We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Samantha Wood a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Samantha, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Almost every entrepreneur we know has considered donating a portion of their sales to an organization or cause – how did you make the decision of whether to donate? We’d love to hear the backstory if you’re open to sharing the details.
About eight years ago, we began giving back to our local community in earnest. I’ll admit that at first it was mostly reactive; we would receive silent auction requests, and we agreed to donate food tour tickets. But over time, I have learned that giving back is an essential part of our business plan with benefits I had never considered.
First of all, it should be noted that we are a small business. Very small, actually. I am the only full-time employee, and we have six part-time Tour Guides. We aren’t raking in the cash, and margins are tight (which is likely the case in your business as well). Our decision to give back is a conscious one; one that says that we will give back no matter how much profit we make or if we had a good year or not. It is now a proactive decision rather than reactive one.
There are many benefits from donating a portion of your proceeds or donating items or services in-kind. The first of which is knowing that you have the ability to be part of a solution to a real problem your community is facing.
The first year we began tracking our donations, we gave to two local organizations. The second year we donated to 10 organizations, and today we donate in-kind tickets to nearly 30 charities. These non-profits are all located within Colorado Springs or the immediate surrounding area.
From a marketing perspective, the silent auction events we have supported have in turn helped us reach new local markets. While there is usually only one highest bidder, the donation gains exposure from all event attendees.
We’ve also sometimes struggled with developing fresh social media content, and these partnerships allow us to add new posts to our editorial calendar, while also bringing even more exposure to the benefiting non-profits.
Giving back has internal benefits, too. Our employees appreciate being able to work for a company that cares about supporting local non-profits, and they have a certain amount of pride knowing their work has a greater impact. Our guests feel good knowing that their purchase has a greater impact, too!
Starting in 2022, we decided to take our charitable giving one step further than in-kind donations and actually commit to donating a portion of our proceeds to our local food bank. Now, we donate $1 of every ticket sold, which is the equivalent to five nutritious meals.
When choosing an organization to support more consistently, we wanted one whose mission resonated with our mission. And in the case of Care and Share Food Bank, we both feed people; we just do it in different ways!
Today we are planning a team-building field trip to the food bank to meet the ones behind the scenes and to play an active part in making sure that the food-insecure members of our community have access to what they need to live and thrive.
I would encourage any business owner to consider what they can do to give back to their community. Every little bit counts, and from what I’ve learned, it’s simply good business!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am passionate about local food and have spent the last 12+ years building a business around it! My company is called Rocky Mountain Food Tours, and our mission is to tell the story of Colorado Springs through food (what better medium, right?!). We take food-loving locals and visitors on culinary excursions, mainly in downtown Colorado Springs but sometimes also in the surrounding areas.
While we are always working on building new and unique experiences, we currently offer three tours to the public: a brewery tour, a speakeasy and cocktail tour, and what we call “the original” food tour. To accomplish this, we work with 20+ local restaurants, bars, and artisan food shops. It’s amazing knowing that while we are a small business ourselves, we are also able to financially benefit and promote up to five other small businesses with every food tour we give!
My journey to becoming an entrepreneur was an unexpected one, but I am glad that I finally landed there. My career has spanned several industries including real estate, non-profit, and higher education, but ultimately, my heart is in owning my own business! I love marketing and find great joy in building our visual brand (while still employing the professionals, especially when it comes to web design!). I also love finding efficiencies, and one of my current goals is to automate anything that be automated, from reporting to communication.
I am proud to have kept this very small business chugging over many years and through many local and global hardships. While it has not been easy, it has been rewarding to build something from nothing and to have an impact on so many people, including our own staff.
Recently, I’ve been very compelled to give back, both personally but also professionally. For the year 2023, we have committed to donating $1 of every ticket sold to Care and Share Food Bank. We believe that no one should go hungry and are proud to support this great organization!
Any advice for managing a team?
5 Tips for for Managing a Virtual Team
While the pandemic turned many traditional offices into virtual ones, we’ve always had the challenge of conducting the majority of staff communication, meetings and trainings virtually.
We are small food tour company without a brick-and-mortar (maybe someday!), and most of our tour guides consider this job as a side hustle. Meeting in person is almost impossible with so many conflicting schedules, and so we’ve had to rely on virtual communication. While not perfect, there are times this has worked to our advantage, and I have a few tips I’ll share for anyone who finds themself managing a remote team.
