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Matt Walsh founded and owns the Serenity Spa and Salon in Keystone with his wife.
Summit County, CO Colorado
KEYSTONE — Matt Walsh, who owns Serenity Spa & Salon in Keystone, just opened a new salon in Conifer. His aim: premium service without premium pricing, plus a green approach, with Green Built interior finishes. He took some time to answer a few questions for the Summit Daily.
Q: More and more spas are popping up in Summit County. Why do you think they’re becoming more popular?
A: Touch. As a society we live in an electronic world. Face-to-face conversations have been replaced by cell phone conversations, instant messages, e-mails, text messages, etc. The strength of a spa is that you get to shed all of that and have a one-on-one relationship with your therapist. High touch is very grounding. A massage, facial or even a hair cut can become a very grounding and comforting experience. For the most part, visitors and locals alike recognize this. Spas therefore become a momentary getaway and a great way to treat yourself to a high-touch experience.
Q: Can Summit County support all of the spas?
A: Only during certain times of the year. Summit County has the unique position of being a highly visited county. We get visitors from around the globe here. The spas in Summit County are, for the most part, spread out. This will allow visitors certain options; some convenient some may require travel from one side of the county to the other.
Q: What makes Serenity Spas stand out? What kind of business model do you employ?
A: We take great pride in making every guest visit an experience. Whether you are in for a hair service, a massage, facial or maybe a full day at the spa, we make every effort to be sure every visit is an exceptional experience. We also take great pride in the fact that we have been voted by our guests not just best day spa and hair salon but more importantly, best customer service. At Serenity we are what’s considered a full service day spa. That means we provide not just an assortment of wonderful spa treatments but we also provide exceptional hair, nail and makeup services as well. As owners we also work diligently to maintain staffing. Many of our staff we hired over three years ago are still with us. If we take great care of our staff, our staff will always take great care of our guests.
Q: How is selling skin care and/or services different than serving a tangible product?
A: In some cases it’s really no different. It’s all about how you make the guest feel. Whether you are selling them a ski coat or some cool and funky clothing or an incredible facial, it’s all about the guest and making them feel exceptional. At Serenity we will not only fully relax the guest but will send them home with the appropriate products so that they can maintain that feeling of well being and relaxation at home.
Q: How do you retain long-term employees?
A: We have high staff retention. This is because of a lot of things. First, we pay competitively. Summit County, for the most part, is an unfriendly county when it comes to housing; it’s simply very expensive. We also provide health and 401(k) benefits, continuing education, flexible scheduling, paid vacation and as owners, we are very flexible with our team. We also have a growth plan and encourage all staff to be a part of that growth. Life doesn’t necessarily stop here in Summit County. For many it’s actually a beginning.
Q: How do you survive the mud and shoulder seasons?
A: Creative thinking and consistent customer care. We also host our annual charity day in the fall of each year. And each year we choose different nonprofits to be the benefactors of this event. At this year’s event we will be supporting three local non-profits; Summit Foundation, Friends of the Dillon Ranger District and The Lake Dillon Foundation for the Performing Arts. We donate 100 percent of all service and tip revenues along with 10 percent of all retail sales. We also sell tickets for a drawing. We generally donate over $6,000 to the nonprofits we support during this event. Because of our active and philanthropic involvement with Summit County, our shoulder seasons are less “painful.”
Q: What are you doing to make your business more “green”?
A: At Serenity we have changed out much of our lighting to take more advantage of both low voltage and CFL lighting. We installed all natural cork in our hair salon, use no VOC paints on the walls and all our products are natural and organic. Rather than use typical argonne gas in our exterior lighting we installed LED lighting. This reduces overall energy consumption by 90 percent.
We have also started a new company called Splish. Splish is a fully green built hair salon and we just opened the first of many down in Conifer. Going green and leaving as small a foot print is important to all of us. We are making every effort to have as little environmental impact as possible all the while having a larger social impact in our communities.
Q: Anything else?
A: We love everything we do. And we are always working to create even better experiences at Serenity. We believe in evolving. Evolving with our community, with our staff, with the latest trends. We run our business with a continual sense of urgency. There more and more spas opening in Summit County so the competition is mounting, but that’s OK; it just makes us work all the harder to be sure that we always make good on our axiom of “experience the difference.”
