Week 9

Entrepreneurial Journal – Week 9

This week was another Stake wedding, although this one was a little more pleasurable.  The family is from California and seems to be a little more realistic about cost and were very easy going.  There weren’t any business mistakes or errors in this wedding, other than over ordering on a couple of the varieties of flowers.  The way I was able to remedy this is that I used the flowers that were leftover at my weekly country club installation. 

The only bad thing that happened with this wedding was a mishap from the caterer.  She had a new employee that set up the tables and didn’t lock the legs on three of them.  Worse than losing all of my newly purchased gold mercury glass was the safety issue. When the tables collapsed, glass shattered everywhere and there were children around.  Thankfully nobody got hurt, but it was a little bit scary.  The caterer was very apologetic, but I had the breakage issue I had to deal with.  In the past, I may have let this go and not worried about it, but it was a $150 loss for my business, and that is talking wholesale/replacement cost, not retail.  I spoke to my client and told them that someone would have to take responsibility for it.  Fortunately, the caterer was very honest and forthright and offered to pay to replace the broken glass.  Interestingly enough, she also wanted to be able to pass my name along to other clients of hers.  We were able to develop a nice relationship over working together and we both look forward to working together in the future.  The lesson I learned is that it is OK to be professional and kind and still make expectations known without sacrificing a relationship.