We were lucky to catch up with Joe Skifter recently and have shared our conversation below.
Joe, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
Both Steven and Joe grew up in rural America in the 1970’s. Steven spent most of his childhood in Oklahoma until being sent to Boys Town in Omaha NE. Steven graduated High School from Boys Town.
Joe grew up in southern Minnesota and quickly realized he wanted to make a life for himself in Minneapolis.
Both Steven and Joe have dedicated themselves to every challenge they have encountered
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Joe runs the day to day Accounting, Sales, retail and marketing of our business.
Joe does all the social media and loves to find ways to engage with our current customers while attracting new ones. Our Social Media is authentic to who Steven and Joe are and how they operate the business.
Joe thrives on customer interaction and our customers enjoy visiting us just to check in and talk with Steven and Joe. We have many customers that we would call good friends.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The willingness to change course, learn and listen. The ability to get past road blocks that at put up by others and meet challenges head on. When we purchased our building we had to “rezone” it so we could use it as our commercial kitchen and retail store. We were warned by many that this would be an almost impossible task. Joe and Steven were in a meeting with the City and she again warned us of the process, Joe stopped her and said “I have lived in Minneapolis for years, living here has given me a good life, the city has never let me down and I believe the city is not going to let me down this time either, so tell me what you need and I will do it”
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
Our number one challenge is price increases.
We have seen expense increases across the entire spectrum of running our business. The single most important one is the skyrocketing price of Chocolate and Chocolate byproducts.
We have seen some item increase as much as 100% in the last year. We have been forced to take a hard look at our retail pricing. Some product will need to be eliminated due to these cost increases.
We sell a “Gelato Subscription” that is valid for one year, we have decided to no longer offer that because we cannot forecast the cost of ingredients for the next year.
This is where our ability to change direction has been a huge advantage for us. Steven is not only an accomplished Chocolatier, he is an amazing Pastry and Savory Chef. We have been developing a line of Savory ready to heat and serve entrees and soup.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://DancingBearChocolate.com
- Instagram: Dancing_bear_chocolate
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dancingbearchocolate/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/dancing-bear-chocolate-minneapolis-2
Image Credits
Joe Skifter
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