GROW Your Food & Drink Business with Impact Training
Design a business that gives YOU the life you want to live with
Food & Drink Business Expert Mark Turnbull
Live Retail Training for Butchers & Farm Shops - 7th April 2026, 7pm-8pm
If trade feels inconsistent - busy one week, quiet the next - you’re not alone.
Join my upcoming live online session where I’ll walk you through the 4-step marketing system I use and teach to help food retail owners generate more footfall, higher basket spend, and more predictable trade.
This session is designed specifically for owners who want a structured approach to marketing - not more random posts, discounts, or guesswork. Everything I’ll share comes from real-world experience inside a working food retail business, and from mentoring butchers and farm shop owners across the UK.
Impact works to educate, motivate and inspire independent retailers!
Impact Retail Training works to educate, motivate and inspire Food & Drink Entrepreneurs just like you, taking you on the journey from a Wannabe to Professional Business Person.
In this video, Mark Turnbull discusses the Business Success Pyramid and how Impact Training can help grow your business!
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The Impact Retail Success Club
The Impact Retail Success Club is a monthly group for growth-minded independent business owners who want to keep learning, stay motivated, and improve the quality of their thinking as they run their business.
It’s designed for owners who are serious about developing professionally and value being part of the right conversations, rather than trying to figure everything out on their own.
Members take part in regular online group sessions and have access to the Impact members’ area, which includes training videos, expert interviews, and a practical resource library to support ongoing development.
Entry to the Success Club is by application and invitation.
Membership is £50 + VAT per month.
The Impact Retail Mastermind Group
The Impact Retail Mastermind is a small, in-person Mastermind for established independent retail business owners who want clearer thinking, better decisions, and sustainable growth.
Hosted at Turnbull’s Food Hall, the group meets every other month from January to December, bringing together a maximum of five owners for full-day, peer-level conversations focused on what really drives long-term success — clarity, profitable growth, positioning, leadership, and accountability.
This is not coaching or training.
It’s a deliberate space to step out of the business and work on the business, alongside other serious operators.
The Mastermind runs on an ongoing basis, with an investment of £600 + VAT per month. Places are limited and offered selectively to ensure the quality of the room.
If you’d like to learn more about the Impact Retail Mastermind - and whether it might be right for you - click below to view full details.
Impact Retail
Business Growth Days
Business Growth Days are deliberately small, in-person strategic thinking days for independent business owners who understand that they are a critical part of their business’s brand and commercial success.
This is not a workshop or a sales training course. It’s a facilitated day designed to help you step back, think clearly about your role as the face of your business, and make better decisions about how your brand shows up — through you and through your team.
You’ll work on your business alongside a small group of like-minded owners, exploring how leadership, visibility, and simple sales behaviours shape customer experience and results.
The first Business Growth Day takes place on Tuesday 21st April, starting at 8.00am, hosted at the Turnbull's Foodhall in Alnwick, Northumberland.
Places are strictly limited to protect depth, focus, and quality conversation.
£499.00 + VAT
The Impact Retail
Private Consultations
Impact Retail Private Consultations are designed for independent retailers who want focused, practical support tailored entirely to their business, delivered on site and in context.
I spend the day working with you in your shop environment, not in a meeting room and not from a generic framework. This allows us to look honestly and constructively at how your business is performing day to day, and where the biggest opportunities for improvement really sit.
The consultation includes two 90-minute focused working sessions, shaped around what you want to achieve right now. This might include improving margins, strengthening your offer, refining your customer journey, clarifying your positioning, or making more confident strategic decisions as the business owner.
Alongside this, I carry out a full customer experience audit, reviewing your business through a customer’s eyes — from first impressions and flow, to product presentation, pricing signals, communication, and the small details that influence buying behaviour.
You’ll come away with clarity, direction, and practical next actions that fit your business, rather than a list of ideas that look good on paper but are hard to implement.
Private consultations are ideal for owners who value honest feedback, clear thinking, and measurable progress.
Investment: from £750 per day + VAT, plus reasonable travel expenses.
Availability is limited.
The Entrepreneurs Circle
Running an independent business can be rewarding - but it can also feel isolating when you’re making big decisions on your own.
That’s why I recommend Entrepreneurs Circle to retailers who want broader business support beyond the food sector. It’s one of the UK’s largest communities of established business owners, focused on practical marketing, strategy, and leadership - not hype or shortcuts.
Members gain access to proven frameworks, live training, peer support, and ongoing guidance to help them grow with confidence and clarity. It’s particularly valuable if you want exposure to ideas and thinking from outside retail, while still applying them in a grounded, practical way.
If you’re serious about developing as a business owner - not just working harder in your business - Entrepreneurs Circle is well worth exploring.
Find out more here by clicking below.
The WhizBang Retail Mastery System
Recommended Retail System: The Whizbang Retail Mastery System.
If you run an independent retail business and want a proven structure for improving performance, consistency, and profitability, the Whizbang Retail Mastery System is well worth exploring.
Whizbang has been developed specifically for independent retailers and focuses on the fundamentals that matter most day to day -merchandising, customer experience, retail disciplines, and getting the basics right consistently. It’s not about trends or tactics that change every five minutes, but about building strong retail habits that compound over time.
The system provides clear frameworks, practical tools, and structured guidance that help retailers think more clearly about how their shop works - from layout and displays to customer flow, conversion, and repeat visits. Many retailers find it especially useful when they want something more systematic than ad-hoc advice or one-off ideas.
