We’ve been spending a lot of time at Create & Cultivate HQ discussing how we can best show up for and support our community during this uncertain time. Community is at our core, and connecting with others through one-of-a-kind experiences is what we love to do. While the world has changed, our mission has not. We’re committed to helping women create and cultivate the career of their dreams, which is why we’re proud to announce our new Ask an Expert series. We’re hosting discussions with experts, mentors, and influencers daily at 9 am, 12 pm, and 3 pm PST on Instagram Live to cure your craving for community and bring you the expert advice you’ve come to know and love from C&C. Follow Create & Cultivate on Instagram, check out our Ask an Expert highlight reel for the latest schedule, and hit the countdown to get a reminder so you don’t miss out!

**Photo:** Courtesy of Trinity Mouzon Wofford

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from our Ask an Expert series, it’s that innovating will be crucial for small businesses to come out of the COVID-19 crisis stronger than ever. “Pivot,” “shift,” and “adapt” are buzzwords that have popped up in nearly every conversation we’ve had with founders in nearly every industry, ranging from events to skincare to fitness.

Naturally, we could think of no one better to speak to the topic of innovation than Trinity Mouzon Wofford, the youngest black woman to ever launch a line at Sephora and a Forbes 2020 30 Under 30 honoree. Keep scrolling to read a few highlights from our conversation with the forward-thinking co-founder and CEO behind the wellness-meets-skincare brand Golde, as told by Wofford to Create & Cultivate.

Check-In With Your Community

If you’re wondering how to talk to people right now about your business, ask your community. Instead of racking your brain trying to figure out what’s appropriate, ask them. It all comes back to thinking about your community and what they’re looking for from you right now.

Does your product or your service provide value for people right now? At Golde, we’ve found that our products provide a lot of value and service to people who want to practice wellness at home right now. What is it you’re selling and does it resonate with what people are going through right now?

Prioritize Word-of-Mouth Product Recommendations

No one wants to be sold to right now. More than ever, those micro-influencer relationships, those one to one product recommendations that are coming from friend to friend, are what’s resonating with people right now.

Lean Into Digital to Acquire (and Retain) New Customers

If you’re seeing increased traffic to your site and increased conversion rates, this is an opportunity to develop an acquisition strategy that brings people into your retention strategy.

We’re shopping online way more than we were before, and although consumer patterns have shifted due to a temporary situation, these shifts may last longer than the crisis, if not permanently.

Again, it comes down to having honest conversations with your community and what they want from you. You have to figure out what your voice is and what your opinion is and couple that with who’s listening and what they want to hear from you.

About the Expert: Trinity Mouzon Wofford was raised in New York's Hudson Valley by a single mom with an autoimmune disease. When she was a teenager, her mom started seeing a holistically-minded physician and saw an incredible improvement in her symptoms, which inspired Wofford to study pre-med at NYU. When Wofford’s mom had to stop seeing her doctor because she couldn't afford it, Wofford abandoned her plans for med school, frustrated by the lack of accessibility to holistic care, and fell into a marketing career in New York. She absolutely loved it, but she knew she wanted to come back to wellness somehow. That's the mindset Golde was born from in 2017.