Make It, Grow It, Sell It - Whole Green Heartwholegreenheart.com/downloads/Make_It_Grow_It_Sell... · to set robust, resilient, long-term strategic goals for our business (and life)

Make It, Grow It, Sell It [Type the document subtitle] [Pick the date] City of London Michelle Wolf

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© Copyright 2015 | www.WholeGreenHeart.com

WEEK 1: Sample Document

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Please Note! The Information in this document is for paid program members only! In terms of our legal disclaimer, we have copyrights to all of our original "Make It, Grow It, Sell It" content, including this document. We ask that, in good faith, you do not share, reproduce, distribute or otherwise use any of our original material except for your own personal use during the program. Unauthorized sharing of materials feels awful! And it hurts our company. In fact, it goes against the very heart of what we are doing together, which is participating in the growth of an entrepreneurial small business sector that allows us all to sell our products fairly in the marketplace. Please don't share this material with people who haven't paid. © 2015 Michelle Wolf and Whole Green Heart

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, shared or translated in any form, electronically, or mechanically, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system. All inquiries regarding this material and its copyright can be directed to [email protected] DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES: All information in this publication is for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace the qualified advise of a counselor, physician, attorney, accountant or licensed practitioner. The author and her company expressly disclaim any responsibility for any liability, loss or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a result of using any of the techniques or recommendations suggested herein.

mailto:[email protected]

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Week #1: Introduction / Goals and Vision Week #2: Planning Week #3: Customer Service Week #4: Networking and Relationship Marketing Week #5: Record-Keeping and Book-Keeping Week #6: Systems and Staying Organized Week #7: Money Mindset and Budgeting Week #8: Pricing Week #9: Branding Week #10: Merchandising and Great Displays Week #11: Sales and Marketing 1 Week #12: Sales and Marketing 2 Week #13: Working Smart and Time Management Week #14: Staff, Family, and Market Teams Week #15: Expanding Your Products Week # 16: Social Media 1 Week #17: Social Media 2 Week #18: Growth and Sustainability / Conclusion

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INTRODUCTION Let me start with a warm and sincere thank you. Thank you for making the time in your life to step up in the best way possible for your business, your family, and yourself. Thank you also for taking this journey with me and the other people in the program. Your trust and curiosity are not something I take lightly - my commitment is to use your time wisely and give you only the very best information in as concise a form as possible.

My own involvement with the farmers' market sector is long and multi-faceted, including years as a market manager, Board director for several market-related organizations, trainer to other managers and vendors, consultant, and 18 years as a vendor.

I grew my tiny start-up farm-based herb business into a thriving company over the course of 20 years using farmers' markets as my main marketing strategy.

I tell my students today that none of the success I ultimately had as an entrepreneur was because I had a passion for herbs and organic agriculture. Those things were the raw ingredients, but without the spark of business know-how, my passions would have kept smouldering. My successful business was built because I challenged myself to think like a business owner, learn business best practises, design systems, and use my values to fuel not just a farmers' market business but a way of life that suited me and made money as well.

Business expertise was the catalyst and spark that changed my life, and gave me an agricultural business that met my financial and other lifestyle goals. Don't believe the naysayers who would argue that small farms cannot be profitable. Hundreds of farms around North America are. And the same is true for artisan businesses, food businesses, bakeries, wineries, specialty product makers, and other creative professionals.

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The difference between those that succeed and those that don't? It's not because of production methods. Farmers and market gardeners, crafters and artisans, herbalists and plant lovers, food producers and niche product makers, you all know your trade.

The businesses that last and flourish are ones with owners who use entrepreneurial thinking and clever systems to put small, daily best practises in place. These owners, whether they know it or not, follow the same smart strategies that other business owners in other sectors use. They are producers, but they are also business people.

How This Program Works

Every week for eighteen weeks, you will receive a bundle of materials by email on Mondays. This will always include a main document like this one, and it may also contain audio recordings, PowerPoint slides, extra worksheets, and/or related content materials.

These materials are divided into topics outlined next in the Table of Contents. They contain all the very best content I have learned and developed from working with hundreds of business owners in my 40-hour training programs and as private clients, and from my thousands of training and speaking hours. The focus is on specific content, research, worksheets, templates, and success strategies for people selling at farmers' markets, designed to give you the business information you need to take your business to the next level.

You will receive a Certificate on your very last week.

I am thrilled to welcome you to the program. I'd love for you to shoot me an email to introduce yourself and your business to me. Sending you my very best wishes.

Michelle [email protected]

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Every week in Make It, Grow It, Sell It, you will receive a main document of 15 - 30 pages in length, along with additional templates, articles, audio recordings, PowerPoint slides and/or other resources. Here are a few samples pages from some of the program content.

