Jon Schallert Jon Schallert

Posts Tagged : Torrington Wyoming

The Power of Mom and Pop Businesses
April 3, 2014 in Becoming a Destination Business, Destination BootCamp, General, Small Business Advice, Small Business Success by

The other day, a friend asked me: “Don’t you worry about the future of Mom and Pop businesses?’

My answer was: “Nope, not at all. The future’s bright for small businesses.”

Here’s how I know this to be true:

3 times a year, I get to witness something amazing that confirms to me that Mom and Pop businesses can overcome any challenge that’s put in their way.

Let me share with you what I get to see:

Most of you know that I conduct a workshop in Colorado called our Destination BootCamp, where for 2½ days, I teach owners and community leaders how to make their businesses and communities irresistible to consumers.

At each BootCamp, owners of retail stores, restaurants, service businesses, professional practices, and even online businesses attend. To paraphrase Forrest Gump’s life’s like a box of chocolates quote, with every BootCamp, “We never know what we’re gonna get”.

Unlike typical association conferences where everyone is from the same industry, our BootCamp mixes business owners from different industries and different parts of the world and puts them together in one room for 2½ days. Most aren’t competition to each other and most have never met before. It surprises me, but I’ve also learned that even business owners from the same city or town who attend together often don’t know each other very well. But it makes sense: Who has time for friendship when you have your business to run?

But here’s what happens when you put this diverse group together and show them new ways to grow their businesses, everyone (regardless of their type of business, their sales volume, the physical locations, or the number of businesses they own), starts percolating together.

It’s not enough to say that there’s an energy that spreads between the participants or a synergy that occurs when you mix these owners together. It’s more than that. When one entrepreneur meets another one, and they start discussing their challenges, I’ve found there is a natural inclination for owners to reach out when someone needs it.

“You’re an owner, just like me. You have a problem?”

“Here’s an idea that’ll help.”

Sometimes I just stand at the front of the room watching as one owner voices a concern she’s having, while another owner chimes in on how he overcame that same problem in a different industry. I watch as owners grow in confidence as they realize that regardless of their business-type or business sales volume, they have information that can help someone else in that room. And in just a matter of hours, I can watch owners who previously didn’t know each other start freely sharing their expertise with the person sitting next to them.

There are moments during every BootCamp where I just stop teaching and as I look out over the room, and I’m amazed at how such different businesses come together, learn together, and honestly share their success stories and business setbacks with each other.

Here’s one of the best stories from our March BootCamp: On the last day of class, Sarah, a retailer from Kansas who owns two retail stores, told me that she had met with Christi, a retailer from Texas who owns a chain of women’s clothing stores, and they had sat up talking until 11:30 at night, as they shared ideas, buying tips, and product sources with each other.

Here’s my challenge for you if you’re a business owner or an entrepreneur reading this blog:  Starting today, look around and be aware of that owner down the street who might need some help or advice, who probably doesn’t know how to ask for it.  Be aware that one single suggestion from you to a fellow business owner might be the breakthrough that an owner is looking for.  From this day forward, instead of just saying hello and walking by a fellow business owner, take some time to engage. To share. To show you’re around, if help’s needed. And when you’re in need of assistance and you’re at wits end, the law of reciprocity will work for you, too, bringing help back your way.

The future of Mom and Pop businesses is extremely bright, especially when independent business owners take time to lend each other a hand, an ear to listen, and have each other’s backs.

Until next week,

Jon

27 Pieces of Advice to Make You Better
March 19, 2014 in Community Reinvention Program, General, Small Business Advice by

The other day, I was reading a short article entitled “Eight Steps to a More Satisfying Life”. In it, I learned why some people are more happy than others, why some people are naturally miserable, and how the body and the mind work together to create our own individual happiness.

One of the contributing writers was University of California psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky  who explained the eight keys to a more satisfied life:

  1. Count your blessings and keep a gratitude journal
  2. Practice both random and systematic acts of kindness
  3. Savor life’s joys
  4. Thank a mentor
  5. Learn to forgive
  6. Invest time and energy in family
  7. Take care of your body with plenty of sleep, exercise, stretching, smiling, and laughing
  8. Develop strategies to cope with stress and hardships

So while I was pondering how I was going to carve out more time in my day for #6 “Invest time in family” and #7 “Take care of body”, I came across another article:  “Healthy Diet Helps Mood”, where an author talked about the importance of eating the right foods in order to be happier.  He recommended:

