1 Year Anniversary - RSVP Motel
Happy Birthday RSVP Motel! Our new business venture turned 1 this past month. I truly cannot believe it. So much has happened this past year. The initial launch and grand opening wasn’t a smooth road, but instead felt more like a steep uphill climb. To be completely honest, it was one of the more challenging experiences of my young business career. The one thing I do know is that connecting with people and creating a memorable experience for them is a passion of mine.
During this past year, my business partner (also known as my sister) and I learned far more than we could have expected, mostly about how to communicate and effectively build a team that dreams together. Some days we feel like we are moving in the wrong direction, and the next day we seem to take leaps and bounds toward our goals.
I want to take you back to the first day that we opened, July 12th, 2018. What a week. An amazing wedding planner in town booked the entire motel for a local, high-end wedding. We could not have been more thrilled to sell out our first week. Just one minor problem, the motel was scheduled to be completed July 1st, providing us ample time to prepare. But, when the week of that wedding rolled around, we were still not open, and we had to scramble to clean up after construction, furnish and stock the rooms, and be sure every detail was ready to go. The amount of items required to fully prepare a hotel room is crazy (alarm clocks, notepads, pens, hangers, coffee pots, coffee condiments, toiletries, etc.). And, to top it all off, we were waiting on final approval from the city to officially allow guests in the rooms…talk about stress! With an amazing crew, we got the work done and opened on Friday. The wedding went off without a hitch. We still saw plenty of kinks from our perspective, but it appeared that our guests did not (or so we hope).
What. A. Start. Now, we find ourselves finishing the first real summer, and we have been booked solid for the past few months. We feel extremely blessed for the word of mouth that has spread throughout the community, and from guests sharing their experiences. We hope this is just the start of many successful years for this business.
Trust me when I say that quitting is the easy way out, and I’ve wanted to throw in the towel more than a few times. There have been nights of extreme frustration that led to doubts that I just can’t do it. But, with plenty of support and perseverance, here we stand, one year in the books, optimistic about the future, and thankful for the lessons that we have learned.
I cannot thank all of you enough for the continued support through both the good times and bad.
On this 1-year anniversary, I realized I have had a lot of milestones. Some small, and some pretty big.
Opened the Farmer’s Daughters Cafe
Grew our team to 40 people
80% occupancy this summer
Hit first sales goal
BBG Construction
Love Schack Architecture
Abby Hetherington Interiors
MOFI
Drew Crosby Video
