Our Anniversary

So I'm finally getting the pics from our 1 Year Anniversary / Downtown Parlor Opening Party up - because I've just realized I should try to do this at least before we get to our next milestone of having Gig Harbor open (which is just right around the corner!).

Thanks Margot for throwing such a yummy, fun, festive event - just what we all needed!

I've never been very good at pausing to celebrate my own progress - I am much better about it for others. Being a parent helps - I'm much better at recogizing and celebrating milestones with my children than I am at recognizing and celebrating my own.

But what I've realized is that it is selfish not to pause to be proud of all we've accomplished - because I should not be modest on behalf of the hard work of others. I did not do this alone, so I have no right to be modest alone. All of us (including myself) who have worked so hard should be shouting our accomplishments from the mountaintops. Or at the least from obscure blogs that only a dedicated mother-in-law could love and read with regularity.

Hooray US!!! A continued happy anniversiary everyone, and here's to many, many more.

Jane


Here are our beautiful Parlor Managers . . . and our beautiful Parlor Managers to be . . .

Gel Buste Sulimant Effet Tenseur

I haven’t written much over the past month – mainly because I’ve been struggling earnestly, and somewhat painfully, with growing and being better in my role – which has had the unfortunate side effect of causing a general sense of humor failure.

All of this was cured miraculously this morning when I went to grab my Decleor moisturizer sample that Trish, our Decleor rep, gave me last week. She said she had the perfect thing for me – just what I needed. And what I needed this morning was a little pick me up. Coffee and a burst of essential oils seemed to be just the thing.

But the moisturizer was a little more gel-like than I remembered. After rubbing it all over my face, I picked it up to read the instructions, which started innocently enough with: “Apply using circular movements” but, rather unexpectedly, ended with: “. . . avoiding the nipple area.”

I read it 3 times. Was this one of those strange translation errors you see when traveling abroad, like: “Teeth extracted by latest Methodists” or “It is recommendations leave your values at the front door.”

Nope. Turning the bottle over, I realized that I had doused my face with “Perfect Scupt: Gel Buste Sulimant Effet Tenseur” or “Bust Beautifying Toning Gel.”

Hmm. The “perfect” thing for me.

Yes, I have birthed two children, and, as Murphy Brown once said to Quantum Leap guy, “Contents may have shifted during flight.”

But really. I mean. Really.

On the bright side, my “C” cup cheeks have never been perkier.

Manolos and Sex And City Movie

I’m so excited about the Sex And the City Movie!

I’m going to try to hijack our bookgroup into becoming a movie group for the month. (After all, we are more free form these days – we’re reading some macrobiotic food article and Michelle is cooking us a macrobiotic meal tomorrow).

In anticipation, I just bought my first pair of Manolos today! Even though they’re not mine, it was thrilling. They are all feathery and elegant.

Anyone who comes into Julep for a pedicure before June 13^th can enter to win the Manolos, and 4 tickets to the Sex And The City Movie. We’re also playing Sex And the City in our parlors (still so exciting to write “parlors” in plural!) this month. I'm going to send out an e-mail newsletter later tongiht, and trying to figure out what acronym to use (SATC? S&The City? S&TC?) so that we don't get filtered out as inappropriate content.

We had some friends over for a barbeque this weekend, and the guys were all predicting that the movie would not be good. I can’t imagine what it would take for me not to enjoy this movie (leaky roof right above my seat?).

Our New Downtown Parlor is Now Open!

Since last I wrote, we have:
· Opened our beautiful new downtown parlor (and the last of our furniture - for the reception area - arrived today!).
· Celebrated our first mother’s day - at both parlors!
· Submitted for permitting for our new Gig Harbor location.
· Eaten dozens of Top Pot doughnuts (okay, that’s mostly ME)

I feel about our second parlor the way I felt about our second child – having our first child made us parents, having our second child made us a family. It was the tipping point where the whole became a stronger separate entity that I felt a stronger, separate responsibility to define, grow and nurture (aside from the parental obligations of nurturing each individual child).

This has made my role more familiar, but in a bittersweet way. Over the past year, I have loved being the one who solves everything directly – from tropical temperatures and lighting outages all the way through financing and strategic planning.

But we now have a talented cadre of managers, who are doing the day to day doing. Angelina is trouble shooting the tropical temperatures and slow booking software. Amy and Patience are recruiting, and Anna is building the staffing schedules and creative new programs like the Night of Amore (teaching couples how to do foot massage). And it’s hard to complain about not being the one to open at 7:30am and close at 9:30pm (thank you guys!!!).

