Trust Issues

"I've learned to listen to myself, to listen to truth, to not be afraid of it and to not try and hide it"
                              ----Sarah McLachlan

In our talk about sustainability last week, I mentioned a survey about businesses in Altadena that was conducted by the Altadena Chamber of Commerce .  News of the survey and links to it appeared in AltadenaPatch.com and Altadenablog several months ago. The survey results have been compiled and will be presented to the public at the Chamber's next mixer, at the Community Center, 5:30 pm on Thursday, May 26th.  This is great news, for we finally have some information to use to build our case for some County attention our our neck of the woods, not to mention our own internal need for forward motion.  After the mixer and the release of the survey, you'll get a guided tour of the results, a la Lori.

I spoke about my having picked up some inspirational reading material last week, as well.  Scott and I both listened to Seth Godin's newest book, Poke The Box, on audio tape and we're so inspired.  I love that we can listen to someone who advocates standing up and making a difference - and I love even more that we both agree that's something we can do together!  We are also reading Jeanne Bliss' newest book, "I Love You More Than My Dog".  While I haven't yet finished Jeanne's book, I can say that these books, in combination, are proving to be invaluable to me.  I see clearly that we've been depressed these past several months, letting the pressures of owning this store affect our relationship with not just each other, but the relationship we have with our customers.....you.....in a not-so-positive way.

At our crew meeting tonight, we talked about these things.  We talked about trust - the trust between the public and our store and also the trust between our crew and us.  We want our store to shine on every level, most importantly customer service.  We've decided that we can't have excellent customer service if we don't trust our crew members to instantly respond to customers' needs.  Returns or problems of any kind can be handled by any one of our able crew members at any time and we absolutely trust their judgement. 

Our no-cell-phone policy was brought up as we discussed trusting our customers.  I think that in our zeal to provide a restful, calm shopping experience, we ticked a few people off when we asked them not to use their phone in the store.  We've rethought the message we were sending when we enforced that policy and would like to issue a sincere apology to anyone upset by it.  We believe that our customers can be quiet while on the phone in the store and we'll leave it at that.

Our monthly Fancy Food Truck Fridays event on the 13th went very well - 6 food trucks, including the Border Grill Truck, and a record attendance!  Beautiful weather helped along with the complimentary Tarot card readings by our lovely gypsy fortune tellers.....everyone wanted their fortune told on Friday the 13th!  Yesterday was this month's wine tasting event with the publishers of the blog OddBallGrape.com and we paired several Syrah's with picnic foods (deviled eggs, fried chicken & potato salad) provided by DD's Chick & Cat Shack.  This was a fabulous pairing - those attending were very impressed with the lovely wines and the accompanying food!  The next wine tasting will be on Saturday, June 19th, and our theme will be "Cabs For Dads and Grads".  Make sure to look for our event announcements in your email or on our Facebook Page!  We're also working on a follow up to our Social Media 101 event last October - we'll let you know when we will be scheduling that.

Until next week, my friends.....have a wonderful week ahead!

Lori & Scott