What are the Three C's Of Your Business?

When I was developing The Men's PowerSpa - one of the first spas for men in the world - there were three concepts which formed the holy trinity, if you will, of my philosophy and approach: commitment, consistency and continuity.

"Commitment" can mean many things in a business, but in my business I defined it to mean three things: our commitment to our clients, my commitment to my staff, and my staff's commitment to the business. We could have added other forms of commitment, including the staff members' commitment to each other, but I like to think in groups of three.

I defined "consistency" in the spa as a reliable and predictable level of quality of the client experience. In other words, I wanted to ensure that our clients could always count on the same quality in their treatments and in customer service. I didn't want them to have a great experience one time and an inferior experience the next time.

Finally, I defined "continuity" to mean a feeling of progression from one visit to another. Whether a client was coming into the spa for a skin care service, a massage, or a hand or foot care service , we were very careful to make him feel that his service or services would pick up from the point of his last visit - and that the service provider was aware of any issues or special concerns that he might have. There can be no progress from one visit to another in a spa if you are constantly having to start back at the beginning every time.

The Three C's were more than fancy words and concepts - the were values that informed many if not all of the decisions that I made while I was developing and running the spa. If I hadn't believed that consistency and continuity were crucial to the success of my business, I would not have worried about hiring and retaining the best full-time staff - all I would have cared about was whether or not I had a service provider to offer a service at any given time. I might have hired a number of part-time people, who might have been cheaper, if all I had cared about was having someone available - I know of a number of businesses that operate that way. You never seem to see the same face twice.

What are "The Three C's" of your small business? That is, what are the key values that form the cornerstone of your philosophy - and inform the decisions that you make as to how to run your business? They don't have to start with the letter "c" of course, but they should be important enough for you to feel that you cannot compromise on them without undermining your prospects of success.

Once you have defined these fundamental values, make sure that everyone knows and accepts them - staff, partners, investors.