I often recommend Whizbang to retailers who want an established retail-specific system they can dip into alongside other development work, or use as a reference point for improving standards and consistency in their business.
If you value practical thinking, clear retail logic, and learning from real-world retail experience, the Whizbang Retail Mastery System is a solid resource to investigate further.
Find out more about Whizbang by clicking below...
Speaking Event?
Why not hire 'Food & Drink Business Expert'
Mark Turnbull?
If you're looking for a Speaker for an audience of Food & Drink Entrepreneurs, then look no further than Mark who, with over 35 years of food & drink retail business experience, will entertain your audience with a number of presentations, that will both resonate and deliver long term-benefits.
Two Simple Questions That Could Change How You Run Your Business
Looking back over the past 35 years of running and growing my own business, I reckon two simple questions have made more difference than almost anything else I've done.
They're not complicated. They don't require a business degree, an expensive consultant or a fancy spreadsheet.
But they do require you to think differently.
And whether you're running an independent butchers, a farm shop or another retail business, I believe they're worth asking regularly.
1. Is There a Better Way?
This is a question I've probably asked myself thousands of times over the years.
"Is there a better way?"
Whether it's how we run our operations, organise production, manage our team, market our products or serve our customers, I've consistently challenged myself with that question.
Because here's something I've learnt.
Just because you've always done something a certain way doesn't mean it's the best way to do it.
And that's particularly relevant in retail.
It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day running of a busy shop. You're dealing with customers, managing staff, ordering stock, sorting out problems and trying to keep everything moving.
Before you know it, another week has disappeared.
And the things you've always done? Well, you just keep doing them.
Not necessarily because they're the best way, but because they're familiar.
Sometimes the Smallest Changes Make the Biggest Difference
Recently, we had an interesting conversation in our Impact Retail Success Club WhatsApp group about Christmas.
For independent food retailers, Christmas can be one of the busiest and most demanding periods of the year.
And it's very easy to repeat the same systems, procedures and routines year after year.
Along with the same frustrations!
But what if there was a better way?
What if we could simplify our Christmas ordering process? Improve how we communicate with customers? Reduce mistakes? Or simply make life a little easier for ourselves and our teams?
You don't necessarily need to reinvent your business.
Sometimes improving one small part of an operation can make an enormous difference.
The same applies to the products we sell.
Can we improve the quality? The presentation? The consistency? Can we make something more appealing or easier for customers to prepare?
There's nearly always something we can do better.
But first, we have to be prepared to ask the question.
2. What Would We Have to Do?
My second question is slightly different.
"What would we have to do?"
This one starts with something I believe is absolutely essential in business.
Clarity.
Because before you can work out how to achieve something, you need to know exactly what you're trying to achieve.
For example:
What would we have to do to increase sales by 20%?
What would we have to do to double our profits?
What would we have to do to reduce waste by half?
What would we have to do to give ourselves an extra day off every week?
What would we have to do to build a business that doesn't depend on us being there every day?
Now, notice something about those questions.
I'm not asking whether we can do it.
I'm asking what we'd have to do to make it happen.
And that's a very different conversation.
Instead of immediately finding reasons why something isn't possible, you start looking for solutions.
You begin identifying the changes, resources, people, systems or decisions that would be needed to achieve your goal.
Of course, that doesn't mean every idea is achievable or sensible.
But at least you're exploring what's possible rather than dismissing it before you've properly considered it.
Better Questions Are Only the Beginning
As I write this, I'm heading out to Philadelphia for a three-day meeting with my own retail mastermind group.
Three days away from the day-to-day running of my business, surrounded by other business owners, sharing experiences, challenging each other's thinking and looking for better ways to do things.
And despite having been in business for 35 years, I'm still learning.
I expect I'll come home with a notebook full of ideas.
But here's the thing.
The real value won't be in the notebook.
It'll be in what I actually do with those ideas when I get home.
Because you can attend all the meetings, read all the books, listen to all the podcasts and ask all the questions you like.
But unless you take action, nothing changes.
Better questions lead to better answers. And taking action on those answers is what gets results.
The Value of Being Challenged
One of the reasons I enjoy being part of my own mastermind group is that other business owners see things differently.
They ask questions I might not have thought of.
They challenge assumptions.
And sometimes they'll point out something that's been staring me in the face for years!
That's also one of the reasons I created the Impact Retail Success Club.
Running an independent retail business can be a lonely place, particularly when you're responsible for making all the decisions.
Having other ambitious retailers around you who are willing to share their experiences, challenge your thinking and hold you accountable can make an enormous difference.
It's not about having all the answers.
It's about being prepared to ask better questions, listen to different perspectives and do something with what you learn.
Two Questions to Ask Yourself This Week
So here's a little challenge.
Take ten minutes away from the day-to-day running of your business and ask yourself two questions.
1. Is there a better way?
Think about something that's frustrating you, costing you money, wasting time or making life unnecessarily difficult.
Could you approach it differently?
2. What would we have to do?
Think about something you'd really like to achieve over the next 12 months.
Get clear on the outcome, then start working backwards to identify what needs to happen.
And most importantly, take action.
You might be surprised where those two simple questions take you.
They've certainly served me well over the years.
Want to Be Part of the Conversation?
These are exactly the kinds of conversations we have inside the Impact Retail Success Club.
Independent butchers, farm shop owners and other ambitious food retailers sharing ideas, challenging each other's thinking and helping one another build better businesses.
If you'd like to find out more about joining us, get in touch. I'd be happy to have a chat.
Mark Turnbull
Founder, Impact Retail Success Club
