New customers are the lifeblood of any business, but only if they stick around long enough to become old customers. A one-time buyer is welcome, but the ones who put money in the bank are those who come back again and again.
One breed of new customer that’s tricky to develop is the neophyte, the guy or gal who is new to the world your business inhabits. Maybe they are a first-time home buyer or a young couple setting up a college fund for their newborn. The way you and your staff respond to that newbie can make or break your relationship with them. Treat them like an idiot the first time and you’ll never see them again. Treat them right, and you’ll create a customer for life.
It’s tough, though. A newbie doesn’t know what questions to ask. He doesn’t know what’s do-able and what violates the laws of physics and/or the local building code. She may have seen a TV show where some lucky stiff’s family room went from wreck to magazine-spread-worthy in thirty minutes and expect you to do the same. What’s worse, she’s going to take up way more of your valuable time than this measly little job is worth.
The next time a newbie walks through your door, put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Remember what it was like when you went onto the field for your very first Little League tryout? If you were like most of us, the experience was a little intimidating. Everyone else seemed to know exactly what they were doing, but you weren’t sure. You wanted to make the team, but the single most important goal was to avoid making a fool of yourself.
That’s what the newbie is feeling when he comes into your business for the first time. He or she may not admit it—and may try to bluff their way through—but they are nervous about sounding dumb when they talk to the experts in the field.
Your first job, then, is to make the customer comfortable. Don’t draw attention to his ignorance by telling him it’s all right to be stupid. Instead, listen to his ideas in a non-judgmental way and ask him questions about what he needs at a level he can understand. Try to avoid using terms the customer may not have heard before, or, if you have to, explain them without being condescending.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
How To Turn A Newbie Into A Customer For Life
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Negotiation Highs And Lows
I used to be a strong advocate of aiming high—making an outrageous offer so that I’d have plenty of room to come down when the buyer made a counter offer. Besides, I believed, low offers signal weakness.
I eventually learned that if the first offer was too high—outside the realm of what’s reasonable to the buyer—then the buyer just might not make any counter offer at all. Then where was I? If I lowered my offer to try to re-start the negotiation, I was really signaling my desperation and letting the buyer know that concessions could be won.
The first step in the Creative Selling System is gathering information about your prospect. And one of the key pieces of information is an estimate of the prospect’s spending potential. This not only gives you a goal to shoot for and an idea of how to structure your proposal, it gives you a good guideline for where to start your negotiations. As long as you begin with a proposal in the ballpark your prospect is used to playing in, you’re not likely to scare them off.
Take the time to do your homework and use one or more of the estimating methods I covered in The Dynamic Manager’s Guide To Sales Techniques. Even if you didn’t use those figures to structure your proposal in the first place, they will give you a sense of what’s possible for your negotiation.
Judge the reasonableness of your opening offer carefully. My rule now is that my opening offer is one at the high end of what the prospect could accept with no further changes if they were so inclined—and one I could defend without stretching my credibility.
It’s also good to practice a little mental discipline. Right at the beginning of the negotiation, establish in your own mind the lowest acceptable offer you’ll take. That way, you have a sense of how far you can go before you start cutting into profit margins, production capacity or whatever benchmark your company uses. As the negotiations proceed, you know where you are at all times. That sense of security gives you greater confidence during the process.
Establishing the lowest acceptable alternative in advance does something else. It keeps you in a win/win frame of mind because you don’t have to worry about losing! As long as you know the point at which you will walk away (and stick to it) you can’t lose anything.
As you may have noticed, we’ve now set an upper and a lower limit to pricing. This range makes it much easier to build a few small concessions into your proposal, or plan some value items you can add as the negotiations proceed. This helps you avoid making that big concession all at once, leaving you with no place to go if the buyer rejects it.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Put Time On Your Side When Negotiating
One of the factors never to be overlooked in any negotiation is time. Time pressure works for and against both parties, often in interesting ways. Anyone who has been involved in union negotiations, for example, knows that the largest concessions always come just before the strike deadline. In fact, sometimes that’s the first time any concessions occur! Knowledge of the deadlines faced by the other party can be a powerful tool.
