174. One Road Forward

Speaker A: You are listening to the wellness and Hospitality podcast. I'm your host, son Louberoy. Episode 174 One Road 4. Welcome to the wellness and hospitality podcast where it's all about genuine wellness, true hospitality and real people. I'm, um, your host, global wellness expert, life coach and author, sonaluberoi. Hello and welcome to today's episode. I hope you're all doing amazingly well from whichever part of the world you are listening. Today's episode is another one for my wellness professionals out there. Those wellness leaders, visiting practitioners, coaches. Those of you looking to build your own boutique wellness advisory or, uh, consultancy business. There are many ways to make money as a wellness consultant. You can become an internal consultant for a company, or you can work project by project. Or you can carve out a specialist niche of your own. All of these paths can work, but you cannot build momentum while trying to walk down all of them at once. When I started consulting more than 18 years ago, I tried to do everything. I became an internal consultant for a Spanish hotel company. I took on project based work helping a boutique hotel open their spa. And at the same time, I began creating what would eventually become my own education platform and specialist methodology. And on paper, it looked like I was creating multiple opportunities, but in reality, I was running in several different directions. I took whatever came my way and measured success by how much work I could collect. But when the financial crisis hit Spain in 2012, I had to return to full time employment and move to another part of the world. Looking back, one of the biggest reasons was that I had never chosen one clear path. I wanted to be on all of them. And when you keep jumping from one path to another, you never stay on one long enough to learn what works, develop the right skills, or create sustainable momentum. Um, that experience taught me a lesson I have never forgotten. All roads may lead to Rome, but you still have to choose one. In today's episode, we uncover three things. One, the three paths available to wellness consultants. You can become an internal consultant, working closely with one company and advising them from the inside. You can become a project based consultant coming in for a defined period of time to deliver a specific result for a fixed fee. Or you can become a specialist consultant, carving out your own niche, methodology and way of working. None of these paths is inherently better than the others. The right path is the one you choose and commit to. Two, why constantly changing direction keeps you put. When clients do not come quickly, it is tempting to assume that you have chosen the wrong path. So you change your offer, uh, your positioning and your audience, and you can even start again. But I assure you, every path comes with its own challenges. What looks easier from the outside will still require you to learn how to communicate your value, solve the right problem, and deliver a result your client cares about. Changing direction. Every time something feels difficult does not create progress, it delays it. And lastly, we will uncover why commitment matters more than choosing perfectly. You do not need to find the perfect path, but you do need to choose a path and stay with it long enough to learn what it can teach you. Like choosing a route in Google Maps, there may be several ways to reach the same destination. Some may be faster, some may be longer. Some may include unexpected traffic or road closures. That does not mean you chose incorrectly. It simply means that the route has challenges you could not have predicted and progress begins. Testing and M Progress begins when you choose one road and start moving. By the end of this episode, you will understand the three main paths available to you. As a wellness consultant, you will be able to see which path best fits where you are today, the type of work you want to do, and the business you want to build. You will also understand why choosing one road does not mean committing to it forever. It means committing to it long enough to develop the skills, experience and confidence you need to make it work. Most importantly, you will see that clarity does not come before action. Clarity comes from choosing a path, walking it, and learning as you go. So, without further ado, here's a clip from my recent LinkedIn Live where I delve deeper into the first step of making money as a wellness consultant, and that is choosing a path and sticking with it long enough to see results. Hello and welcome to today's session. I hope you're all doing amazingly well from whichever part of the world you are watching today, I'd like to talk about the one road forward and today's session is particularly relevant to those wellness professionals. So you're either wellness directors, practitioners of some modality of wellness, or simply you're someone who's been in the hospitality industry or a related industry and you want to become a consultant and you want to turn the expertise that you have spent years building and something you know you're very good at and you want to convert that into a business that people understand value and are willing to pay for. And this also applies to my hotelier friends out there who want to create a wellness offering. It's equally valid because ultimately what you want to do is build a m wellness business that makes you money. Hoteliers want to build their wellness offering that will make them money because ultimately they want to attract the right talent, they want to deliver their guests remarkable experience and they want hotels that are highly profitable. They're enjoying this stellar performance. And as wellness professionals, you want to make money as a wellness consultant doing things you love doing, working with clients who love working and doing this all on your terms and on um, whatever from wherever you want to be in the world and charging the prices you think are right. All the while you're enjoying the quality of life that sometimes you wouldn't have had in day to day operations, be you a practitioner or a leader of a wellness business. So ultimately you all want to make money with wellness. So going back to my wellness professionals, here is what I see time and again. I see wellness leaders or uh, who are transitioning into consulting run in several different directions. They literally take whatever comes their way and they think that is starting off with consulting and let me just take the leap and see where it leads me. And becoming a consultant and making money as a wellness consultant requires a bit more strategy than that. It requires you to actually think about what is it that you're offering, who you're offering it to, what transformation you're going to build them. And you have to make this endure over