COMPUTER SOFTWARE FOR HAIR & BEAUTY SALONS & SPAS
“MORE THAN JUST TECHNOLOGY”
Every now and then an idea or concept has a life-changing effect.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we could get electricity to burn in a vacuum, inside a glass bubble” or, “how nice would it be to be able to see the characters we listen to on the radio”. Or, “what would it do for the infant mortality rate if we could eradicate smallpox”. All these were the ideas that led to the electric light bulb, television and a vaccine called penicillin.
Everything that we use today to improve our creature comforts or add to our quality of life is because someone, at some time had an idea which, through trial and error, and perseverance, they developed into things we take for granted today.
Could you imagine a world without a refrigerator, a microwave oven, a ball point pen, a cell phone, a zip, velcro.… I think you get the picture.
But what about all the ideas people have had over the years that never saw the light of day? In fact, the graveyard is probably the wealthiest place on the planet in which good ideas are buried simply because the creator didn’t have the confidence or the means to turn them into something tangible. Who knows, we might have discovered a cure for cancer, or found a reliable substitute for petrol or even solved the problem of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer… who knows!
I was first introduced to the concept of ‘IMAGINEERING’ by Jeanette Wagner, International Vice President for Estee Lauder. She challenged every brand and every brand manager throughout the world to come up with new ideas born of one’s imagination rather than continue to do the same things over and over again and expect the results to be different. ‘IMAGINEERING’, as you’ve probably worked out, is the ability to build something from your imagination.
This is not a new concept. Edward De Bono coined the phrase ‘Lateral Thinking’ to stop people relying on conventional wisdom to solve current problems. The problem with conventional wisdom is that it suggests the way to solve problems is only from experience. De Bono suggests that conventional wisdom will give you one answer to a problem but lateral thinking or, thinking ‘out of the box’ will open up a number of possibilities that often produce much better results.
During the 80’s I ran a chain of 19 salons in South Africa for Essanelle, on off-shoot of Seligman & Latz which was one of the biggest chains of salons in the world. My CEO was an American lawyer based in London named Arthur Fabricant. Every time I had a telephone conference planned with Arthur I would have carefully prepared all my questions for him and made a list of all the suggestions I would make to deal with various situations. And every time Arthur Fabricant would show me a different approach that would give us a better result. He was a true lateral thinker.
Two shoe salesmen cam to Africa from Europe to find A market for their shoes. The one noticed Africans didn’t wear shoes in those days and concluded, there’s no market here while the other, noticing nobody wearing shoes, ordered a shipload be sent as soon as possible.
One of the most inspiring stories I read was that of New York cop John McCormack. In the 80’s John met and married a hairstylist from Houston. He left the police force, moved to Texas and founded a group of salons called Visual Changes. From the beginning John was different. He created a culture that both clients and stylists wanted to belong to. He created an incentive scheme that allowed successful stylists to earn serious money. As they became more and more important for the group he allowed top takers to acquire equity in the group. He experimented with beauty packages that allowed clients to save money while at the same time, spend more money. John led from the front. His main job was cheerleader, to wave the flags, blow the trumpets and keep people behind the brand. Eighty percent of his time was spent unblocking the obstacles that prevented his staff from performing at their best. He worked for his staff as much as they worked for him. And when times got tough, instead of cutting back, he increased his advertising and promotional budgets, he acted as though there was no recession and guess where people wanted to go to have their hair done? Visual Changes.
The most important point to this article is that we must learn to live from our imagination, not from our memories. Children are willing to try almost anything because they don’t know what it is to fail. They are not bogged down with memories of past attempts and past failures. We only learn to fail by trial and error but we also learn to succeed from the same. In fact you could say successes are measured by failures. We must learn to remember our successes before our failures and to not allow conventional wisdom to stop us from trying new things.
Trust your heart, don’t be afraid to reach out to something new.
Let gratitude determine your attitude and your attitude will determine your altitude.
Go ahead, get your hopes up. Even if things turn out differently than you imagined, you will have
tried, you will have learned and you will have grown. You will also never have to live with regrets.
Work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt and dance like nobody’s
Smoking Cessation Program Dental Hygiene Students Marie Paulis, RDH,BS 1 Table of Contents Lesson Plan: Smoking Cessation.3 Educational Level: Post secondary .3 Subject Dental Hygiene Clinic.3 Prepared by: Marie Paulis, RDH,BS .3 Overview and Purpose.3 Objectives.3 Ma
SUMMARY OF BENEFITS Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. Long Island University – Buy-Up 2 Preferred Provider Organization Copay Plan Annual deductibles and maximums In-network Out-of-network Lifetime maximum Pre-Existing Condition Limitation (PCL) Coinsurance Maximum reimbursable charge • Determined based on the lesser of: • the health care profession