After years of gloomy economic news, the emphasis has shifted. Today Corbett and his 19-year-old company, West Chester -based Sasha Corp. teach front-line employees how to hold on to another important commodity: customers.

Sasha uses a novel approach to employee training - making use of method acting techniques in a regimen Corbett and his wife, Brenda, call "Showtime."

With help from Dan Region, an actor friend who trained at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in New York, Corbett began to incorporate some of the techniques that Studio alums Marlon Brando and Dustin Hoffman use in the movies.

Critical to the approach is giving an employee the motivation to provide first-rate customer service.
 

'What we teach people  is that there are two things that are true about all human beings - they seek out things that give them pleasure and comfort, and they avoid pain at all costs," Corbett said. "Everybody wants to be acknowledged. Everybody wants a smile. Customers want the same basic things no matter where they shop. We just want to take people off of automatic pilot."

Kroger tried a pilot project that covered 600 employees at four stores. Coney Island employees went through the training last season and again this year. Appearance Plus Cleaners, Bridgeway Pointe, the assisted living facility at Drake Center, and the Greater Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau also are recent Sasha clients.

Julie Calvert of the convention bureau said the bureau can only go so far in its effort to attract. conventions and vacationers to the region. After that, the visitor's experience is in the hands of restaurant workers, hotel employees, ticket takers and museum guides. "What's going to be a determining factor in whether they enjoy themselves is how they're treated once they're here," Calvert said.