time. The first step to ensure that you are creating a business that is going to endure is choosing one road forward. I remember when I started consulting, this is over 18 years ago. I had first started off, I signed a company, I signed a deal with the Spanish company to help them Spanish hotel chain. And I helped them set up their wellness operations, help them opening all the new spas that they were opening way back then. Many hotels were opening all with wellness operations in them and they needed someone to help them do that. So I literally became their internal consultant, their internal advisor for the brand, what wellness or what spa brand they wanted to create. And then I also found at the same time someone approached me, a boutique hotel owner and they wanted me to help them open this spa operation for them. So it is literally to come in, help them open the spa operation, mentor them for a few months and then they were good to go on their own. So I had that kind of project based role that I was sent to. And then on top of that I started creating my kind of starting of what we would later call today the Wellness Asset Academy, then the wellness consultant blueprint. I wanted to create my own education platform based on my experience in the industry. So not based on any theory. So I wanted to go and carve out a niche of My own. So I wanted to become very specialist in education and specifically for leaders. And I found that I was running in all directions possible, taking any business that would come my way. And that is how I measured my success. However, four years later, when we had this terrible crisis hit Spain, I was forced to go back into full employment, full time employment, and I had to go to a completely different part of the world. And all of that was down to my inability to, to choose a path. I wanted to be in all paths in order to make money as a wellness consultant. And what that experience taught me was that there are actually three paths or roads you can take as a wellness consultant. Irrespective of the fact if you're a practitioner and you are more the provider of wellness services or you are more looking, you're focusing more on the business aspect of the wellness business. The three paths are, uh, one, the internal consultant. You are taken on by a company, by a hotel and you are advising them on what wellness offering, what wellness concept or what kind of wellness services you can offer their employees. Then you have the project based consulting where you come in for a specific period of time, you deliver a very specific result and for a close fixed fee. So there is a start date, there is an end date and there is a fixed fee. You come in, get your job done and you go. It's clean cut. An example of that would be come and be a visiting practitioner in my hotel for the summer season or the high season, or help me come and open my spa or set it up. There's a clear start date and a clear end date until you're called in for your next gig. And the last form is that specialist consultant, that person who has carved out their own niche, that person has their own methodology of working and they have actually using that to sell themselves. And an example would be my essence model everything based around the wellness asset. That's very specific. Talking about creating wellness offerings that not only are brilliant, but also commercially sustainable long into the future. That asset that contributes positively, both tangibly and intangibly. And what I have learned in all these years in the industry, all paths lead to Rome. Um, you can make money on all paths. There is no right or wrong path. All of these paths lead to wrong. However, you have to choose one path. You can't skip from one day internal to tomorrow project to the other day. You try to flirt around with specialist. You can't jump from path to path because if you do that, you will never ever reach Rome. You will never ever get to your Destination, you will never, ever make a sustainable wellness business. You never make money sustainably as a wellness consultant. So you have to choose a path and stick with it long enough so that you learn what you need to learn. Get your success on that one path, and once you've achieved it, you move on to the next. Now, I know you probably thinking Sonal, what if it doesn't work out? What if I'm not signing clients? Obviously that path's not for me. I'm going to go and move on to the other one. Now, here is some tough love from my side. No path you choose is going to be free of its challenges, free of its nuances. Absolutely not. What looks easier, I promise you will have its challenges. At one point, it doesn't matter how long it takes you to make the money. What matters is you learn the skills in order to make it. So. It's literally like thinking, I don't know what you have in your part of the world, but I use Google Maps in my car and when I want to get to a certain destination, I just plug in the coordinates and tell them I want to get there. And then Google Maps churns out a number of routes to get there. Some are shorter, some are longer, and again, it depends so much on the time of the day, time of the year. Where am I? Is a special event happening in town? Are there road closures? So many things. It's dependent on so many things. But Google Maps just calculates a number of routes that could take me to the destination and then what I have to do before I even move the car to get instructions, to get to where I want to, I have to pick the route I want to take. Now I could go and pick a route thinking that it's the fastest route. And then while I'm going there, there's an accident and there's kilometer long traffic. And there's no way I could have planned for that. Because life happens Now. That doesn't mean that I chose the wrong route or that I didn't plan well. It's just that this is what tends to happen. Things don't quite turn out the way you expected them to, but you eventually do get to the destination, always provided you're willing enough to stick at it for long enough in order to see that success, in order for you to make money on that chosen path. And that is the number one thing you have to do as a wellness professional when you're transitioning into consulting. One road forward, all routes might lead to Rome, but you cannot be on all of them. If you want to move forward, progress only comes when you choose one route and you start walking on it. So the first step to turning your years of expertise into a business that people understand value and are, uh, very willing to pay for is first making the most easy decision. Choose your path. Are you going to be that internal consultant? You're going to work internally with a company, get so absorbed in that company and advise them as to their best wellness strategy? Or you're the only one offering their employees wellness services? Or do you want to be project