Make Your Business a Party
By Winn Claybaugh
Author of Be Nice (Or Else!) And What's In It For You
 As business professionals, we constantly strive to upgrade our business expertise and fine-tune our competence. Now it’s time to implement one more necessary ingredient for running a successful business: Fun! Laughter! Make your business a party!
The intentional use of fun can be a powerful force in team building, improving customer service, improving team attitude and loyalty, and ultimately increasing profitability. As Matt Weinstein suggests in his book, Managing to Have Fun, if several other businesses in your area offer a wonderful customer experience, your customers have a choice about where to spend their money. Of course they’re going to make a decision with their heads, but they’re also going to spend money with their gut. They’re going to ask themselves, “How do I feel about spending time in your place of business? Do I like you? Do I trust you? Are you nice?”
Businesses where staff members have fun, like each other, and treat customers as if they’re happy to be there have a competitive advantage. They leave their clients feeling good about spending money there. Studies show that when staff members laugh together, creativity and production go up and absenteeism goes down. A staff that laughs together stays together.
To create an environment of fun, laughter, and enthusiasm in your business, make fun a daily priority, not an occasional event. The following ideas can help you create experiences and events where people can have fun and laugh with each other. Please note that these ideas are not an all-or-nothing philosophy. You have the option to implement all of these ideas or none of them, depending on the size of your organization, the constraints of your product or service, your safety regulations, or the nature of the business. Just remember that while you’re trying to create fun at work, you’re also respecting the company’s guidelines and standards.
Create Simple, Silly Rituals and Activities
As a team in my company, we initiated a simple gesture of teamwork toward a common goal of wellness: the Eight Glasses of Water Club. All staff members received plastic water bottles on which they wrote their names. Each 12-ounce bottle represented two glasses of water, which meant it had to be emptied four times a day. Each time someone emptied their bottle, they had to have another team member autograph it, with the goal of four different signatures by the end of the day.
This crazy-sounding activity forced some of the more shy-type team members to come out of their shells and intermingle. It created dialogues with our customers about health and fun. It opened up more opportunities for the staff to focus on health and wellness, and more important, to do it as a team.
One final note. After downing about four or five glasses of water, the Eight Glasses of Water Club soon turned into the Mad Dash to the Restroom Club!
Play Loud, Fun, Party Music
Another easy way to have fun at work is to play loud, fun, party music in your store or office as the staff arrives each morning. Upbeat party music may not be suitable during business hours, but how about throwing a party every morning as the staff begins to arrive? You can get them off to a fun, happy start by playing the theme from Rocky, or YMCA. Get the boss dancing to that one, and let the party begin!
Have Theme Days
Still another idea for bringing more fun to your workplace is to have theme days where the entire staff dresses alike or shares some common goal or focus for having a fun, enthusiastic day. Although we’ve been doing this in my company for years, more recently we’ve assigned different committees to make a consistent day each month a theme day.
Theme days could include Prom Friday, where everyone dresses in their high school–era prom attire and/or brings in their prom pictures for a good laugh. Your company could host Beach Day, Country-Western Day, ‘60s Day, Hippie Day, Pajama Day, or Rock Star Day. To really make your theme day fun and effective, find out what would be fun for your team. How do you find out? You ask them.
Please note that you will always want to include your customers and clients as part of the fun. You never want to make the client feel excluded, left in the dark, or taking a back seat to your theme day.
Create Traditions as a Team
Traditions can take any form or shape. Just to give you some examples, in my company we’ve traveled together to Hawaii, Europe, Mexico, and to see Broadway shows in New York City. We’ve had overnight parties in a mountain cabin, played together at water parks, and hosted a ‘70s disco roller-skating party. We’ve read books together, attended weddings, gotten tattoos, cried at funerals, danced at concerts, and learned at seminars.
We’ve done all this while at the same time improving our customer service policies, creating a better experience for our staff and customers, getting married, buying homes, raising children, and earning more money. Years ago, we made it a tradition to not invite spouses to any of our company events—not even to our December holiday party. For some reason, we all feel like we can be ourselves if we don’t have to wonder whether or not our spouse, significant other, or date is having a good time. I would never say that’s how it should be for other companies and organizations; I’m just sharing what we decided as a team. Once again, how do you know what will work best for your team? You ask them, which makes everyone feel important, included, and supported as people.
Winn Claybaugh is the author of Be Nice (Or Else!) and “one of the best motivational speakers in the country,” according to CNN’s Larry King. A business owner for over 22 years, with over 8,000 people in his organization, Winn is the co-owner of hair care giant Paul Mitchell’s school division. Winn has helped thousands of businesses build their brands and create successful working cultures. His clients include Vidal Sassoon, the Irvine Company, Entertainment Tonight, Mattel, For Rent magazine, Structure/Limited Express, and others. Winn is a frequent guest on national radio and a regular contributor to online publications. Visit www.BeNiceOrElse.com to sign up for his free monthly Be Nice (Or Else!) newsletter.
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