Most of us grow up learning various life skills from our parents. Some of those skills are critically important, like a sense of humor or how to apologize. Some are more practical, like how to purify water from a stream or power wash vinyl siding. 

In my family, my sister and I learned a lot of things growing up, but “practical” skills? Debatable. I’m not sure that anyone ever saved money or survived in the woods by knowing all the words to Cats! or where Vermeer lived (Delft!) So having grown up in a home where DIY projects were pretty much limited to framing pictures and re-covering dining room chairs, you can infer that the world of commercial construction was pretty unfamiliar.



Needless ...

You probably already know that the cost of building out a retail space is often the single largest line item in a pre-opening budget. The fact of the matter is that there’s not a whole lot to be done about this. If you need to modify a space to suit your business, you’re going to spend some serious cash — the more dramatic the changes, the more dramatically you’ll need to dig into your wallet.

If you’re do any sort of construction work, many of the costs will be beyond your (and even your contractors’) control. Every commercial contractor is working with the same framework: labor, materials, overhead, and profit. Remember, they’re running businesses, too.

So, even though there may not be a...

Many first-time retailers are pretty surprised to find out that it takes such a looooong time to sign a lease and get open. Some even think, “oh wow, that’s like being pregnant with a baby,” but they are wrong, because it’s really like being pregnant with a donkey. How do we know this? We googled it. Turns out, donkeys have a gestation period of 11 - 15 months (also — unrelated but fascinating — a female donkey is called a jenny.)

Anyhow, if you can get your lease signed in the time it takes to bake a human baby cake, good for you! But it’s more typical for you to be on burro-ed time (fair warning - more donkey puns coming.)

There are at least four distinct stages in the process, and these...