As Jeanne and Kate keep reminding me, my role now is to support this talented crew, define what success looks like at Julep and help them achieve it – so they can, in turn, to do the same inside each parlor with our talented team of estheticians and vernisseurs. Both Jeanne and Kate are great at anticipating our team’s needs. Kate says that she loves it when she has a plan that works. That’s how she gets her work highs. Jeanne said she stressed two months ago (updating/writing/directing all of us to write pieces of the manager / parlor hostess / vernisseur operating manuals) so she’s not stressing now (except about having her baby, which should happen THIS WEEK if all goes well!).

I’m really excited about the opportunity to focus a little more on figuring out where we’re headed as a whole, and who we want to be as a collective entity.

Thoughts of our first, founding parlor

As we open the doors to our new downtown parlor, I’m really overwhelmed by how much we’ve accomplished at our first, "founding parlor" in the University District. We’ve now made our guests just a little more relaxed and glamorous over 14,000 times in amazing manicures, pedicures, esthetics treatments and massages.

If it wasn’t for the amazing team who built Julep from our first harried days of working EVERYTHING out on the fly, we wouldn’t be where we are today (operating as smooth as glass in our new parlor on our very first day!).

So an enormous thank you to everyone who was a part of the first, founding parlor in our first, founding year: Amy, Anthony, Arlene, Hadassah, Jeanne, Karri, Kate G, Lisa, Marika, Mae, Michelle, Summer, Danielle, Audrey, Tracey, Margot, Megan A, Megumi, Jessica, Ali, Keaomee, Leah, Shannon, Erin, Patience, Kate M, Anna, Thu, Rosemary, Mary Lee, Jesse, Jaimie, Tara, Quynh, Xenia, Phoebe, (and our “newbies”: Becky, Dawn, Megan B. and Susie too!).

You have each made unique contributions to Julep and have helped us to grow in countless ways. I will always be grateful to you.

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.

Finishing touches

Our new, high manicure bar! Such a cool spot.
Now it's Kate and Mary Lee. What a dynamic duo.

Lisa, taking a break from polishing color palattes to text her sweet husband?

And here's the work!

Friday - T-3 days

Lynda and Kirk sitting in our beautiful orange leather chairs.
Gourmando fed us with yummy boxed lunches! The curried lamb gyro was amazing.

Amy hard at work polishing!

And Ripley - whose name comes up with alarming freqency in Jeanne's e-mails directing us on how to set up our technology.

Julep Downtown - Coming Together!

We passed our inspection today! (Thanks Kirk & Mitch from Wilcox!!).

Our general inspection was delayed because we initially failed our fire inspection because our strobes or horns or both were not powerful enough, so we had to get our electrician back to change the wiring, but the fire alarm guys did not show up as planned yesterday to test the system, so we were flying blind in our general inspection. And that's not the half of it.

It's amazing how many details have to come together for us to open! Amy has been interviewing and hiring up a storm on the vernisseur front. Kate M. has been managing dozens of suppliers, bringing doughnuts where possible. Mary Lee has been hitting every store in Seattle, shopping for vernisseur baskets, trash cans, office supplies, mirrors, benches and more (while also working as a parlor hostess!). Jeanne orchestrated all of this to work by stressing about it months ago, and Lisa has been preparing for immersion. Lisa, Kate G and Angelina have been preparing training materials, and Angelina and Lisa have been working on our retail products. And Danielle's been making sure our suppliers are paid, while Anna and Patience are continuing to support and nourture our first parlor.

WOW.

LOTS of hard work has gone into bringing the Julep experience to more women. And just tonight, a group of businesswomen walked by our new parlor and started dancing in excitement. (We're not even making that up, either!). That guest excitement is what makes this all worthwhile!!

Slice of life

Tomorrow I am working on:

- Getting 2 investors their documents to sign
- Getting together with my broker, Tracy Cornell, for our weekly drive around to look for new locations
- Figuring out what to do about a location on the East Side
- Coordinating getting decals on our windows downtown
- Finishing writing our front desk new menu training (which we're holding Sunday night, for exciting new menu that will be launched on Tuesday)
- Having lunch with Scott Staff and a colleague of his at Purple
- Checking in with Kari and Jennifer at Marketing Alchemist
- Checking in with Kate G for our weekly one on one
- Figuring out how to implement our call center (and purchasing the phones we need to do that)
- Looking at our Immersion Binder to figure out what we need to add to make it better
- Hopefully accepting delivery of the first batch of our new menus!!!
- Taking my mom out for her birthday!