based? You come in for a fixed period of time, deliver very specific result, and you get out. And all of that for a fixed fee, no hidden fees. Or lastly, do you want to carve art? Carve out your own niche, your own methodology, your own way of doing wellness that no one else does. Your niche, your specific methodology, and you stick to that. Once you choose your road, you start moving forward, you start taking action to get you closer to your destination. Your goal of making money as a wellness consultant, your Rome. And when you're clear about where you are headed and you're equally clear that I'm going to take this path, because it really doesn't matter which path I take, because all of them will lead me to Rome eventually. Once you choose that path, you start focusing on what matters. You start getting curious about your client, you start solving the problem, you start ensuring that you are delivering them remarkable service. And that is how you make money as a wellness consultant. That is the first step. And based on this step, all the other steps are built on this strong foundation of choosing one route and going on it. And it doesn't matter how long it takes you to make money as a consultant. So there you have it, my friends. That is one path forward. Now, I talked about wellness professionals wanting to become a wellness consultant and how they can turn that expertise into a business that people understand value and are willing to pay for. But this is equally relevant to those hoteliers who are creating wellness businesses in their hotels. You need to be crystal clear with the path you're choosing. And for hotel businesses where hotels are doing wellness, I classify them as three. Do you want to go under that differentiation model, meaning that you are creating a wellness offering that's going to differentiate you in the market, or are you using wellness so that it is an integral part of how you do hospitality? It is part of your brand DNA. It's how you function, how you deal with your employees, how you deal with your community, how you deal with your, with your Environment, how you deal with your guests, it's your DNA, it's an integral part of you. Or lastly, it's an amenity or uh, a market marketing tool. Now I'm not advocating for the last way of doing business. As most of you would know, I would always say wellness is an important driver. That said, over the years I have learned the importance of having a strong amenity, even sometimes a strong service recovery area. And that is sometimes where wellness in a particular organization offers value. You have to choose the path if you're using it to differentiate yourself. That means the strategies you use will be very different. What offerings you create for your guests will be very different. The capital expenditure you'll be required to inject into that business, every X number of years is going to be very different. 2. For example, the second route, which is where wellness is an integral part of how you do hospitality from how you market, how you attract your guests, how you welcome them in your hotel, what food they eat, how you conduct yourself, what experience they have, right from pre arrival to post departure, everything has wellness integrated within it. Or lastly, you have a lovely hotel, you have a brilliant wellness society, you want to continue to give your guests remarkable experiences. And you know that today's guests, today is demanding strong wellness. So you add a wellness area to your hotel, a very good one. But your core business is either always hospitality or food and beverage. And wellness, yes, is important, but it is a supporting department to rooms and food and beverage. It is what helps bring clients in shoulder season or low season. It is what gives service to corporate clients. It's also what helps recover guests that uh, are perhaps not happy in other parts of the hotel because service recovery is equally important and measures need to be taken in order to ensure that your client leaves your hotel happy. So either way, whether you choose to be a wellness professional who wants to become a consultant, or you're a hotelier and has a wellness offering, either way, there are only three paths. You can be on three different parts for each of you, but you have to choose your path. For the wellness professional, it's internal consultant, project based consultant or specialist consultant. And for the hotelier with the wellness suffering, it's either a differentiator or it's part of your core DNA or it's an amenity, a marketing tool, a compensation tool. All of these roads are valid. They all help you make more money with wellness, either as a wellness consultant or using wellness in your hotel to actually increase revenue, tap into new segments. So there's your first step in making money with wellness is choose one road. Stick to it long enough to learn what you need to do. Because all roads lead to row, but you can't hop from one road to the other. You have to stick to one and it doesn't mean you don't change it further down the road. You can, but you have to start, get really strong in one and then perhaps choose another one if you don't want to stay on this road. Okay, my wellness Leader friends out there. Hope you have a wonderful day ahead. Take care now. To recap, Here are the three key takeaways from today's episode 1. There is no single right path. Internal consulting, project based consulting and specialist consulting can all lead to a successful wellness business. The goal is not to find the perfect road. The goal is to choose one. 2. Difficulty does not mean you chose incorrectly. Every path has its own challenges. When something becomes difficult, resist the urge to assume the path is wrong. Stay long enough to understand what the challenge is asking you to learn. 3. Progress requires commitment. You cannot move forward while constantly changing direction. Choose one road. Focus on the client you want to serve. Solve the problem that matters to them. Deliver remarkable work. Then stay on that road long enough to reach Jerome for those of you building your own wellness consulting business, stay with me. We'll be going deeper into each of these five steps of the next five episodes. And on that inspiring note, I wish you all a wonderful day ahead. Take care now. Thank you for tuning in to my podcast. If you want to know whether your hotel is ready to meet the growing demand for wellness experiences both for your guests and your employees, then my Essence Scorecard is the perfect, perfect tool for you. Head over to spa-balance.com essencescorecard and get yourself a free and accurate temperature reading of your hotel's readiness to meet the wellness needs of your people and your guests. It's a valuable self audit that not only helps you create a profitable wellness asset, but also promote a culture of genuine wellness for your team.