​Today March 8 is International Women's Day. Here is why this day is important.

​Being able to celebrate this day today for biological women means so much to me and here are the reasons:

YOUNG MOTHERS
Including my own mother, young women who have given birth when they were just children themselves. They endured the shame and judgement as they made a decision to have their babies. Some decided to keep them and others gave them up for adoption. I honor you today!


WOMEN WHO CHOSE A CAREER OVER CHILDREN
Maybe not so much in 2024 is this choosing a career over children something women have to decide as we have made progress (not arrived) towards flexibility and family-friend workplaces. However, I met a professor who said she knew doing a career and motherhood wasn't an option for her in the 1950's so she made the difficult decision not to have children. I honor you today!


WOMEN WHO CHOSE ABORTION TO THEIR PREGNANCIES
I know personally this felt like the only option, it is something that haunts you for the rest of your life. For you who chose this willingly or unwillingly, forgive yourself. So many difficult factors go in to this that most people may not understand. I honor you today!


WOMEN WHO ARE IN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS
Recently I met a woman who told me the reason her jaw was sunken in was because she had been punched so hard she lost all her teeth on that side. Yes, my eyes watered. Unfortunately her story isn't uncommon and I pray for any women who aren't safe in their home to seek out help to get out. The woman's story I just shared told me that she arranged a place to go and left in the middle of the night with nothing but $500. I honor you today!


WOMEN WHO DON'T THINK THERE IS A PURPOSE FOR THEM
I meet a lot of women who are kicking it with a dream that they are doing. However, many of their stories start with inner work to find their purpose which got them to where they are today. For any woman who thinks there is no purpose for them or they have lost a sense of purpose, this is lie. You have purpose. I honor you today!


WOMEN WHO ARE IN MALE-DOMINATED CAREERS
You may not feel that you will ever be as successful as your male peers, but you are better! Yep that is correct, women have different strengths than men, so where they are weaker, you are stronger. I hear the words of a department head I worked for who said we need women in a group of computer scientists because a group of guys can only get so far. Keep using your strengths in your field! I honor you today!


WOMEN-LED SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
I am giving you a standing ovation today! You knocked down walls that said you aren't good enough, you don't have the knowledge, you won't succeed, and you did it! Now is the hard work, I know! Balancing all you need to do for your family, your own needs while you lead your business isn't easy. It is lonely at the top, I know this also. Pursue community and when things fail, see the failure as an opportunity for new success. I honor you today!

What does International Women's Day mean to you? Share in the comments.
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Thank you for reading!

For the past year, Goenner Consulting, LLC has been partnering and meeting with small business owners. We have noticed they all have one thing in common, the stress and time they spend on their back-office functions instead of working on their core business.

When Faith, Owner, Goenner Consulting, LLC opened a retail and service pregnancy shop she experienced all the complexities of the back-office functions and got stuck there because she had a career as a Business Manager. Faith quickly realized that she needed someone to help her. Faith outsourced payroll and hired a great manager who helped with the marketing and operations. Additional lessons learned as a first-time entrepreneur are documented in this blog post from 2018.

​What would happen if you could hand over the back-office operations of your business? This is what a local chamber did when they needed help after their executive director resigned. The operations kept going while the Board determined next steps.

With the new world of "fractional", you can now purchase the back-office services you need when you need them. You don't need to wear all the hats of back-office operations and no more waiting for the funds to hire a part-time or full-time business manager employee.

Goenner Consulting, LLC is your Fractional Business Manager offering services of human resources, accounting, marketing and administration with a monthly rate for what services you need and when you need them.
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Lets talk about about how you can have no more stress in 2024, schedule a free consulting session.