The pressure to come to an agreement is generally greatest on the party with the nearest deadline. Magazines are much more inclined to negotiate liberal terms for ad space the day before the issue closes than they are the week before. The prospect whose insurance policy is about to lapse is more eager to renew the policy than one with a 90 day grace period remaining. Know your prospect and know their deadlines.
One way to use time to your advantage is by making small concessions one at a time, drawing out the negotiating process if that is to your advantage. On the other hand, you may need to bring the deal to a close, in which case you may want to make a BFO, or best and final offer.
As a seller, though, don’t be surprised if the buyer calls your bluff. They have nothing to lose and plenty to gain by telling you your BFO isn’t good enough. If you back down and make a further concession, all you’ve done is prove to the buyer that you’re a bluffer—and that your word isn’t any good.
The time to make a BFO is when you discover you’re negotiating with yourself. You can tell that’s the situation because the other party isn’t offering any concessions—you’re the only one making any movement. It’s one of the most frustrating situations you can face. You make all the moves, getting nothing more than a “that’s not good enough” response from the prospect. The time to take a chance and make your BFO is when you have nothing to lose.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Overcoming A Distaste For Negotiation
Some people are leery of negotiating a sale. They feel that the process is somehow dishonest or demeans them, their product, or even their prospect in some way. In fact, I often encounter sales managers who proudly point out that their prices are firm. They insist that every customer pays the same price and that’s the one set by the sales manager. They would rather forego a sale than violate their holy pricing policies. These sales managers need a strong dose of reality—and they often get it in the form of declining market share.
There is nothing holy about a given price, nor is there any moral law that says that every customer is entitled to the same terms. In fact, certain religions make a pretty strong moral case for customizing prices and other terms according to each customer’s individual needs. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with having a firm pricing policy. But let’s not hide the reasons for it in some kind of moral cloud. Firm pricing is a matter of what management feels is best for the selling company. Ideally (from their standpoint), it controls demand to produce the maximum profit from the available supply. And having firm prices makes the administration of the revenue stream easier, which makes the sales manager’s job easier. There’s nothing wrong with that.
But there is nothing wrong with negotiating every sale, either. Humans have been doing it for thousands of years in one way or another. In fact, the most successful economic system yet invented, the free market economy, is predicated on the freedom of sellers to offer different value for various prices and for buyers to accept or reject them.
Isn’t that what happens when your favorite department store puts an item on sale? Apparently, the store’s customers made the choice to not buy that item at the previous price, and the store made the choice to offer it at a lower price as a result. Isn’t that a form of negotiation?
Western retail negotiation just doesn’t happen face-to-face (usually) like the haggling that occurs in a Middle Eastern souk. It’s the same process, but the department store is haggling through the medium of its displays and signs rather than having hawkers standing in the aisles soliciting offers for the merchandise on the tables.
In business-to-business sales, nearly every sale is openly negotiated. There may be published price lists and standard terms, but very few buyers would keep their jobs if they didn’t at least try to do better. And few sellers would keep the revenue flowing if they didn’t make pricing adjustments to stay competitive.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Golf Purists Love Pasatiempo
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| 11th Hole, Pasatiempo. Photo courtesy of Rob Babcock/Pasatiempo Golf Club |
Pasatiempo is only 6,521 yards from the tips, but it plays to a stalwart 72.4 rating/143 slope. Its dramatic elevation changes and seemingly endless natural hazards make for a rugged course whose difficulty is cranked up several notches by Mackenzie's strongly contoured greens and sprawling, glorious bunkers. Every hole seems to offer a risk and reward tactical choice and every green runs fast, true, and convoluted.
Each successive tee box presents you with a unique challenge. The opener is a 457-yard par four that requires a long, accurate approach as well as a powerful drive. The third hole, a magnificent 235-yard uphill par three, is protected not just by its length but by four menacing greenside bunkers along with a mind-messing cross bunker. The first par five you play, the sixth hole, is 567 yards, but believe it or not, accuracy counts more than length on every shot due to the tight fairway, cross bunkers, and long, narrow green. Next up is the shortest par four on the course, the 348-yard seventh hole, where trees from both sides nearly meet overhead to practically form a tunnel over the fairway. Needless to say, a controlled tee shot is essential.
