Town Hall Recap: Retail Business Owners and Industry Experts Conversation

[Helen]

On Friday, March 27, 2020 we hosted a second Town Hall — a livestream conversation with Retail business owners and industry experts. This edition is a walk-through of the tactical ideas that these business owners and strategists are using to keep their businesses up and running.

Here's a recording of the Town Hall: Conversation about the Retail Business.

You can watch all past Town Hall conversations on YouTube. You can also register for future conversations here. 

Recap of Conversation about the Retail Business

If you didn’t catch the livestream or you can’t watch the recording, here’s a summary of the conversation with the timestamp for each section in square brackets.

Town Hall Panelists:

Chris Sheridan - Business Development Lead, Square

Evan Lenoir - VP of Operations and Finance at Lemon Laine

Phoebe Sherman - Owner of Girl Gang Craft

Taylor Jay - Owner of the Taylor Jay Collection

Andrew Freeman - Founder CEO af&co; Cofounder, Carbonate

[1:40] Evan Lenoir, Lemon Laine, Natural Beauty & Wellness Shop, Nashville, TN and Houston, Texas

How Lemon Laine has learned from other crises:

• Safe Space Mondays: After recent tornadoes in Nashville TN affected their local community they launched this event series to help people to access mental health professionals.
• COVID-19: When they had to stop hosting events to abide by social distancing policies, they pivoted and are still running the meetings online. 
• Local community: They are buying gift cards for restaurants in their neighborhood and customers are doing the same at their store.
• Text2buy: Launched a unique way for their customers to order from Lemon Laine, without having to build an online store. Used an app called Front for this integration; customers order by text and pay with Square Invoices. 

[8:36] Taylor Jay, Taylor Jay Collection, women’s clothing brand, Oakland, CA

How the Taylor Jay Collection is responding to restrictions and changes in customer behavior:

• Brick & mortar store: Had to temporarily close their (new) store in March. But reached out to customers immediately to let them know they can still shop online. 
• Supply chain: Although there are delays in their supply chain they are still accepting orders but are letting customers know some items may not be shipped right away and they are offering discounts and gift cards too.
• Events: Taylor Jay Collection had planned events at their store for other makers in their community. They will host those events online. 
• Engaging with other business owners: Trying to create a collective of business owners to work together and build up small businesses. 

How their customers have responded: Customers are very supportive and are still excited to engage with them. It’s important to focu on people and have empathy for your customers who may have lost their job or who are balancing work and have their kids at home.

[17:27] Phoebe Sherman, Girl Gang Craft, Female forward community for creatives and entrepreneurs

How Girl Gang Craft is responding to current restrictions and changes in customer behavior:

• Events: Many events they planned to host for product-based makers had to be canceled. Some makers are hustline and others are taking space (take time). If you can pause your business that’s great but if you need help Girl Gang Craft is there to help.
• Downloadable free guide: They produced the Girl Gang Craft Guide to Pivoting to help small businesses with resources during COVID-19. 

• Podcast: Decided to launch their podcast early. Lessons from Girl Gang Craft will be available in April. Topics include social media strategy, marketing ,and interviews with  their community members. 
• Instagram story takeovers: Using Instagram to highlight their community. For example, one member hosted a midday meditation.

How their customers have responded: Common themes they’ve heard are that eCommerce is hard. It can take a lot of energy - building your site, driving traffic to your website especially when customers might not be spending money. You need to consider how you can tap into what your customers need? Rewiring how you’re selling your product will have the most impact. 

[24:51] Andrew Freeman af&co Owner and founder San Francisco, CA and founder Carbonate

af&co is a media relations and marketing firm for the hospitality and restaurant industries. Carbonate is their sister company that works on visual identity and branding strategies for hotels and restaurants. 

How af&co is helping their clients respond to restrictions and changes in customer behavior:

• Keep your brand voice alive: Even if you are ‘hibernating’ — maintain your social media presence going, keep in touch with customers so when you come back they’re ready and waiting for you.
• Pivot: Although many hotels have closed, they are now being turned into facilities to house homeless or as accommodation for healthcare providers. Restaurants are moving to online ordering and curbside pickup, hosting virtual events like ‘raid the wine cellar’, wine tasting, ‘chefinar’ series, cooking classes.

[32.18] What are some unique things you see happening in your business community as people try to manage their business during these difficult times? 

• Andrew Feeman: Find ways to collaborate with other businesses, for example: a restaurant and florist are working together so that when you order a meal you can order fresh flowers to. Can you be kid friendly? Parents are looking for ways to entertain and educate their kids.
• Evan: There are opportunities to be had; people are willing to try things that they haven’t done before, explore partnerships or anything you might be putting off e.g. building your website; or redo the store/give it an update. Right now is the time to act
• Phoebe: Opportunity for providing classes online. Consider what is adjacent to your business that can serve your community. 
• Taylor Jay: How can you add to the shopping experience? She’s considering delivery boxes and virtual stylist sessions.

[37:30] What resources do you use to find inspiration and ideas?

Andrew Freeman

• Eater: listings of which restaurants are doing take out & delivery; chef mashups; ideas.
• Your local restaurant association or hotel association is a great resource.

Evan Lenoir:

• crunchbase.com - for innovation/new technologies and to see what investors are interested in right now.
• finsmes.com 

Phoebe Sermon: 

• Podcasts by Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield and The Goal Digger by Jenna Kucher. 
• Girl Gang Craft! Check out COVID-19 resources; information about artist grants, articles, guides; local job listings and their forthcoming podcast!

[44:11] Words of wisdom 🙏 

• Taylor Jay: Have faith and focus on the things you can control. Keep hope alive.
• Andrew Freeman: Stay calm. Ask for help. Think about what the other side looks like? Diversify. Be a good neighbor.
• Evan Lenoir: This shows the value in events and that people want to attend (and get out of their houses)!
• Phoebe Sermon: Before you can take care of others — take care of yourself.

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I hope you are  safe and well and that you find this summary useful. You can watch the full recording of the Conversation about the Retail business on YouTube. Register for future Town Hall conversations here.