For the past few years I have slowly been taking the skills and professional experiences I learned in the public sector and applying them in the private sector. In 2023 I challenged myself to step out and try new professional opportunities with a growth mindset. A simple growth mindset definition is believing that you can develop your basic abilities through dedication and hard work. For me it was defined as believing that I have skills that can be used outside of the public sector and can be increased and strengthened when applied to the private sector.
Here are five things I learned in 2023:

SELLING MINDSET
When I owned my retail shop, I knew my strengths weren't in sales and I took this mindset with me into my insurance business and was struggling. What I learned this year is what kind of selling practice I operate from and how I can leverage this knowledge for my success. I joined a group of sales professionals at Selling from the Heart and was able to define what sales looks like for me. It is the relationships and genuine commitment that the products and services I have will benefit business owners, their employees and the success of their business. My ability to create messaging that supports this belief is what creates influence and trust toward sales. What are your strengths and weaknesses as a sales professional and how can you improve in 2024?

MY WHY
Through learning more about who I am as a business owner, I took the Why Institute assessment and learned why I do what I do. What was amazing is that in my core this is what I do and it is applied to everything I do!
I make sense of complex and complicated problems with better ways to be compliant and efficient and contribute to the success of the organization.
My career in the public sector leveraged my why by making sense of audit findings and developing better ways and then implementing the new systems for compliance and efficiency. Discover your Why in 2024!

THERE IS NO SEPARATION OF LIFE AND WORK
In 2023, I became a care partner a few hours/week to be an on-the-ground EAP for employees. I walk a manufacturing floor with safety glasses, ear plugs and steel toed shoes to talk to people. Similar to how I am a supervisor, I listen to what is going on in people's lives. Companies who see the benefit of this service see improvements in the workplace culture and the quality of their employee's performance. I am a resource and more importantly a trusted relationship to help them navigate their life and work. I learned that employees show up to work with their life on them. Grow your company culture in 2024 and make sure your workplace culture can support your employee's "life" and support them to be the best employee possible.

VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED
One of my hobbies is volunteering. I absolutely love volunteering for chamber of commerce's, church and nonprofits. What I learned this year is that if our next generation doesn't understand how important volunteering is to the quality of our communities, we are in trouble. Most of the volunteers are in their 80's for nonprofits in my rural communities. In some cases I have been the youngest and I am in my 50s! Teach your children the importance of volunteering and get out and do it in 2024.

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Just like 2023 had good and bad unexpected events, so will 2024. Someone told me to not go too high or go too low, just stay steady. This can be applied as we move out of 2023 into 2024, there will be highs and lows, but stay steady and consistent. In 2023, I had some great opportunities and I had some major set backs, but the book "Three Feet from Gold" by Napoleon Hill is what kept me going through the set backs to see them as opportunities. Develop resiliency in 2024 against things that look like set backs, but may end up being set ups.
Thank you for reading! I look forward to finding out what you learned in 2023. Happy New Year!

This past week was filled with trying something new almost every day. As a child, change was easy to me. I lived in 12 different homes (with my parents) before I was in 7th grade. In 2nd grade I went to three different schools. This week I had to reflect on the question "Is trying something new the same as change?". I love using Chat GPT for these type of questions. Yes, trying something new is related to change but not the same.

You made it through another week. What were your celebrations and your struggles related to your workforce? In my role as a business consultant and the interim Executive Director of a local Chamber of Commerce, every day I connect with leaders in the community. They all have very similar experiences related to their workforce and this week I heard a lot of struggles around building the team. When to hire? How to be competitive with benefits? When to let someone go? When will I get back to working on the core activities of my position? Here are a few thoughts from my experience building teams that I hope will give you hope if you also are facing workforce struggles.

EVALUATE THE JOB DESCRIPTIONS
Who do you need to do the work of your business? Start to list all the skills and experience that is needed for the various roles that will make your business operate. How do you package these skills into a job description(s) that you could use to recruit top talent? Don't forget to include a job description for yourself. I work a lot with small business owners and I encourage them to develop FAQs that could be used for a receptionist or even on a website that help customers know what to expect, what information is needed on an order and what products are sold there. I also encourage everyone to use calendar scheduling software (such as Calendly and WeSparkle) to reduce the back and forth of scheduling meetings or appointments. Lastly, voluntary health benefits are a great opportunity to support your hiring top talent with no direct cost to your business.

