How to know when you're ripe 🍓

Where I live in coastal Virginia, one of the most popular “things you do with kids to get them outside and off screens” is strawberry picking when the weather turns nice and warm. 

Most of us are familiar with the “picking” activities of the fall. Some people go pumpkin picking for the pumpkins, some go to take pictures of their babies, and the rest of us go for the apple cider donuts. When I lived in Annapolis, we’d go apple picking in middle-of-nowhere Maryland so that we could get outside, get more donuts, and spend the next two weeks trying to get rid of the 437 extra apples on the kitchen counter.

In my pumpkin and apple picking experience, after you do the picking, you return to the barn with the donuts and pay for your haul by weight. In strawberry picking, however, you pre-pay for a small or large collection bucket up front – the actual weight of the strawberries you pick doesn’t matter.

So the objective (especially for the person who pays $28 for the empty basket) is to collect the best damn strawberries these rows have to offer. There is limited space in the basket, and we’re sure-as-strawberry not going to shell out more money for a second basket. 

So we scour the rows with laser focus to find the ripest, best-looking berries. We pass over the unripe or imperfect ones. 

❌ A little asymmetrical? Thanks for coming out, but pass.

❌ Not perfectly ruby-red? Maybe in the future.

❌ Small patch of sandy dirt? Hello and goodbye.

❌ Nibbled by a bug? Call me never.

Our inner critics are living their best lives – fully emboldened with genuine purpose. We’re not being jerks or holding these berries to unfair standards; we’ve got limited space, and we want to fill it with the very best available to us.

We can’t see flavor, so when we’re walking down the rows of berries, we use visual clues and our experience to decide which ones are most likely to taste the best. You don’t need to be a horticulturist or a French Laundry alum to know what great strawberries look like. And since we’re not going to spend time considering every single berry, we’re drawn to the ones that look great at first glance.

Why do I care, Sheila? Here's why...

🍓 This "seeking the best berries for my bucket" is fundamentally the mindset of landlords. They’ve got actual physical limitations as to how much space they can rent to retailers, and they want the juiciest fruit they can get.

So when prospective retailers approach landlords or their brokers, they’re not met with Wheeeeee! This is fun! Come jump in my basket! Instead, they’re assessed with critical eyes – first from a distance, then closer and with more scrutiny. 

It happens all the time, though, that fresh strawberries call the For Lease sign on retail spaces, and say (basically) Ooh, helloooo, look at me! I’m a strawberry! I’m interested in your basket! Can I go ahead and jump in? All the while not realizing that in the eyes of the landlord or their broker, they look green and completely unripe. If they make it past the first glance and appear red enough to get a serious look, they’ll undergo serious scrutiny. And if they make it through that scrutiny, they’re in direct competition with other juicy berries.

The landlord, much like the eager strawberry picker, has a vested interest in filling their space (or basket). It’s not free to hold onto an empty one, but there’s no point in bringing home a bunch of subpar berries. Better to cut losses and have a partially-full, or even empty basket.

Among new businesses entering the retail real estate system for the first time, there’s a common misconception that all tenants are equally attractive; rent is rent, right? But as our strawberry adventure shows, appearing deliciously attractive is critical to getting picked. Ask any broker or landlord or lender who’s consumed a Powerhouse Business Plan – cultivated by hand in Dream Space – and they’ll tell you that it looked beautiful immediately, and it tasted even better. 🍓