TIBER RIVER

Looking forward to some fun tonight!

Hello everyone, I'm BACK!  I returned from my family vacation a couple of weeks ago to tackle some big changes along with nursing a very sick 3 year old back to health.  I apologize for my disappearance, but at times of intensity I tend to lose my creative enthusiasm  which unfortunately impacts my connection to the blog.  Thank you for sticking in there with me!

First, I owe Lisa a Tiber-Riffic Pedicure for the contest - please email me at michelle@tiberriver.ca and let us know where you would like to schedule your appointment. 

How did everyone spend their Valentine's Day?  We enjoyed a family dinner and I was looking forward to following it with a fire and delicious bottle of red wine. Unfortunately, we were too pooped to enjoy once we got the kids to bed so we will have a redo on the weekend.  I put together a nice package for my husband with two books for us to write down all of the things we love about each other.  When I told him about this fun exercise, he replied "how long does it have to be?".  I had to laugh because men really are so different!

Tonight we are hosting our annual Be Your Own Valentine Event at our Kenaston location and we are expecting a full house.  We are raising money for Osborne House and collecting $10 from everyone who attends.  There will be mini manicures, a little pole dancing, and some yummy martini sampling.  High Tea Bakery, Merle Norman, Pole Dancing Winnipeg, Mad About Style, and Viola from Passion Parties will be joining us for the festivities.  Looking forward to a great night, wishing you a great day!

Tiber Culture...

Good Morning all!!  Thought I'd follow up from my last post with a bit about how our staff meeting went.  As always, it was lively and full of conversation and laughter.  We shared a drink, listened to Pink's Raise Your Glass - to celebrate our uniqueness as a business - and discussed our culture and our growth.  We found there was a lot of worry about Tiber River growing.  Our team is worried we will lose our heart and by growing and branching outside of Winnipeg, we will lose who we are and what makes us special.

I hope we were able to calm everyone's worries by explaining how Michelle and I want to grow this company.  By focusing on our culture, we want to expand the love and feeling of excitement that comes with entering a Tiber store or using a Tiber product.  We do not want to lose any of that.  In fact, the whole purpose of the staff meeting was to put things in place so that we not only protect our culture, but cherish and nurture it and allow it to grow as well.  It is my firm belief that if something doesn't grow and change, it stagnates and dies and none of us could bare that happening to Tiber River.  And so, we grow and change inside a set of parameters created by our entire team.

I found out a few days after our meeting that we had inspired one of our team members to follow her passion.  She realized as she was sitting and listening at the meeting that while she loved her customers and the team, she wasn't doing what was in her heart.  She gave her notice on Friday and is going back to school.  While we are sad to lose her, we are all happy she is following her passion so that she can wake up every day and love what she does.  

We have brought two new, super exciting people into the Tiber team and I will introduce them more formally when they officially begin.  They will each bring a new energy and passion to Tiber River that will help cement our culture for the growth that is coming.  I am SO excited because all of the things Michelle and I have been talking about for the past two years are finally starting to materialize!  Woo Hoo - we're on our way!!  We have so many plans for Tiber River and I cannot wait until we can stand back with pride and say, yep, we built that!

As promised, here is the first entry in our own little culture book.  We asked everyone to explain what they thought the Tiber culture is, what makes us unique and what they valued about Tiber River.  Good or bad, we wanted to know what our team thinks of Tiber River.  All of the entries are anonymous and will be unedited.

"Tiber River is like Cheers.  Everyone knows each other.  Our team is a family and it shows.  Our products are amazing and unique.  I value my friends I've made, everything I've learned.  We go above and beyond.  We love what we do and it shows!"

Raise your glasses....

Good Morning all!!

I am taking a quick moment away from my team meeting planning to give everyone a sneak peak into tonights' meeting.  We have a Tiber team meeting every month.  Typically at these meetings we go over our sales, any upcoming events, any problems we've experienced during the month, and so on.  We always have a team building exercise of some sort and try to leave off with some positive energy.  Tonight is going to be different!

As I'm sure you're all sick of hearing by now, I've been motivated to no end by Tony Hsieh's book Delivering Happiness.  His company is a prime example of the kind of company that Tiber is, but on a much larger scale than ours, of course.  It also gives me hope that a business such as ours can thrive and grow.  His business model has inspired Michelle and I to intentionally structure our business in a way that is consistent with our values and culture.

Tonight, the entire Tiber team is going to raise our glasses to the Tiber culture.  We are going to put down on paper what Tiber means to us and what we hope it means to our customers.  We are then going to take this culture and apply it to every action, every decision and every little thought that happens at Tiber River.  To do this properly and effectively, however, we need everyone's input.  Not just Michelle's and mine and not just our team.  We need everyone that makes up Tiber River, and that includes Michelle, Adriana, our team and our customers.  Missing any one of these means to miss out on an important part of us.  

So, this week, I'm hoping you will all share with us what you feel Tiber River stands for.  What do you feel when you walk into Tiber?  How are you treated?  Are there things that are uniquely Tiber?  I'm not just fishing for compliments here.  I'm hoping to get to the bottom of what Tiber is - for good and for bad.  We want to fix the bad and perpetuate the good but we can't do that if we don't know what they are.

From this, we will be creating a Tiber culture that will be posted on our website and that will become a part of every single component of Tiber River.  We will be asking our team to write a brief paragraph about Tiber and we hope you will do the same.  They will be included with our team's writings and hopefully, we can watch ourselves grow and learn and become successful at focusing in on what makes us unique and valuable to our team and our customers.

Enjoy the week!