures, in delivery (techniques),Leadership development: SPA management programme

Wellness inventory: online portal to monitor progress within a company

Service eccellence, service philosophy development (similar approach in different SPA of same group)

Both Comfort Zone and Davines have Great products and amazing rituals. Training should trasfer this amazing experience to both clients and final customers.

Currently corporate Focus is: 70% Rituals 30% business

An Innovative, forward looking approach (nothing seen before) should be 2 way, partecipative (50/50).

We should also assess versus CRITIRIA, using standards and audience participation (feedback).

The Focus should be on products as much as service, guest, colleagues.

Training should be about “Communicating a message and an experience”.

Standards should be put in place to evaluate your trainer programme. How often do you check what your trainers are doing?

Target: Business goals, quality standard, recognition, goals, business goals. How to set this strategy?

Who is your customer? distributors, end users, (all of them)… do you know what they want? Do you have a feedback? Do we know what do they want?

A clever training strategy includes customer expectation into our strategy

Time to be innovative:

HOW DO WE ENGAGE PEOPLE?

Before the training: e-learning (learn-lead)

ELEMIS: They use Distance Learning, Online training prior physical training … before they go to the physical training they attend a course online.

(reduce cost, give consistency, engage people before you meet them)

Engage people before they come along to the event, use content (blogs) and video/pictures (Flickr, Picasa, YouTube)

Pre reading, required to do before the training. Getting them excited beforehand.

Cards pre course, smart inspiring image and questions, have a two way interaction, embed knowledge (making it stick)

Some Good practice:

Customer focus, behaviour (what do people say and how to enable them to project the image you want of the brand). Do we tell our people really what we expect?

Prepare a service journey (programme) to set standards, consistency…. they reverse it in a way that a customer speaks to you. Make it personal and immediate; use the “Smile at me” approach (rather than smile to the customer typical of a coldhearted manual). Make it real and use the language!

Consistency:

How do you ensure that when the trainer leaves, the message is clear and expectations are met (what if trainee doesn’t follow teaching?).

Getting trainee to think about how they get perceived by showing them videos (example of a bad way and good way shown to us). Videos are a great tool to make trainee aware of their own behaviour; furthemore once prepared they can be easily replicated in the future (cost effective in the long run).

MAKE IT FUN:

If things are fun people would remember it!!

Body language, how do we project ourself to a client… use real pictures, real images from real moments. DON’T TELL… SHOW!

EXCERCISE: Pick an animal to chose a team… comment with stickers some pictures on the wall

EXCERCISE: Some stickers that represents ingredients of a products. in 2 minutes, 2 teams, give them a product and get them to attach the right stickers next to the products (Brazil, Caffeine, Coconuts…etc) and do the same with property of product (what do they do, i.e. coconut stimulate anti-aging).

Create crosswords, is a different way to stimulate people while teaching them.

COMMITTMENT:

How do you gain their commitment to your teaching?

Post card (shown before) becomes the close. They write something down and at the end it goes to their managers (gotta take it seriously!)

Get them to send you back feedback (compulsory) within 45 days… learning continues after training.

ESPA people, when completing training then you get access to the portal (suggestion… even Facebook Education page)

They have it with DAVINES (once certified) but people don’t use it. Hence integrating content with Facebook, YouTube etc can be an idea. Don’t force them, make them choose where to participate.

THE SALES comes from the way you interact with your clients.

How do we want our people to behave with clients later on, has to be made clear already in the training room. Use scents and lights (the same you will find in the SPA) during training, make them comfortable with the product scent they’ll be surrounded with once in the workplace.

TRAINER DEVELOPMENT

Train the trainer programme, for 7 days you train rithm, flow, connection, feel…You teach them how to touch a client, and it has to be spot on!

WHAT TO DO:

Show them how education make profit (recognition). Use customers’ experience. How do you assess and measure customer experience? Through their feedback, following, viral promotion by telling their experience, repetitive buying. Once you do, you can use it with your distrubutors.

Concluding: To have innovative training

FOCUS ON CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
KNOW WHAT THEY WANT
HAVE PROPRE TRAING STRATEGY
CLEAR TRAINING STRUCTURE (ABROAD OR ITALY SHOULD BE THE SAME)
TRAING MATERIALS (THE BEST IN THE INDUSTRY, CLEVER, THAT WORKS)
MAKE SURE TRAINERS ARE THE BEST TRAINED IN THE INDUSTRY
QUALITY ASSURANCE AND FOLLOW THROUGH