WHERE ARE THE EMPLOYEES?
Business leaders need to be creative. The traditional job board posting may not be how you fill roles you have. Outsourcing accounting, human resources, marketing and administration is a great opportunity to develop your back-office functions without the overhead of many employees. Part-time can be something people are interested in and could develop into full-time. Don't forget about temp agencies. There was a season where I was trying to hire a research accountant. We were realizing we were going to have hire a successful accountant and train them for a research accountant role because there weren't experienced research accountants in the applicant pools. We made an investment into an accounting recruitment agency and were successful to get four employees who brought great value to our team in a short period of time. Three of them have been promoted from where they started and are still at the institution we hired them into. This was 6 years ago. Recruitment agencies can provide value to your hiring barriers.

LETTING EMPLOYEES GO
Having to let employees go is the top reason that business leaders don't hire. So what do you do? I have experience with this both in my own retail shop and also as a manager of a large higher education department. I'm very passionate that if you have an employee who with coaching continues to bring a negative energy to the team, they must go. Be clear of expectations. Keep facts, not emotions of their behavior and the impact it has on the team. Get human resource guidance to ensure the departure is compliant to employment laws. If you don't have the work to pay for an employee and need to let them go, help your employees find another position with referrals and/or help them get to their next promotion. I do encourage you to know when you need to hire for your own mental health. You will get through whatever happens after the hire.
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Thank you for reading. Was this helpful? What ways have developed a workforce? Have a great weekend!

For the past few years we have been active in the community learning about the barriers that small business owners face in running their business.

​What we continued to see in all industries is the burden on small business owners to either do all their own back-office tasks and/or navigate multiple outsource entities in order to put together their back-office business solutions.

We are excited to launch My Back-Office Agency campaign providing four back-office functions that Faith, Owner, Goenner Consulting, LLC has over 20+ years of leading both in the public sector and her own entrepreneur journey.

We are now offering back-office business solutions of human resources, accounting, marketing and administration. ​​Outsourcing back-office functions allows business owners to streamline their operations, reduce overhead, and focus on core activities to increase revenue.

With a monthly membership, we will be providing small businesses with business solutions that are developed uniquely for each business' needs. 

Gold - Get all four back-office business solutions.
Silver - Get two (2) back-office business solutions.
​Bronze - Get one (1) back-office business solution.​

​Happy Friday! I'm writing today to the business owners and managers who are exhausted by their lack of employees; the ones they have aren't the best; their high-performers are most likely looking for a new job. The reality of having a dream team may be far from your thoughts, but today's reflections are a few encouragements that you can have a DREAM TEAM REALITY.

START WITH YOU
The leadership of your business starts with you. Your ability to find healthy ways to keep going will benefit everyone. You notice this doesn't doesn't say time for yourself, you don't have this. Look around your business right now, what makes you happy? Is there a genre of music you could play in your office? Is there a non-alcoholic beverage that you could have stocked for yourself? Can you listen to a motivating podcast during your day? Can you go for a walk at the top of the hour? Focus on yourself so that you are refreshed to lead everyday. As I write this, I am seeing a super busy business owner of a very successful coffee shop. Being busy is a good thing, right? Well, she definitely was short-staffed as she was preparing a catering order and helping the customers at the counter, but the space was so beautiful with great music and I noticed she was drinking a favorite non-alcoholic beverage that wasn't sold at her business. (Emphasis on non-alcoholic because I know most people do think about their favorite alcoholic beverage during stressful times.)

