Hello All,


I understand that I am supposed to post bi-weekly updates regarding my practicum, so here is the first one.


I have been working for a local chocolatier for about five years now. It is a very small business (currently only myself and the owner), which isn't doing so well financially. The owner is looking to expand, so she has hired me to help with that. Until this past January, I was a manager and I would recruit, hire, and train all new employees (for our busy season). I would also supervise employees' daily activities and organize inventory and orders.


With my new role, I will be doing more marketing and I will create a business plan to help us better understand what our current market is and how we can expand to other markets. Most of our business (approx. 70%) is private label corporate gifts, meaning we have tags made by a graphic designer with other company's logos and then we put them on our box and send the boxes out to their clients, customers, or employees for them. We have only about 10% walk-in customers, 10% online orders, and the last 10% is wholesale customers. All of these numbers are very loose estimates as the owner has never analyzed sales to determine what the proportions actually are. Another thing to note is that because we are a chocolatier, a majority of the business that we get is from November 1st through December 25th- about 75% of the business that we receive is within that two month time frame.


For my practicum, I will be creating a business plan that will include an HR section and a marketing section. The marketing section is what I will be focusing on for this semester and will emphasize IO psychology principles and how we can apply those principles to help grow the business and increase marketing. In a future semester, I am planning on going back and working more on the HR section for a second practicum (hopefully).

I'll keep you posted on how everything goes!


Best,

Sarah