Craig has a discussion with Jenn Gregory and Linda Farha about consultancy Retail Strategies and its expansion into Canada. Jenn Gregory is President of Downtown Strategies at US-based Retail Strategies Group, and Linda Farha is Founder and head of Zenergy Communications in Toronto, as well as Chief Connector at pop-up go. The conversation includes helping businesses in smaller communities thrive along with courses for education.
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Featured during this interview:
- Jenn Gregory, President, Downtown Strategies at Retail Strategies
- Retail Strategies
- Linda Farha, President of Zenergy Communications and pop-up go
- Zenergy Communications
- pop-up go
Transcription:
Craig Patterson
Welcome to the Retail Insider video series. I’m your host, Craig Patterson. And we’re joined here today with Jenn Gregory. She’s the President of Downtown Strategies at US based Retail Strategies Group, based in Birmingham, Alabama. And we’ve also got Linda Farha. She’s the Founder and President of Zenergy Communications, which is based in Toronto, and has also been involved in Retail Strategies, as have I. So welcome both of you.
Jenn Gregory
Thank you.
Linda Farha
Thank you. So good to be to be here.
Craig Patterson
I’m gonna ask a few questions here. I’ll start with Jenn, tell me about Retail Strategies, and this plan to expand into the Canadian market.
Jenn Gregory
Sure, Craig. So Retail Strategies, was formed as a commercial real estate brokerage house about 15 years ago. And after the 2008 recession, we really decided to branch out a bit and identify other opportunities beyond real estate, but rooted in real estate. And so from there, Retail Strategies was born. And we are a community development consulting firm. And so communities, municipalities, towns, villages across the United States, hire us to recruit National retail to their commercial corridors, but also to revitalize their downtown’s. And what we’re here to talk about today support their small businesses. So over the last 10 plus years or so, we’ve worked with about 750 localities in the United States, in about 27, states coast to coast. And we are very excited about expanding our North American footprint and are really excited to share some of that with you today.
Craig Patterson
Wonderful, what brought about the expansion into Canada and to share any plans that might be in place so far?
Jenn Gregory
Absolutely. Well, you know, we knew that during the pandemic, specifically that community’s needs were changing a little bit. While they still did want National retail on their commercial corridors, and they wanted to have a vibrant downtown. They knew that their small businesses were really hurting. And from an optics perspective, they couldn’t focus on bringing in a big box retailer while their businesses at home, their neighbors, their friends, were really struggling. And so we started really listening campaign, talking to our communities and talking to businesses about what they needed, how can we support them? And through a couple of different partnerships, specifically, some surveys that were done from Main Street America, which is a National downtown revitalization organization, we learned that small businesses needed poaching, training, and assistance more than they needed cash. So of course, the American Government prioritized funding in the you know, immediate term after the pandemic to try to help those businesses pay their rent, stay open. And while they were shuttered due to some of the regulations. And while that was helpful, these businesses reported to us that they needed to modernize, they needed to learn how to get their businesses online, and really respond to some of the changes that were happening in consumer behavior. So we were so fortunate enough to know Linda at Zenergy, and partner with her. And we can talk more about that later. But that’s really what led us to consider the Canadian market, of course, Zenergy is so well known in Canada and has a great footprint there. And the more that Linda and I started talking and forming our partnership, we realized that businesses in Canada had the very same needs as those in the United States. And so we felt like that the programs and resources that we put together would be a natural fit for the small businesses in Canada. And so that’s really what brought about our focus on bringing these services that we think are so needed and so impactful to small businesses and municipalities in Canada.
Jenn Gregory
Now, Jenn, I know here in Canada, we’ve seen downtown’s and smaller and larger communities, sometimes struggling a little bit competing with say Shopping Centres or Big Box Retail that’s on the edge of the community. Are you seeing the same thing in the United States? I’m guessing probably. But tell me a little bit more about downtown revitalization and how you’ve been working with that.
Jenn Gregory
Absolutely. Craig, we have seen the very same challenges. But we’ve also seen a real opportunity for rural communities and for those downtown’s and really, that’s because post pandemic, a lot of people are still working from home. They haven’t been called back to their office if they’re working in corporate office spaces in larger urban areas. And so they’re spending more time at home and many times that’s in kind of suburban and Rural Communities. And so because of that people like myself are working remotely They are interested in exploring and kind of being reintroduced to their own downtown’s and their local community. So while it’s certainly been a challenge of resources and kind of a competition of resources, we know that access to Capital is still really slow right now. And some of these businesses, if they were struggling before the pandemic, they’re still struggling. And certainly, you know, things have not necessarily gotten easier for them. But we’ve seen that those businesses that can adapt, really take advantage of that kind of return back to the rural market. And so in terms of American downtown’s, really, those that are investing in placemaking, are the ones that are winning, you know, we know that if people are working in a co working space, they want to go down the street and grab a cup of coffee, and they love to drink that coffee outside, if there’s a beautiful mural next to them, if there’s nice music being played overhead. And so these are the things that we are working with our Rural Communities on, as they sort of compete with these larger Shopping Centres and Malls is how can you invest in a sense of place and really playing up the authenticity that downtown and community has to offer? And we’re seeing those that do that really, really win through this time?
