unities. You should promote your event early, and promote it often! The first promotional decisions to be made are the name of your local food event, the date and the theme. Once you have made these decisions, go with them and don’t look back! Use this information on every piece of promotional literature printed, on your web site and in your press releases. Also consider selling event merchandise such as t-shirts and tote bags and contact your vendor. Four to six weeks before the event, start your in-store promotions. Have attractive banners or posters made and prominently diSponsoring a local food event in your community can not only show your commitment to local growers and food producers, it can be a profitable way to bring together the public and provide needed publicity for your business, charity or municipality. With summer turning to fall, there are many opportunities for event planning such as harvest dinners, farmers markets and late summer festivals. Seasonal events such as these offer many ideas for local food marketing.

A well planned local food event has 3 key elements for success:

1. Know your event’s theme and stick to it!
2. Fully promote your event
3. Stay within Your budget

Know your event's theme and stick to it!

A consistent presentation of your event’s theme is the key to success. Your theme should be represented by the food served, the d?cor, the music and the atmosphere. For example, an Autumn Harvest celebration could showcase locally pumpkins, pears and apples in traditional pies and butters. Remembering your purpose is to sell local food, locally grown potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, and onions should all be displayed as key ingredients in traditional autumn harvest dinners. Having the recipes on hand for customers will encourage them to buy the ingredients and make the dishes at home. Visually appeal to your customers with traditional harvest themed d?cor with cornstalks, pumpkins, and gourds. High spirited music will round out the event and provide a fun and lively atmosphere.

While this example may seem straightforward, I have been to several events where the presentation was inconsistent and the theme was lost. For example, a hoedown event should not offer music by the local church choir. While the choir may be excellent and the lead singer may be your wife, the tone set by the music is inconsistent with the theme. Your message will be lost in the contradictory presentation and customers may lose interest. By comparison, a well themed event will have your customers talking positively! Word will spread about your event and your local food retail business.

Fully Promote Your Event

A well attended event is a properly promoted event. While a local food event is focused on your community, a properly promoted local food event can bring in new customers from neighboring communities. You should promote your event early, and promote it often! The first promotional decisions to be made are the name of your local food event, the date and the theme. Once you have made these decisions, go with them and don’t look back! Use this information on every piece of promotional literature printed, on your web site and in your press releases. Also consider selling event merchandise such as t-shirts and tote bags and contact your vendor. Four to six weeks before the event, start your in-store promotions. Have attractive banners or posters made and prominently disit!

Fully promote your event

Stay within Your budget
Know your event's theme and stick to it!

A consistent presentation of your event’s theme is the key to success. Your theme should be represented by the food served, the d?cor, the music and the atmosphere. For example, an Autumn Harvest celebration could showcase locally pumpkins, pears and apples in traditional pies and butters. Remembering your purpose is to sell local food, locally grown potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, and onions should all be displayed as key ingredients in traditional autumn harvest dinners. Having the recipes on hand for customers will encourage them to buy the ingredients and make the dishes at home. Visually appeal to your customers with traditional harvest themed d?cor with cornstalks, pumpkins, and gourds. High spirited music will round out the event and provide a fun and lively atmosphere.

While this example may seem straightforward, I have been to several events where the presentation was inconsistent and the theme was lost. For example, a hoedown event should not offer music by the local church choir. While the choir may be excellent and the lead singer may be your wife, the tone set by the music is inconsistent with the theme. Your message will be lost in the contradictory presentation and customers may lose interest. By comparison, a well themed event will have your customers talking positively! Word will spread about your event and your local food retail business.

Fully Promote Your Event

A well attended event is a properly promoted event. While a local food event is focused on your community, a properly promoted local food event can bring in new customers from neighboring communities. You should promote your event early, and promote it often! The first promotional decisions to be made are the name of your local food event, the date and the theme. Once you have made these decisions, go with them and don’t look back! Use this information on every piece of promotional literature printed, on your web site and in your press releases. Also consider selling event merchandise such as t-shirts and tote bags and contact your vendor. Four to six weeks before the event, start your in-store promotions. Have attractive banners or posters made and prominently di

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autumn harvest dinners. Having the recipes on hand for customers will encourage them to buy the ingredients and make the dishes at home. Visually appeal to your customers with traditional harvest themed d?cor with cornstalks, pumpkins, and gourds. High spirited music will round out the event and provide a fun and lively atmosphere.

While this example may seem straightforward, I have been to several events where the presentation was inconsistent and the theme was lost. For example, a hoedown event should not offer music by the local church choir. While the choir may be excellent and the lead singer may be your wife, the tone set by the music is inconsistent with the theme. Your message will be lost in the contradictory presentation and customers may lose interest. By comparison, a well themed event will have your customers talking positively! Word will spread about your event and your local food retail business.

