THE SPA CHRONICLES....My Way, Not The Thai Way

Any logical person could come up with a long list of reasons as to why it’s a crazy idea to start a business in a foreign country.  But why would I ever let logic or common sense hold me back from an adventure. Certainly it's difficult to run a business from the other side of the world, especially when it's a brand new venture that has not yet found its feet. But perhaps more importantly, there are a whole host of cultural differences that become shockingly apparent over time, particularly when it comes to business interaction. 

The logo I doodled before leaving the island

 

Thailand, like other Asian countries, has a lot of rules. Most of these rules are treated by the Thais as general suggestions....like obeying traffic signals and no smoking signs. However, the rules of social politeness are deeply ingrained and breaking them is viewed with great distaste. Even the Thai language itself is constructed so as not to cause offense or upset anyone, which makes it difficult when you want something to be very, very clear. As an example, when a Thai says, "Don't worry", what they really mean is, "I can't give you the answer you want, let's move on". If they say, "I'll call you tomorrow", they really mean, "I'll call you at some point, but probably never."

I say all of this in the hope of giving some understanding of the intense frustration of trying to accomplish things from the other side of the world when your Thai business partner constantly responds with, "Don't worry", and, "I'll call you". To be fair, I am admittedly Type-A-anal-retentive, but if we accept that, then we also have to accept that Ajay is exactly the opposite.  

Ajay and I on the day we signed the lease

 

It was very difficult to leave my new project, my pet, my baby in Thailand and return to America in order to make the money to pay for it. 

 The state of the place shortly before I had to leave

Of course I had a long list of things I wanted to accomplish before I left, but instead, I had to drop them in Ajay's lap…. Sell the bar fridges and flat screen TVs, get uniforms for staff, install internet, buy curtains and decorations yadda, yadda, yadda. 

 TV to be sold, stereo speakers to be moved and rewired

Bar fridge to be sold (it's still there as I write this)

And being who I am, I wanted a report on the progress of these things.... EVERY DAY. Well, that never happened, so it wasn’t long before Ajay and I began bickering like an old married couple. In fairness to Ajay, he had recently started selling insurance as a side business and was apparently so good at it that it was fast becoming his primary business. So, in a way, he also had a new project, a new pet that needed tending and so, my pet suffered. 


I quickly learned that no tactic, no amount of pleading, cursing, yelling, crying or threats of bodily harm can move the Thai island-time-mind-set to move faster or more efficiently. I like to think of it as a way to apply what I've learned from meditation....."Let it go".

And so, I was stuck. I had no choice but to continue to prod Ajay for updates and communication of any kind while the spa kind of just ‘existed’, without any real growth or guidance, and the list of tasks that I had left undone remained mostly undone. The joint business bank account that Ajay and I had opened remained unused. The manager that Ajay had installed seemed unable or unwilling to communicate on a regular basis, and Ajay seemed unable or unwilling to go to Sairoong and shake the living shit out of him. He preferred to over-see the place from afar, expecting the staff to deliver money and financial reports to him on a daily basis. 

Through this period, I was also receiving frequent communications from one of the owners of the bar next door to Sairoong, whom I had become friendly with. He had no qualms in telling me that he thought I was completely crazy to leave a brand new business untended, and that Ajay never visited, leaving the staff to do as they pleased. More than once, in fact, he said some completely outrageous things to me. And once again, there was precious little I could do about any of it from the other side of the world.

In my on-going fantasies about how this spa would be, I had numerous plans and schemes for treatments, decorations, customer service extras, website marketing, staff training etc. The one thing I had never imagined was being told that the police had arrested three of my staff.

Next chapter: NO, I AM NOT A DRUG LORD

 

THE SPA CHRONICLES....Jumping in with both feet

It's been a very long time since I've written a blog post. There are times when I feel that I really don't have anything interesting to say, or I simply can't be bothered to make it entertaining. And the blog-o-sphere already has more than enough blogs that are just plain dull! And even when people think I lead this terribly exciting life, and some people are fascinated to hear every little detail, I'm can sometimes even bore myself talking about it.

That being said, I figured it was time to reboot the blog and talk about my adventure of owning a spa in Thailand, and trying to run it while I'm on the other side of the world. I knew it was going to be an adventure. Boy-howdy, what an adventure.

As a self-professed spa-whore, I got this crazy idea into my head, years ago, that I wanted to own a spa. I'm not really a business man, and I've never really run a "legitimate" business, but I figure 30 years of being self-employed has to count for something. While I was doing Lion King in Singapore, I had a long, drunken discussion with my dear friend Kate, owner of South Coast bar and grill, about running a business, and whether it was crazy to want to jump in knowing as little as I do. Her advice? "Look, mate, if you wanna do it, do it!"

 The conversation with Kate that started it all

Not long after that conversation, I rented a villa on the Thai island of Koh Samui to celebrate my birthday with my buddy Tim. On that trip, I met Ajay (His Thai name is Ratchatapong. They all choose English names for themselves since foreigners just can't get their tongues around Thai). Ajay is a tiny but oh-so-industrious Thai guy with a hunger for success. We kept in touch after my trip was over and became friends.

About a year later, I was living in New York and doing Lion King Broadway,  and made a second trip to Samui. I went to see the new men's spa that Ajay had just opened on his own, and we began discussing the idea of opening a place together. The Thai government mandates that you cannot open a business unless you have a Thai business partner who must also be the primary director.  They don't want the poverty-stricken people of this country being screwed over by avaricious foreigners. We discussed various concepts and locations, basic ideas really, and put the whole thing on hold until I could scrape a little extra money together as start-up capital. 

Fast forward another year(ish), and I am now working for The Lion King National Touring Company. I make a third trip to Samui, this time with the intention of getting serious about coming up with a business plan, forming our legal Thai company, scouting for some possible locations and just getting a feel of what the market is doing and how much money will be required to start this new venture. It was at this point that the old Gypsy curse came into play..."Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it"!   An Australian guy had a "bar" in the busiest, most tourist-heavy part of Chaweng, which was run by his Thai wife.  Sadly, his father was very ill and he had to move back to Australia to be a caretaker. He was so short on time and options that he was desperate to sell so the price was just to good to pass up, even though we weren't really ready to make the move yet. (It's important to note here the I didn't buy the building, I bought out his lease on the place. The building was a little out of my price range) The reason I used "bar", in quotes, is because, though they actually did serve liquor and play music downstairs, there were rooms upstairs. Rooms with mattresses in them....so you need not think to hard about what kind of a "bar" this really was. 

All the better for us because the upstairs could become our treatment rooms without having to renovate a single thing. And so.....we jumped. There was a few days that were a blur of cash transactions, lawyers, shopping and negotiation, all while I was still trying to finish my PADI certification! Aussie guy dropped the keys in my hand and left the next morning, leaving behind everything that was a part of the bar....all the glasses, kitchen utensils, booze, commercial fridges, tvs, stereo, of course the mattresses, a rather large supply of condoms.......everything. 

The Neon Moon Bar

Since we had not planned on starting the business this quickly, the last few days before my scheduled departure were insane. What we bought certainly didn't need any reno, but it hadn't been properly cleaned in years, badly needed painting, and most of what was in there needed to be moved out. I did as much as I could before I had to leave, and then had to leave the rest in Ajay's hands. 

Cleanup and remodel begins

 The shower room before redecorating

The redecorated shower room

 The reception area as it looks now

While buying and redecorating the place was certainly exciting, it was when I got back to work in America and started trying to run the business from afar that the real adventure began...

Next chapter: "My way, not the Thai way!"