The theme of the four-day ISPA Conference and Expo (November 6 - 9, 2006) was Harmony. I look back on my experience there and realize my own personal theme was Balance (I am never quite in sync with these themes!). This year, although I could attend only three of the four days, I felt I balanced my time well among meeting and interviewing other spa professionals, the General Sessions, Professional Development Sessions, bidding on auction items, enjoying the relaxation area, visiting the Expo, and visiting a couple of new Las Vegas spas.

General Sessions
I sat in on two General Sessions. The opening session presented trends research and the Visionary Award was presented to Sylvia Sepielli. Dan Burris presented a fascinating peek at what lies in the future (and spas should be a key player in wellness). In the second general session, the Alex Szekely Humanitarian Award was presented to Dr. Michael Jacobson for his work in food labeling and awareness. The visionary panel was composed of Dr. Michael Jacobson (who spoke about the need for a greener diet with fruits, vegetables and whole grains and recommended the books Six Arguments for a Greener Diet: How a Plant-based Diet Could Save Your Health and the Environment and Night comes to the Cumberlands), Ginny Lopis (who spoke about mindfulness - the need for a greater focus on developing individual and collective consciousness and recommended the book In the Seat of the Soul), Sylvia Sepielli (who, in reference to the large number of spas, said "there is enough for everyone - the universe will provide" and recommended The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying), Arch Stokes (who talked about seeing the world as it should be - like Cervantes' Don Quixote and Aristotle's ethos, pathos and logos as they apply to spas and recommended the book The Longevity Strategy: How to Live to 100 Using the Brain-Body Connection) and Deborah Szekely (who spoke about the loss of leisure time, taking ownership of your own time, deflecting stress, the benefits and delights of slow foods and slow sex, and "The secret we share is our delight in and being part of the healing profession...the importance is people helping people."). This short presentation alone was worth the trip.

Professional Development Sessions
I attended a number of Professional Development Sessions this year. The first was Understanding Your Financial Results and Developing & Action Plan presented by Anthony Cassar CPA of the Spa Resource Group. I thank Anthony for providing each attendee with a full printout of the slide presentation. He was the only one that did of the sessions I attended. In this presentation, Anthony took a look at Financial Ratios, a Profit & Loss Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement. While he reviewed what was in each, I found the analysis of data from these report the most interesting. Just a few of the questions answered were How liquid am I?, Do I have the cash to pay my bills currently? What is my ability to pay my long term debt?, How leveraged am I?, What percentage of revenue is left to cover my bills?, What percentage of revenues is available to pay debt or owners? From the P&L - How is the spa doing? How do service and retail compare? How much of my revenue is discounted or refunded? What are my most profitable services? What can I do to change my service mix? How do packages affect my pricing? Are the numbers good or bad? What can I do to impact my numbers? Great questions and good, but short answers. A whole day on this would be well worthwhile.
Top 10 Operational Offenses: Stop Confusing What is Wanted with What Actually Works! by Leslie Lyon of Spas 2b also covered a lot of ground such as services and profitability. She provided the way to determine the average service price, cost of goods sold, gross margin, gross margin %, hourly service $, average hourly service (to be calculated for each service by department). She talked about how profit is impacted by promos, discounts, room layout, staff, menu design and upselling packages. She talked about KPIs (key performance indicators) and the things you must excel in to succeed in business - staff productivity, average service/retail sales per staff, average ticket price, % success rate from appointments (items/transaction), client retention, inventory turnover, customer conversion and much, much more. All great stuff. Another day probably would not do justice to all the material outlined here.
Marketing Advantage - Tips and Tricks from Spa Industry Professionals was a panel discussion featuring Angela Cortright, Erika Mangrum, Nina Smiley and Maurice Voce. Lots of tips and info was provided here...For instance, creating a memorable spa experience is 80% about how your clients FEEL and 20% about the service or product. The #1 form of marketing is Work of Mouth. Customer retention is customer acquisition. Brand from the inside out. Brand clarity is very important. There are 5 retail strategies that connect with the consumer: 1. Choose products that make a difference to your clients; 2. Integrate treatments and products so clients can buy products they used in the spa to take home; 3. Hire passion not technique; 4. Follow the client home with mailers, phone follow-ups, etc.; 5. Don't sell, educate!
SPA ER: Identifying Risks and Handling Incident Investigations by Tony Hirsh of Resort Hotel Association and Calvin Martin of Spa Guardian. This was, perhaps, my favorite presentation - probably because it aligns so well with SpaQuality's work. It's all about prevention!!! Among the things that your spa needs (and it was a long list) are a mission statement, org chart, personnel files, intake form, and an up-to-date policy and procedures manual. Your staff and service providers need to have credentials and certifications, safety training, knowledge of the spa's rules, procedures and protocols and more. Do they actually follow procedures? They must!!! There a lots of facility risks - slips and falls (a huge cause for litigation), fire hazards, electrical hazards, building security and lighting and more. Product liability was discussed as well as staff using their own vehicles for spa business. They discussed what it was like to go through a lawsuit against a spa and the experts you would need to consult - risk managers, spa attorney, spa accountant, service provider experts, product experts, physician, police reports, and more. "There is always one more idiot than you counted on." They talked about what to do if there is an incident and why conduct an investigation - to understand, determine the facts, preserve information, conduct a professional incident investigation, and determine if you have exposure. Details were provided. This is another topic that at least a day could (and should) be devoted to.

If you are a member of ISPA, you can see the speakers' PowerPoint presentations HERE. Anyone can purchase audio recordings and view photographs (password: spaexperience06) from the conference.

Auction
Items up for Bids at the Silent Auction Items up for Bids at the Silent Auction	Live Auction Bidding at the Live Auction

Relaxation Area
This was the first year I actually lingered in the Relaxation Area. Universal Companies provided warm neck pillows and PerfectSense Paraffin hand treatments to anyone who wanted to take a truly relaxing break - even if they didn't have an appointment for a treatment. Fortunately, I enjoyed both.

Expo
The remainder of my time at the conference was spent on the Expo floor. Over 240 vendors were there. Here are six that caught my eye: