Training and workshops - Farm Retail Association

Training and workshops developed for farm retailers

We’re committed to supporting you and creating opportunities for you to share your experiences, learn from one-another as well as hearing from industry experts. Please feel free to register for our upcoming online workshops created for farm retailers.

Please contact Jenny Rose at jenny@farmretailassociation.co.uk with any queries or suggestions.

The New Year – a fresh start: Attacking 2021 with a positive outlook

Delivered by Edward Berry, The Flying Fork

Wednesday 3rd February, 6.00pm

As we enter a new year, this is always a good moment to carry out a review of the past year, and plan for the next.

The good news is that you will have just had your busiest trading period, so have positive memories of good income, much higher than normal spend, and hopefully good cash reserves. However we then normally enter a quiet period when with the best intentions, all those happy shoppers seem to hibernate.

This is however a good moment to use the time to leave the shop floor and consider the next year.

In this talk we will look at

Reinvigorating and reigniting the passion
Delegation and sharing
Motivating the team
Planning your year
Aiming high and breaking records
Awards
Business measures that inspire
Work life balance

These are of course not normal times, and we will spend time looking at how to consider the immediate future, and perhaps any longer term changes we can expect, or should plan for.

A whistle-stop tour of the commercial realities of running a farm shop

Because we’re not all from the school of retail! Take a step back from your business for an hour and remind yourself of some key commercial measures you should be considering into the day to day running of your farm shop.

1. Maximising Your Farm Shop Turnover
2. Controlling Purchasing and Stock levels
3. Achieving Gross Margin targets
4. Running Events profitably
5. Controlling Overheads
6. Managing staff costs and performance
7. Effective Marketing
8. The importance of Data Analysis
9. Key Performance Indicators and Targets
10. Future business development planning

This course toom place over zoom in November 2020

Watch back on YouTube for FREE

Boosting the morale of your team – whilst looking after yourself and your business

It’s been an incredibly challenging few months. Owners, managers & staff have worked incredibly hard – with the busy Christmas period yet to come. This online session will explore how farm shop owners and managers can see their team (and themselves!) through the next few weeks.

- Morale and Resilience – Strong connections, managing crises, viewing change as normal, a sense of perspective, positivity, decisiveness
- Empathetic, Supportive, Leadership – Maintaining well-being, different leadership styles, addressing vulnerabilities
- Team Spirit – Inclusivity, praise, events
- Celebration and Reward – Public and private recognition, gamification, fun

This course took place over zoom in November 2020

Watch back on YouTube for FREE

E-commerce: How to make sure your website is ready for Christmas orders

Ensuring your website is ready for Christmas orders is on everyone’s minds at the moment. We’ve enlisted Susan Hallam MBE to give us some professional and practical guidance on how to ensure your current website is up to scratch, or how to update your site to do exactly what you need it to.

Christmas is a key trading period for all farm shops & markets, and we are all facing uncertainty and a changing social landscape. We are all planning for a Christmas like no other. Whilst we may not know exactly how the pandemic will impact Christmas 2020 ecommerce sales, we do know that online shopping will play an important part in your customer spend, and that spending patterns continue to evolve.

Susan will be covering:

an overview of trends and insights around new Christmas shopping habits
preparing your ecommerce store for “new normal” holiday shopping surge
an overview of ecommerce technology options for you to consider
planning new processes for your online shopping experience, from click and collect to handling online substitutions

The session was held on Tuesday 29^th September. The session can be purchased to watch back, please e-mail jenny@farmretailassociation.co.uk.

Using social media to reach new customers, nurture relationships and drive sales

As we are approaching the critical Christmas period, learn how your company can take best advantage of social media to reach new customers, nurture relationships with your existing customers, and drive sales.. In this practical session, Susan will share examples of how you can set up your social media campaigns for optimal success,

Examples of successful Christmas social media campaigns for your to adapt for your own use
How to run cost effective social advertising campaigns to reach your target market
How to get your customers ready early for their holiday shopping planning
How to align your social media with pandemic-weary holiday shoppers
How to create your Christmas social media plan

The session was held on Tuesday 20th October. The session can be purchased to watch back, please e-mail jenny@farmretailassociation.co.uk.

How can we use this opportunity to build our social following and keep new customers

Tuesday 28th April, 6.00pm

THIS SESSION HAS ALREADY TAKEN PLACE, BUT YOU CAN WATCH BACK AND SEE THE INFORMATION HERE

Hosted by Susan Hallam MBE, CEO of award winning Digital Marketing Agency Hallam

It is clear the COVID19 crisis isn’t going to blow over any time soon, so your business needs to be rapidly realigning the way you communicate with your customers. Creating the right kind of messaging, defining a new purpose and focus is key to social media success. In this 40 minute session, Susan will help you to reflect upon and create a plan for:

Defining your new social tone of voice
Creating the right kinds of content
Updating your social media plan
Your top 5 social media steps to take for your business to thrive when time get tough

Click to watch video session and see slides

Exploring the challenges of re-opening your cafe/restaurant when the time is right

PLUS bringing back your furloughed team

Tuesday 19th May, 6.00pm

THIS SESSION HAS ALREADY TAKEN PLACE, BUT YOU CAN WATCH BACK BELOW.

Hosted by Elliot Rich, The Alternative Board (TAB). Elliot will share his practical advice on how other sectors are considering the return to work for some or all of their people and how this relates to Farm Shop Retail members.

Everyone wanted to talk about furlough and now no one wants to talk about furlough!

The key question now is how and when do we return to work, is there a new norm and has this lockdown period masked some of the challenges we were already facing some months before in our business which have just been kicked down the road.

Topics include:

Your confidence to bring some or all of your team back
Essential preparations for safe physical distancing at work
What does re-opening a café or PYO look like
Re-establishing working relationships & expectations
Marketing & PR – sustaining loyalty