Despite all the uncertainty that comes with the COVID-19 crisis, we are certain this will pass. We are also certain that things are and will continue to change. But change is normal and change can be good. Take this opportunity to embrace change and your business could change for the better.

Here’s a list of recommendations to help your business survive the weeks ahead and come out of this better than ever. Stay connected with RCI’s community and email us with any questions you need answered or suggestions you’d like to share.

Leadership

 

• Know that this isn’t going to be easy, but you didn’t become an entrepreneur because it was the easy route. Trust your instincts and lean on the support of your RCI community, your local community and your team.
• Take care of yourself. If you don’t take care of yourself, you certainly won’t be able to take care of your business and your team. Be intentional about getting enough sleep, eat healthy, drink plenty of water and move your body a minimum of 20 minutes a day. You got this!
• Stay positive. According to Bob Phibbs, The Retail Doctor, “People are still buying things, and they are buying things for two reasons right now: (1) To get them through their day, so they are shopping for the things they need to make life work for them right now. (2) To help them escape from their day, so they are shopping for pleasures and fun things that will bring them joy and keep them busy,” (retaildoc.com).
• Take this time to educate yourself and your team. Explore online education opportunities to learn more on the topics of business, leadership, candy making and marketing. RCI members can login to view past education presentations.
• Connect with fellow RCI members to ask and answer questions on RCI’s online forum, List Serve.
• Curb thoughts of uncertainty and anxiety during downtime by reading books to help you grow as a business leader. Click here to read RCI’s recommended reading list.
• Get inspired to become a better leader by getting plugged into to some great podcasts.  Learn from expert business leaders, many of which are navigating some of the same challenges right now that you are. Check out RCI’s list of 10business-related podcasts.

COVID-19 Education & Staff

• Go straight to the source for updates on COVID-19 from health and governmental agencies, such as The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and your state and local health agencies. Review the CDC’s Interim Guidance forBusinesses and Employers to plan, prepare and respond to COVID-19.
• Employ strict protocols for preventing exposure in the workplace and reporting symptoms. See below for links to additional resources addressing common questions:
  • https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/2019-ncov-factsheet.pdf
  • https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/mcm-issues/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-frequently-asked-questions.
• Do not disclose an employee's name if they have contracted COVID-19. You may have to disclose to other employees that they may have been exposed.
• To prevent stigma and discrimination in the workplace, the CDC recommends using only the guidance provided on its COVID-19 web page to properly determine risk. Do not make determinations of risk based on race or country of origin.

 

Operations

 

• Be aware of temporary guidance put in place by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding preventive controls, food supplier verification and onsite audits.
• Get your products in customers’ hands safely. If your retail store is open, this may require that you limit the number of individuals in your store at one time or encourage shoppers to call ahead for curbside pickup or delivery.
• Develop your own delivery program or look into local delivery services to partner with if your team doesn’t have the capability to deliver. See what Doordash, Grubhub and UberEats are doing to support local businesses.
• Keep staff busy tackling tasks that had previously been put off, because everyone was too busy—tasks like organizing inventory, reorganizing the store, cleaning, refreshing the website and creating lots of social media and email content.

Cleaning

 

• Create a new cleaning schedule and update procedures on employee hygiene practices (i.e., handwashing, etc.) as well as cleaning and disinfecting surfaces and equipment. Clickhere for guidance from the CDC.
• The most effective way to clean most equipment is with soap and water. Just scraping or using water alone will not be effective.
• Cleaning equipment with an all-oil-based product (and no sugars to help dissolve the product away) may require several oil flushes before introducing water or chemicals. Without the oil flushes, cleaning chemicals can extract the oil, leaving behind solid masses cemented to the pipes or agitators in equipment.
• Educate yourself on action steps required in the case someone with a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 was in your facility, follow these CDCguidelines.

