PORT ANGELES — A seven-hour workshop for North Olympic Peninsula merchants, businesses and entrepreneurs on “Increasing Sales and Profits as a Destination Business” is scheduled for Tuesday, June 8.
The workshop will be from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Red Lion Hotel, 221 N. Lincoln St., in downtown Port Angeles.
The event — sponsored by the city of Port Angeles, Port Angeles Downtown Association and seven Port Angeles businesses — will feature Jon Schallert, a Longmont, Colo., small-business expert and motivational speaker.
It will include two hours of one-on-one contact with Schallert.
“This is about helping businesses who are currently assessing how to go forward in this new world,” said Necessities & Temptations gift shop owner Edna Petersen of Port Angeles, an event organizer.
The cost is $75 for Port Angeles participants and $100 for those outside the Port Angeles ZIP codes.
Space is available for an audience of 150 to 200.
Schallert’s $8,000 fee is funded with $4,000 from the city of Port Angeles and $4,000 from the downtown association, Elwha River Casino, Red Lion Hotel, Pacific Office Equipment/OlyPen, First Federal, Fairchild Floors, Jim’s Pharmacy and Lakeside Industries.
He will receive $1,143 per hour, not including his half-hour break for lunch.
The downtown association will spend an additional $2,500 for Schallert’s visit, mostly for his travel costs and the workshop lunch at the Red Lion, Jan Harbick, downtown association vice president, said Thursday.
She said downtown association members also are providing Schallert’s lodging and meals at no cost to him.
Schallert’s fee in 2000, when he held a similar seminar in Port Angeles, was $3,000 and was paid entirely by the downtown association.
Harbick said if enough people attend, the group can help pay back part of the public funds to the city of Port Angeles.
On his website, www.jonschallert.com, Schallert says he is a “destination business expert” and discusses what entrepreneurs can gain by turning businesses into what he calls customer destinations.
“Attendees will understand why location, location, location no longer matters for independent business success, and why waiting for ‘Big Brother’ to reinvent a marketplace fails the majority of the time,” he says.
“Following this session, attendees will understand the importance of reinventing their businesses in order to create the most successful consumer-oriented business available.”
Participants at a May 19 “Increasing Sales and Profits as a Destination Business” workshop in Fremont, Ohio, gave Schallert’s presentation positive reviews, according to The Freemont News-Messenger.
Attendees described it as “excellent,” saying Schallert inspired them “to think out of the box” and gave them “new ideas,” according to the newspaper report.
Schallert discussed “tying emotion to a product” by being a little quirky and defining a product differently than others who create the same kind of product.
For example, customers came from miles around to a Missouri cafe that throws dinner rolls to customers.
It billed itself as the “home of the throwed rolls,” according to the article.
For tickets to the workshop, phone the downtown association office at 360-457-9614 or go to www.
portangelesdowntown.com to download the application form.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladaily
news.com.
