By Beach Radio

Speaker Entertains Vernon Crowd

Oct 30, 2017 | 1:26 PM

Vernon and area residents got to hear from one of the leading speakers on developing, maintaining or transforming corporate cultures to achieve exceptional and sustainable business results.

Jim Knight spoke at the Vernon Lodge Friday

According to his website, Knight is a service and hospitality expert who helps Fortune 500 companies looking to reinvent themselves or shake things up.

Knight spent over two decades as the senior director of training & development at Hard Rock International.

The Pretium Group says Knight spoke to a diverse crowd ranging from business owners, tourism, restaurant, professionals and educators.

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Pretium Group says Knight’s topics included organization culture, world-class service, and building rock star teams.

Paula Harned from Pretium Group says “The Okanagan continues to grow in both economic and tourism terms and is becoming well known as one of the top places to live and work in the world – with this comes increased competition in all areas – and all businesses both big and small need to embrace a culture of great service – and Jim proved that he is world-class at delivering this message.”

Russel Haubrich from Vance Creek Hotel introduced Knight to the participants highlighting his career which most notably was a Senior VP with Hard Rock Hotels and Cafe as the lead trainer.

Haubrich says Knight was amazing.

“Jim went at a blistering speed but got all his points across with amazing efficiency – our whole team came to the event and there is lots we are going to be working on. Jim is right – many businesses only provide mediocre service – that is just not going to cut it- we need to “be the chocolate ” like Jim stated .. not the Vanilla. I am glad most my competitors did not come to the workshop,” Haubrich said with a chuckle.

Imre Kovacs and Adrian Robinson also brought the whole team from Quintet Fund – Quintet is a major player in the cannabis space in Canada.

Kovacs stated ” our group is cutting edge already with amazing service levels – Jim was very good – I have been to workshops like this all over the world – and this was right up there with the best – how I guy can hold you like that for 4 hours is incredible – compliments to the team at Pretium for taking the lead and bring this level of training to Vernon – and Jim is timely for us … the Cannabis sector is only going to get tougher .. only the very best from a service level will survive.

Katie Bellamy, co founder and Senior VP with Pretium Group who operates restaurants and printing companies says Knight drilled it on how service trumps everything.

“More important the product, price and convenience EVERYTIME – we can all cook a cheeseburger – but can you honestly say that you were blown away with the service ? Well you can if you are in my section,” Bellamy said with a laugh.

by Beach Radio