Programs (For Specialists)
Training for the people grocers already trust. Level 1, RGI’s Rural Grocery Transition Specialist course, qualifies you to help a grocer move through transition. The Academy picks up from there, with training in how to strengthen a grocer’s business long before transition is on the table.
A cascade, not a catalog
Each level opens only to graduates of the level before it. Start where you are.
Level 1: Rural Grocery Transition Specialist
Taught by the Rural Grocery Initiative at Kansas State University, the only national training program dedicated to rural grocery succession support. It is where every specialist starts, and it is the prerequisite for the Academy’s Advanced Specialist course. Level 1 Specialists are trained to address the single most common cause of a preventable closure: an owner who avoids transition planning until there is no time left to plan.
Level 2: Advanced Specialist
Twelve weeks, offered once a year in the fall, open to Level 1 graduates. A Level 1 Specialist can guide a transition. An Advanced Specialist can walk into a store that is years away from transition and make it worth more when the day comes.
What you will learn:
- Business transition practice, including valuation
- Short-term survival strategy for grocery: profitability, pricing, and labor
- The psychology of identity transition, and how to support an owner through it proactively
- A proprietary approach to proactively building the value of a business
- Working knowledge of Healthy Bucket and Think Like a Buyer Before You Become a Seller
Ongoing: Community of Practice
Real transition cases, worked through together, bi-weekly on Zoom, open to Level 1 graduates and above. Every new conversation adds to what the whole group knows how to do, which is the fastest way this work gets better. New Level 1 graduates join free for their first three months. A separate Community of Practice exists for certified Facilitators.
Levels 3 to 5: Facilitator track
Facilitator, Advanced Facilitator, and Master Facilitator train graduates to teach the levels below them. Details as each opens.