SAMPLE: PLANNING

A PLANNING PROCESS

Getting your planning set up and running effectively is a powerful way to start to see real results in your business. It helps stop the feeling that you are always out of control or feeling frazzled and rushed. It helps you replicate what works, so it's easier the next time around.

Planning can also put the joy and fun back into your business because thinking about your business is really enjoyable to most entrepreneurs, and planning simply puts some structure around that brainstorming. Planning helps you keep your values front and centre, and I'll show you how with the "Four Step" planning process I'll outline next.

"FOUR-STEP" PLANNING

I call my planning process Four-Step Planning. It starts with a strategic yearly plan, moves to a series of monthly plans, and culminates in weekly and daily plans that continue to focus on your big-picture yearly goals.

This concept is a way of planning that is different from project planning, or business planning, or creating daily to-do lists. This type of planning has one major advantage and goal: To ensure that the tasks you work on each day (micro-level) are congruent with your over-arching main business and life goals (macro-level). Keeping these synched is the key to planning for busy entrepreneurs.

THREE

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Why is that important? It's because so many of us, in business and in life, end up focused on the external demands that inevitably arise over time, rather than proactively creating the business and life we really want.

We react to the requests of others. We follow the ideas that other people are following in their businesses, rather than honouring the ideas that arise from within us. We look for input from people who aren't even entrepreneurs. We take suggestions from people who cannot possibly see our big picture and what is really right for us. We ask for advice from friends and family members who certainly love us but cannot possibly help us put solid, strong, sustainable business practises in place.

Four-Step Planning is a process that requires us to take the time once or twice per year to set robust, resilient, long-term strategic goals for our business (and life) and then follow those goals faithfully as we plan our priorities for each month, week, and day. This keeps us out of the cycle of relying on external factors to dictate the way we spend our time and energy. In the following pages, I'll show you how.

SAMPLE: CUSTOMER SERVICE

GREAT OR EXCEPTIONAL?

One common approach to customer service training is to coach people to strive for excellence in their customer service commitments, to ‘delight’ and ‘exceed customer expectations’. Unfortunately, there is a growing body of evidence that basic, solid "great" customer service is better for your business than attempting to provide "exceptional" over-the-top experiences.

As it turns out, loyalty has a lot more to do with how well companies deliver on their basic, even plain-vanilla promises, than on how dazzling the service experience might be.

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Exceeding customer expectations during service interactions (ex. providing complimentary tea or coffee in a retail space, giving free merchandise like key chains or bookmarks, or offering extra services such as expedited shipping) makes customers only marginally more loyal than simply meeting their basic needs consistently.

Making it easy for customers to have their customer service needs met fully (without going over the top) and fixing any problems that arise quickly and easily, are the two most cost-effective and loyalty-building customer service commitments you can make.

Occasional spurts of ‘exceptional’ service is less cost-effective and sustainable than focusing simply on doing a ‘great job’ consistently and reliably, every time, for everybody.

Great customer service is about:

1. An on-going series of commitments you make (and then remake and remake and remake) to your customers

2. Reliability of experience 3. And attitude

Your attitude permeates absolutely everything you do. If you own your attitude, it establishes and reflects your professionalism, caring, focus, and passion to deliver solid customer service.

Customer service comes down to how an interaction makes a person feel. It’s not about the facts of the situation, it’s about perception. The key to creating the perception of great customer service is to fully meet customers' needs, in the easiest way possible, in the same way, every time. Consistency in serving people easily, reliably, and with the right attitude -- that make you masterful in customer service.

Customers are experiencing customer service, good or bad, each time they interact with you or your business. You want to strive to offer complete customer service to every

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customer, every time. The customer who experiences consistent customer service on a repeat basis, and benefits from your products, is the customer most likely to become a raving fan of your business and refer others to you. They are also the ones most likely to return again and again and again.

COSTS OF POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE TO YOUR BOTTOM LINE

Every business has an outflow of customers, people who no longer do business with them. The reasons vary:

1% become deceased 3% move 5% buy from friend or relative who opens a similar business (familial loyalty) 9% come to prefer another brand/farmer/product/vendor 14% had an unresolved service problem

All those make up 32%, just over 1/3 of the reasons. 68% leave because they felt no one was interested in giving them service

This translates as 2/3 of customers feel ignored or taken for granted in their sales experiences. Let me show you what this can mean for your business, and what great customer service looks like at farmers' markets.