Craig Patterson
I love it. I love it. This is something that I’m passionate about as well. So now question for Linda Farha, you’ve been involved with Retail Strategies involved with some education courses and whatnot. I’ve been involved as well. I’ve done a few lectures around Marketing and Communications. Linda, how did this come about? And what else? What other topics have you been involved with, with Retail Strategies here?
Linda Farha
Well, it’s been very exciting that to partner up with Retail Strategies on on this project. And what we started with, we put in, by the way, thank you so much for being involved to Craig, I think your involvement has been very, very helpful to those who have been part of the unit and listening to your lectures, and so on, we put together a program based on our conversation with Jenn and her team. And the first module is basically called the Omni Channel Retail Strategies. And really, it was put together with the local Merchants and Retailers and the economic development centres in mind. So you know, going back to what Jenn was saying, to help these Retailers and to help these Merchants, drive business, create awareness and get people into their stores and buying products. So what we did is we put together the module and the module basically is an hour Program Webinar that is then followed by very focused accelerator sessions that are 30 minutes long. And so we started off with like this broad Omni Channel Retail Strategy kind of fairly broad, the content that is then developed further with the sessions. So the sessions really include everything from content development, which is what you covered, customer segmentation, social content, and social commerce, and live stream selling, as well as pop-ups, pop-ups, and collaboration. So all those things really cover all the the gamut in terms of what are the elements that you can do in terms of driving traffic to your store, and also creating awareness. So it’s also helping the merchants who may believe that they’re small, and they can’t actually create a lot of social content, or they don’t, they’re too small to have live stream selling, or that they believe that you know, that online does not support driving traffic to their stores. So really, to give them a bit of a broad education in terms of how could you actually drive traffic to your store, drive sales without spending a lot of money, and understanding that they have limited people, you know, on their payroll, maybe they’re a one person operation or two. So really looking at their operation and giving them the guidance so that they can actually, you know, sell and create more revenue or awareness and get new customers, the Collab, for example, is a really great one. Because if they actually collaborate with other brands, or they have Pop-ins in their stores, all of a sudden, now they’re driving traffic from the the customer database, or the databases and these other people they’re collaborating with. So there are a number of different things that they could do to drive traffic without spending a lot of money. But it’s really to give them that education. And a lot of the information, I would say is fairly basic, but not basic, not too basic, so that they could actually move the needle, you know, they can actually make things happen. So, you know, it’s been really a great thing. And we’re still working on on a number of different programs for you know, with these particular content in mind will be done by the end of May. And then we’ll move on to other other potential geographic areas and a new format, which we’ll talk about in a few minutes.
Craig Patterson
Terrific. Now, Linda, also, there’s some one on one assistance, I think, after some of the lectures tell me a bit about that as well.
Linda Farha
So you know, when we provide the content, of course, we don’t know every individual in terms of the intricacies of their business. So what we do is after the session And after each of the six sessions that we have, we provided an opportunity for them to reach out the people that are in attendance to complete a handout, where they start thinking about, you know, diving deeper into their own personal content, so they can actually understand their business relative to the content that we presented. And then we booked a personalized one on one session, and that personalized one on one session allows us to give them in essence consultation for them, you know, providing them real guidance to, if they’re talking about social content, how are they going to develop social content specific for their needs, and they’re, who they’re trying to try to attract in terms of customers, and who their target audiences so really dive deeper into their specific needs. So that it’s actually not just a very generic assistance, but a really personalized assistance. And I think that that’s a really good thing, because the reality is, is that we can all listen to content. But you know, we the content, we’re not quite sure how to adapt it to our own personal needs. But that’s where you know, that personalized one on one session is really helpful.
Craig Patterson
Terrific. Now, is there anything about the new content that’s gonna be coming after may that can be shared? And that’s a question for either of you.