Online Sales

 

• Find new ways to sell your product. Aside from selling product on your website and over the phone, reach new and existing customers where they’re already spending time—on social media. Click here to learn how you can start selling your products on Facebook and Instagram.
• If you don’t already have the capability to sell products on your website, Ecwid is a user-friendly option for creating an online store—with free and paid versions available. Click here for step-by-step instructionsfor setting up an online store for free.
• Learn how to take better advantage of marketing on Pinterest, including how to sell products. Click here to learn more.
• Make it easy for consumers to view your website on their mobile devices. Click here for RCI’s blog post on how tooptimize your website for mobile in three steps.

Marketing & Promotion

 

• Use all forms of communication to let shoppers know you are open and what you are doing to ensure the cleanliness of your facility, staff and products. Where appropriate, share your cleaning protocols and photos of your clean candy kitchen and retail store.
• Don’t stop marketing your business! Create content that appeals to consumers by offering a way to escape the chaos through fun, comfort and joy.
• Think of members in your community who need to know someone is thinking of them. Consider a promotion to support the elderly quarantined in their homes and in nursing homes. Think of ways to thank those on the front lines—the medical workers and first responders, who are working hard to keep our communities safe and healthy.
• Invite shoppers to purchase gift cards from you and other local businesses as a way to support local. Some businesses are offering discounted gift cards to generate cash flow.
• Create eye-catching graphics for your store, website and social media outlets using free and user-friendly tools like Canva or Adobe Spark. Both sites have hundreds of professionally designed templates and layouts, making it easy for non-designers to create impressive, custom designs.
• Share easy recipes for followers to make at home with their kids, featuring your products. Consumers with kids out of school are looking for fun and easy ways to pass time as a family. Check out KidsActivities.net for easy candy recipes for kids using five ingredients or less. Substitute candy ingredients to make recipes your own. Considering bundling ingredients for one recipe and selling it as a “take-and-make kit.”
• Bundle products together by theme to help generate ideas of who your followers can shop for. RCI member, Bon Bon’s Candy House, has had success promoting care packages for “Peanut Butter Lovers,” “Grandpa’s Favorites,” and more.
• Host a Facebook Live event to get face-to-face with your followers even if your retail store is closed. RCI member, Dolle’s Candyland, has regularly scheduled Facebook Live videos to promote Easter items, new products and other merchandise that can be ordered through their virtual shopper service. Click here for tips from The Retail Doctor for using Facebook Live successfully.
• Host a contest on social media. RCI member, Mister Ed’s Elephant Museum and Candy Emporium is encouraging their followers to share positive thoughts for a chance to win their sweet treats. Check out this blog post by Hootsuitefor creative social media contest ideas.
• Encourage customers to host virtual tasting parties. Sell a tasting party bundle of your products and provide content on the tasting experience or lead a virtual tasting on Facebook Live or try Zoom for video conferencing (free and tiered pricing is available).
• Have a branded delivery vehicle? Consider visiting local neighborhoods, musical ice-cream-truck style, to sell your products. Other businesses have asked their social media followers to private message their addresses to be added to the delivery route. Share your route on social media and let people know when to expect you. First, check local regulations to ensure this activity is permitted.
• Educate and entertain social media followers by creating behind-the-scenes videos showing how your businesses makes some of your signature confections.
• Encourage customers to share photos of themselves enjoying your products from home and ask them to tag your business and/or use a creative hashtag.
• Offering curbside pickup is a great way to ensure the health and safety of your staff and customers, while continuing to do business. Perform practice runs to ensure an excellent customer experience. If taking orders by phone, have a checklist of important questions to ask customers—such as, “what color and model of car will you be arriving in?” making it easy to find them. Coach staff to thank every customer for their business over the phone and at pick up.
• Include handwritten notes along with all pickup and delivery orders, personally thanking customers for supporting your business.
• Update your store hours on your website, social media pages and all other third-party sites, such as your Google listing.
• If your retail store is closed or partially closed, start planning and preparing for a grand re-opening now. Be open with your staff about your plans and seek their input.

