We are inviting you to show your support for a one-of-a-kind virtual marketspace for Handmade in Minnesota with Love products and services.
Would you please register at this link to let vendors know you would like to meet them and purchase handmade Minnesota products and services on Saturday, March 20, 2021. Please share this event and invite your favorite Minnesota entrepreneurs. As a former brick & mortar retail shop owner, I do know the importance of customers being able to shop for your products and services in the space you are paying rent to occupy. As an administrator of a large higher education department, I have spent the past few weeks preparing to have employees who are unable to work remotely return to a safe workplace. I did some reflection today about what would I do if I was still a retail shop owner. Here are the five questions that came to my thought process.
1. Why are you opening for the public? This is a great question to make sure you believe your best option is to physically open to the public. Have you leveraged all electronic and/or curbside opportunities? I have heard fantastic ideas of business innovations from restaurants creating 'family meals' either pre-cooked or for you to cook at home to creating shopping via Facebook and/or a website. Last week I shopped a virtual vendor fair and actually bought a few items. This is your chance to be innovative and potentially increase your customer base. 2. Have you walked the customer experience to see how many ways they could possibly come in contact with shared surfaces? The goal of the CDC guidelines are to ensure shared surfaces are clean and there are so many shared surfaces in a retail shopping experience. Your customers are going to want to have assurance that you are protecting them as they are shopping in your business. Pay close attention to how you will address door handles, carts, baskets, product racks, etc.. How will you maintain an inventory of disinfectant products? 3. Will you require masks? This is an interesting opportunity to show your customers that you care about their safety. A mask is a simple way where people can protect the transmission and make other customers feel safe. We know some business are giving masks to their customers. 4. How will you address non-compliant customers to the CDC guidelines? Have you thought through the conversation of a customers who isn't demonstrating an awareness of following the CDC guidelines for ensuring safety in your business? Signage that conveys expectations and consequences for those who don't follow social distancing and/or masks and/or other behaviors. 5. How will you handle if an outbreak happens in your business? Your employees should be the priority for ensuring safety. If they become ill, it will be devastating to your business. You are creating risk to them by making the decisions to open to the public. Prepare yourself by talking with your attorney to ensure you know what will happen to your business if an outbreak were to happen. There are HIPAA regulations around sharing of medical information which could impact your decisions and how you talk to your customers. See my previous blog post titled "Having Vision during the Pandemic - You've Got This!" which conveys that I know the stress you are under however I encourage you to think through the five questions in this blog post to consider if it is worth opening because the safety of yourself, employees, and customers is a priority. We would like to be able to help you through this. I have recently established protocols for employees returning to work who are unable to work from home. Only employees that can't work form home should be working. Please send us feedback to faithgoenner@gmail.com and how we could help you. Meet Faith, Goenner Consulting, LLC and Heather, Envisioneering, LLC, who are professional development thought partners. Faith and Heather met when Faith gave up her ticket to a rural entrepreneurship conference. They connected and Faith became very interested in how Heather was impacting the success of her clients. Through Heather's work coaching Faith over the past year, here are the top 5 reasons Faith discovered why it was important for her to invest in her own professional development. 1. Discover what you are naturally good at doing.Have you ever taken the time to find out exactly what job you are good at? Most of us just take a job and then we focus on our performance within this position. If we don't know our natural talents this could be frustrating if this job isn't a good fit for us. What if you could discover what you are good at and then go find the job that fits your natural talents? 2. Develop the skill to process feedback.It takes bravery to take an assessment and then work on understanding the assessment results. All great innovation requires the skill to be able to process feedback. Investing in an assessment of who you are is a very easy way to process using feedback to make changes and/or improvements. 3. Identify your blind spots.We all have blind spots. These are weaknesses that we don't see in ourselves, but they are clear to those around us. Without the opportunity to discover your blind spots, you could find yourself not performing well in your life, both personally and professionally. Being aware of your blind spots will give you an opportunity to mitigate risk and awareness to ensure successful performance. 4. Improve your supervising skill set.When you invest in your own professional development, you increase your knowledge for leading and supervising your employees. It will give you new terminology and understanding for how you interact with your staff. This will create an opportunity for relationship improvements and successful outcomes. 5. If you don't invest in you, then who will?Do you have an interest for promotion? Are you noticing that you may not be experiencing satisfaction in your career? Would you like to find the career that brings out the best in you? If you don't invest in your professional development, then who will? Now is your time to invest in your career and your success. If you are a supervisor, this is a great opportunity to invest in your top talent. Discover Your How, Your Why and Natural Talents with Envisioneering, LLC on Thursday, March 19, 2020 from 8:00 am - 10:30 am with light refreshments at the beautiful Raven Room at the Pizza Pub in Princeton, Minnesota. The investment is $195. Space is Limited. RESERVE YOUR TICKET.
We are starting to accept work-for-hire. Below are two questions and a referenced business article regarding how our consulting business may help you. What is an area of your business you are struggling with? What ideas do you have to work on this area? This is where Goenner Consulting, LLC can help. We will roll-up our sleeves and start to work with you on these areas so you can focus on running the business. https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2017/11/07/four-reasons-your-business-is-still-struggling/#1d75ec8447dc If necessary, bring in outside assistance to help implement the changes while you concentrate on other areas of your business. What's most important is that you use your new insight to take consistent, focused action toward strengthening your weaker spots. Your business will thank you. Contact us
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