Linda Farha
Well, what I was referring to there, and I’m sure, Jenn, would like to chime in as well, is that what we’re a lot of people are really time starved. You know, a lot of these people that we’re talking to you, they’re small players, what we’re all time, so whether we’re large businesses or small, so what we’ve decided to do is create an environment where you can listen to the content at your leisure. So basically, it’ll be you know, hosted on a specific platform. And in the time depending on the, agreement that we have, they’ll be able to actually access the content, when they can, at their leisure, when they’re able to actually listen to it. And the one on one sessions, however, the personalized sessions will still remain, so they can listen to the content, and then they can dive deeper at a later time, at their leisure when they can and will book a time specifically for them. So that has, it’s in the works. I don’t know if you want to comment anymore, Jenn. But really, that’s pretty much what it is. Because really, we understand that people, you know, we all sign up for sessions and webinars, and then all of a sudden, our lives become so busy, we can’t make them. So we want to make it so that it’s much easier for people to actually have the ability to listen to the content when they can and learn from it.
Jenn Gregory
Yeah, that’s right. I mean, I think we know that entrepreneurs are busy people, right, all of us are busy. But those that are starting new businesses, many times are still in a full time job somewhere else, or maybe they are raising a family and trying to start this business, trying to scale it, trying to grow it. So time is limited. And so we’re so excited about kind of this evolution of the training programs, so that there’s still going to be that element of FaceTime, one to one, if those opportunities are requested. But by March, these business owners will be able to access this information, you know, on their couch at midnight, if that’s the best time for them, or first thing in the morning, you know, on their way to school, whatever it may be. And so really meeting these business owners where they are is what our goal is make this as accessible as possible. And while still providing that kind of ongoing training that Linda mentioned, which is what we love so much, you know, they get a worksheet or a template, you know, to help them kind of put what Linda and her team has taught into practice. So they’re not just hearing it, they’re receiving a tool that can help them, you know, put it into practice for their specific business immediately. And we’ve heard just really great reviews about that component as well. You know, I compare it to go into a conference, those of us that are professionals, you know, we go to conferences, professional development opportunities, and we get so inspired, and we, you know, we, the moment we leave, or we get on that airplane, and we go home, we start putting out fires and, we lose a lot of times the momentum that we had, you know, from that point of inspiration, so our goal is really to keep them inspired, make sure that these elements get implemented. And the first piece of that is making sure that it’s accessible in a way that meets their needs. And I think this new evolution really does that.
Linda Farha
And also I you know, what we will do and this is certainly part of the evolution is dive deeper. So for example, they may we may take content on social content development, for example, and maybe a session is all about Facebook, or all about Instagram. So over time, you know, this program is certainly going to evolve beyond just the elements that we have now in it and actually, you know, maybe it’ll evolve beyond an Omni Channel Retail Strategy to another topic. So this is really a program and evolutionary program that you know, touches a lot of Industries. Of course, we’re talking about Retail right now, but there’s a lot of components that we can actually touch on that we haven’t even started. So this is a really a great start to what we believe to be something that can grow tremendously, and provide a lot of guidance, a lot of Retail businesses out there that are looking to, you know, who are struggling to find ways to, you know, to grow their business.
Craig Patterson
Now a question for Jenn, Retail Strategies has obviously worked with lots of smaller businesses in the United States, as well as smaller communities and what not, is there anything you can share in terms of expansion plans for Canada, as we’re, you know, obviously a country that also has all kinds of small businesses and lots of smaller communities as well.
