In October, a meeting of Mykhailo Merkulov, CEO Arricano, and Roman Baka, be Honey owner, a participant of CEO4U competition, took place within the framework of Unlimit Ukraine project.

The project aiming at boosting entrepreneurship in the country was initiated by European Business Association for supporting and developing small businesses. CEO4U is a competition within the framework of Unlimit Ukraine project that bestows a free individual consultation  from the best Ukrainian CEOs to any businessman who fills in an application form and a questionnaire with a question to the mentor about the development of his business. Within the framework of CEO4U competition of Unlimit Ukraine project, a CEO of a large company-EBA member becomes a “mentor” of a businessman whose problem he is interested in. In the form of a personal meeting the “mentor” and the “student” jointly solve one particular problem of the “student”.

Mykhailo Merkulov, CEO Arricano, chose the case of Roman Baka from be Honey who produces honey and honey-containing desserts. Mykhailo sais that Roman’s business appeals to him by its strong personalization, which is a solid foundation for dynamic development of any business. Be Honey is a small family business founded by Roman’s grandfather, a professional beekeeper. “In order to be useful to such a young growing business, one should demonstrate quite obvious and still unbelievable things, says Mykhailo, for example, that business built on certain principles can work well”.

The mentor session, which followed the program devised by Mykhailo Merkulov, had a dynamic experience-based form in order to show “obvious and unbelievable” in practice.

The session started in the morning. At 9 o’clock the mentor met the winner in a «Hlebnaya Lavka» small café on the left Dnipro bank, which is a graphic example of a small niche business that gained recognition of their regular customers due to high quality of the production and client-oriented strategy. The next stop was in Prospekt shopping mall owned by Arricano where Mykhailo demonstrated to Roman how a pack of innovations helps to further a rather rigid business. The, CEO4U participators moved to «Gorchitsa» French cuisine restaurant where atmosphere and service play the leading role in business development: there has been no menu changes for the last 7 years, but the restaurant is successful and high-demanded, thanks to high quality of the products and personal participation of the owner in creation of the location atmosphere. Already in Arricano office, Mykhailo Merkulov and Roman Baka were discussing the question of how to inform the audience of the advantages of the product, which communication channels to exploit and how to communicate with the target audience.

 The meeting proved to be highly informative and useful for both parties. Mykhailo mentioned the sincerity of his partner and expressed his firm belief in his success. Both session participators were pleased with the results and are impatient to see the introduction of the changes devised in their communication.