SESSIONS

The 2009 call for presentations has closed.  However, in December we will be accepting applications for the 2010 Conference.  Please check back at that time.

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30+ Tools, Tips, and Techniques for Hiring and Retaining Top Talent in Today's Turbulent Times

Presented by: Mel Kleiman, CSP 

• The best and most overlooked source of great, proven employees and how to tap into it.
• The most important question to ask everyone who refers an employee to you.
• The four major things that "A" players are looking for in a job. (It is not money.)
• The #1 way to reduce turnover without spending a dime.
• Where to find all the great employees you want to have on your team.
• How to identify a worker's comp problem before you hire it.
• The most important question every new employee is asked after the first day on the job; what the answer needs to be and why.
• The #1 motivator that does not cost any money and every manager has 100 percent control over.
• How to turn "C"-players into "A"-players.
• A foolproof, easy way to deal with "the employee form HELL." (This one alone is worth the cost of admission.)

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Beyond a Website: Creating an Online Presence that is Meaningful

Presented by: Brett Blumenthal

• Create easy ways to drive more traffic to your Web site.
• Drive customer loyalty by providing value to the consumer beyond services and treatments.
• Expand your offerings to provide a virtual spa experience, keeping spas competitive within the digital age.
• Increase your customer loyalty.
• Gain a competitive advantage in the market place.
• Create new revenue streams.   

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Coaching Secrets for Spa Directors: Keeping Attitudes Positive and Performance Strong During Tough Times

Presented by: Kay Cannon

• Learn the secrets you need to coach your employees and yourself through these tough times.
• How do you create an oasis of tranquility when you are surrounded by budget cuts and handing out pink slips?
• How do you help your remaining employees cope with the after effects of staff reductions?
• How do you, the boss, stay positive and productive when there is so much uncertainty?

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Creating Your Future ... 10 Key Actions for Making Your Spa Career Dreams a Reality

Presented by: Lori Hutchinson and Brenda Helps

• Learn inexpensive and practical ways to self-assess your talents.
• Find out the 12 skills all employers seek in people.
• Learn how to gain and leverage transferable skills that can maximize your career options.
• Learn a strategic approach to career planning by making the right career moves.
• Gain knowledge of how to develop professional advantages to distinguish yourself.
• Shift from responsibility focus to accomplishment focus to support ongoing career progression.

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Does it Fit? Successfully Integrating Fitness Services into the Spa

Presented by: Fred Hoffman

• Get answers to the most-asked questions when integrating a fitness area into a spa.
• Learn about design, equipment, customer service and staff issues.
• Walk away with practical solutions to commonplace and potential problems.
• Learn to avoid pitfalls, keep costs down, attract new members and retain existing members.
• Discover how a top-notch fitness area can function in harmony with a spa.

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E-commerce - How to begin (and should you begin?)

Presented by: Arthur Swanberg

• Why e-commerce?
• Risks and benefits of starting an ecommerce operation.
• Build versus buy (build your own or contract it out).
• Key aspects of ecommerce (site, traffic, shipping, customer service, re-marketing).

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Finances In Real Time. How to Implement Change that Impacts the Profitability Of Your Spa

Presented by: Monte Zwang and Mark Machilis

• Identify financial issues that need to be addressed as they are occurring - not after the fact -in the on-going management of spas.
• Learn how to use existing financial tools currently available within your spa to identify, respond and implement change.
• Gain the ability to be ahead of the curve in the financial management and awareness of cost-related issues in your spa.
• Learn financial and management tools and information for implementation of cost-saving measures.

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How to Preserve Quality in a Shifting Economy

Presented by: Denise Vitiello 

• Cut the fluff without sacrificing service.
• Motivate your team through change while maintaining brand image.
• Keep your finger on the pulse of changing clients.
• Create opportunities to build your business during downturns.

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If You Can Measure It, You Can Manage It!  Achieving Maximum Profitability and Productivity

Presented by: Jaime Huffman

• Identify essential drivers of profitability for your spa.
• Analyze and monitor the data that demonstrate your profitability.
• Configure your scheduling software system for maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
• Rethink the configuration of your spa software system to maximize profits.
• Analyze data to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in maximization and utilization of treatment rooms.
• Learn to produce reports that will demonstrate staff productivity.

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Integrating Spa Services in the World of Medicine

Presented by: Suzie Foote

• Learn to access the medical community to increase your spa service sales.
• Use flex and cafeteria plans to pay for massage therapy.
• Interact with local medical facilities.
• Work together with Western medicine to provide Eastern therapies that work clinically on your clients' state of well-being.

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Living and Leading On Purpose in Uncertain Times

Presented by: Richard Leider

• Learn how meaning is what sustains you during uncertain times.
• Discover how to live and lead from the core and why purpose is essential to your renewal and vitality.
• Get clarity around life and leadership.
• Leave with practical takeaway tools to use in coaching others.
• Learn how to leverage purpose to create resiliency and energy.
• Learn how to provide support and optimism to your clients or team, today.
• Learn how to help others navigate this time of uncertainty.

