Your online masterclass host for this week: A food business sales expert

Every Tuesday at 12.30pm you can watch an online business masterclass delivered by one of our Adviser members.

This week, Karen Green hosts: How to maximise profitable sales for your food business.

Masterclasses are available at a cost of only £10 each. To register for this week's event at 12.30pm on 24 October, go here.

Members can watch every weekly masterclass for free! To register, log in to your Enterprise Nation account and go to the events page where the discount will be automatically applied.

If you're not yet a member, free masterclasses are one of many benefits. Join now!

Company: Food Mentor

Twitter: @KG_foodmentor

Company founded: 2014

What is your favourite business book and why?

My favourite book changes every time I read something new and inspiring. I am currently reading Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz.

So much is written about focussing on the customer and product design BUT It is so important to think about making money and this book tells you how!

Who is your business hero and why?

Terry Leahy has to be an inspirational hero to a food mentor.

I started my career working in his team at Tesco and he really was so bright and understanding of retail. He took Tesco from number two to a dominant number one position.

He was not afraid to try risky strategies, some of which worked and some didn't, and he knew when to exit and let others steer the business through the current choppy waters.

Describe your business in a tweet.

Helping inspire and guide food businesses to deliver profitable sales growth without the stress.

What has been your biggest challenge?

I have largely worked in the food industry all my life but my biggest challenge was when I decided to buy a gym!

I love healthy living both exercise and food and so took a personal trainer qualification and was delighted to find a gym up for sale just five minutes from my home.

It was a baptism of fire going from a corporate food environment to running a local business. I learnt alot but sadly during the recession of 2009, we lost 30% of our membership and were forced to close.

I was reminded of Terry Leahy's adage that location is everything and we were in the wrong one!

It did equip me very well for my role now mentoring food businesses as I have been both successful and failed. It's a good university!

What has been your greatest success?
Great success to date was delivering the Yumie brand of sushi for a client of mine.

They were totally focussed on producing own label sushi and we developed the brand, the website and launched it into Budgens, Co-op and NUS.

It went from nothing to £0.5m in six months. A great achievement with very little investment in marketing!

What piece of advice do you wish you had known when starting out?

Focus works!

I am like many entrepreneurs; lots and lots of ideas but not enough hours in the day to put them into action.

I use it alot with my clients now. Keep a focus on the end goal, don't diversify too much and focus on ONE customer niche.

Why do you consider long-term strategic advice important to business success?

Being at the top of an organisation is tough, whether you are a CEO of a multinational or the jack of all trades running a small start-up.

To have someone to help you lift up from the day to day demands and take a helicopter view is invaluable to enable a business to make the right long term decisions that keep a business on track.

If you had a superpower, what would it be and why?

To feed the world.

I am constantly frustrated by the imbalance that there is massive food waste and obesity in some parts of the world yet in others there is starvation due to politics, corruption and crop failures.

If I could fly like a magic fairy, creating food for the world, that indeed would be a great superpower.

How has Enterprise Nation benefited your business?

I love Enterprise Nation. Emma Jones is an inspirational powerhouse with an amazing networking ability and coordinates great debates.

They really support SMEs and I have benefited from meeting new contacts, attending great presentations and also went on the Paris food trade mission which was amazing. I met some really interesting people and learnt alot about the French food market.

To register for Karen's online masterclass, How to maximise profitable sales for your food business__, go here or log in to your account and go to the events page to join in for free.

If you're an Adviser member and you'd like to host a masterclass, apply here.