Our flooring is in, and it looks great! (Likely to look a little better after we clean off the dust too!)
"Guts" of everything (electrical panel, 
plumbing, shelf supports, etc. behind service area sink) is also in place.As I left our third to last walk through today, Kirk and Mitch were going to pick up the fireplace insert to install. After that, they're calling the metal smith to measure the fireplace to put blackened sheet metal around it. It's amazing to me the level of care that is going into details like the 1/8 inch gap between the fireplace and the metal. I would have just eyeballed it.
Like I tried to for our lotion containers. Shari and I had a freak out moment this week when I realized that the amber bottles I initially gave her as samples were not the same size as the ones I ordered in the end (found them for half the price). So for a whole two hours I thought that the beautiful labels she designed wouldn't fit, which would mean that we would have to start again on finding a label size, which would mean that we might open without our Julep retail products.
How many different sizes could there be for tall 8 oz amber bullet bottles? Apparently at least two. . .
After our walk through, I met with Michael to learn how to manage the content on our new website: http://www.myjulep.com/. It's beautiful and highly versatile and functional! And I can change out pages all by myself. Actually, working on this blog was great practice for that.
The rest of the afternoon was devoted to talking with references for our amazing candidates. Here's some of what I learned (all different people):
"She's so grounded and wise, I always think she's decades older than she is!"
"She's dedicated and genuinely kind. Most of the others aren't very nice to the front reception. But XX really made us feel like part of the team."
"YY is so detail oriented. Her manicures just last and last. If I opened a salon, she'd be the first person I'd hire."
"She's got so much going on, but she just projects a blanket of calm of wherever she goes."
"She's just a really good person, in addition to being a good worker, you know?"
Karri and I are getting ready to invite people to join us by the end of this week. I just hope that we've been able to communicate how truly differently we're doing things.
I was talking to Shari about this tonight, and she suggested sharing The Servant Leader book I gave her and Karri several months ago with the broader team, once we get them assembled (this is one of the most important books I've ever read). I'd always meant to do this - I have six copies of it and it's the first thing I gave Karri when I was trying to share a little bit of who I was with her.
But somehow it's easy to lose track of these important priorities when you're ordering bags (arrived this week!), reviewing labels, and trying to get a phone line installed (still have my fingers crossed).
We have an amazing location, space design, logo, products, services, online scheduling system, website, tools, and even shopping bags. Now that we have this strong base, I think that the success of Julep really depends on how successful we are at living Servant Leadership.
