Testing the resilience of our business was never part of our plan, up and down the country and indeed the world over, the past 2 years have provided significant challenges in unchartered waters, in the lead-up, to the 26th March, our farm stay went from forward bookings and a busy calendar, to a rising wave of emails and phone calls of cancellations.
Our local authority through their Here 2 Help programme provided us with a business mentor, as we have always been a learning organisation this was not new to us and we had had business support in the early days of starting our business.
What we achieved
We had achieved a great deal since lockdown, we had committed to build a new barn, built a commercial pizza oven, focussed on the maintenance of our infrastructure and built a covered outside dining area to name just a few.
The mentoring programme was all done remotely via Zoom, whilst we were sceptical that our mentor could get a true grasp of our business through this route we could not be more wrong, in total we had 6 online support sessions each lasting around an hour, the support sessions were led by us allowing each session to focus on our business needs, fundamentally the some of the best learning took place before the zoom meeting started, in the meeting planning process analyzing what to discuss to make the best use of the time allocated.
The mentoring enabled us to look in detail at our pricing structure, attracting Business 2 Business customers, developing our events venue and exploring funding services.
The Mentoring was provided by Worcestershire Here 2 Help programme through La Confidante, a trading name of Jane Hemingway Ltd. coaching@janehemingway.co.uk
https://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/here2helpbusiness
We now have one page business plans for each Service provision and hold a confident vision for our business growth.
One of the fun parts in each of our meetings, in addition to getting to grips with a farmer on zoom was discussing the 3 great things which had happened since our last meeting.
Conclusion and Thanks
There is much in the media in these difficult times on mental health, the pressures of running a successful business where this is your only income can only add to these, the mentoring allowed for positive thinking and navigating our business beyond Covid-19.
Whilst the Government have got quite a kicking in recent weeks, I can’t fault the support provided by Wychavon and Worcestershire County Council and their responsiveness to post pandemic recovery. I have no hesitation in also recommending Jane Hemingway Ltd, for the Mentoring of Wayne & Sue at Oaks Barn Farm.
Thank you for reading, help us to grow by sharing this post, better still come and stay with us, and see how we are growing: Accommodation Options
