Investing in Your Food Business: Why It Scares You & What To Do About It
Farm Kitchen supports food-focused entrepreneurs to create, operate and elevate successful businesses to strengthen the local food industry; while providing a fresh & collaborative co-working space where members of the community can work, or engage with their local food system through workshops, cooking classes and culinary events. We do this by renting commercial kitchen space, cold storage, a workshop venue and co-working office and business support.
When you join Farm Kitchen you have to invest your business dollars into the program. We know, scary stuff. There's an important point we want to make about this opportunity for local food businesses that may make you feel more comfortable about investing your hard earned business dollars.
We said INVEST. That means you get a return on your investment. When people tell you, you have to spend money to make money - they're wrong. You have to invest money to make money. There's a big difference. When you spend money it goes. When you invest money it grows. (Now go and put that on a sticky note and post it on your computer screen. What? A little affirmation never hurt anyone.) Or just Tweet it.
You see, here at Farm Kitchen ( your team at Community Connections Society) we understand just how scary investing in your food business can be. Three months ago we managed one commercial kitchen. Now we mange two - well that's an overstatement. We manage one and rent another that we'll be managing as soon as it opens. But that's another story. Three and a half months ago we questioned if we could invest in a second kitchen. We won't lie, we were was scared. We were scared it wasn't a good idea, scared we wouldn't be able to get our return on investment, scared we wouldn't get the opportunity, scared we would fail. Sound familiar?
The thing is, all those thoughts were just limiting belief systems getting in our way. With a small amount of research, planning and support from the team, we were able to justify the project to ouraelves. Then, the fear faded and Farm Kitchen: Where Local Food Business Grows became a reality.
If you think that expanding your food biz into a commercial kitchen can help you grow, then you should take a closer look at our membership rates, write some numbers down, and get clear on what kind of investment you need to make it happen. I'm not saying you won't have moments of doubt along the way, but if you never get curious about opportunities to grow, you won't.
Farm Kitchen is right beside you, investing in our social enterprise - investing in you! How cool is that?! We'll be sharing our story, local food news, and food biz tips here on the blog, so make sure and subscribe to our mailing list so you get FK Blog updates straight to your inbox.
How do you make investment decisions for your food biz when you're feeling scared? Comment below to share your tips.