  1. Eating salmon because fatty, cold-water fish contain omega-3 fatty acids which keep cell membranes pliable.  I also learned that if I don’t have a salmon handy, I can also eat tuna, anchovies, sardines, walnuts, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, or green leafy vegetables.
  2. Every morning I should eat some oatmeal, soy milk, and two scrambled eggs, which gives me tryptophan.  This is an amino acid that helps in creating serotonin, the brain’s feel-good hormone. Check!  I’m all about feeling good.
  3. In order to fight any chance of depression, I should eat spinach, which contains B vitamin folate, but I can also get the same effect with peas, navy beans, orange juice, wheat germ, and avocados (like in guacamole, with margaritas, though the latter was not on his list).
  4. Every day, I am supposed to take a Vitamin D supplement, which helps with seasonal affective disorder, which I don’t think I have, but it sounds scary and I don’t want it.
  5. I learned it’s important to always stabilize my blood sugar, so I should eat broccoli and blueberries, and eat them in combination with proteins in fish, chicken or turkey.
  6. Finally, it was suggested that I eat quinoa, a whole grain that is also a good source of B vitamins. (Pronounced: Keen-wa. Say it right, or they laugh at you, I’ve learned).

Now my list had 8 to-do’s from the top list, and 6 to-eats from the bottom list, but I also have a really smart biochemist friend, and I had asked him what supplements he takes every day.  Here’s what he consumes:

  1. Mega doses of Omega 3 fish oil
  2. A high-dose, complex multi-vitamin
  3. A calcium complex supplement
  4. A CoQ10 pill for cellular energy
  5. An 81 milligram enteric-coated aspirin
  6. Cruciferous vegetables for cellular detoxification (broccoli, better steamed than raw) cauliflower, cabbage, or if I don’t like those vegetables, take broccoli powder or a sulphurophane supplement, helpful for reducing the risks of cancer and detoxification at the cellular level
  7. Fresh berries for antioxidants and to fight carcinogens
  8. Lots of fish and nuts, for my brain, heart, and prostate
  9. Plus, control my level of unrefined carbs, and always balancing them at the same time with fat and protein, like eating bread with olive oil or peanut butter.

Right then, I started feeling a little overwhelmed.  If you are keeping track, I am now up to 23 suggestions on how to improve my life.

If you’ve ever gone through a self-improvement reading experience like this, maybe you found yourself getting a little stressed wondering how you were going to get all of these things done, (especially finding that sulphurophane supplement).

Tell me again where I’m going to find that time for savoring life’s joys? (#3 from List 1)

Here’s my point today: If you ask for advice in this world, you will find it, in books, articles, websites, from friends.  And now from me.

Here are my 4 key pieces of advice concerning the 23 pieces of advice from above:

#1: Create routines and systems to repeat tasks that are most important.  Be disciplined in following them.  Every meal, brush and floss.  Every morning, pop the pills. Every night, exercise.  Whatever you want to accomplish, create structure and eliminate chaos on those goals that can be systematized.

#2:  It’s all about prioritizing.  What tasks really need to be done that will really impact your world significantly for the better?  If you’re using my list of 23, focus on the ones that will help the most and eliminate the extraneous.

#3:  Then, you have this little thing called your business demanding your attention, so this piece of advice applies to your business: Focus your effort on the big priorities that will move your business forward in dramatic fashion.  I know some of you have heard me say this before, but face it: You will never have enough time to do everything that pops into your head and your current business to-do list won’t be accomplished by next Christmas. If you need increased sales and customer traffic, you must learn to identify those tools that will move the needle into double digit increases, and put on the back burner the less impactful steps that won’t cause your business to skyrocket.

#4:  Finally, my last piece of advice: Go easy on yourself. At the end of today, cut yourself some slack.  I’m told Rome wasn’t built in a day.

But starting tomorrow, go make friends with some cruciferous vegetables and a salmon.

Jon Schallert

Congratulations to our March 2014 Destination BootCamp Graduates

Congratulations to our March 2014 Destination BootCamp Graduates.  This class of 22 was comprised of an incredibly diverse group of over-achieving business owners, with two larger Community Reinvention Program groups from Goshen County and Torrington, Wyoming and Forney, Texas (and two BootCamp Graduates back for another class).

If you’d like to be part of our next BootCamp in May, or if you’d like to learn how your community can participate in our 6-month Community Reinvention Program, feel free to call me, email me, or click here for more information.