Serious Business Conference in New Orleans Inspires

I recently attended Neill Corporation's Serious Business: Soundbyte Wisdom conference in New Orleans at the Roosevelt Hotel, an inspiring event intended to provide Neill's customers and vendors with the most current and innovative thinking and concepts in such topics as salon management, employee motivation, marketing strategies, retail sales and staff education. The event, which was attended by 1,000 salon owners, managers and professionals, featured presentations by Daniel Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future; Bruce Tulgan, author of Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y and It's Okay To Be The Boss, Tim Sanders, author of The Likeability Factor and Saving the World at Work and the former chief solutions officer at Yahoo!; Peter Sheahan, best-selling author of Flip; and industry icon Robert Lobetta. Neill is an Aveda distributor for seven Southeastern states and owns the Paris Parker chain of Aveda salons and spas, 11 Aveda Institutes, the eco-friendly Etopa line of salon furniture, and SalonBiz and SpaBiz software. In keeping with Neill's mission of taking the environment into consideration with every action it takes, the company encouraged attendees to make a $10 donation to help offset carbon emissions. During the event, they also asked attendees to text 90999 to make a $10 donation to the Red Cross' Haiti relief efforts, in addition to holding a viewing party for the Saints/Vikings playoff game, with proceeds going to Haiti relief.