SAMPLE: STAYING ORGANIZED

"How do you do it? Life, happy marriage, kids, business, travel, family, and involvement in your community?" Sometimes even I wonder how I got so lucky in my life, and manage to get so much accomplished.

FIVE

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That doesn't happen on every given day -- I am as prone as anyone to a day, or a stretch of days, that feel really unproductive and find me doing little more than recuperating and resting. But overall, it's true that I am a productive person.

The big secret, though, is that I'm no more 'hard-wired' for productivity or success than anyone else. There are lots of things about me and my past and my past decisions that make it hard for me to be productive and successful. Things that I really struggle with and have to work on. Things that slow me down despite my best efforts. Things that seem to re-appear over and over in my life. (Hint: that's where our best life lessons are lurking.) Things that get in the way, including my thinking.

The older I get and the longer I live, the more deeply I understand that not a single person in the world is going through life without challenges and stressors and days of questioning -- even the people we admire or emulate or believe have an easy, amazing life. Our very humanness means we face suffering, disappointment, fear, vulnerability, insecurity. There is no 'magic fix', and even the most enlightened individuals are still working through the particular burdens unique to them. Life will kick our butts over and over.

This isn't bad news though. Because it means the opposite is also true. Each person has the potential to also experience every joy and opportunity their life offers up.

The more I have questioned the erroneous assumptions that some people 'have it easy' or were 'born lucky' or 'are too rich to really know hardship', the more empowered I have felt in my life, and the more I have stepped into my own good fortune. This is because when you believe, as I do, that each person, regardless of the circumstances they were born into and how their genetic code expresses itself, has the potential to experience both success and failure, happiness and sorrow, joy and despair, self-discovery and denial, and prosperity and scarcity, then you stop blaming your circumstances for how

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your life is unfolding and you start owning the power inherent inside of you to create a life that sincerely, deeply satisfies.

This connects to business systems and staying organized in important ways. Firstly, in my own life and business, wherein a lot gets done, the fact that I stay very organized isn't a coincidence, it's a correlation. Plans and systems, and a dedication to the practice of staying organized, allows a high level of productivity and also gives me generous down time and high-quality 'family-time' and 'me-time'. Systems create the success and freedom, not the other way around.

Also, by doing advance planning and staying organized according to those pre-set priorities, I don't let life just 'happen' to me. I actively imagine what outcomes I want for myself and my family, I plan for how to make those results happen, and then I make choices and decisions throughout each and every week and month and year that are in alignment with those goals and choices.

I re-emphasize here that I focus on a weekly, monthly, and yearly commitment to my systems, plans and goals. On any given day, I might falter. I might procrastinate. I might resist something that needs doing or wants my attention. I might feel frustrated or incapable or doubting. These feelings rise up in me over and over, and sometimes my actions follow. The day is out of alignment and it doesn't feel good.

When this happened, I used to quickly feel like a fraud or question my faith in myself and my abilities. But I've been working on this for close to fifteen years and I have come to know and trust the pattern. 'Off' days never last. Inevitably, I 'get back on track' after a challenging day or two or three. I know that an unproductive or difficult or 'lazy' day doesn't spell disaster or make me a failure. It makes me human, and is often my mind/body's way of telling me that something is off and needs tweaking. I see these off-days now as gifts, or at least as teaching moments, to be invited rather than feared.

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Staying focused on how each week and month unfold in relation to your goals is an affirming way to build your confidence around staying organized. Let's look now at some of the very practical systems I use, and my clients use, to stay organized in our businesses.

SAMPLE: MONEY MINDSET & PRICING

MONEY MAKES GOOD HAPPEN

Money allows you to do the things in your life that are important to you -- buy the things that you need and want, have experiences, support people you love, contribute to your community, give it away. Having money, or wanting to earn a certain amount of money in your business, doesn't make you greedy, less spiritual, money-hungry, or less committed to your other values.

Wanting to earn money in your business -- in fact, insisting that you do so -- is a way to give yourself compensation for the time you spend contributing, which you can then 'invest' however you want -- in yourself, your family, your community, the world, or back into your business so you can do it all over again.

My life is infinitely more impactful for the good of others, more meaningful to myself personally, and more difference-making to my family now that I have achieved a certain level of financial prosperity. When I was in my twenties and running my first small farm, I was proud of my small ecological footprint and glad I used so few resources, financial and otherwise. But those years of 'simple living' weren't simple at all. They were an arduous struggle just to get by financially. I wasn't serving very well because I had so little to go around.

SIX

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I decided at some point that I wanted to 'become wealthy' while still living an ecologically-based rural lifestyle. I knew I had a much bigger impact to make on the world and I sensed that my lack of financial resources was holding me back. I was also maturing and wanted more stability and certainty under me so that I could start a family and enter the next phase of my life.

