Our Favorite Things

The store managers and the support team, along with both of the owners, have a weekly conference call where we catch each other up on important news, ideas, products, sales, happenings. Within all of this information sharing is a question that gets posed to each of the managers, every week: "What is your favorite thing that happened in your store this week?" The question may vary to what employee had the greatest impact, or what customer experience was the best, but it all comes down to a particular moment that stands out as exceptional.

One of the things I love about this question is the managers always have something to say, and they often have more than one story they want to share. It's one thing to talk about core values and creating intentional company culture. It's another thing entirely to live and breathe it, day in and day out, and each week have something tangible to share with others that walks the talk of integrity, or great customer awareness or being results driven (just a few of our core values).

We hear from customers very regularly that our stores feel different, that the sales team actually seems to care about customers' projects and about them as people. We hear a lot that we have exceptional customer service and that we feel homey. This kind of feedback is always a morale booster and what I love about our team is that that kind of praise and enthusiasm comes from the inside as well. Which is why customers feel the way they do about us. You can't fake genuine and authentic. It has to come, one favorite thing at a time.

-Jocelyn Lovelle