Getting Closer….

Yesterday (Thursday) I attended another SCORE seminar. This one was the “Business Plan Workshop”. Interesting, but not a lot of new information as I’ve been researching business plans for what seems like forever now. One template that I was already using is nearly identical to the sample the instructor used. Still there was plenty to be learned, so I’m glad I went. Plus, it puts me one seminar away from getting my SCORE Certificate.

I got home from the seminar to find an email from our realtor, Steve, containing the first draft of our lease! I spent much of the afternoon pouring over it, highlighting and making notes. Meredith and I met with him today to go over it. We made a few changes/requests as did Steve. He’s now sent it back for their review. We should have this process done and the lease signed by the end of next week! That’s very exciting!

I recently finished reading Paco Underhill’s Why We Buy. Excellent, excellent book. Underhill founded Envirosell which has, for about the last twenty years, studied the retail environment. His book contains a lot of what he and his company has learned about retail over the years. He covers everything from how the customers ability to shop is dictated by anatomy (we only have two hands and can only carry so much!), to patterns (did you know people tend to move to the right when entering a store?) to marketing, signage and the physical layout of shopping space. Very informative.

Next on my reading list are 1001 Ways to Create Retail Excitement and The E-Myth Revisited.

A Step At a Time…

Things are moving forward…albeit a bit slowly. But, they are moving forward!

Our letter of intent was accepted (yea!) and the lease is currently being drafted. Soon we’ll receive a copy to review, correct, change, etc which we’ll then submit back to the landlord’s agent. I imagine there’ll be a bit of back and forth as we negotiate certain details. It’s to be expected, and all a part of the process. Dave Wallace’s Specialty Retailers Handbook (mentioned in my last blog) contained a very informative and helpful chapter of negotiating your lease.

Meanwhile, I attended the “Getting Your Business Up and Running” seminar yesterday. It was put on by SCORE (Service Corp. of Retired Executives). It was an all day deal, going from 8:30am to 4:30pm. Lots of good information was covered, and lots of very bad Powerpoint was shown (is there a more abused piece of software out there?). Some of it didn’t really apply to my situation. I was surprised that out of 19 attendees I was the only one doing retail.

There were eight different speakers throughout the day covering a variety of topics from franchising, taxes, keeping records, marketing and securing capital. My head was spinning by the end of the day. All part of my continuing business education.

Next week I am going to call the major distributors for comics and games and start the process of getting accounts set up with them.

A step at a time…

My head is spinning. In a good way!

I received Dave Wallace’s excellent Specialty Retailer’s Handbook this week. Dave own’s six stores (The Fantasy Shop) in the St. Louis, MO and surrounding area and has been in business for over 20 years. His knowledge and experience are vast and he was kind enough to put it together in a book to benefit people like me who are new to running a retail operation, especially in the gaming and comic book market.

The book arrived yesterday, and I’ve been reading it, pouring over it and highlighting it like mad ever since. There’s so much information to soak in. Dave covers everything from naming your store to negotiating your lease to customer service and so much more. It’s really an incredible tome and an invaluable resource.

When we decided to pursue this crazy notion of opening our own store a few months back we really knew next to nothing about starting and running my own retail business. I had some insight based on observation over the past few decades of being a comic book collector and gamer that I could bring to the table, but little to no knowledge of the business side of things.

I’ve been on a crash course ever since. I certainly don’t know it all (even Dave Wallace doesn’t presume to know it all!), but I sure know a lot more than I did even two short months ago. Fortunately, there’s great resources such as the Specialty Retailers Handbook and the Game Store Resource Forum The GSRF is a terrific online gathering of gaming store retailers both experienced and new and those, like me, in the planning stages. Having these folks to bounce ideas off of is, again, invaluable.

Throw in talking with some semi-local shop owners, scouring the business section of Borders Books and reading some insightful online columns from other retailers like Titan Game’s Marcus King and I feel so much farther along on my journey. It’s all a bit overwhelming, but that’s ok. There’s a lot to this. I think it’d be a bad sign if I wasn’t overwhelmed!

So, our realtor is on vacation with his family this week, our letter or intent is filed, so this week will be more waiting, more reading and maybe setting up some appointments with the SBA and SCORE. Much to do!

Filed!

Just a very brief update today. We’ve filed our “Letter of Intent” today. Now we wait until the property owners review it, agree or disagree to our terms and then the lawyers get it to prepare the lease. Very exciting!

Stay tuned!