During this session, you'll learn about:

• How to define your strategy and create your plan before taking the plunge into social media
• About the importance of identifying your target audience to help determine the right platforms for your messaging
• Social and digital tools and ways to grow your business you may not have considered
• The most common mistakes being made—spot them on the horizon and take a detour
• And you'll leave with a reference guide to help you get started or enhance your social and digital presence!

Christina Maryland is a strategic PR and marketing communications professional based in the greater Boston area. Specializing in nonprofit and government marketing, branding, and positioning, Christina helps individuals and organizations plan, unify, and raise their brand through targeted and strategic thinking. She is well-versed and savvy in implementing integrated (traditional and digital) PR and marketing campaigns to organically raise an organizational profile with the public. 

Christina’s specialty is in implementing strategic branding, marketing, and public relations. Before becoming a mom, when not working, you could catch her refinishing furniture or planning extensive travel. Now, she plans activities around naptime and diaper changes!

Independent restaurants and foodservice businesses such as caterers, food trucks, cafes, and bakeries

Staffing is a constant concern for foodservice businesses of all sizes, especially in the pandemic.

Small restaurants are a labor of love, and in many cases, that means calling on everyone you love to lend a hand: family, friends, friends of family, family of friends, and so on. Unfortunately, being an employer is much more than just getting people to show up for their shifts!

In this webinar, Kim Pederzani of Toast will present ways to formalize employment in your business, such as:

• Implementing hiring processes
• Determining whether your workers should be W2 employees or 1099 employees
• Protecting your business from liability
• Setting up tip distribution and benefits efficiently and legally

Formal staffing practices are often required by law, and can also be necessary for businesses that wish to access grants and other types of financial aid (for example, PPP loans). Kim will also share recommendations for working with lawyers on employment and other legal issues.

This event is presented by CommonWealth Kitchen and the City of Boston, in partnership with Toast, Inc.

Independent restaurants and other foodservice businesses such as caterers, food trucks, cafes, and bakeries.

Managing your business financials should be useful, not stressful.

In an ideal world, restaurant owners would review their books regularly and use the data to make informed decisions. But too often, we can’t prioritize the financials until it’s Tax Day, and then we have to play catchup. This can result in a stressful, expensive, and tedious relationship with our accountants, who are sometimes more focused on putting together tax forms than producing documents that are actually useful in running the business. When you can trust and communicate with your accountant, it’s possible to have both!

In this webinar, Dylan Gully of ReThink Restaurants will guide owners through the best ways to manage and evaluate relationships with accountants. This isn’t Finance 101 — it’s Accountants 101. What questions should you be asking? How do you want your financials organized? How much should you be paying?

He will review some common pitfalls in restaurant-specific accounting that, when addressed, can make your financial statements more accurate and more useful to you as a business owner. We’ll cover topics such as:

• What’s the difference between an accountant and a bookkeeper?
• How often should I be talking to them?
• What financial admin work can and should I do myself?
• How often should I look at my profit and loss statements? At my balance sheet?
• Where do I start if I’ve never organized my financials?

If you’ve ever wondered whether you should trust your accountant, think of this session as getting a second opinion.

This event is presented by CommonWealth Kitchen and the City of Boston, in partnership with Toast, Inc.

Ya sea a través de la toma de decisiones estratégicas, la reestructuración de un modelo comercial, analizaremos cómo podría utilizar ciertos mecanismos para permanecer en el negocio y mantener el valor a largo. Este taller actúa como una guía para que los propietarios de negocios conozcan varias opciones estratégicas para que puedan investigar y evaluar circunstancias particulares.

También compartiremos consejos de planificación de sucesión para ayudar a mantener el valor empresarial y la riqueza generacional. También abordaremos algunos problemas y desafíos comunes de las pequeñas empresas y explicaremos por qué la planificación de la sucesión es un elemento crítico para la resiliencia empresarial.

Whether through strategic decision-making, pivoting a business model, restructuring, or bankruptcy, we will discuss how you could utilize certain mechanisms to stay in business and maintain value in the long run. This workshop acts as a guide for business owners to become aware of various strategic options so you may research and evaluate further for your particular circumstances.

We will also share succession planning tips to help sustain business value and generational wealth. We will address some common problems and challenges of small businesses, and why succession planning is a critical element for business resilience.

Join us for a unique training designed specifically for food-based small businesses on COVID-19 safety, Massachusetts reopening guidelines, and best practices.

This unique piece of training designed specifically for food businesses on COVID-19 safety, State of Massachusetts reopening guidelines, and best practices.