SELF-SURVEY

Spirit
What is your overall goal in your business?
What is the overall role and goal of the organization, its leaders, managers, and employees?
Why are you here, working in this business?

The Inn is the main way I support myself economically, so I hope to make as much profits as possible. It has never been very profitable, though, and this is due in part to the fact that I have never been able bring myself to focus entirely on the money-making aspects. Until lately we have sought to keep our prices relatively low, and to promote a community feeling for guests.

Relationships
What kind of relationships do you have or wish to have with your customers?
Is your main goal to sell your product or service? Are the relations fast, mechanical and manipulative, or personal and honest? Do you seek to make customers dependent?
Are sales manipulative? Does the business depend on irrational advertising, and it does it seek to make customers dependent?
What is the nature of your relationships with employees and suppliers?

We always like to think that we have a more human interaction with guests than in a large hotel, but I’m not sure that we actually do this. The innkeepers usually remain behind the desk and give the standard spiel and ask standard questions. Any suggestions about how we could actually achieve the ‘human’ relationships that we think we would LIKE to have are welcome.
Our advertising is fairly basic and direct, though we do emphasize the lower rather than our higher prices. For instance, we always say something like ‘$49 & up,’ rather than specifying the actual price range. I don’t know if this is fair.

Value
What is the value of your product or service?
What needs do your business fulfill? In what ways is the product or service you sell useful for customer?
Does it satisfies real needs, or manufactured ones? Is this truly beneficial for them? Does it appeal to lust, violence, envy, or ambition? Does it prey on desire or fear (for instance, in advertising)?

Our ‘product’ is one of the three basic human needs: lodging. It is also involved with an artificial need: tourism. Still, travel is another human need that can be a good thing. Travel that is discovery of new natural and human realities is essential. If we were to succeed in providing resources and tools for meaningful discovery of these realities while travelers are in Alaska, the value of our service could be much higher. So maybe we should focus more energy there – for instance, by supporting the Conscious Business Alliance, especially as it concerns travel oriented businesses.

Justice

How fairly is your business structured?
Profits and prices
Are profits distributed fairly?
Are prices commensurate with actual costs?
Producers and suppliers
Are workers and producers paid fairly? Do they earn enough to maintain a decent living standard?
Are the conditions under which they work safe and humane?
Transparency
Do you have trade secrets or hidden price structures? Is there free sharing of information and knowledge?
Nature. What is the impact of your business on the environment?

The business is structured as a ‘subchapter S’ corporation, with all profits being passed down to the owner of the building. Workers are paid amounts more or less in line with hotel standards, which are fairly low in terms of the overall economy. Housekeepers are paid $10 per hour; night innkeepers are paid $7.50, but are doing actual work less than 50% of the time. Innkeepers are paid more.
We do not practice ‘transparency,’ disclosing all financial information to the public (though of course we are forced to do so to banks and to the IRS).
Our summer prices are much lower than the standard Anchorage prices, though we have been raising them regularly the past couple of years, and some rooms are now about $96 (rooms with private baths and two beds).
For the first time we are now using Seventh Generation – a company that supplies organic, non-toxic products – for nearly all our cleaning products. This is not much of a sacrifice, since a local company (put information here) charges no more than Costco!

Community
Localism. Is it locally owned or owned by an a corporation based in another state?
Scale. Is the business a human-scale, permitting understanding and response to personal situations?
Are meaningful jobs available?

The business is locally owned and small scale. Jobs are not really particularly meaningful, though perhaps if we do develop our ‘meaningful travel’ project ideas this could be improved somewhat. In addition, we are working on a spiritual/educational project now to provide great books and quotations to guests in their rooms.