Media Panel: Insider Tips From Leading Journalists: How to Get Their Attention

Presented by: Peter Kerr

• Walk away with the insider tactics required to get the attention of top journalists.
• How many times have you wanted to get into the mind of a journalist? This is your opportunity to ask the questions that can make a huge difference in your media and publicity planning.
• Learn how to tailor your pitches to different types of media outlets (TV, print, etc) and various topics they cover (travel, wellness, cuisine, health, etc.)

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Organics Versus Synthetics: A Friendly Debate

Presented by: Ada Polla and Mary-Elizabeth Gifford

A spirited conversation between Ada Polla, CEO of Alchimie Forever, a Swiss medically-formulated anti-aging skin care line and Mary-Elizabeth Gifford, principal of The Farm at Pantrepant, a plant-based skin care collection grown on a 2,500 acre family farm in Jamaica.

• Come join a discussion that will ask:
• How do you make educated decisions about skincare?
• How do you distinguish between what is fact and what is hype?
• How do you navigate the product landscape and claims made by skincare lines?
• How do you navigate the various standards governing organics and synthetics?
• What are the priorities juggled by today's spa goers?
• How does your approach to skincare help tell your spa's story?

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Proven Client Retention - Loyalty and Rewards Programs that Work!

Presented by: Lisa Starr

• Not all clients are the right clients. Learn methods for identifying the ideal clients for a rewards program.
• Walk away with tactics to implement a program that will improve retention of loyal clients, lower external marketing costs and increase customer satisfaction.
• Learn to collect and use feedback from your core client group.
• Target brand development activities and refine loyalty programs.
• Remain fresh and relevant and produce the desired results: long-term retention of your clients.

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Putting the Wow Back into Customer Service

Presented by: Donna Hutchinson

• Learn how to climb the customer service ladder.
• Uncover the true minimum requirements for exceptional customer service.
• Understand the impact of how low-quality service affects sales and customer loyalty.
• Learn the four rungs to first-rate service.
• Uncover how each rung in the customer service ladder can accelerate business growth.
• Review the seven integral steps to successful customer service.
• Become the "master of magical moments" and increase your profitability.
• Build the ten commandments of customer service to ensure that initiatives put in place have systems that are replicable.

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Renew, Re Energize, Re Engage

Presented by: Bertice Berry, PhD

• Outline and define ways to reassess the individuals purpose and mission.
• Determine how the mission of the individual aligns with that of the company they serve.
• Provide tools for increasing energy and productivity for those who have been "left to carry the load."
• Provide tools for realigning team members with each other for a more effective work environment.
• Provide tools for effectively getting back to basics, while increasing the impact of new technology. (In other words, slowing down while speeding up.)

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Retail Techniques To Help You Work Smarter, Not Harder

Presented by: Crystal Gryniuk

• Walk away with easy-to-implement, cost-effective retailing tactics that are certain to increase sales. Simple "tricks of the trade" such as changing verbiage will provide dramatic results.
• Get specific suggestions in these categories: personality traits of your consumers, creating goals and incentives, qualifying your guest, opening and closing a sale, strategically down-selling (not up-selling), the spin factor, the art of display and diversity.
• Learn to recognize soft-sell and cross-sell opportunities throughout your spa that will garner attention and generate sales.
• You will be challenged to implement the appropriate suggestions.
• Create a proposed 2010 business calendar. Learn proven planning protocols including seasons, holidays, regional specifics, world events and editorial happenings.

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Romancing the Clock.  Minutes Count: Taking Control of Your Day Through Effective Time Management

Presented by: Marvin Karlins

• Learn why time management, as it is traditionally taught and practiced, fails to enrich your life.
• Discover why it's important to enjoy the time you have.
• Learn a set of eight action steps you can take right now to love the life you live.
• Learn that effective time management is measured not in terms of hours saved, but in terms of hours spent in joyful living.

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Sales Detox:  How to Soften the Lines of Your Sales Process and Firm Up Your Customer Relationships

Presented by: Noah Rickun

• The Principles of Sales Greatness
• What Customers REALLY Want
• How to Generate New Business Through Positive Referrals
• How to Upsell Products and Services
• Service is the Reputation for the Next Sale
• The Value of a Memorable Spa Experience
• The Secret to Local Market Dominance
• How Much is One Customer Worth?

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Signature for Business Success.  Strategy, Vision and Action

Presented by: DeLores Pressley

• Take 100 percent responsibility for your success.
• Accept responsibility for your past and present, yet don't let them determine your destiny.
• Create a clear vision and think strategically.
• Leverage the gifts and talents of others.
• Boldly embrace your journey as you work towards being a great leader.
• Focus on what is right first. Then and only then, you'll give attention to what needs to change or be improved.
• Create a leadership legacy worthy of remark by learning to keep your promises.