Chris at Dovetail

Here's Chris at Dovetail, who's building our new transaction plane, manicure bar table, sink cabinets, and, most incredibly, an awesome all-in-one manicure table / drink table / purse holder / pedicure cart solution. All designed by the crazy talented Jennifer Thuma - with lots of live input from all of our team, but especially Amy and Lisa. Thank you Chris, for working so hard on our project - and for weathering all our constant changes and occasional tears.

Flooring is in!

Weekly Manager Meetings

Here's a teeny picture of the interior wall turned gun-metal grey (from Kate's phone camera). And the rest of the walls painted buterry.

And the new parlor is not the only thing that's been moving forward in leaps and bounds!

We now have an official Julep Manager Resource Guide, 2008, which pulls together all of the information, tools and processes we've been developing over the past 10 months. We've been taking some time each Wednesday to meet with the manager teams from our first parlor, and our new downtown parlor (and one new location that we'll announce soon . .. ).

For those of you who have been at the parlor, wondering what the heck all the "Manager Meeting" blockouts are for, here's the inside look.

Over the past few weeks, we've been sitting in rather uncomfortable (but free!) chairs in our Support Center office, taking the time to pull together, improve and share everything we know about how to support you better. In particular, we've covered the PURPOSE, and HOW-TOs of:

- Strengthening and Sharing Julep's Mission and Values

- Delivering Memorably Outstanding Customer Service

- Staff Development, Management and Career Paths

- Optimizing Parlor Performance

- Cash Management

- Inventory Management

- Facilities Management

Jeanne created an tabbed binder that breaks down each of these areas into "Daily," "Weekly," and "As Needed" responsibilities. Then we have the specific goals, metrics, tools, reports, processes and forms in each relevant section. (I was her hole puncher and binder organizer, and I was so amazed by all the rich material! And my hand hurt by the end). It's all what each team makes of it, but we were trying our hardest to enable smoother, more predictable expectations going forward - especially as we launch additional parlors.

We've also had great debates about what Julep IS (passion for touch, job that feeds your soul, passion for the environment, growth, opportunity, openness to be creative, openness to new ideas, team work, customer service driven, excited, asking instead of telling, accountabiltiy, integrity, honesty, authenticity, walking the talk, pride in our work), what Julep IS NOT (first one out the door, dispassionate, artificial (nails or personality), soley money motivated, selfish, "solo artist," chop shop, "because I said so").

And then we've created and shared staffing tools (where I got to dust off my advanced excel skills), goals and metrics. We've created a mentorship program for new team members, as well as a new immersion program.

I'm so proud of what we are today - but it's exciting to think about what we're going to be a month from now.

Of course, it's frightening. We're about to more than double in size. And we're thinking explicitly about how to do this while preserving what is great about our culture and work environment, and strenghening it in areas where we needed to develop.

Like therapy, I think it's powerful to name and detail out our fears. They are justified! And only then we can plan around how to avoid these potential pitfalls.

Fireplace - Now you don't see it, Now you do!

Here's Jennifer measuring for the sink cabinet, and notice the hole where the fireplace is going to go in . . . and then it's suddenly in! Kate M. also captured on film a rare moment where I'm actually making Kirk smile, not cry. This week, Mitch had in his weekly notes item 4.11: "No more changes."

Now Mitch, I've watched all the design shows, and Opening Soon by Design (when it was on), and it seems to me that we're very light on changes compared to the average Restauranteur (at least the ones who land on reality TV, anyway).

But we will try harder to limit our creative expression from this point forth.

This week was the first time the Downtown parlor seemed truly real to me.

Maybe it was the fireplace going in.

Real Parlor Games

Lisa (our most excellent New Products and Training Manager), just presented me tonight with a book that she and her husband Mike found antiquing this weekend (yes, yes, she admits it is "nerdy" to antique). It's called, "Parlor Games," by Helen Hollister, published in 1922.

It's full of brilliant exercises. I actually really love parlor games (it wasn't just a convenient name for my blog). Board games, charades, pictionary, bridge, you name it. I'm on a quest to amass enough social power to be able to force people to come to my dinner parties and pretend that they love these games as much as I do.

Here's a perfect example from page 35:

SLANDER

"One player goes from the room, while the leader, providing himself with pencil and paper, writes down all the remarks uttered by each member of the party, in turn, concerning the absent party." (JP: But it gets even better).

"He, being then recalled, the remarks are read to him while he endeavors to guess the names of the originators. If he succeeds in tracing a remark to its source, the person having uttered it must go from the room to be slandered in turn."

