Abby here! I may have mentioned before that my career as a retail real estate broker began right after I graduated from Georgetown. I'd spent four years studying, learning, and doing quite a bit of socializing. Lucky for me, I was beginning a career where all my hard work chatting up strangers at Smith Point was a transferable job skill. 🍻
To be a great broker, you need strong relationships with other brokers (and not just because some can get you into hot new restaurants). It didn't take long on the job to learn exactly why, and I've written about it today. Enjoy!
It’s okay. You can stop pretending now. I appreciate the effort and that you don’t want to hurt my feelings, but I promi...
Abby here! It takes a village to care for a newborn, a two-year-old, and somehow still show up to work dressed and on time! So I've enlisted some help in the form Dio's and my parents. As grateful as we are for the help, the trade-off is we now receive approximately 147 urgent texts a day about Henry. "Is it normal if he wakes up 10 minutes early from his nap?" "He only finished half his bottle. Should I call the doctor?" "I can't find his swaddle anywhere — how will he ever sleep again!?"
As it turns out, none of these matters are urgent. So, I've been leaving my family on read, and I suggest you do the same! (No one tell my mother I said that.)
There are lots of reasons people ...
Abby here! I imagine we've all dated someone who seemed alright at first, but in short order, something they did or said gave us the ick. Thankfully, we can bail on the potential relationship the moment we realize there's no future for it...but only because we went on the date in the first place.
Similarly, the only way to find out if an LOI might bloom in a lease is to jump right in -- even before we know if it chews with its mouth open or administers any alarming subreddits. Enjoy!
Just last month, I had a first day touring with a Pedal Retailer who’d recently graduated from the Dream Space Accelerator. The sun was shining, the cherry blossoms were giving way to fresh new leaves, ...
“You know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And that’s really the most important part… the holding.”
These words were spoken by:
- Samantha Jones to a top-hat wearing bouncer at a club opening
- Jerry Seinfeld at a rental car counter
- Ross to a restaurant hostess, thinking he's about to blow it on a date
The correct answer is B, and this line is, IMHO, Seinfeld at its best. It’s a supremely relatable daily frustration delivered perfectly: Jerry is judicious with his words, and yet he makes his point so clearly that no reasonable person could dispute it.
If I had a standup act and Jerry’s talent, I’d also deliver life’s fundam...
Pedal Retail Advisors was recently featured in the Washington Business Journal’s Small Biz Spotlight, highlighting our work helping independent retailers navigate commercial lease negotiations and retail real estate strategy.
The article focuses on a challenge we see every day: commercial leasing can be complex, high-stakes, and difficult for first-time retailers to navigate without in-house expertise.
Commercial Leasing Is a Structural Challenge for Small Retailers
The commercial real estate industry works well for established brands with internal real estate teams. It is far less intuitive for new and independent retailers.
Many founders enter lease negotiations without knowing:
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Remember the Presidential Fitness Test from elementary school? If you’re reading this newsletter, the answer is most likely, yes. Evidently the program was replaced in 2013, but my daughter’s PE curriculum still includes a nearly identical version, so it’s very much a part of my life again.
Since I didn’t actually enjoy exercise of any form until my mid 30’s (thank you, Peloton), those fitness tests were somewhere between annoying and dreadful. I recall sit-and-reach being kinda fun, but I didn’t like the mile run, and I downright hated the pull-ups. Even when we got to do the remedial version, the “flexed-arm-hang,” I could never, ever seem to do it. I wasn’t alone. I’m pretty sure that...
The other day I opened my fridge and suffered an olfactory assault. It wasn't the worst mystery odor I’d ever smelled, but it was pretty bad. I hadn’t noticed anything the day before, so it seemed to have come on fast and strong.
It wasn’t immediately obvious to me what was causing the smell, but it could have been a couple things — all of which I’ll blame on my husband, since he’s the only one who cooks for a family of six when there are only three of us at the table. So the only thing to do was to proceed with the unpleasant #adulting task of sniffing everything until you find the culprit. It was the leftovers in the Dutch oven.
I won’t attempt to pathologize why my brain doe...
Real Housewives fans like me know that Bravo’s editors don't let anything slide… and we love them for it. Heather swears she never said something? Cue the shady music, the cutaway, and the evidentiary reel from three episodes ago where she said that very thing with freshly filled lips and a glass of Sauvy B.
The fine folks at Bravo don’t just roll tape to set the record straight; their slow-motion replays and neon captions make fans like me squeal with delight at the gotcha! comeuppance from our couches.
Every so often, I wish I had my own room of Bravo editors to review the tapes and alert me when someone is being less than truthful, and I know I’m not alone here. In fact, it’s a sent...
