It’s 41 Fahrenheit at the house today. A great time to sit in the Sunshine
It’s 41 Fahrenheit at the house today. A great time to sit in the sunshine (with a coat on – I’m not that brave!) and watch the deer or feed the birds or just sit and watch the snow melt slowly off the roof. While sitting in the sunshine doing nothing is a perfectly worthwhile use of my time, as I sat on the deck the over the weekend, I began to mentally note all the stuff that needed doing outside – prune trees, pick up brush, put siding on the chicken coop, fix the leak in the gutter and so on.
If you’ve not opened your custard store for the season yet, it’s time to get in there, make a list of what needs doing. I’d check for unwelcome visitors first, after visiting a store several years ago to deliver a dipping cabinet and finding a handful of mice nesting safely at the back of a freezer near where the compressor was pushing out a nice bit of heat. Cleaning, fixing, staffing, ordering are all things to get going on.
However, if the store is already open, that doesn’t mean you can rest easy. Chances are March isn’t your peak sales month (although those sunny days are appreciated by your bank balance this time of year). This is the time to think through promotions, possible partnerships with other local businesses or perhaps renting space at fairs and events. It may be a little late to do a major renovation but there’s certainly time to add a new menu item or two. Better sales are ahead in 2020, it’s time to get ready to take advantage of them.
Not on the list is to go public trying to assign blame. Learning from a crisis is important to prevent re-occurrences but they should be occasions where leaders can be uncovered. It’s a shame that in the case of the forest fires in California, the only examples are that of negative leadership.