Closing thoughts

Doing business during times of uncertainty is going to be hard, but you are not alone. If business has slowed down for you (and it probably has—unless, of course, your business involves toilet paper or hand sanitizer), take advantage of the down time to learn, try new things and cross items off your list.

If you ran a successful business prior to this crisis, chances are you have a community of people who will be happy to support your business now. Now, more than ever, consumers are looking for ways to support local businesses. Find new ways to engage with consumers and remember that your sweet treats offer people comfort and hope, and help express gratitude, kindness and love to each other.

As you navigate these unprecedented times, we hope this offers you ways to challenge yourself and your business to grow and learn—so you and your business can come out of this better than ever.

Crave more? If you like what you read here, look for the "Subscribe now" box on the right to enter your email address and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's Tip of the Week blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Tags:  Cleaning  COVID-19  E-Commerce  Education  Leadership  Marketing  online shopping  Operations  Promotion  Resources  Social Media 

 

 

This week, we’re sharing tips for improving your leadership skills through effective communication techniques. Pulled from an article in RCI’s Kettle Talk magazine, Joseph Grenny identifies three key communication principles employed by influential leaders and how to apply those principles to your own skill set. Joseph Grenny is the co-founder of VitalSmarts,as well as a four-time New York Times bestselling author, speaker and leading social scientist for business performance.

 

I’ve spent thirty years studying what makes leaders influential. After studying more than 25,000 people, my colleagues and I found that one versatile skill set accounts for a great deal of the most effective leaders’ influence: how they deal with crucial conversations—emotionally and politically risky issues or disagreements.

 

Having seen how central crucial conversations are to bolstering the influence of leaders, I set out to learn how the 3 to 5 percent who master these moments do it so well. The reason I was particularly interested in these crucial conversations was because these influential leaders found a way to be honest without compromising respect, and to be respectful without compromising candor.

 

In my books, Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability, I describe key principles that result in this kind of quality dialogue and increased influence. Here are some that make the biggest difference:

 

#1 Learn to Look

Those who are most effective at crucial conversations are most conscious of their own behavior. They are aware of their own “Style Under Stress” and catch it quickly when their approach begins to damage dialogue. Specifically, they watch for when their own or other’s behavior moves to silence or violence— some form of withdrawal or attack. When that happens, they stop and mentally refocus on their real goals. To get back on track, they consider what results they really care about. When the other person is reacting badly, they make it safe.

 

#2 Make It Safe

Have you ever noticed how some conversations—even about very risky subjects—go very well? And others, perhaps even about trivial disagreements, can degenerate into combat or retreat? Why is that? We’ve found that the antidote to defensiveness in crucial conversations is to make it safe. People can listen to tough feedback so long as they feel safe with the person giving it. How do you create safety? You help others understand that you care about their interests as much as you care about your own. When they believe this is true, they open up to your views. When they don’t, they shut down. Secondly, you must help others know you respect them. Mutual purpose and mutual respect are the foundation of safety.

 

#3 Make It Motivating

The key to influence is empathy. Before starting a crucial conversation, influential leaders carefully think about how the problems they want to raise are affecting, or will affect, the other person. They think about the natural consequences of the situation to the other person. And they reassure others that these consequences always exist. For example, if a direct report appears incompetent, it’s likely their incompetence is as frustrating to them as it is to others. The problem is that they don’t see how their weaknesses are connected to their own concerns. However, if in a respectful way you can help them see how their own interests are served by addressing the problem, they are naturally motivated to engage in solutions.

 

Now let me be clear about my claim. I am not suggesting that if you Learn to Look, Make It Safe and Make It Motivating, people will naturally give you everything you want. What I am suggesting is that your influence will increase. Rather than contributing to problems by “acting out” your concerns, you’ll be talking them out—which gives you the potential for a solution.

 

Can these skills be learned? Absolutely. I’ve spent years developing methods for teaching and training leaders to increase their influence by improving how they deal with crucial conversations. And when they do, relationships and results improve rapidly and remarkably.

