This is probably not news to you, but since we send these newsletters every week, I basically move through life asking myself how to make this thing I [saw / heard / experienced] into content that at least mildly connects to retail real estate. When I find something that provides multiple angles, I’m thrilled. So thank you, Disney and Taylor Swift, for making the six-part docuseries The End of An Era about the record-breaking The Eras Tour. Also, thanks to my sister who told me I should watch it and that I’d probably cry. She was right about both. 

To refresh your memory, the tour included 149 shows in 51 cities on 5 continents over the course of 21 months. At each performance, Taylor an...

My favorite part of the Dream Space Accelerator comes at the very end. Without fail, right when we’re finally done with the Powerhouse Business Plan, I get to hear some version of this: 

🤯 I am so grateful that I did this, because there was so much I hadn’t thought about. I had no idea how much I had to consider, and I was sure I’d covered everything before we started.

And then I respond with some version of this:

🎭 How could you have known? Unless you’ve opened a retail business before, you’d have zero reason to know 75% of this stuff. Retail is theater!

And it truly is. What we experience as consumers – picking up a latte, going to a yoga class, ordering a beer – is the sta...

Imagine for a moment that you’re dating someone you really like. You’ve been together for six months, and so far, so good. You’re excited about your future together. 

Now imagine a fairy swoops in and says it’s time for you to commit to being with this person for the next 10 years. What would you say? Certainly if you’re dating Christian Bale or Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises (just me?), you’d say yes. But anyone else? That would feel like a lot of pressure to put on a new relationship.

That’s exactly what’s happening when a new business signs a lease. No wonder the typical five to ten-year lease terms can feel really intimidating.

Turns out, people with advanced degree...

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...

We all know that Ben Franklin was right about death and taxes, but there’s another certainty of life that he left out. If I could Bill and Ted my way back to the 1790’s (no thanks), I think he’d agree that when you want something is rarely when you can have it...if you can have it at all. 

Obviously I’m not talking about anything money can buy, since you can buy anything on the internet and have it within 2-3 business days. But for the big stuff that really matters --  security, health, relationships -- as hard as we will something into existence, we have limited control. 

All we can do is dig deep and have hope and patience. Well, that’s exactly what Cara and Travis Loving did.

 ...

Not long ago, I patronized a child-operated bake sale. Technically, she was a teen, but as anyone who knows me can attest, if someone too young to drive is selling creations at a table in public, I’m buying. Now this particular bake sale was a fundraiser, not an emerging small business, but I’m flexible. 
 

When I saw the email announcement on Thursday of said bake sale on Sunday, I planned ahead to get cash and show up on time. I am an easy and enthusiastic customer.

So on the big day, I approached the bake sale table. It was positioned front and center in a lobby swarming with children and parents – truly top notch real estate. But right from the jump, I was paralyzed with anxiety and d...

A couple weeks ago we talked about why people lose their ever-loving minds and try to Mortal Kombat us when we tell them they’re going to need more money to open their brick and mortar business. 

So today we’re taking it one step farther and discussing one of the biggest reasons why it costs way more to get open than people often expect: brick and mortar businesses require certain up front expenditures that you absolutely, positively have to incur whether you want to or not. 

It would seem that the amount of money you spend would be entirely within your control – that if you’re scrappy enough, you can always make something work within your budget. To some extent that’s true; bigge...

While Abby hosted a houseful of family, I traveled across the pond to London which was, as advertised, unbelievable at Christmastime. We were very fortunate to have had perfect weather and only one mediocre meal, so all in all it was a smashing success. 

On the day of our return flight home, I thought about how the actual travel part of taking a big trip is largely forgotten. In these days of mobile boarding passes, we rarely have the IAD to LHR ticket stubs to keep as mementos. So unless the “getting there” was particularly memorable (like the time my poor child vomited the entire way from Iceland to Paris), we forget about it pretty quickly upon arrival. 

Can you guess what that ...