Musings of Sally Boldt-Strebel

With the holidays just around the corner, chances are your employees are expecting a shindig. For the small business or start-up owner this can be a very stressful time. Here are 5 tips to making sure your party is a hit.

Tip 1: Set a budget
Sounds obvious, right? You’d be surprised. Without a clear understanding of financial resources, a business owner can easily overspend on their party. Commit to a certain dollar amount and figure out a way to work with it. The last thing you want is to feel guilty about spending too much when you should be celebrating.

Tip 2: What’s the objective?
Figure out what the objective is for throwing a holiday affair. Are you having a party because you want to build a team, have fun, show appreciation, etc.? Understanding your objective will help determine where money is best spent and the activities you plan to host. This takes us to tip 3.

Tip 3: Determine your activities
Will you have a theme party? A theme such as an Ugly Christmas Sweater party. Will your party be formal or informal? Are you going to host your party during the day or at night? Is it going to take place in the office, at a restaurant, ballet, ballroom, etc.? Once you figure out what activities you plan to host, it is important to inform your guests and make the needed reservations.

Tip 4: Show acknowledgment and appreciation through your gift.
Let’s face it, employees measure your appreciation through the gift. They usually want money but for the start-up or small business owners that can be difficult. Consider placing a small check in a card that highlights all the attributes they bring to the business. Tell your employees that the business is growing and sell them on the vision. Also, give personal gifts. If one of your employees likes wine, give her a wine basket.

Tip 5: Remain Cool
This is the most important tip for any party-Remain cool. The host’s attitude sets the mood for the entire party. If the host is stressed out, the guests will try to alleviate some of the stress by helping instead of having fun. If the host is having fun, he allows others to have fun as well.

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Here is some of the advice I have received over the years. Please include your advice.

Remain flexible- Take your ego out of the picture. If you are doing all the thinking, you’ve only got one brain working. If you have hired well, then you have hired people that are smarter than yourself. Use their knowledge too. When I start getting in my own way, I ask myself “Would you rather be right or highly successful?”. Then, I take my ego out of the equation, look at the possibilities, and choose what is best for my company.

Make small decisions quickly- A small decision won’t make or break your company. Quickly choose the best solution (10seconds) and if it doesn’t work, you can always change it later.

Don’t fret about competition- Competition exists when your idea proves worthy of replication. Embrace what your competition executes well and make it better. In fact, they may have undergone rounds of testing which saves you time and money.

Live by your vision with passion- Have a deep, personal passion for starting your company. By writing a personal and company vision you will make company decisions quicker and establish more drive to get you through the tough times. Your vision will inspire and shape your company’s culture.

Look for funding when you are doing well financially.

Protect your assets- Talk to an accountant or lawyer to determine what type of corporation will protect you best.

Hire slowly- One of the quickest ways to going belly up is to hire a bad apple that infects the company’s moral and vision. Read my recent post on having fierce conversations.

Reward positive employee behavior- Rewards do not always require cash. Consider compliments, a pat on the back, acts of service, or a thoughtful gift. Be sure to tell the employee why you are rewarding them. By telling them the reason, you will reinforce the behavior.

Control your anger- This does not mean that you have to take crap. It does mean that you should treat employees how you would want to be treated.

Work on your business, not in it.

If you think starting your own business will solve all your problems, you’ve got another thing comin’. A friend of mine named J.J. said this to me when I was first getting started. She owns Scottsdale Lotus and Lavender’s Day Spa. At first, I didn’t understand the full meaning of what she said. A couple years ago, I finally got it. I already had experience in the field and had prepared for a year so I figured that I had reduced potential for problems. What I didn’t get was that I was solving these problems with an employee mindset. The employee mindset of I can do everything. You can do everything with the help of others. You will always have problems but when you are starting a business you will have problems that you have no idea what to do with. It takes researching options and a qualified support team to make the right decision.

Keep going. The confidence will come with practice.

The most important advice- Have fun and listen to your intuition. You already know what you have to do so start acting on it. It’s easy to get confused with so many options flying at you. Ask yourself- Does this comply with my vision?, Who does this benefit?, What are the pro’s and cons of this?.

I hope this helps. I wish you all much success in your business endeavors.

All the best,
Sally Strebel

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These past couple of weeks have been crazy. I’ll give a short recap of the events.

- The BestPartyEver.com team spent close to 18 hours a day for the past 5 weeks preparing for the launch on Oct. 1
- Early Tuesday morning, talked to Robert Scoble and set up a time for an interview for that Friday. Booked flight and took off on Thursday.
- In San Francisco, I stayed at Francine Hardaway’s house, went to the Social Media Club meeting, had the BestPartyEver.com interview with Scoble and Rocky, met Scoble’s family, partied with the wonderful people of Half Moon Bay, and met up with some great friends. Headed home 3am on Sunday.
- On Sept. 30th, right before the launch of the new BestPartyEver.com, we found a huge bug. We had to devote the remainder of time trying to fix the problem.
- We launched the site at 7pm Oct. 1. Yippee. However, we did have to strip down some of the features due to the unruly bug from the previous day. The features were 97% complete.
- Oct. 2 Melinda, our resident MySpace addict, unleashes BPE myspace profile and already has 200+ friends
- Oct. 3 activated the “basket” so people can save their chosen vendors.
- Oct. 4 introduced “people” into search

What can you expect in the next couple weeks-
- Checklist
- Guestlist
- Budget Calculator
- Recipes
- More search options

I hope you enjoy the new site. If you have any recommendations or comments, we’d love to hear from you. And thanks Kyle for the kudos.

All the best,
Sally Strebel

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