Your business’s opening night needs to be a resounding success to set a good precedent for the future. This is where your passion, thoughtfulness and excitement can finally be let loose; but that’s not to say your thrill should go unfiltered and unchecked. After all, you’re gunning to land a first impression, and it needs to be a good one to achieve the best results possible.
You have one shot to make it work, but one shot’s all you need. Consequently, here a few ways to ensure your business opening night is a success.
No Alcohol for Employees
It might seem like a flat note to start on, but it’s important to mention nonetheless. While alcohol and celebration typically go hand in hand, it’s a recipe fit for disaster when they’re mixed with business. Remember, even though it’s an opening night ordeal, it’s vital that you maintain a business as usual approach.
For example, if you’re opening a restaurant, you and your employees should not be swigging wine behind the scenes in celebration; you should be working. Working under the influence of alcohol flies in the face of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, and could bring your business into extreme disrepute if it’s witnessed. All in all, you and your employees need a clear mind to provide the most effective and helpful service as possible. Stow away the champagne.
Your customers won’t particularly care if you’re all having a nice time or not. They want good service, and anything that gets in the way of that isn’t good enough. If you’re too giggly, slurring your words or exude the stench of booze, your guests won’t come back and they won’t give you a free pass for opening night either. It’s also against the law to drink at work in most cases anyway, so save it for a work do afterwards if you’re keen to celebrate.
Brief Your Workers
You may have had the perfect picture painted in your mind for your opening night. No doubt it’s taken a lot of toil to get to this point, and all your hard work has now accumulated into this one night. The dream has mostly come to fruition and your expectations are set high, but you can’t meet them alone. You need others to share these aspirations with you.
To pull off a successful opening night, you need to make sure that you and all your employees are on the same page. Share with them what you envision for the proceedings and try to stir the fires of excitement within them. After all, many of your employees might not be quite on the same motivation level as you. To some of them, this may be ‘just a job’ in hospitality service, whereas to you this is an exciting new enterprise. Try to balance those scales somewhat.
Whether it’s a poignant speech or the promise of a bright future with your company, any rousing action is a good one here. Consider that motivation levels among your crew are very much under your control, so give them all a reason to believe that this opening night is the start of a fledging career.
Tools and Equipment
Nothing stalls productivity like missing equipment. Whether you’re a restaurant or a garage, that missing tool might be just what you need to go from point A to point B. Cutlery, spanners, glasses or screwdrivers; they’re all needed on site to ensure that things are running as smoothly as possible.
As previously mentioned, your company’s opening night serves as a first impression. You can’t risk any lapses in judgement or service, as they’re less likely to be forgiven here. Consequently, you really need to ensure that you’re equipped with everything you need. If you’re lacking the right tools to get the job done, your guests and customers will assume that you’ve tried to run before you can walk, and more importantly be thoroughly unimpressed.
Don’t try to pull off an opening night before you feasibly can. You need to flaunt everything you have to offer, so you shouldn’t open the doors to paying customers if you’re less than 100% sure that you can.
Gauging Temperatures
Overlooked and underestimated, the temperature of your premises plays a huge role in the success of your opening night. This matter is once again another instance of striking out for perfection. It’s what your customers and employees want, and it’s what you should aim for in response.
If it’s summer and your premises is too hot, your customers and staff are in for a sweaty, smelly and generally unpleasant experience. Conversely, if it’s winter and your heating isn’t turned on, you’ll all freeze and shiver. It might seem trivial, but everyone remembers a bad experience, and if everyone at your important evening is uncomfortable then no one is going to have a good time or want to come back.
Therefore, you should seriously try to keep the temperature of your premises suitable for everyone’s needs. For example, you could investigate commercial heating from JLA, providing boilers and heaters when times get chilly. In any event, you should do your research and install the best equipment you can. It’s the details like this that really help to legitimise your business and secure a solid reputation.
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