Natural hazards abound on the back side. A bottomless ravine threatens both your drive and your approach on the 392-yard eleventh hole, then comes back into play guarding the green on the 373-yard twelfth. Fifteen is a 141-yard one-shotter perched behind another deep fissure in the earth's crust, as is the 169-yard finishing hole, which also slopes--and putts--more like an icy ski slope than a golf green.
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| 16th Hole, Pasatiempo. Photo courtesy of Rob Babcock/Pasatiempo Golf Club |
The club has hosted numerous USGA championships and is the permanent home of the Western Intercollegiate Golf Tournament where everyone from Ken Venturi and Gene Littler To Johnny Miller, Dave Stockton, and Tiger Woods competed during their college years. LPGA star Juli Inkster literally grew up on the course and Alister Mackenzie chose to live there--his home is along the fairway on the sixth hole. And here's an aside for New York area golfers: Mackenzie is believed to have worked on Century Country Club in Purchase while he was a partner with Colt & Allison, the official designers of the course.
One of the best features of Pasatiempo is its status as a semi-private club. Certain tee times are reserved for members, but you can book a time online as much as 365 days in advance. If you treasure the classical traditions of golf architecture or otherwise want a spectacular golf experience, book yours today!
Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Visual Aids For Sales Presentations
Larger group presentations often call for visual aids, which can both embellish and complicate your presentation. Whether you’re using foam-board flip cards or a laptop with presentation software projected onto a big screen, be sure that you know how to use the presentation medium and have rehearsed with it.
Find out, if you can, just how large the room will be and how many participants you’ll be facing. This will help you determine what kind of visual aids, if any, that you want to use. You may not want 24 X 30-inch flip cards for a group of four—unless they’re going to be seated at the opposite end of a 20-ft. table.
Never count on the prospect to provide any equipment. There’s nothing worse than arriving to connect your laptop to the prospect’s projector only to discover that you need an adapter neither one of you has. Whether you’re going high-tech or low-tech, bring every single item you could possibly need with you. This includes everything from extension cords and grounded-outlet adapters to monitors and projectors. If you need an easel for your flip cards, bring one yourself. I can almost guarantee that if you don’t, the prospect’s won’t work or someone in another department will have borrowed it just before you arrived.
It’s mandatory that you set up your visual aids before the group gathers in the room. I would rather skip the visual aids completely than stumble through a pitch while I’m fumbling with a “General Protection Page Fault” on my laptop. In fact, if it’s not possible to get access to the meeting room and set up before the group gathers, play it safe and don’t bother with the visual aids. It’s better to make a neutral low-tech impression than a bad high-tech one.
If you’re using a laptop, set up your software so that you don’t have to click through several screens to get to your presentation. Create a shortcut to the presentation right on your opening screen. That way, all you have to do is click on it to start the show. Finally, check the view from the back of the room to be sure everyone can read your material.
No matter which format you use for your visual aids, design them as much like your written presentation as you can. Make each slide (or card) simple, clear, and to the point. Any bodies of text will need to be converted to bullet points, of course. This isn’t the place to go into great detail on constructing slide presentations, but get yourself a good tutorial if you plan on preparing your own.
Group presentations are actually great fun to give. You get to practice your craft in a slightly different way from the normal routine. And you have the opportunity to use all of your persuasive skills and stagecraft to their fullest effect. Most group presentations involve prospects with large potential, so there’s usually a lot riding on the effectiveness of your pitch. You’ll make good use of your stage fright management skills.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Half Moon Bay Sized Right For Golf Weekends
Golf is the heart of the resort and two excellent and completely different golf experiences are available to both resort guests and daily fee players. The Old Course, a traditional parkland-style track that opened in 1973, was designed by Arnold Palmer and Francis Duane. Its18th hole along the ocean has been ranked among the 100 best in America. The Ocean Course was designed by Arthur Hills to pay homage to Scottish links-style courses. It debuted in 1997 and was remodeled in 2009 to make it play even more true to the style.
