Owning A Small Business During Corona Virus Paper Owning A Small Business During Coroavirus-19 1 Minimum word count: 600 words. The Assigment Imagine th

Owning A Small Business During Corona Virus Paper Owning A Small Business During Coroavirus-19 1

Minimum word count: 600 words.

The Assigment

Imagine that you are the owner and chief chef of a small restaurant in Santa Clarita. The restaurant

advertises “Breakfast served all day” and your little coffee shop has grown famous for big breakfasts

with lots of food: pancakes and eggs and bacon, waffles with the same, and four more menu pages

devoted to various combinations of other breakfast staples: sausages, baked muffins, and the usual

arrangement of meats, breads, and fruits.

The restaurant has done well for over 40 years, and you bought it from the original owner, who had it

for 35 of those 40+ years. Your locations is on a well-travelled street, a half block from the freeway, and

many cars pass by your windows all day. Foot traffic is also good.

When the governor ordered all restaurants to close, except for those which could offer delivery or

pickup outside the front door, revenue plummeted. You took in about 20% of what you usually made,

but your three waitresses—two of whom had worked for the restaurants for over 20 years, each, had to

be let go. They are now collecting unemployment insurance of about $400 per week and an additional $

650 from a federal supplementary fund that ends at the last day of July. In total, their weekly income of

$ 1050 is more than they made working for you, and two of them have told you they would not return,

at least until Federal funds ran out at the end of July.

Now that restaurants are opening with some seating and occupancy adjustments, you’re stuck: your

restaurant income is now far less than what it was, and you see that you’ll be able to remain open in this

limited version for about two months before you would have to shut the doors permanently.

There are a few options that might allow you to make money more money, but they would involve

making significant changes to your restaurants (and you can think of man others and use them):

Placing more emphasis on takeout food that customers can now call in and pickup in your shop.

Offering to deliver food within a limited number of miles

Hiring new workers on a parttime basis for both the kitchen and the waitstaff.

Changing the types of food you offer.

Increasing your marketing efforts: you’ve done almost none.

There are more changes you could make, but the dynamics remain fairly constant: you need more

income and should lower your expenses. For example, you could hire more parttime workers—maybe

students?—to replace the fulltimers who don’t want to come back yet. The downsides to this are that

you have many longtime customers who know your waitstaff well and would be saddened to see them

not coming back. You could do the same thing with your cooks, hiring culinary students parttime from

College of the Canyons.

What will you do to save your business?

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1. Explain your solutions and strategies well and completely, taking into account all of the factors above.

2. You might also consider the dynamics of the Rotary International Four-Way Test: you may or may not

be able to conform to each of them, and if that’s the case, also explain why you might not be able to

completely adhere to one of more of their goals:

“Of the things we think, say or do:

1. Is it the TRUTH?

2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?

3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

4. Will it be BENEFICIAL TO ALL CONCERNED?

Sample possible essay organization

1 Introduction. What is happening? Tell the reader about your business and its new challenges.

Sample response beginning: I own the Golden Unicorn Coffee Shop. It has been in existence . .

. However, now we have struggled with being forcibly closed for almost three months, and we

need to make changes to be able to stay open.

2. Explain each new strategy or tactic you plan to introduce to cut costs and increase your

business. Provide at least three, and explain each one thoroughly.

Sample response beginning: The first thing we could do is xxxxxx That would xxxxxxx. Of

course, there’s a possibility that would not work well because of xxxxxx. However, xxxxxxxxxxxx

(a compensating factor)

3. Describe the Rotary International Four-Way Test. Detail its strengths and weaknesses as

they affect or could affect your business. Explain what the challenges could be in meeting one

of more of the four requirements.

Sample response beginning: I struggle with these decisions because I want my business to

succeed, and the changes I am thinking of making may not be good for all of my employees and

even my customers. The Rotary International Four-Way Test offers a evaluation method for all

that we do, but . . . . xxxxxxx