Retail Attraction for Fun and Profit

In theory you would never have to worry about retail attraction in a market economy. Goods and services to be consumed locally tend to naturally appear in your communities. There is a tendency for business to "follow rooftops," meaning that when the market is sufficient, the hamburgers and auto repair shops will follow.

However, all markets are inefficient to some extent. Often there is a tendency for a downtown to deteriorate if you don't have an aggressive and well-run Main Street program. And you have to run your own business attraction program to take care of the inefficiencies in the market.

The community may specifically want Starbuck's coffee, for example, even if coffee is readily available in many other places.

Granted, it may not be easiest thing to call Starbuck's and actually wind your way through the chain to telephone referrals to find an appropriate person who is willing to talk with you. But it's not impossible, and we know you have someone persuasive in your community.

Like most transactions in life, if you send a signal that the purpose of your retail attraction call is to set up a sales campaign, to harass if you are told no, and to generally become indignant and abusive if you are denied, you will not get very far.

However, if you sound reasonable, courteous, and willing to hear the truth, you eventually will find a person with whom you can speak by phone or e-mail. The purpose of the first meaningful call or e-mail should be to establish your interest in their company, explain that you are taking new initiatives in your town, and attempt to obtain a face-to-face interview or set up a tour for them.

But eventually with Starbuck's and every other chain, you're going to hear the truth. Either you meet their criteria or you don't. Your persistent but pleasant personal contact may tilt them in your direction if you're on the borderline, but if you're way below the number crunchers' criterion, you're not going to win.

The Personal Touch in Retail Attraction

Target what you want, but be smart about it. In addition to population and disposable income, local tastes influence what retail businesses will thrive. This applies even in larger cities, where obviously there may be enough income and population to support a particular type of store. However, if the residents prefer traditional furniture and architecture, even a large city will not support many contemporary cutting-edge furniture stores. So don't invest a lot of effort in retail attraction that is doomed to failure.

Consider instead whether you could cultivate a business that is only a small step up from what you have already, but a step in the right direction. By a series of small steps, you could gradually upgrade the commercial offerings for your townspeople as well as tourists and day trippers who might patronize the new businesses.

When you find that ideal store, contact the owner personally. Go through the manager if you must, but your decision maker is the person with the money behind the business. Get an appointment to visit with the owner and explain your seriousness about your business district and retail attraction. Be very polite but let them know you want them to keep thinking about you, and try to be really engaging as you say you won't take no for an answer.

Cultivate Entrepreneurs

We say that not to be sexist, but because we all know that women do a lot of the shopping, and I bet they do a very high proportion of the daydreaming about shopping!

If you have a small business development center nearby, meaning it's within a two-hour drive, start publicizing its services to what you think is the saturation point. You'll be glad you did.

Retail attraction from outside the immediate neighborhood needs to be balanced with the sometimes more realistic notion that people who already are invested in your community will be the most devoted to a business there.

Retail Attraction for an Entire Business District

One approach to reviving a business district that I've seen work is the "I will if you will" retail attraction program.

If you want to make a substantial leap upward in your business base, and for example, replace tacky souvenir shops and tourist traps with quality place-relevant businesses, put together a plan that shows a phased approach to how you plan to accomplish the goal.

For a beach town, phase 1 might include relocating all of the tacky tourists traps to an off the beaten path location away from the beach. Or you might choose only one or two of the biggest offenders, and try to convince them to either upgrade their external appearance and their merchandise quality, or to move to other less prime real estate. Sometimes removing only one or two major eyesores is all that is needed to upgrade the atmosphere of a place.

Now on to the "I will if you will." Put together a campaign that shows all available (or soon-to-be-available) locations where you would like a group of desirable businesses. Then put together a list of specific businesses or operators, if known, or write down the type of operation you are seeking in as much specificity as you can muster.

These businesses might be desirable because they are export businesses (that is, tourist-oriented or somehow able to draw in outside income) or because they meet a need of the locals or of the export businesses you do have. If you see infrastructure needs, tax incentives, code enforcement, or other problem-solving that the public sector needs to do, negotiate and write down the timetable for when the public sector will provide those items.

Then you are ready to visit businesses. Under this approach, try to obtain a commitment not necessarily to move to your location right now, but rather a firm commitment to move when certain other conditions are met. Usually this would be, for example, when you have four of the target businesses committed to the "I will if you will" campaign, each of them pledges to move, or ideally to establish a new location.

This approach to retail attraction accomplishes the following:

• You are lessening risk for the in-moving businesses, because their upgraded business will be part of a more general approach.

• You are creating massive excitement in the community when suddenly several businesses appealing to the same clientele or income level appear at about the same time.

• You are generating the ability to attract considerable attention from the press because of the sudden shift.

• You are creating an instant support system for the new businesses.

• You have thought in advance about what will happen to the businesses you are displacing.

• You blunt some of the criticism about driving away or moving less desirable businesses because nearly simultaneously, you bring in new business through the retail attraction program.

Try this approach, as opposed to a more incremental approach, if you have abundant space and something good to sell, as all downtowns do.

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