By focusing on the goal of 'becoming wealthy', and changing my thoughts and actions accordingly, seemingly random, unexpected things began to happen in my life. My income shifted dramatically. I went from having a very limited circle of influence to being someone capable of being a difference-maker to others.

I am able to do good with my money now. I can support my family. I can be an example of a rural, ethical, homesteading entrepreneur who is resourceful and frugal even on behalf of her ecological values but is also financially successful -- other women like me need to know that both are possible! I am happier, more generous, more giving, more fulfilled, more powerful, and more true to my desire to be an inspiration to others than I ever was when so little money flowed through my hands.

We don't tell each other these stories very often. We are so afraid to under-achieve, over-achieve, say too much, say too little. If we talk about our money, we are bragging. If we don't talk about our money, we are being evasive. Money is shrouded in privacy and yet monetary acquisition is the most commonly-shared occupation in the world and it's talked about in every public arena. We feel shame around money, and we feel exhilaration around money. It's no wonder we grow up with such confusion and misunderstanding about money.

I say, money is energy, just like electricity or time or love. The more comfortable you become handling the energy of money, and trusting that it will find a place within your life and business that feels really great to you, the easier your life can become and the bigger the difference you can make with your business.

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MIND OVER MONEY

I believe that your mindset alone accounts for close to 90% of your success or failure as a business owner. The more you work on your mindset and your belief in yourself, the more your business can grow. One of my favourite articles is called "Mind Over Money"i by Kristi Nelson from a mindfulness training magazine called Mindful. This next section is composed of some excerpts and questions from the article:

"Money is a loaded subject. No matter where we currently sit on the continuum of 'enough', our relationship to money is often burdensome. Here is a three-part practice you can use to improve your relationship with money.

Each of us has a unique money story we carry around and express to the world in countless ways. These stories -- our money baggage -- can become the unexamined default settings that control our financial lives. Becoming mindful about money means, first, deconstructing the sources of the stories we tell ourselves. We cannot transcend what we cannot see." PRICING

I see many examples of poor pricing at farmers' markets. Too expensive, too inexpensive, quality and price not well-correlated, and price points that do not take advantage of 'barrier psychology'.

I think pricing is one of the hardest things to get right. In today's material, I am going to introduce a fantastic pricing formula for the farmers' market sector. I'll cover all the components of the formula, including fixed and variable costs, labour, cost of sales, and profit margin, and explain how you can determine each one.

I am also going to walk you through some of the important nuances to pricing, the other things you need to understand in order to develop a robust, accurate pricing strategy:

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Price-point barriers and the psychology of price Pricing by product line or product mix, not by individual product The 'wow factor' in pricing How increases and decreases in price are not equal in terms of profit Understanding what really drives sales

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Meet Michelle. Michelle (Fike) Wolf was the founding owner for 20 years of Pumpkin Moon Farm, one of Nova Scotia's most well-loved herbal products companies, producing farm-based herbal preparations, hosting interns and workshops, speaking at events, writing for magazines, and sharing her love of herbs, native plants, wild-crafting, seed-saving, and organic gardening with her community around the province and country.

During the same time, she also built a successful career in project management and business development training. With her husband Al Wolf, Michelle now runs Whole Green Heart, a coaching company that inspires transformation in people's lives and businesses through training, programs, and retreats. Michelle is a sought-after workshop presenter, motivational speaker, and certified life coach. She has coached over 200 clients in her multi-month coaching and business development programs, and she holds a Master's Degree from Toronto's York University. Al and Michelle are busy raising their five children, running their rural homestead, gardening, hiking, shopping at farmers' markets, and enjoying the great outdoors. Make sure you are on Michelle's email list, and get her free e-book on Building a Life to Love, by going to her homepage at www.wholegreenheart.com

CONNECT WITH MICHELLE Please find me on social media, through my newsletter, or through my programs. Hopefully, we can meet in person someday over a pot of herbal tea! My community are also my friends. xo Website: www.WholeGreenHeart.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/WholeGreenHeart Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/wholegreenheart/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/michelle-wolf/43/7b6/8bb

i http://www.mindful.org/at-home/money-and-finances/mind-over-money

http://www.wholegreenheart.com/

http://www.facebook.com/WholeGreenHeart

http://www.pinterest.com/wholegreenheart/

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michelle-summer-fike/43/7b6/8bb

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Make It, Grow It, Sell It - Whole Green Heartwholegreenheart.com/downloads/Make_It_Grow_It_Sell... · to set robust, resilient, long-term strategic goals for our business (and life)