1- Create short videos for daily or weekly updates. While nothing can truly replace real face-to-face conversation, we’ve learned to use the next-best-thing, and that is video. Weekly, I send to our team a video update message that averages about five minutes long. It’s casual, conversational, and above all brief. The days leading up to the video (which is always recorded on the same day), I take notes on changes, announcements, staff anniversaries, tips, and upcoming events. It’s quick and easy, but it serves as an invaluable touch-point with our staff.
2- Celebrate milestones. Since you can’t pop into someone’s office to tell them that they’re doing a good job, you need to take extra special care to make sure your team knows that you value their input and performance. I always try to announce staff anniversaries during the weekly video, but I also do other things as well including recording all of their five-star reviews, giving them points and cash bonuses for a job well-done, and giving them free tickets to our events to give to their friends and family. It’s easy to feel isolated while working on a virtual team, so celebrating these milestones is important!
3- Plan in-person gatherings when you can. Thankfully for our team, everyone does live within a 30-minute drive to one another. This means that we can plan the occasional staff outing, like happy hour, a volunteer field trip, or a ball game to spend time together. Since our staff all have other jobs (and our tours happen on the weekends), these events don’t happen as frequently as I would like them to, but they are always well-worth the effort when the stars align! And for those who have truly virtual teams that do not have the ability to get together, we recommend virtual events like those organized by companies like Avital Tours, who is in our industry!
4- Make sure your team can give feedback and share their ideas. Maintaining a back-and-forth dialog virtually can be challenging, and it can be easy to push out information without also asking for feedback. Each member of the team should be invited to give their feedback and share their ideas, and they should feel like they are being heard. This can be accomplished by setting up virtual meetings, phone calls, or even creating a survey.
5 – Personalize your communication as much as possible. While some things can be shared to the whole group, make sure that you are also initiating communication that is tailored specifically to one person. Try to include something personal – for instance, how their recent trip went, how their knee is feeling post surgery, or how their family is. It’s important to let everyone feel known and appreciated on an individual level.
Managing a virtual team can be challenging, but I hope these tips and tricks help!
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Building Your Reputation
As a food tour company, we work within the restaurant industry, which is highly volatile and quick moving. The owners and managers we work with are often tired, overwhelmed, and overworked. They’re constantly being solicited, and therefore there is also a general distrust when working with a company like ours. Building a good reputation has been so important to us not only earning new partnerships but also keeping the ones we have.
When we first started nearly 13 years ago, we knew very little about this industry. Thankfully people were kind enough to give us a chance, and over the years we have learned many lessons!
We have had to work extra hard to build our reputation with our vendors, and today we are proud to work with 20+ restaurants, breweries, speakeasies, artisan food shops, and more. Here are my tips to building a good reputation!
Be consistent. Follow-up. Follow-through. Build a communication schedule. Do what you said you were going to do. Earn trust from your vendors and partners. This takes time.
Be kind, even when someone turns you down or you get disappointing news. Unfortunately, not everyone will want to work with you, feature your product, or buy your services. Keep your head high knowing that everyone deals with disappointment, and it’s how you deal with it that shows your true character.
Listen before you speak. Learn about people first and try to understand their pain points. Seek to be a solution. Don’t force your product or service at someone who is not interested.
Keep your pricing fair, and whenever possible, overdeliver.
Have integrity and always tell the truth. If you fail, own up to your mistakes and apologize for them. Respond to negative reviews (we all get them!) with humility and authenticity.
Ask people you’ve built a good relationship with to write a referral for you, and include that quote in your material to garner new business or partnerships. Let other vouch for you, and don’t be afraid to include positive reviews in your marketing.
Building a good reputation takes time and effort, but it can be the difference in you succeeding in your industry or not! If you aren’t sure what your reputation is, ask people for feedback and be open to what they might say. We all have room for improvement, but I hope these points can be a good starting place!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.rockymountainfoodtours.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rockymountainfoodtours/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rockymountainfoodtours
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/2387409
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/RMFoodTours
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/rocky-mountain-food-tours-colorado-springs-2
Image Credits
My headshot should be credited to James Dobson. The other images can be credited to Brenna Skattebo Photography (except for the image with the chef standing at the end of the table and the image of the beer – those images can just be credited to us, Rocky Mountain Food Tours).