Saturday, May 3, 2008

The weekend before . . .

Our new "firefly" lights. (Thank you Tom!).
Here's Kate, hard at work steaming drapery.

And our new Julep vernisseurs, practicing (and receiving!) our Julep Parlor Pedicure during our five day Immersion program. (There's Kate G on the end, hard at work on our opening e-mail campaign while being a model!). Being with this terrific crew was like drinking five lattes - just crazy energizing! And here's the retail display Angelina created, on the beautiful piece designed by Jennifer and built by Chris.

And here's our "To Do" list! More and more tasks getting crossed out. . .

Just two days until we open our new downtown parlor! We just finished our third week-long "Julep Immersion Program" - with new vernisseurs, parlor hostesses, and Evelyn (our new esthetician) from both our Unviersity District and Downtown parlors. I always love immersion - it's inspiring to be so face to face with such enthisuasm and dedication.

Then, on Wednesday, our beautiful client service chairs arrived (orange leather!). And on Friday, our pedicure ottomans arrived along with one manicure bar, and on Saturday, the manicure carts and other manicure bar.

Although we had to go several rounds with Qwest, our DSL and phone lines are connected (there was apparently some confusion about whether we just wanted jacks installed, or whether we wanted jacks installed AND turned on. FYI you have to specify the latter . . .).

This parlor opening is actually turning out to be so much more nervewracking for me than the first time around. The first time, we didn't have a reputation at stake. But because our original crew did such an amazing job at our Northcut location, I now feel like we have high expectations to meet.

But we are working hard to meet them. For example, this time around, we not only know how to do credit card processing, but it is integrated into 2 POS terminals that have been set up (properly) and tested and retested. Mary Lee even figured out how to set up our bar code scanner!

Besides, as Yoda says in "Revenge of the Fifth" (as my daughter calls it), the fear of loss leads to the dark side ("Beware the dark side. Strong it is"). This is also a message given to the Avatar (the Nickelodeon series my son and husband are obsessed with). To reach the Avatar state, Ang has to let go - and not fear loss.

Loosely translated to the manicure/pedicure/skincare business, I think this means that we should focus on the positive vision of what we want to be in the future, not fearful of losing the ground we are standing on today. Although we wield nail vernis brushes instead of light sabers, we need to vanquish fear and let the force guide us.