Jenn Gregory
Yeah, we feel like you know, that it’s somewhat universal in terms of like you just mentioned, most economies, especially in North America, certainly are driven by small businesses, the majority of businesses in the United States, the majority in Canada, you know, Linda and her team, did some research, and it’s about two thirds of all businesses in the United States and Canada, are considered small. And so this is a major part of the economies of both of our countries. And so kind of our plans are in terms of, of moving into the Canadian market, it’ll be relationship based. So we are excited to be going to the ICSC Vegas show. And that’s going to really give us an opportunity, Linda and I both to kind of officially launch this expansion and meet with, you know, Influencers, may be regional economic development leaders. You know, I think the other interesting component of this is funding that’s available. One thing that we think makes this program very unique is that the business that businesses that are participating, they don’t, they don’t invest in these courses themselves. They have sponsors, and naturally, through either the municipality, you know, in the United States, the locality, that local government, or even, you know, the Federal Government’s, there has been really a large amount of funding prioritized for technical assistance for small businesses in both the United States and Canada, and also in our indigenous populations. And so we are really working our way through those opportunities and making sure that our services align with the priorities of both National Governments so that we can really be a tool and a provider of technical assistance that meets the needs. And I think the last thing I’ll mention is that, and Linda hit on this, you know, most of the businesses that we’re working with, you know, they’re successful businesses, but they’ve been doing things a certain way for a really long time. And moving into this digital space is a big jump for them. Also, they their staffs, like Linda mentioned, are small, you’re talking one or two, certainly under five people kind of Micro Enterprises is the term we use. And, you know, so it’s really vital that we focus on what are the first what is the first step and the next step in terms of implementation. Like Linda mentioned, sometimes the training to those of us that are accustomed to Digital media and, and resources like that may think it’s basic, but we want to be sure that, you know, kind of our first job is to convince these businesses that this is something that they need to do, that they can’t not exist in the digital space. Post COVID. We know that that online shopping percentage is creeping up incrementally, you know, it’s not. It’s not an apocalypse by any means. But that number is ever increasing. And so we have met with some businesses through our downtown revitalization partnerships, in particular, that have said I was scared to jump into this, but I did and now my online sales, eclipse my Brick and Mortar sales. And so when we think about kind of what that means for downtown’s, it really shifts the Real Estate also. So you know, we’re seeing Retailers take on smaller square footage, footprints, you know, for kind of that main street frontage space, and reserving a lot of the back of house space for order fulfillment. And that creates jobs, right when people are needing to pack lots of orders for a whole additional store that exists online. You know, they’re hiring folks in that local economy. And we start to see kind of these small scale little Industries being built in rural downtown. So it’s it’s a proven concept, but a lot of the work that Linda and her team are doing is convincing the businesses to take that jump into the digital space, and then kind of work their way through. It’s just very overwhelming and I would imagine that is a universal concept. across both of our countries,
Craig Patterson
I think it is here in Canada, we definitely saw a digital shift, they say we moved into the future much faster than we would have normally, because of the pandemic, people were online because they couldn’t go into physical spaces for periods of time, depending if there was Lockdowns. But now we’ve seen people online more than ever, and I know that some small businesses haven’t necessarily been able to keep up. So services like this are terrific.
Linda Farha
Yeah, and I think that I think that was really important is that people, you know, we talked about on the tab, but the reality is, is that you can’t look at your business in silos, you’ve got to look at it as a holistic business. So the Digital is part of it, and it can’t be seen as a separate entity, it’s got to be seen as part of it. So you’re dealing with your business in a very integrated way, as opposed to, you know, looking at your online versus your in store and treating them separately, we’ve got to be looked at as part of the whole package. And I think that’s really where the transformation has to occur is that people have to understand that your Brick and Mortar store may drive online sales, but the presence of your store really allows people to actually come in and understand or your your online drives people to your store. I mean, there’s there’s, you know, there are shifts on both sides, and depending on, you know, how you actually utilize a social media and, and your database that you have in terms of communicating to people and, and your website and all the way that you communicate, it allows people to really kind of drive traffic, whether it’s online or in store, but you know, you can’t look at it as two separate entities. And to Jenn’s point, I mean the store becomes your backup, you know, because your shipping center as well, your fulfillment center. So I mean, the reality is, is that they need to look at things in a very holistic way and not in a siloed way. And I think that that’s really what’s the crux of the Omni Channel Retail Strategies program is that you’ve got to look at everything not as separate entities but holistically and integrated.
Craig Patterson
Terrific. Now, Linda, you’re Founder of Zenergy communications, you’re also the Chief Connector of pop-up go. Congratulations on 20 years for Zenergy. How did it get started? And tell me a little bit about both of these endeavors?