KEYSTONE — Matt Walsh, who owns Serenity Spa & Salon in Keystone, just opened a new salon in Conifer. His aim: premium service without premium pricing, plus a green approach, with Green Built interior finishes. He took some time to answer a few questions for the Summit Daily.
Q: More and more spas are popping up in Summit County. Why do you think they’re becoming more popular?
A: Touch. As a society we live in an electronic world. Face-to-face conversations have been replaced by cell phone conversations, instant messages, e-mails, text messages, etc. The strength of a spa is that you get to shed all of that and have a one-on-one relationship with your therapist. High touch is very grounding. A massage, facial or even a hair cut can become a very grounding and comforting experience. For the most part, visitors and locals alike recognize this. Spas therefore become a momentary getaway and a great way to treat yourself to a high-touch experience.
Q: Can Summit County support all of the spas?
A: Only during certain times of the year. Summit County has the unique position of being a highly visited county. We get visitors from around the globe here. The spas in Summit County are, for the most part, spread out. This will allow visitors certain options; some convenient some may require travel from one side of the county to the other.
Q: What makes Serenity Spas stand out? What kind of business model do you employ?
A: We take great pride in making every guest visit an experience. Whether you are in for a hair service, a massage, facial or maybe a full day at the spa, we make every effort to be sure every visit is an exceptional experience. We also take great pride in the fact that we have been voted by our guests not just best day spa and hair salon but more importantly, best customer service. At Serenity we are what’s considered a full service day spa. That means we provide not just an assortment of wonderful spa treatments but we also provide exceptional hair, nail and makeup services as well. As owners we also work diligently to maintain staffing. Many of our staff we hired over three years ago are still with us. If we take great care of our staff, our staff will always take great care of our guests.
Q: How is selling skin care and/or services different than serving a tangible product?
A: In some cases it’s really no different. It’s all about how you make the guest feel. Whether you are selling them a ski coat or some cool and funky clothing or an incredible facial, it’s all about the guest and making them feel exceptional. At Serenity we will not only fully relax the guest but will send them home with the appropriate products so that they can maintain that feeling of well being and relaxation at home.
Q: How do you retain long-term employees?
A: We have high staff retention. This is because of a lot of things. First, we pay competitively. Summit County, for the most part, is an unfriendly county when it comes to housing; it’s simply very expensive. We also provide health and 401(k) benefits, continuing education, flexible scheduling, paid vacation and as owners, we are very flexible with our team. We also have a growth plan and encourage all staff to be a part of that growth. Life doesn’t necessarily stop here in Summit County. For many it’s actually a beginning.
Q: How do you survive the mud and shoulder seasons?
A: Creative thinking and consistent customer care. We also host our annual charity day in the fall of each year. And each year we choose different nonprofits to be the benefactors of this event. At this year’s event we will be supporting three local non-profits; Summit Foundation, Friends of the Dillon Ranger District and The Lake Dillon Foundation for the Performing Arts. We donate 100 percent of all service and tip revenues along with 10 percent of all retail sales. We also sell tickets for a drawing. We generally donate over $6,000 to the nonprofits we support during this event. Because of our active and philanthropic involvement with Summit County, our shoulder seasons are less “painful.”
Q: What are you doing to make your business more “green”?
A: At Serenity we have changed out much of our lighting to take more advantage of both low voltage and CFL lighting. We installed all natural cork in our hair salon, use no VOC paints on the walls and all our products are natural and organic. Rather than use typical argonne gas in our exterior lighting we installed LED lighting. This reduces overall energy consumption by 90 percent.
We have also started a new company called Splish. Splish is a fully green built hair salon and we just opened the first of many down in Conifer. Going green and leaving as small a foot print is important to all of us. We are making every effort to have as little environmental impact as possible all the while having a larger social impact in our communities.
Q: Anything else?
A: We love everything we do. And we are always working to create even better experiences at Serenity. We believe in evolving. Evolving with our community, with our staff, with the latest trends. We run our business with a continual sense of urgency. There more and more spas opening in Summit County so the competition is mounting, but that’s OK; it just makes us work all the harder to be sure that we always make good on our axiom of “experience the difference.”
