Rising Stars Seminar for Natural Health Retailers

Natural

Natural health food store owners and managers who want to be better at their jobs should consider attending a Rising Stars seminar. Rising Stars sessions are natural foods leadership development seminars devoted to department and store managers. And for people who live and breathe natural health retailing, Rising Stars is everything you could hope for. It’s a combination of Heaven, Nirvana and Eutopia, with a little US Marine boot camp thrown in to provide structure over the intense three-day training session.

More sessions expected for Canada

The most recent Rising Stars event was held in Toronto in mid-July. Sponsored and supported by The Ontario Natural Food Co-op (ONFC), it was sold-out with 40 retailers in attendance, half of whom travelled north from U.S. stores. Carolee Coulter, who many of our readers recognize as a CNHR columnist, is a co-founder and presenter at Rising Stars seminars. She says the Toronto session was the 29th Rising Star event she and her partners have held. When asked if we can expect to see more of these events on Canadian soil, she replied, “Absolutely. We hope to put one on in Canada every year. This was our second in Canada.” Carolee says ONFC’s efforts were crucial to the event taking place, “because without them, it wouldn’t have happened.”

The goal of Rising Stars is to accomplish many things, among them: rekindle one’s passion for work, nurture new ideas and create a common vision, raise any department’s standards, master the art of interviewing and make better hiring decisions, demystify the numbers to improve sales, margin and labour, turn around lackluster performers, and empower staff, to name just a few.

This is a lot of material to cover in just three days, but the presenters pull it off, calling on their extensive and varied experience as hands-on managers in natural health stores and natural co-ops in the US. When she’s not presenting with Rising Stars, Carolee is a member of CDS Consulting Co-op. She specializes in personnel management and organizational development for the natural foods industry. With the involvement of managers and employees, she conducts employee surveys and develops staffing plans, job descriptions, pay scales, performance evaluations, personnel policies and training programs. Her specialty is working with natural co-ops and she regularly writes for trade publications and presents seminars.

Like Carolee, her co-founders have strong natural foods backgrounds. Mark Mulcahy provides produce consulting and educational services for co-ops and independent retailers worldwide. With over 27 years of hands-on experience in the retail produce industry, Mark is well known for his creative merchandising, effective training techniques, passion for produce, successful financial strategies and dedication to sustainable agriculture.

Allen Seidner is principal of Thought For Food Consulting, working for more than two decades to help organic and natural food retailers achieve excellence in foodservice operations and leadership development.

The threesome creates a fast-paced, energetic, non-stop environment for learning which keeps attendees gasping to keep up but – at the same time – wanting more.

Count Robert Assaf of Kardish Bulk and Nutrition Centres, Ottawa, ON, as a supporter of more Rising Star sessions in Canada. He and his brother Carey were seated front-row and centre for the Toronto event, taking copious notes and asking smart questions. “All three days were amazing,” he said. “Carey and I learned a ton. Neither of us have any formal business or management training so we found it extremely valuable learning from all three presenters. The best part of the seminar was that the presenters often drew on past experiences to provide examples and many of their experiences were easy to identify with because we have been faced with similar scenarios before. Outside of a couple of industry trade magazines – CHNR being the best – and the occasional CHFA seminar, there isn’t any type of business training available specific to the natural food industry. I let the Rising Stars presenters know if they come to Ottawa, Montreal or Toronto again we would be sending a large contingent from Kardish to attend.”

Filling a need in our industry

April Bayer-Murchison of the Cobourg Health Shoppe in Cobourg, ON agrees with Robert. “I was blown away by the depth and breadth of the information this course provided in just three days.  It’s like a condensed degree program in health retailing. We covered staffing issues from hiring and training right through discipline and firing; we covered store systems, smart paperwork and key metrics with formulas and averages for our industry. There were priceless handouts and time to really work with the tools provided. I came home with lots of new insights into how to be more efficient, cost-effective and find more time to get to it all. Allen, Carolee, and Mark are filling a real need in our industry and they do it with great experience, passion and humour. “

 For more information about Rising Stars, please go to: www.risingstarsseminar.com. •