Linda Farha
Yeah, well, I started Zenergy communications, actually to fill a need that I thought was non existent, which is basically helping all sides, all company sizes, you know, if I was working in an Organization, and I tried to find an agency to help me out, and maybe I had limited budgets, or didn’t have budgets of a large Fortune 500 company, but I had the same needs. And I thought, why not set up a boutique firm that answers the needs of whether you’re a small entity or a large entity in the same way and treat each one of those companies or the size of organizations the same way. Because at the end of the day, every company has the same needs a granted, everybody has different budgets. And of course, the needs are very different in terms of the breadth or the depth of the services. But the reality is that we all need the same thing, we all want to drive awareness, we all want to drive sales. So I started off as a PR firm. And over time, now if I fast track to 20 years later, of course, over time, things have changed. And now we have become a service provider of an Omni Channel, Retail, but Omni Channel service provider, where we actually provide services that can cover all gamut in terms of Communications and Marketing. And, you know, we don’t do it in a in a very, you know, individualistic way, we do it in a very holistic way. So that we can, you know, help customers that are looking to develop awareness or grow their brand or, or create new customers or actually even identify gaps in the marketplace. We help them to identify those things. But we do so in a holistic way. And we do it the same way we do with Retail Strategies, we’re looking at it from a broad perspective, but making sure that when you’re on somebody’s website, it’s you’re communicating in a very similar way than if you walk into a store or your whatever your product is. But the reality is, is that we we take what we’ve been doing with Retail Strategies, we’ve been doing those kinds of things for, you know, B2B companies, or, you know, Manufacturers, etc. Because everybody has the same needs, the reality is, that we need to make sure that we’re not, that we’re seeing the same way and that a brand ethos, or the persona of a brand is properly represented across all channels. So I think, you know, we started off as a PR firm, but really, we, you know, you evolved to becoming one that provides those services. Because really, at the end of the day, that’s really what it takes, right? It takes that whole approach of, of understanding what are we trying to achieve, who our customers are, etc, and breaking it down so that we really, you know, at the end of the day, we’re driving ourselves, and we’re actually succeeding, and we’re, you know, our bottom line is growing. So, that’s what we do for all of our customers and we’re really excited but looking at, you know, what are we doing with those who are on our program or with Retail Strategies? How are we helping these small vendors, you know, move the needle, may be not so fast. but move the needle. So we do that with all sorts of Organizations.
Craig Patterson
Let’s quickly talk about pop-up go as well. We can talk about a pop-up Retail even in smaller communities. I don’t know if that’s quite as big of a thing. But, but But Linda, you started pop-up go a few years ago.
Linda Farha
Yeah. So pop-up go, I started five years ago. And I would say actually pop-up go is interesting, because really, what we were doing at the time was to serve a need, which was basically, you know, there a lot of vacancies, people wanted to test a product, or they want to test a new brand, they wanted to test something, but they didn’t want to commit to a long term lease. And five years ago, people were saying, Well, you know, it was very difficult for a lot of brands to do so because a lot of Landlords were, you know, they were reticent, they didn’t really want to, you know, open the door to short term leases. It’s interesting how the pandemic and the changes in the marketplace have really created an environment where actually landlords are happy to have that, because they recognize the fact that, you know, if I have a pop-up, well, you know, you create that whole FOMO fear of missing out. So you know, you create that traffic, because normally pop-ups are shorter, you know, they’re the shorter term, they’re maybe there for a few months, or 10 days, or whatever it may be, but they’re driving traffic in a, in a more was higher volume in general, because, you know, they’re creating an environment where they may not be there for long and, and I would say that pop-ups, they’re not only in big centers, there are a lot of we’ve been getting a lot of requests for pop ups in secondary markets and smaller markets, you know, from all kinds, right, they’re not just for, you know, brands of or retail brands, or the only fashion brands, but they could be, you know, entertainment or art exhibitions or, you know, whatever. Basically, they’re all over the map in terms of the types of, of activations and, you know, I touched on pop-ins earlier, but what pop-ins are basically a pop-up within a store. So, you know, even though we’re talking about small town, USA, or a small town, Canada, you may have a small retailer who maybe has a small part of let’s say, a jewelry pop-up their fashion retailer, but they don’t sell jewelry, but they get a pop up that comes in pop in that goes into their store, a jewelry brand. And all of a sudden now that retailer is driving traffic from that jeweler that they may not have had before. And again, you know, if it’s a short term thing, it drives traffic. And it creates a urgency because they’re not there for a long time. So I would say that pop-up go really helped a lot of these smaller merchants find a place to actually drive traffic and you know, and create awareness. So pop-up, though, was really in need of the reality of the public goes supported by his energy services. Because once you do a pop-up or when you’re creating a pop-up while you need all the services that we talked about in our omni channel program. So it all fits together very nicely.
Craig Patterson
Thank you so much for joining me today. This has been Jenn Gregory. She’s the President of Downtown Strategies at US based Retail Strategies in Birmingham, Alabama. Thank you so much for joining us, Jenn.
Jenn Gregory
Thank you so much, Craig, great to be with you.
Craig Patterson
And Linda Farhan out of Toronto. You’re the Founder and President of Zenergy Communications as well of course the Chief Connector of pop-up go. Thank you so much for joining us today here as well, Linda. Pleasure.
Linda Farha
Pleasure, Thank you for having us.
Craig Patterson
And I’m Craig Patterson. I’m the founder, CEO and publisher of Retail Insider Media Limited. I’m also the host of the Retail Insider video interview series. Thank you so much everyone for joining us today. Whether or not you’re watching us here on video or listening to this through our podcast channel. Thank you so much again. Take care and bye for now.
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