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| 18th Hole on the Old Course. Photo courtesy of the resort. |
The Pacific is in view from every hole on the Ocean Course, but is in play (kind of) only on the 184-yard par-three seventeenth hole, where an errant tee shot can easily find the beach at the bottom of the cliffs next to the green. The ocean breezes (or gales), though, shape every shot you make on the 6,854-yard track--especially on the back nine. The course plays much like pure links, with rolling, contoured fairways where odd bounces prevail and approach shots into generous greens demand careful consideration of the humps and bumps of the greenside terrain. Shot values matter more than sheer length and power. The fairways are generous but the rough is mowed short around bunkers to bring the hazards into play on tee shots. Greenside surrounds are cut to “just above green” mowing height to foster ball movement on the ground and native fescue between holes provides you with visual cues about how to direct your shots.
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| 18th Hole on the Ocean Course. Photo courtesy of the resort. |
Other dining options include the nautically-inspired Navio, which serves fine coastal cuisine from a 1,000 sq. ft. display kitchen and ENO, a wine bar that contains over 5,000 bottles of international wines and includes sommelier-selected wine flights. Other resort amenities include a 16,000 sq. ft. Spa and Fitness Center with a unique co-ed Roman mineral bath, an immense patio perched on the cliffs above the beach, and soul-searing views of the Pacific from nearly every room. There also a scenic trail that winds along the cliffs and activities nearby include horseback riding, deep-sea fishing, whale watching, sea kayaking, hiking, biking and antiquing.
Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf
Friday, August 24, 2012
Golf Course Lightning? Gimme Shelter!
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| Photo courtesy of Adam Donlin, Ballyowen Director of Golf |
A few things to keep in mind:
Lightning can strike several miles from the center of a storm and far from the clouds you see. Ever heard of a "bolt from the blue?" They're real! Lightning can strike fifteen miles from a thunderstorm.
You will not always have warning from thunder. Atmospheric conditions can send the thunder sound wave away from you. On the other hand, if you hear thunder, don't try to second-guess it. There's lighting somewhere in your vicinity so take cover.
Don't trust the "30-second rule." It's widely believed that you can count the seconds between a lightning flash and the sound of the thunder and, if it's greater than thirty seconds, the danger is too far away to be cause for concern. That's dangerous wishful thinking--the next lightning flash you see can easily be the one that strikes your head.
Most lightning casualties occur in the beginning of a storm because golfers tend to try to ignore the warning signs and try to squeeze in just one more hole. Many injuries also come after the storm--lightning can strike up to thirty minutes after the thunderstorm has supposedly passed.
Many golf courses have lightning warning systems, but don't wait for the horn to sound if you see the storm coming. The systems are great, but not always maintained in perfect working order.
The safest place to be is in the clubhouse, so head for it at the first indication of trouble. If you can't make it, avoid the places you want to be like in a course rain shelter, under a tree, or even in your golf cart. All of these actually increase the probability of being struck. Instead, find the lowest point away from things like standing water, fences, or machinery, crouch down, and put your hands over your ears to minimize hearing damage. Don't lay flat on the ground and stay at least fifteen feet from other people--lightning can jump from them to you.
What should you do if someone in your group is struck? Here's what the National Severe Storms Laboratory says:
- Call 911 and provide directions to the victim
- Don't endanger yourself or others if the victim is in a high-risk area and the storm is continuing. Lightning DOES strike the same place twice!
- Victims don't carry a charge after being struck, so it's safe to touch them to render treatment. They also seldom suffer from major fractures or bleeding complications, so it's safe to move them away from a high risk area if you can do so safely.
- If the victim is not breathing, start mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. If you can't find a pulse, start cardiac compression as well. If the ground is cold and wet, put a protective layer beneath the victim to decrease hypothermia.
Literally hundreds of people are killed and injured every year by lightning. While about 10% of strike victims die, the other 90% usually suffer lifelong effects. Don't be one of them.
Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Sales Skills For Group Presentations
It may be Mr. Big and his assistant, a committee of decision-makers and decision-influencers, or even the board of directors. When you make a group presentation, you’re generally working in a different physical setting that can range from chairs pulled around the prospect’s desk to a conference room with a table the size of an aircraft carrier. You might even have to make your pitch in an auditorium complete with podium and sound system.