Now look me in the computer screen and tell me that this wouldn't have added an exciting spark to your last gathering.

Perfect for weddings, birthdays, and corporate gatherings!

T Minus Seven Weeks

The temporary sign is up outside our new downtown parlor! (Thanks Keith and Kate!). And Danielle & Lucy, who modelled for the photo in the sign.
























And drywall is starting to go up, as Kirk points the way.

We've got LOTS of plugs in the manager office, Jeanne! So you can plug in your laptop AND your breast pump.

At seven weeks before opening (May 1st!!), my internal panic alarm has started going off. I think this is the point at which, last time, I had to abandon luxuries like time to shower.

But I'm so lucky that I've got such amazing people with me this time.

"Don't worry," say Amy, Anna and Patience, as we plan our recruiting events.

"Don't worry," says Kate M, who's keeping us on track on our downtown buildout.

"Don't worry," says Kate G, as she comes up with one awesome party offering idea after another.

"WORRY!!!" says Jeanne. But I'm chalking some of that up to the fact that she's having a baby in May, just as we open downtown. And I think she's trying to do everything she can to have us not calling her up in the Labor & Delivery Ward.

Speaking of babies, we're eagerly awaiting news of Shari's baby.

And I got an e-mail from Margot titled "Resurfacing" yesterday. She's seeing her oncologist tomorrow, but is recovering like a hero.

We have so much to be grateful for!

Congratulations Brune and Richard

Last week I traveled to New York for some meetings with prospective and current investors, and I invited myself to Brune & Richard's 10th anniversary party.

Brune & Richard is a boutique law firm started by smart, thoughtful, funny, amazingly dedicated women. (So smart, in fact, that several of them are Julep early investors and supporters - but I'd truly admire them regardless).

It was inspiring to see how B&R grew its practice - from the five lawyers they were five years ago, when I first met them through my friends Theresa and Nina, to the over twenty they are today on both coasts of this country.

I wish that all young lawyers, and especially young women lawyers, could have had a peek at this celebration. They would have seen a line of glamoristas who are living engaging professional and personal lives. The four women partners have built an exciting practice while being spouses to lovely men and mothers to lovely children. And boy, can they dance.

I wish I could have seen this fifteen years ago, when I was graduating from college. But I'm inspired by seeing it today.

My 100th Post!!

So it turns out this is my 100th post. Hooray!

Yes, it might have felt like SOO much more (because of the ginormousness of the pearls of wisdom or the tediousness of the sharing of the same, depending on what side of bipolar you're on at any particular time).

I think the Washington State Liquor Control Board should give me a special license to serve champagne in the parlor in honor of this achievement. (Hint hint).

So here we are, in Week 3 of construction, deciding fairly last minute to tear away the red wall - and finding - hooray! that we have an additional 10 inches on top of the 5 that we were hoping to get. Apparently the wall was furred out. (I'm not sure if it's furred or firred, but I love the idea of a fuzzy, furry thing so I'm going to spell it furred until someone at Home Depot tells me otherwise).

Kate felt strongly that we had to do this, after simulating the width of the space between the manicure table and the reception counter. There are a lot of things in the world making us feel less than ideal in terms of the size of our waists - the walkways at Julep shouldn't be one of them.

So, we asked Kirk and Tom about it. They give us an estimate for the cost of doing this that seems to justify the square footage we'll recover, and then Tom wonders what's behind the wall. Kirk gets out his saw, cuts a hole in the wall, and finds out that there's nothing electrical and funky - it's actually just more space!

I love being able to have concrete answers to concrete problems that can be solved by Kirk's tools.

Margot's Becoming a Breast Cancer Survivor Today

Our Margot is going in for surgery today to remove the cancer that she's been fearing all her life would show up in her body.

At 1pm (and for the 5 hours afterwards!), let's all send her our best healing thoughts.

I've always admired Margot's ability to plow through any problem with her matter-of-fact get-it-done energy and razor sharp sense of humor. The magnitude of this challenge, and how she's working through it, has just underscored this admiration.

We've all given our input into the size / shape of her future "tah-tahs" (as she calls them) - Jeanne thinks they should be lit from within. To symbolize her spirit, of course.

Margot has been a faithful self-examiner, and luckily caught the signs of BC early on. Please be faithful in your self-exams and encouraging the girlfriends/moms/sisters in your life to do the same.

We're going to have a huge party for Margot at Julep to celebrate her strength and resiliency. Whether strength is a choice or not (and I think for moms with young children it often isn't!) - it's still amazing and inspiring.

All our love and best, positive energy Margot!

Jane