"The stage is set, your lines are well rehearsed, everything's perfect, but sometimes S!#T happens."

This is how one of the most effective training videos I've ever directed begins. It gets a laugh every time. More importantly, it prompts audiences to relax and allows the learning process to begin... every time.

PhDs call these "behavior-modeling videos"; I prefer "scenario-based learning." Whichever title you like, the bottom line is-video is a highly effective tool for teaching the kinds of soft skills that are so important for success in almost any business.

From pharma sales to the concierge desk at a boutique hotel, if your front line customer experience relies on positive, consistent face-to-face interactions, video that changes the behaviors that drive your key business goals is must-see tv.

Telling associates it's important to smile, make eye contact and take ownership of customer problems is one thing, but reinforcing those messages (and many others) by illustrating these behaviors in action, within the context of a story, delivers more impact by:

• Increasing retention


• Breaking down many language and education barriers


• Facilitating increased and accelerated learning

From hospitality to retail to HR, when you're teaching soft skills, a picture's worth a thousand words.
Delivering those "words" online allows you to more frequently update your content and keep associates tuned in and turned on, on their schedules, without the hassle and expense of duplication and dissemination.

Wanna read more? Read our other entries related to video, hospitality and soft-skills.

Ever wonder why your company's website doesn't always appear on the first page of results when you search? After all, your agency says they've "search engine optimized" it, you've paid your search engine marketing dues, what's the deal?

As the online experience continues to grow and change, companies and their brands need to use the entire spectrum of online content in order to reach their audience. It's no longer enough to just create a website; companies need to combine many elements to create an online profile--in addition to a branded website they might use blogs, bookmarking and other user-generated content, online video, photos and search engine-optimized press releases. This supplemental content enhances the primary content's SEO (search engine optimization) through inbound links and also ensures that a company's content fills search engine "shelf space," edging unfavorable and competitor content to lower rankings.

And what else? Keep tabs on Google: last week they announced their new "universal search." If you haven't heard about this, you may have already encountered it or you soon will. A search on Google now includes more search verticals (video, images, news, etc.) in order to deliver the overall most relevant results, one place. If Google determines that news articles are relevant to your search, they'll appear right next to other results like images, video, blog entries, and of course websites and ads. (Keep in mind, this isn't always the case; for many searches, websites are still the most relevant content available and that's what your Google search will retrieve.) But due to this additional content, there now may be less than the standard 10 web results on a page.

This is where your online profile really comes into play: rather than fearing that your website will be left off of the first page of listings, a wide profile of optimized online content in addition to your website can potentially increase the number of your listings on the first-page search results thanks to Google's universal search.

Let's say for instance you are a hotel chain looking to achieve results with a keyword phrase like "Boston hotel". Instead of the ten website listings and sponsored links that you would have gotten a while ago on Google, there are now just 9 results plus a news story. One large hotel chain happens to have an excellent position in the natural results. Now imagine if they backed that up with sponsored links, optimized press releases, a video tour of the Boston hotel and a well tagged photo gallery from it too? That could all now be included in the results for "Boston hotel" simultaneously providing multiple ways of reaching your audience, both through Google and other online channels where that content exists, as well as pushing competing websites off of the page. That's the benefit of multiple forms of content working together to increase and enhance the connection with your audience.

A brand can no longer focus on search engine ranking alone; a breadth of optimized media is also required. However, distributing that content in order to achieve results requires having the content on third party websites and relinquishing some control--a commitment that not every company is willing to, or can, make. But, as Google's universal search so clearly shows, an online profile is the future of successful marketing and this will only be more true as other search engines follow Google's lead. How does your online profile look and what are you doing to manage it?

What can make a hotel stay, a night out to dinner or even a taxicab ride more memorable? The people you interact with along the way, and how well they've been trained, have a lot to do with it.

A friendly smile, efficient service and taking ownership of guest-related problems are huge. "Take care of me and I will come back again and again" seems to be how most people feel. You can't make people care, but you can teach them how to master the critical soft skills that increase guest loyalty.

From hotels to cruise lines to F&B, over the years some patterns that define successful hospitality training initiatives have come into focus. By patterns I mean identifying the threads, that when woven together, create exceptional guest experiences on land or sea.

If you're tasked with launching a hospitality-related learning program here are a few high altitude tips that may help you get off on the right foot.

• Be objective, or higher a research company to be objective for you, but step one is identifying those key moments where guests' functional needs and emotional wants intersect. For example - A busy hotel guest needs to be checked in fast - that's the functional side. That same guest may have had a horrible day and they want to interact with someone who cares about their happiness - that's the emotional side.

When these key moments have been identified take your organization's pulse:

• Do they agree the moments of interaction you've established are important?


• Do they agree that improvement is necessary?


• What obstacles are standing in the way of realizing improvement?

You don't have to spend a ton of money or time gathering this information. In fact there are lots of free or almost free survey tools you can use- surveymonkey is a good one.

But you do need feedback from all constituencies. This helps build initial buy-in which in turn makes a big difference in how enthusiastically your program is supported when it roles out.