YOU AREN'T ALONE
As I went full-time consulting a few months ago, I had no idea the stories I would hear from small business and nonprofit leaders and be able to emphasize for how hard it is to lead your own business. Many employees and customers don't realize the pressure when the weight of the business is on you. You may feel alone in your organization, but you aren't alone. I know there is a community of other business leaders in your area. I hope there is a supportive Chamber of Commerce and opportunities to take a break with other business leaders. Take time each week to find a group of business leaders that you can connect with or better yet, start your own. It takes a village, even for your business.

Please call 988 if you or someone you know is in crisis or suicidal.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
This week I went to a education event around fraud in businesses and it was so disheartening to hear about how much is stolen from employees. Recently I heard a story of having to fire a very good employee because they were caught on camera stealing. Stealing something that had they asked they needed it, the employer would have most likely given it to them. So what does this have to do with employee engagement? If you don't know what your employees may be going through in their personal lives, you might want to find out. I don't mean going on the shop floor and asking them "Is everything ok at home?", but taking time to meet them and learn more about them on a consistent basis. Is your business to big for you to do this? I recently heard about Marketplace Chaplains and they have care partners to support your employees in their personal lives so they can keep being successful at work.

What did I miss in helping business owners and leaders keep going amidst the labor shortage, higher material costs and burn-out?

I'd love to hear your story, send me a LinkedIn message or email [email protected].
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Have a restful weekend and I appreciate you!

The word of this past week was TEAM. Every day I seemed to be reading or hearing about another small business closing due to the lack employees and/or turnover. Although I know a lot of factors go into the shortage of employees, I do know that it is an employee market and if you aren't bringing the best culture and leadership to your business, you could be facing a breakdown in the success of your team.
After meeting with my business coach, Kelly, Resiliency Coaching, for the 3rd version of my business plan for Goenner Consulting, LLC, I am ready to return to my career of building strong teams.

Here are three characteristics that a strong team should have.

RESILIENT
We are experiencing unprecedented situations in our world right now. Both leadership and employees must be able to navigate their personal and professional situations and be resilient. How can you build a resilient culture? Feeling safe is the most important atmosphere that can cultivate resilient teams. Also leadership that is able to be authentic and open to change and innovation, even if they don't like it.

COMMITTED
People are committed when they see what is in it for them. Many of the new generations entering the workforce aren't interested in working just for a paycheck, but want to know what are they contributing to. Businesses that are able to have employees be involved in community activities will see more committed employees. Being able to support employees who are going through difficult personal seasons can also strengthen a team to be committed.

SUCCESSFUL
Team success can have a lot of variables. For the business owner it could be the bottom-line financially, for the employee it could be that they are growing in their career and for managers it could be that their team is able to make their goals. No matter what the measure of success, the business will be successful when all measures of success are celebrated.
Is your team broken? Are you frustrated by high-turnover and/or low performing employees? Make sure to follow me as I will be pouring out my heart as I pivot my consulting to focus on building resilient, committed and successful teams.

Thank you for reading.
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P.S. Did you know we have YouTube, check out a video from this morning.

The primary value of Goenner Consulting, LLC is empathy because owner Faith knows what it looks like to lead employees and deliver to customers. 

Faith launched a one-of-a-kind retail shop and sold it a few years later. She knows first-hand how hard it can be owning a business and leading a team with projects that don't fit into any other position, except yours. We can help you.

Don't worry about how you would utilize Goenner Consulting, LLC for the project that came to your mind when we asked what keeps you up at night. We will discover this together.
We would like to find out what is going on in your world, whether or not you have something keeping you up at night.

Please give us a call at 612-819-7441 or use the online scheduler link to find a 30-minute time that works for you. 
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Do something fun in August and let us know what you did. 

When two people in a 48-hour period ask you about your business plan, it catches your attention. I know you are asking, "You don't have a business plan?". Yes I have a business plan in my head but nope I haven't written it down. I have written down my vision, but the light bulb moment for me this week is the business plan is the vision on steroids. I am reminded in Habakkuk 2, God tells us the importance of writing down the vision.