 

Crave more? If you like what you read here, look for the "Subscribe now" box on the right to enter your email address and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's Tip of the Week blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices.

 

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Tags:  Business  Communication  Leadership 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving can be a helpful reminder of the importance of showing gratitude. In the workplace, employee recognition has proven to be a strong motivator, positively effecting employee engagement, productivity and turn over. According to a survey by Globoforce:

 

• 67% of employees value praise and commendation from a direct manager over financial incentives.
• 78% of U.S. workers report that being recognized motivates them at their job.
• Companies with strategic recognition reported 23.4% less turnover than companies without any recognition program.

RCI member and the owner/manager of Cowboy-Up Chocolates, James Crowder, shared how he uses a simple questionnaire to recognize his staff in a 2014 article published in Kettle Talk magazine (RCI members: click here to login in to view the full article).

 

“At Cowboy-Up Chocolates we use a 'get to know you' questionnaire to get to know our employees on a deeper level. We ask questions to indentify their favorite foods, hobbies, influences, values, movies, birthday, etc. We have new employees complete the questionnaire one month after employment; at this time they feel more comfortable to honestly and thoroughly complete it.

 

We don’t just file the questionnaire with employee paperwork. We use it to show appreciation for our employees throughout the year. Some examples, include:

 

• One associate liked sunflower seeds so we purchased a five pound bag of sunflower seeds and placed them on her desk with a note of appreciation--she beamed for three days.
• A member of management said he loved a certain restaurant and would always eat there when he visited that city. We called the restaurant and asked to buy a menu. We had it framed and presented it to him with a gift certificate to the restaurant--his work attitude improved.
• One of our employees plays trumpet in a jazz band. At a hobby shop, I found a ceramic frog playing a trumpet and purchased it for her--she keeps it on her desk and gives a big smile every time I pass by.”

The holiday season is an especially important time to show your team they are appreciated, but it is equally important to show your employees they are valued all year.

Stay connected with RCI through Facebook for more tips and inspiration dedicated to the retail candy maker. Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Tags:  Employee Management  Leadership  Member Recommendations  Recognition 

As a small business owner, it is easy to find yourself feeling isolated and even depressed, especially during the holidays. In fact, this is a common sentiment amongst entrepreneurs. It can be comforting and beneficial to have a strong network of  like-minded individuals who understand your day-to-day challenges.

 

Every professional knows building a network is important. If your eyes are already starting to gloss over because a) you don’t have time, b) you don’t know where to start, c) you find networking to be intimidating, or d) all of the above, it’s time to perk up! We’ve identified 4 ways to build your network, plus, ways RCI can help!

 

1. Seek out a mentor

A great mentor can offer guidance and support through the wisdom that comes with experience. There’s a good chance with any challenge you may be facing, they’ve lived  it and can share what they’ve learned from both their mistakes and successes. Look for experienced leaders that you admire and respect through your local community or your industry.

 

RCI’s People to People Network is a great resource for identifying members within the same industry, who have voluntarily offered to share their knowledge with other RCI members. Within the People to People Network we have identified potential mentors, as well as their areas of expertise, including industry subjects such as tempering, equipment, formulations, facility design and more, as well as broader business topics like marketing, accounting, ecommerce, succession planning, etc. Sign in at retailconfectioners.org and find the People to People Network under the Member Resources tab.

 

1. Attend social events

Of course, seeing what your local Chamber of Commerce or other local professional organizations have on the calendar is an option. If you’re looking for a group with more specialized interests, check out Meetup.com to find like-minded individuals gathering near you.

 

Providing opportunities to connect with fellow confectioners and industry suppliers is one of the pillars of RCI. As an international association, you can expect RCI to host a number of events for members and non-members across the US and abroad each year, offering fun and engaging ways to build relationships and share ideas. Visit retailconfectioners.org/events or follow us on Facebook to keep up on the latest events.

