Marcia Selden Catering & Event Planning has done just that with their efforts to give back to their community and offering flexible options to continue serving their customers. We sat down with Robin Selden, Managing Partner and Executive Chef for a Q&A to discuss planning for the future, how they’re pivoting their business, and more.

When operating a business, your team is your most valuable asset. You could have a warehouse stocked of items, a bank account full of zeros, and a never-ending client roster, but you’d still be nowhere without a great team to support you. Strong employer-employee relationships are essential for success, but almost more important is the team dynamic within your employees.

While you may be busy with brand development, business travel, networking, and other leadership responsibilities, your team is on the ground working on client work — and they’re often working together. If they don’t get along, this can quickly become an issue that has a negative impact on your bottom line. Poor morale is devastating to the client experience and will eventually lead to a high turnover rate.

In order to combat this, it’s important to develop team-building exercises for your employees to hone their collaboration skills and nurture their internal relationships. Here are a few team-building exercises to consider.

As we enter an era where cost savings are more important than ever, it’s a great time to open up the discussion of resources for caterers where they can cut back on spending. If you’re an industry pro, you’ve likely heard of rebate programs or GPOs. A common misconception, however, is that the two are created equally. In reality, there are a number of differentiating factors that sets GPOs apart from rebate programs (and even factors that set GPOs apart from other GPOs).

Given this, we want to break this down in simpler terms to help caterers make an educated choice for their business.

One of the smartest things to do right now (and what we see many business owners doing) is to sit down and begin re-evaluating your business. Plain and simple, this is the ideal time to take what you’ve learned and are still learning through this difficult time and begin applying it to both the present and the future.

There are many in the catering industry that are using this time to panic, and rightfully so, considering the wrench that has been thrown in our plans for event season. However, panicking is not going to serve your business well, nor will clients feel comfortable looking to you for guidance.

So, let’s break it down. How can you use this downtime effectively, and what can you do to ensure that you’ll come out stronger on the other side of this?