A Beautiful Business
The road to a successful and thriving business is rarely an easy one. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to align your passions with your business endeavors. Not only does this increase your odds of building a successful enterprise, it also makes the journey a more rewarding part of the process.
Rarely does such a shining example of aligning passion with enterprise come along as strong as that of Ihloff Salon and Day Spa. Founder Marilyn Ihloffhas been following her passion since childhood. It was during these early days of youth that Marilyn would stylize her dolls with French curls and experiment with shaping wigs. This passion continued to grow while styling hair at The University of Oklahoma, experimenting with design at Miss Jackson's, along with running a private styling salon in New York City. It was just a matter of time before Marilyn would be opening her own business.
For over 25 years now Tulsa's own Ihloff Salon and Day Spa have been immersing their clientele in wellness, balance and beauty. In partnership with Aveda, Ihloff Salon and Day Spa is committed to the education of consumers on the importance of sustainability and a balanced life.This is the just the kind of business activity that gets companies noticed in these changing times. With growing success comes the need to improve branding and explore potential expansion opportunities. No small task.
Making a Difference
At the core of Ihloff Salon and Day Spa is the deep seated dedication to making a positive difference in people's lives both professionally and personally. These values resonated with Ted Cundiff, President of the SpiritBank Business Resource Center (BRC), and he started to explore how the BRC could enhance Ihloff's growing business needs.
The discovery process uncovered Ihloff Salon and Day Spa's dedication to raising the bar of the stylist industry along with a deep desire to showcase what is possible within the dynamically changing world of style, beauty and wellness. Cundiff also learned that the Ihloff management team was starting the process of refining and re-energizing their brand. The Ihloff team was simultaneously starting the process to search out potential new locations around the state and country to expand their business. And if that were not enough they were laying the ground work to open an Aveda College in the not too distant future.
Ted sat down with Business Resource Center Strategic Partners Kristen Bergman of New Media Worx and Sean Griffin of Vizalution. Their charter was to work with the Ihloff management team to enhance their re-branding process along with creating a shared vision with the evolving business goals and objectives of Ihloff Salon and Day Spa. The BRC team knew right away that this business challenge would benefit from the power of graphic facilitation. The Marketing and Business Development Game Plan was chosen based upon the process's visually driven ability to accelerate desired outcomes, create shared vision, and motivate people into positive action.
Accelerating Business Growth
The Marketing and Business Development Game Plan is an approachable, visually enhanced, strategic planning workshop that allows participants to uncover hidden opportunities, refine processes, identify areas for improvement, improve branding communications and create realistic action plans.
The Ihloff management team was graphically facilitated through the following marketing critical questions:
- Current Marketing and Business Development Activities
- Product
- Promotion
- Selling
- Where Do We Want to Go With our Marketing and Business Development?
- How Are We Going to Get There?
- Action Plan: 1 Week/ 1 Month/ 6 Months/ Future
'A big Wow! The visuals created an environment where our future visions and goals became clearly understood by the entire management team. The result is a highly motivated and enrolled team working together to create a better Ihloff Salon and Day Spa.' Ihloff shared.
The Road Ahead
With updated strategies and action plans the Ihloff team now has more mission critical tools to support them as they move forward on their business journey. 'The ability to visually represent your ideas and create shared vision tied to solid business practices is a powerful force when growing your business.' says Cundiff.
What business planning tools are you using to grow your business? Carving out the quality time to plan for your businesses future can be challenging. 'If I had one piece of advice for a small business it would be to keep your plan fresh while staying focused on increasing your bottom line performance.' states Cundiff. When you take the time to balance planning and action you are able to uncover hidden opportunities, stay a few steps ahead of the pack, see the road ahead more clearly, and increase your business performance.
With a keen eye towards the future of caring, beauty, and wellness, Ihloff Salon and Day Spas will be leading the industry for many years to come. And what could more beautiful than that.
To learn more about Ihloff Salon and Day Spa visit their Web site at http://www.ihloffspa.com/
To learn more about New Media Worx or Kristen Bergman visit their Web site at www.newmediaworx.com
To learn more about Vizalution or Sean Griffin visit these Web sites www.vizalution.com or www.seangriffin.com
For more information about the SpiritBank Business Resource Center and the Marketing and Business Development Game Plan contact Ted Cundiff at tcundiff@spiritbank.com
Source: Eric Shiarla