Spa’s Staff Discovers the Beauty of Loyalty
Not too many day spa owners get into the beauty industry by way of the U.S. Air Force, but that’s exactly what Joe Wong did. His unusual career path--from helping NASA develop satellite repair technology to owning a luxury day spa--has both helped him and been a challenge, Wong says. When his young company faced a crisis, the team-building skills he learned in the military came to the fore. Wong was interviewed by freelance writer Karen E. Klein.
When I left the Air Force, I had valuable security clearances and a lot of great contacts. My wife and I had always wanted to own our own business, so the plan was for me to help her get a family company started and then get a job in the aerospace industry.
That was more than a dozen years ago, and I’m still running a day spa. I went to my 10-year reunion at the Air Force Academy and found that some of my classmates had been in Desert Shield or were flying for commercial airlines. A bunch of guys came up to me and said, “So, we hear you’re selling lingerie!”
“No,” I told them, “I’m selling shampoo.”
Once I got over the culture shock of going from being surrounded by engineers and military personnel who were 80% to 90% male and then working with beauty spa employees who are 80% female, I found that the toughest part of being an entrepreneur was the lack of structure. In the Air Force, if I told someone I needed a report on my desk at a certain date and time, it would show up, done right. I didn’t have to persuade people to do what I asked--especially if I outranked them.
In a day spa, the personnel tends to be creative and free-thinking. The average employee turnover in this industry is about eight months, and the mind-set of employees toward management tends to be adversarial. The salon employees are artists, and most of them are freelancers who develop a client following and then resent management for making a profit off their customers.
What I learned at the Air Force Academy was leadership and how to build loyalty and an effective team. I used those skills to pass on the big picture to my employees and show them how they fit into the company as a whole. I learned that if I could educate them on what it takes to run a successful day spa, we could be partners instead of adversaries.
So, once a year we hold a symposium with an open-book review on the company’s performance and demonstrate business realities, so the employees can see exactly what it takes in advertising, education, marketing and rent to run a spa that draws customers like ours does. We also talk over our goals for the next five to 10 years, including them in sharpening our strategic plan.
Along with education, we also provide a rationale for why employees should work here. We offer profit-sharing and pension plans and a strong employee benefits program that are not common in this industry. We built in some commitment from the company to the individual, and then we started getting that commitment back. As a result, most of our core group of employees--probably 35 people--have been here between eight and nine years, which is really unusual.
The kind of effective team we built was essential when we were evicted unexpectedly from our location in January 1996. We had put in $300,000 worth of tenant improvements there, and we wound up getting sued. Instead of keeping the problem to myself, I held a team meeting to explain what was happening. Communication was key. I’ll never forget how one of the employees stood up and said: “It doesn’t matter where we’re at. As long as we’re together, we can do anything.” That really meant a lot to me and showed how well the team had developed.
We settled with our landlord in June 1996, and we had four months to find a location, make it suitable for our business and move. We planned for a 10% to 20% loss of revenue during the transition, but we were closed only two days before we reopened at our new location. We found that rather than dropping, our revenue went up 30% immediately. We didn’t lose a single employee during the transition, even when other companies tried to steal our employees by spreading rumors that we were going out of business. It was pretty amazing.
If your business can provide a lesson to other entrepreneurs, contact Karen E. Klein at the Los Angeles Times, 1333 S. Mayflower Ave., Suite 100, Monrovia, CA 91016, or at kklein6349@aol.com. Include your name, address and telephone number.
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At A Glance
Company: Amadeus Spa Inc.
Owners: Joe and Tina Wong, Bill and Gigi Chow
Nature of business: Day spa and salon
Locations: 799 E. Green St., Pasadena 91101; 978 Avocado Ave., Newport Beach 92660
Web site: https://www.amadeusspa.com
E-mail address: amadeus@pacbell.net
Year founded: 1986
Employees: 100
Annual revenue: $3.85 million