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SILK - Service in Love and Kindness.  Creating a Service Environment

Presented by: Holly Stiel

• Live by a set of values as a foundation for service
• Know the elements necessary to design and deliver SILK^TM Service
• Apply your own personal signature to every situation in alignment with the brandsignature
• See service as an act of innovation
• Make conscious choices and take responsibility for their role in effectivelymanaging business relationships
• Accept the role of a differentiator in creating signature experiences
• Apply artistry through both function and finesse

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Six Key Recession-Proof Business Builders

Presented by: Carol Phillips 

• Products - Learn what brands to stock, how many need to be on the shelf and how to guarantee retail sales.
• People - Keys to growing your talent. Get everybody rowing in the same direction. Learn when to hire and when to fire.
• Promotion - Add some zing so you hear the cash register ring. Learn proven promotions, displays and marketing strategies.
• Pricing - How people buy and why. Are you charging enough? Find out the new way shoppers are making buying decisions.
• Packaging - What is the power of your brand? Wrap and package your brand so you are top-of-mind when it comes to making a beauty buying decision.
• Penetration - Learn to get shoppers in, keep them coming, and referring their friends and family to you. Learn to maximize your "geo pull" and make your spa the big dog in town. 

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Spa + Integrative Medicine: The Future of Health and Wellness

Presented by: Dr. Brent Bauer

• Learn about the growing science supporting spa.
• See how that science validates the health benefits of many spa offerings.
• Learn about how medicine is evolving from a "sick care" model to one of health promotion.
• Learn how interventions such as yoga and meditation are being termed "integrative medicine."
• Touch the lives of the greatest number of people with a lifestyle that promotes wellness and health. This is where spa and integrative medicine meet.
• Learn about the evidence behind this unique collaboration and explore ways in which you can use this information in your own spa and in your own life.

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The Architecture of a Leader

Presented by: Peggy Stevens

• Gain the tools to start and maintain meaningful mentoring relationships both as mentor and mentee.
• Increase your self-awareness, including physical presence, etiquette and protocol skills and how they impact your overall image as a leader.
• Learn techniques to wade through the clutter of leadership continuing education.
• Identify and benefit from the best leadership books, trends and techniques.
• Develop the most effective next generation of leaders within your organization.
• Spot and nurture "employee ambassadors" within your organization and learn how they can be one of the best reflections of your leadership skills.
• Make the most of a 360 assessment for long-term professional development.

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The Spa View - Maximizing Strategies, Building Relationships & Increasing Profits

Presented by: Gina Farley-Preziosa, Paige Megna and Crystal Poe-Cabatbat

• What makes a spa director, vendor or consultant crazy when working with each other?
• What are the most successful strategies that each player can offer to be successful?
• Tools to re-shape the vendor, operator and consultant relationship triangle.
• What is the payoff? The financial ramifications of investing in a strong relationship triangle.

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Seven Principles to Fully Engage Your Customers

Presented by: Bryan Williams

• Principle 1: Be eager to serve
• Principle 2: Be welcoming
• Principle 3: Create an inclusive atmosphere
• Principle 4: Create a total experience
• Principle 5: Turn customers into ambassadors
• Principle 6: Offer a gracious goodbye
• Principle 7: Earn your customers' confidence...reap the rewards

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Turning Massage Into Gold:  Proven Ways to Generate More Spa Revenue presented by AMTA

Presented by: Debra Koerner and Eric Stephenson

• Be introduced to the key drivers for guest satisfaction within the massage experience.
• Walk away with action items to improve satisfaction and thus, revenue.
• Move towards an integrative health model.
• Leave knowing how to actively earn repeat visits from your guests using an educated massage team.
• Learn best industry practices for massage department operations.
• Leave with contacts and specific ways to achieve operational improvements.
• Achieve higher overall guest satisfaction, resulting in increased revenues, return behavior and positive word of mouth.
• Create an effective treatment planning program that will move the spa from "what can I fix for you today?" to "as we continue to work together, you will experience long-term improvement."
• Learn effective solutions for massage operational management gathered from the best spas in the industry as well as from personal experience.

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We Are Family - A Spa and Resource Partner Forum

Presented by: Lenny LaCour, Tina Berger, Alfredo Carvajal and Pete Hillman

• Vendor/Buyer relations - where are we now?
• Is the spa a profit center or is the spa an amenity to a property experience that is considered an added value?
• How involved should a vendor be in protocols, marketing, education, events and more?
• How can vendors utilize property or spa departments to stimulate sales (marketing, public relations, etc.)?
• What are some of the vendor support tools that work and why?
• What are the new trends in vendor buyer relationships?

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WEB 2.0 - Twitter and Facebook and Webinars, OH MY!

Presented by: Julie Morse-Patuleia, Darlene Fiske, Debra Roberts, Jennifer Steinhart and Loren Stone

• Understand many of the new technologies that are revolutionizing the way businesses network, communicate and market.
• Determine which technologies are most beneficial to your business.
• Gain new customers through use of cutting-edge technology.
• Improve marketing efficiency and expand marketing reach through use of new media.

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Wellness Cuisine - The Missing Link in the Spa Experience

Presented by: Laurie Erickson

• Learn to educate your staff on the importance of wellness cuisine and how it ties in with the spa experience.
• Review and update your current menus to incorporate new and fresh wellness cuisine.
• Learn to develop cooking classes and nutrition lectures for guests of your spa.
• Create a cooking demonstration-type facility.
• Create recipes, nutrition handouts and class schedule.

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