If you’re not a little nervous about signing a lease, you’re not thinking hard enough.
Truly – it should cause you some anxiety to make a multi-year, legally-enforceable commitment since you literally have no idea what the future holds. Unless you’re a regular at the high-rollers table in Vegas, making a bet valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) is pretty terrifying. And even indie retailers who have signed leases many times over still get nervous.
So how are you supposed to get comfortable with signing a lease if the uncertainty of the future looms so large?
✨ Your business plan is how. (Did you guess I was go...
Our dramatically dwindling attention spans (hello, TikTok) and culture of instant gratification (hello, Amazon Prime) is reshaping everything around us. We can order bulgogi bowls, a case of Modelo, toilet paper, a phone charger, and a hot date…all from our phones and all delivered to our doorstep within 60 minutes.
So, when we tell aspiring retailers that it’s going to take 10 months to a year (or more) to open their brick-and-mortar, we brace ourselves for their disappointment. Most of the time, when we talk to first-timers, they share their plans to open for business in a new space “by the summer” or “in time for the holidays.” Almost always, those opening dates are about three ...
In the spirit of “real talk, always,” I’d be lying if I said we weren’t having to pull ourselves away from watching the Paris Olympics to do our jobs. It’s only been a few days, but give me headless, operatic Marie Antoinettes and an aria from Carmen, and I’m sold.
The Olympics show us not just the peak of athleticism, but also the apogee of specialization — it’s physical ability plus knowledge, skill development plus experience, talent plus training. There's an inspirational poster somewhere that says "champions aren’t born, they’re built."
✨ Like many other parts of life, when outcome really matters, you want to rely on the pe...
"What if the right space for me isn’t out there?”
This question comes up on many First Location Program consultations, and most of the time, it’s super easy for us to answer. There are dozens of “right” retail spaces on the market at any given time that could work for a business, and, after all, you only need one. When you’ve got super clear real estate criteria, it’s typically pretty easy to find a handful of spaces that could work. Narrowing them down and 🕵️♀️ picking the best option is the hard part.
But for Pedal Retailer District Champagne, DC’s restrictive liquor license laws cut our options down dramatically. This is the story of how owners McLean and Joseph persevered to loc...
I’ve been thinking a lot these past few months about how retail really exists on the front lines of American culture and society. I’m no economist, but I think it has to do with the fact that how we choose to spend (or not spend) money is a real-time reflection of our priorities and preferences. Put all of us together making many small financial decisions (and transactions) on a daily and weekly basis, and the impact is hard to ignore.
Retail takes it in the face first.
Let’s think of some of the recent cultural “events,” and let’s exclude COVID. We’re all painfully aware of how the retail industry was first in line to be decimated by COVID, but that’s a circumstance that is ...
Did you ever have one of those nifty decoder rings as a kid? A simple gadget that hovered over seemingly incomprehensible text or symbols would reveal its true meaning. ✨Magical✨ Don't you wish you had one of those for your leases (and to decode that look on your spouse's face when you put on the orange sweatpants…again)?
Anyway, sweatpants aside, I think we’ve cracked the case on the leases!
It's hard to sit down with an 65 page lease and read ALL of it. We hear it all the time, “An Act of God forcing me to close my business? That’ll never happen to me!” Umm, remember 2020? Still, you’re not entirely wrong. There are a lot of crazy sounding things in a lease that’ll likely never come to...
A few weeks ago, we talked about why you shouldn't be afraid of a ten-year lease term, but we know that many new retailers are most comfortable starting with a five-year term (or even shorter).
If you determine that a shorter lease term is best for your business, here are two tips to keep in mind:
1. Ask for multiple renewal terms of at least three to five years a piece. If things are going well, you do not want to find yourself homeless with a growing business.
2. Negotiate your lease like you're committing to it for ten years or more. You may be tempted to think that you don't need to think long term in a short term deal...
BUT leases are like dogs, and just as you house train a puppy ...
A decade feels like an eternity until it's over.
When you live inside the commercial real estate bubble, a ten year lease term doesn’t seem like a big deal — like a long weekend on the Cape (since that’s obviously where you’re going if you work in CRE.) But to many new retailers, the thought of committing to a lease for TEN WHOLE YEARS feels more like being sentenced to the federal pen for a white collar crime.
If that new retailer sounds like you, here are some things to keep in mind:
+ Your lease locks down the rules for the entire term.The longer your lease, the longer you have to operate your business on your own terms since you’ll have negotiated the rent and other important financia...