 

1. Volunteer

As the saying goes, “you have to give to get.” You’d be surprised how quickly and effortlessly your network can grow when you volunteer.

 

Even if you’re already involved in a networking association, it can be awkward and intimidating to put yourself out there. By volunteering, making connections may come more naturally to you if you’re working with others on a specific task or project.

 

1. Share your advice and experience

Even the busiest of us can manage to make time to post to their favorite social network now and then. A few minutes is all you need to join the conversation happening on RCI’s online forum, List Serve. Respond to inquiries and share your own quandaries in your pajamas, if you wish! Participate in troubleshooting topics ranging from chocolate production, marketing and business ownership and build your network in the process. Sign in at retailconfectioners.org and find List Serve under the Member Resources tab.

 

 

Stay connected with RCI through Facebook for more tips and inspiration dedicated to the retail candy maker. Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Tags:  Events  Forum  Idea Sharing  Leadership  List Serve  Mentors  Networking  Owning a Business  Resources  small business  Tools  Volunteer 

 

At Retail Confectioners International’s (RCI) Annual Convention & Industry Expo, Keynote Speaker, Matt Havens, kicked off the convention week with the hilarious opening session, Us vs. Them. Being a relevant topic for leaders of any business and industry, retail confectioners filled the education session eager to discover new solutions to effectively manage four distinct generations operating side-by-side. During Haven’s presentation, he poked fun at the different generations represented in today’s working environment, pointing out that there are really only two generations in the workplace, “people younger (or less-experienced) than you are and people older (or more experienced) than you are.”
 

©2016 Keynote Speaker Matt Havens. All Rights Reserved. Not only were attendees rolling with laughter during his presentation, they walked away with a simplified understanding of the generation gap, as well as applicable strategies to create a more effective working environment for team members of all ages.   See below for just a few major takeaways, as well as strategies from Matt Haven’s Us vs. Them.   MAJOR TAKEAWAYS   ·Advancement is a process that never stops.As a parent, you will continue to learn new things 20 and 30 and 40 years after the birth of your children. And as a professional, you should expect to keep learning new skills, new technologies, and new approaches in the last five years of your career just like you did in the first five years of your career. ·Your company’s current practices and processes exist for extremely good reasons.To date, those practices and processes are the best that anyone who has ever worked at your company has ever come up with. That doesn’t mean they can’t be improved, but it definitely means that they shouldn’t be completely discounted either. ·No matter what generation you consider yourself to be a part of, you do not know everything there is to know.Every generation needs the other, because no one group of people has a monopoly on knowledge. You need your older colleagues to learn how they’ve done what they’ve done and to help guide you so that you don’t have to constantly reinvent the wheel; and you need your younger colleagues to help youcontinuouslylook at your business from a new perspective.   GENERATIONAL STRATEGIES   ·Invite your newest employees to deliver a presentation to the rest of your team on a topic they already know something about.It will convince your newest team members that you value their knowledge, and it should also convince your older team members that your new hires have something valuable to offer. ·When discussing a potential change, invite everyone to debate the pros and cons of adoption.You probably won’t get 100% buy-in once the final decision is made, any more than you’ll get 100% buy-in from anything. But you will be certain that you’re making your decision with all the available information, and everyone will know the potential risks to watch out for as well as the potential rewards for moving forward. ·Create teams of varying age ranges.Studies have shown that diverse groups that communicate well with each other are consistently more productive than homogenous teams.   Learn more about Matt Haven's and his insightful journey to understanding the generational gap atwww.matthavens.com.RCI Members:Stay tuned to view Matt's full presentation and other education sessions from RCI's 2016 Annual Convention & Industry Expo, which will be available on our member site atretailconfectioners.org.     Stay connected with RCI throughFacebookfor more tips and inspiration dedicated to the retail candy maker.Not a member?Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Tags:  Employee Management  Family Business  Generation Gap  Leadership  Next Generation  Owning a Business