Fully Promote Your Event

A well attended event is a properly promoted event. While a local food event is focused on your community, a properly promoted local food event can bring in new customers from neighboring communities. You should promote your event early, and promote it often! The first promotional decisions to be made are the name of your local food event, the date and the theme. Once you have made these decisions, go with them and don’t look back! Use this information on every piece of promotional literature printed, on your web site and in your press releases. Also consider selling event merchandise such as t-shirts and tote bags and contact your vendor. Four to six weeks before the event, start your in-store promotions. Have attractive banners or posters made and prominently di

The Value of Process
Process…even the word itself has come to hold a negative connotation for many. With the plethora of conflicting information that has been written about process management combined with the nightmares we have all experienced as a result of bad process, many executives fear the pain associated with flawed process more than they value the benefits created by good process.Understanding what constitutes bad process is the first step in recognizing how to avoid business process pitfalls that plague many companies. Let’s start by examining the three main misconceptions related to process:1. Process is not a new software program or application. While toolsets are obvious byproducts of good process they do not in and of themselves constitute process. Don’t get caught in the trap of perpetual spending or development as a solution, but recognize that if you’re caught in this trap that it is a symptom of bad process not a reflection of good process.<

llent and the lead singer may be your wife, the tone set by the music is inconsistent with the theme. Your message will be lost in the contradictory presentation and customers may lose interest. By comparison, a well themed event will have your customers talking positively! Word will spread about your event and your local food retail business.

Fully Promote Your Event

A well attended event is a properly promoted event. While a local food event is focused on your community, a properly promoted local food event can bring in new customers from neighboring communities. You should promote your event early, and promote it often! The first promotional decisions to be made are the name of your local food event, the date and the theme. Once you have made these decisions, go with them and don’t look back! Use this information on every piece of promotional literature printed, on your web site and in your press releases. Also consider selling event merchandise such as t-shirts and tote bags and contact your vendor. Four to six weeks before the event, start your in-store promotions. Have attractive banners or posters made and prominently di

Small Business Image
The single easiest way to increase sales is to look professional. People believe what they see. If you look the part, you get the part. You must be committed to keeping a positive image in the mind of every customer. What you may not realize is that a high public image may not cost as much as you are led to believe. In a small business, image is fifty percent (50%) of your business. The impact you have on your customers, whether it be your appearance, cleanliness of your store, equipment, uniforms or the style of your classy color brochures. You must continually re-audited your small businesses image. Even if your first impression is great, you can lose it just as fast if you fail to handle simple details, because things change and customer buying behavior and perceptions change with local, regional, national and world events and views.Here are a few areas that are the cornerstone of your “new image” if you choose to audit your current image fo

unities. You should promote your event early, and promote it often! The first promotional decisions to be made are the name of your local food event, the date and the theme. Once you have made these decisions, go with them and don’t look back! Use this information on every piece of promotional literature printed, on your web site and in your press releases. Also consider selling event merchandise such as t-shirts and tote bags and contact your vendor. Four to six weeks before the event, start your in-store promotions. Have attractive banners or posters made and prominently display them in key locations around your neighborhood, business district and community centers. If you own a retail business, printing up flyers can be an inexpensive promotional tool that you can slip into every customer’s shopping bag. Clearly state your event information on your flyers or invitations! Here are some avoidable pitfalls which can be taken care of by good planning and proofreading:

• Your invitation should represent the event. If it’s a party, make sure your invitation or flyer is fun, welcoming and eye-catching!An invitation for one event was mailed to 200+ potential guests in a business envelope. Our guess is that for many, it resembled just another piece of junk mail and it was ignored. Only 30+ people were in attendance.

• Make it easy for guests to locate your event! An attractive flyer advertising your event is great, but ineffective if it does not include the address where your event is to be held. Including a map on the face of the flyer is an added bonus for your guests. One recently attended event had sub-par attendance because although the many sponsors were noted on the event flyer, the host location was not!

• If you are sponsoring a benefit event, clearly state the recipient charity or organization on your promotional materials. Even unintentionally misleading your guests can lead to bad press and a poor reputation in your community. At a harvest dinner hosted by an organic farm, a banner clearly stated, “Support your local farmers at [this dinner]” yet proceeds actually went to an international food movement.

• If you will be selling merchandise at your event, make sure that information is also included in promotional flyers and press releases! Some harvest dinners have a considerable ticket price just to attend. Not realizing there would be merchandise to purchase, many guests did not bring extra cash or credit cards and sales were lost.
  

Ask neighboring local businesses to put up posters advertising your event. Remember that business your event draws into the community benefits them, too! They will be happy to accommodate your request.

Two to three weeks prior to the event, issue a press release to your local newspaper, and to those in surrounding communities. Ask the newspaper to run