Ever wondered what your Lynn Valley home is worth, and what choices you might make for downsizing in this neighbourhood? And how to best use your freed-up capital to create an ongoing income stream?
LynnValleyLife-sponsoring realtor Jim Lanctôt and Jeffrey Smithson, RBC financial planner, will address these questions and more at an upcoming seminar hosted by RBC Financial Services. As you’ll see below, the food is good and the seating is limited, so scroll down for details on how to RSVP asap!
We’ve been promoting the two most recent opportunities presented for Lynn Valley residents to get involved in shaping Lynn Valley’s future – those are the NVD June Open Houses, and Mark Sager’s Bosa-sponsored storefront in Lynn Valley Centre.
It’s our hope that everyone made or will make the effort to attend one of these forums – especially given the importance of the issues, and as we know there are a variety of strong views out there in the neighbourhood!
But regardless of how you learn about some of the options for future development, there are different ways to share your feedback. One of them is a great online tool that asks you about your priorities and preferred “looks” for the village area, and gives visual examples you can choose from to best illustrate your likes and dislikes.
Please click here for instructions on filling out the online or paper-based feedback form – this stage of input ends on July 5. That’s a month away, but it will be a busy month, so don’t put it off!
If you have customers, you are in the customer service business. The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer base through delivering legendary customer service. Over 80 per cent of all sales in North America originate from the recommendations of satisfied customers. Dedicating yourself to excellent customer service is one of the smartest and most profitable things that you can ever do for your business.
1. Understand customer expectations
Do you know what’s important to your customers? Very successful salespeople are repeatedly referred to as friends and advisors by their customers. If you can explain the need, want or frustration better than the customer can, they will automatically assume you know how to solve the problem.
2. Exceed expectations
Disney calls this delivering a “WOW” experience. You want to be remembered, and it takes a lot for that to happen in the eyes of a customer. Expectations are high. Even if you are dealing with a complaint make it a “WOW” experience. Organizations are often remembered for how they deal with difficult situations more than how they perform on a daily basis. If you are not exceeding customer expectations then you are just like every other business out there.
3. Create customer service systems
Set out to create internal systems that enable the consistent delivery of legendary customer service. Create simple processes, policies and tools to support the delivery of your quality service standards. Processes should never be hassles; they should be designed to remove barriers to providing legendary service.
4. Make people happy to do business with you
People are predominantly emotional; we are greatly impacted by the warmth, friendliness, cheerfulness and helpfulness of others. Make sure ALL of your staff are capable of making a good first impression within the first 10 seconds of an interaction. It is very difficult to provide a legendary customer experience if YOU are not in a warm, friendly and personable mood.
5. Do everything to make it right
When you mess up – and you will – how you deal with it will define your business. When faced with an issue, own the issue and promptly do EVERYTHING in your power to make it right. WOW your customer with how you deal with issues and you’ll be forever remembered as an organization that cares. Remember, you are in business not for just this one sale but for the many more to come from that customer in the future.
Janet Bonaguro is a Certified Business Coach with FocalPoint Coaching. She works with business owners and executives in order to improve revenue, profitability, productivity and teamwork. For more information please visit her website; for more of her coaching tips see her Merchant Profile on LynnValleyLife.
What’s on this month’s garden to-do list? We asked local landscapers Matt and Rob Boyd of Endless Summer Landscaping to give us their top tips for a beautiful yard.
Mulch. It seems to be many landscapers’ philosophy that when all else fails, just go for a thick layer of decorative mulch or rocks. It gives a clean look and hides a multitude of landscaping failures. Mulch is also a relatively cheap material to purchase. There are a million types of mulching materials, including natural sources like fallen leaves, and you can get creative.
Outdoor lighting. Most people assume outdoor lighting means solar lights along the driveway, but there are many ways to incorporate lighting outside, including candles, lanterns hung from trees, and others. For a unique look, DIY Network dresses up a plain strand of lights with aluminum screening.
Pots. While we acknowledge a large collection of pots can be expensive, it encourages people to buy one or two a year over time to create an impressive display.
Annuals planting. You can start to plant your favorite selection of annuals to bring colour and life to all your garden beds.
Trim Perennials. Trim up and divide your perennials to get ready to complement your annuals.
– photo courtesy Sonia McDiarmid
Well, we had a great time at Lynn Valley Day, and we hope you did, too! To judge by the smiles in the crowd and the happy participants in the LVL games and races, Lynn Valleyites know better than to let a little rain dampen their spirits.
From the Friday night gala, to the pancake breakfast, parade, displays, crafts, races, carnival rides, concerts and more, Lynn Valley Days 2013 was a wonderful celebration of community. Thank you so much to the host organizations (Lynn Valley Lions and the Lynn Valley Community Association), the extra volunteers who stepped up, the incredible merchant sponsors who make the event possible, and everyone else who went the extra mile to make this day something to be proud of.
Take a minute to check out our online photo album, and submit some of your own shots to us if you have a favourite you’d like to share!
As promised, North Vancouver District has expanded the time frame for public consultation on the issue of how the municipality’s Official Community Plan will be implemented in Lynn Valley town centre.
We hope that people will share their views and bring their ideas to the table. You can visit the North Vancouver District booth at Lynn Valley Day, and attend one of the four open house events that are taking place in our neighbourhood from between June 1 and 12. Online feedback will also be collected. All details for engaging in the process are here.
Once options are explored over the spring and summer months, the vision will be narrowed down in the fall to preferred option(s) that will be put before NVD council for their consideration.
We’ve already reported on Mark Sager’s invitation to give your thoughts about the Bosa redevelopment of the mall area, and this will be ongoing up to and including Lynn Valley Day. Read this post for information about Mark’s storefront in the mall.
There have never been so many opportunities to share your thoughts, Lynn Valley, so we encourage you to get out there and have your opinions registered!
Here’s some information from the NVD Identity website:
Lynn Valleyites are invited to get their groove on – the Lynn Valley Legion is bringing back a great crowd-pleaser on Saturday, May 18!
Says organizer Brenda Williams: “Once again we have convinced one of Vancouver’s best R ‘n B, blues, and funky dance bands to come to the North Shore for a night of super fun, dancing and socializing! This event always sells out, but we’d like the neighbourhood to know that there is some fine entertainment in the Valley!”
Doors open at 7 p.m., and the band starts at 8 and goes until about midnight. Tickets are $20 and available at the Legion during business hours (they are open 7 days a week). Ticket info is at 604-987-2050.
From the garden of Lynn O’Malley…
This was going to be a celebratory post about the fact that my sunflower seeds poked their heads above the soil last Saturday, a scant week after I detailed their planting in this post.
From the garden of Lynn O’Malley, voice of the valley:
For the past two months, the LynnValleyLife team has been planning and promoting its scheme to blanket Lynn Valley in summertime sunflowers. We’ve talked sunflowers, mailed sunflowers, photo’d sunflowers and dreamt sunflowers. It occurred to me that amidst all the fuss, I might forget to actually plant the darn things!
We like to offer special treats to our LynnValleyLife Network members whenever we can. So we’re delighted to announce a special, LynnValleyLife-only reception at which our members will be amongst the very first to experience a brand-new neighbourhood just down the hill – before it’s even built! Having the chance to visit the new Seylynn Village development before the general public brings some other bonuses as well – from preferred pricing to the widest selection of suites.