Regardless of the setting, the basic differences between a group presentation and a one-on-one call deal with the distribution and control of your written materials and handling the very different dynamics of large group meetings. It’s important to remember, though, that all the other good sales techniques remain the same. Your goal is still to gather information about the prospect, for example, and you should still follow the five-page presentation format I introduced in The Dynamic Manager’s Guide To Sales Techniques, including asking questions at the end of each page. Your stage presence and enthusiasm level are even more important when pitching a group, though, as is your ability to gain their attention and hold their interest.
Handling your written materials is actually easier in many ways when you are working with a group. The best tactic to control the pace of the presentation is to hand out one page of the presentation at a time. You never want to distribute the entire proposal at the beginning for the same reason you shouldn’t just hand it to a single prospect: they’ll turn immediately to the price and fixate on it. Instead, hand out each page in its turn. In a small room with a limited number of participants, you can handle this easily yourself—provided you can walk and talk at the same time. With a larger group you may need some assistance, which can be provided by the group members themselves. If you don’t have a helper with you, just ask the people nearest to you to “take one and pass them on” to the people behind them. Your goal is to see that everyone in the group gets a copy—but that none have any page in their hand until you’re ready to talk about it.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Kiawah Island - The Complete Golf Destination
Shrimp ‘n Grits. Even if you don’t want to play one of the most exciting golf courses in the country, bask on a top-ten beach, or luxuriate in a five-star spa, it’s worth the trip to Kiawah Island just to chow down on Shrimp ‘n Grits, a dish you’ll fortunately find on many menus at the resort. I liked it so much I had it for breakfast one day.
The dish is a lot like the entire experience at Kiawah, the oceanfront resort just 21 miles from Charleston, South Carolina. Each mouthful seems to combine the briny breeze off the Atlantic with the nutty grist of the dunes, all smothered with the creamy gravy of Southern hospitality. The resort melds into a 10,000-acre barrier island, home to egrets, loggerhead turtles, and alligators, not to mention ten miles of perfect Atlantic Ocean beach. You can stay at the ultra-luxury 255-room Sanctuary Hotel or rent one of the 600 charming villas and private homes on the island. There are world-class tennis facilities, a nature center with on-staff naturalists, bike rentals, three swimming pool complexes, a 21-acre park, and year-round family activities.
Golfers with a sense of history remember very well the “War By The Shore,” the 1991 Ryder Cup that poured gasoline on the spark of rivalry ignited by the European win in 1987 and the jaw-clenching tie of 1989. When the matches came to Kiawah, they took on a death-before-dishonor tone that they’d never really seen before. Corey Pavin and Steve Pate wore combat-style camo hats in their second day match, the fans were beered-up and raucous, the course was windswept and fast, giving the golfers on both sides fits as they tried to navigate the tough layout and hit the tiny target greens. As the final day dawned, the teams were tied. The singles matches went back and forth, with one memorable moment after another including Mark Calcavecchia’s choking finish that culminated in a missed two-foot putt. The Americans won the event on a missed putt, too, this one the last putt of the last hole when Bernhard Langer’s four-footer slid past the cup.
There may not be chants of “USA! USA!” when you play the Ocean Course, but that won’t make it any less thrilling. The 7,296-yard, par 72 layout runs back and forth along the dune line, giving you views of the ocean on practically every hole while forcing you to play the wind differently on each one as well. The course doesn’t play flat like some other tracks in the region, but has many not-so-subtle elevation changes Dye carved into the fairways to add to the fun. Among the stand-out holes is the 543-yard par-five second, a double dog leg that features a cross hazard in the landing area for the second shot, forcing either a heroic effort to carry it or a precise layup to avoid it. It’s followed by the shortest par four on the course, the 390-yard third hole where the green is perched on a natural sand dune that requires a perfect, high, soft approach to hold the green.
The Ocean Course plays progressively harder as you proceed through the round. At the fourteenth hole, the wind is either your best friend or your worst enemy. Your only choice on this 194-yard par three is to hit the green, which is surrounded by a waste area on the left and a steep collection area on the right from which it’s almost impossible to get up and down. The seventeenth hole strikes fear into the heart of every golfer who stands on the tee and tries to muster the strength and courage to carry the water to the green as much as 221 yards away. The average player at the resort loses two balls on this hole—and most play from the forward tee boxes!
Turtle Point, the Jack Nicklaus design that opened in 1981, is almost the opposite style of golf course, although not much less challenging. It’s a low-profile track where fairways and greens blend into the existing landscape without the artificial mounding and radical features that have become so popular elsewhere. At 6,914 yards from the tips and five par fours measuring 420 yards or longer, the course offers a fine test. The 412-yard fifteenth hole, with its tiny green tucked into the dunes, is part of a three-hole oceanfront duo and possibly the hardest hole on the course.
Tom Fazio’s Osprey Point features four large natural lakes, fingers of saltwater marsh, and dense forests of ancient live oaks, palmetto palms, and magnolias. The 6,871-yard, par 72 course has a great mix of golf holes including the 453-yard par-four ninth and two 200-yard-plus par threes, as well as some short par fours that tempt the big hitter to take a trip on the wild side.
Cougar Point, designed by Gary Player, is known for its three-hole stretch through the front nine bordering the tidal marsh and offering panoramic views of the Kiawah River. The countless wading birds, wave-skipping pelicans, and soaring osprey can easily break your concentration on par—in a good way. The 6,861-yard, par 72 course has an excellent finishing stretch that begins with the 542-yard par five fifteenth hole and ends with the dramatic 415-yard eighteenth.
Oak Point lies just outside the Kiawah gate. It’s a more typical parkland course and makes a good break from the on-island courses. It’s not to be taken lightly, either. At 6,701 yards, it’s long enough to keep your attention and tricky enough to put a big number (or two) on your scorecard.
Kiawah Island is one of the country’s prime non-golf vacation destinations, too. Tennis Magazine ranks it among the top tennis resorts in the nation, based on the quality of instruction as well as on the two separate tennis facilities, one with 14 Har-Tru clay courts, two lighted hard courts and a backboard, the other with nine Har-Tru clay courts (one lighted) and three hard courts (one lighted) as well as a zoned practice court with a ball machine and automatic retrieval system. Family activities include swimming, canoeing, kayaking, bicycling, cookouts, oyster roasts, sing-alongs, and nature walks. Staff naturalists conduct marsh creek canoe trips, sea kayaking, birding walks, night beach walks, and bike tours. Guests at Kiawah enjoy a uniquely pristine beach that stretches ten miles along the Atlantic—and 100 yards wide at low tide! Island homes are set back behind the dunes and the Sanctuary Hotel is the only one on the beach, so it’s much like enjoying your own private beach.
After all the fun and games, you’ll need a place to lay your head, of course. You have two options. First is the Sanctuary, an ultra-luxurious oceanfront resort and spa that opened just seven years ago. Ninety percent of the guest rooms—which are among the largest you’ll find anywhere—have ocean views and all of them have five-fixture bathrooms with walk-in showers and deep soaking tubs. The hotel’s spa has a Five-Star Mobil rating and features 12 treatment rooms, sauna, steam room, and whirlpool as well as a beauty salon and fitness center. Indulge yourself—or a treat a special someone—to a Mint Julep facial, Lowcountry Verbena Body Polish, or a Body Wrapture—a treatment with warm grain- and herb-filled wraps used to induce deep relaxation. For an additional housing option, you can rent a private home or condo through the Villas at Kiawah Island.
Now, back to the Shrimp ‘n Grits. Kiawah offers an array of dining options—all of which offer more than just my favorite dish. The Ocean Room at the Sanctuary is the resort’s premier restaurant. It specializes in serving local, grass-fed beef, helping to earn it both the Forbes Five-Star and the AAA Five-Diamond awards. Jasmine Porch, the more casual restaurant at the hotel, serves up Lowcountry cuisine in a setting of authentic Charleston brick, oak-planked floors, and a breath-taking view of the Atlantic ocean. Yes, this is the prime destination for Shrimp ‘n Grits, but you can also enjoy She Crab Bisque, house-made charcuterie, and other local specialties. There are also several casual eating spots on and around the property and each of the golf courses offers dining options as well, although some don’t offer dinner. The Atlantic Room at the Ocean Course concentrates on fine local seafood while Tomasso at Turtle Point is an Italian eatery
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