"A destination business is a business that is so compellingly different, a customer says, "'I have to go to that place.'"
Becoming a consumer destination, continues Jon Schallert, nationally known marketing coach for independent business, retail and service providers, can change an entire city.
Ready to drive that change, seventy-five business and property owners from the Portland region's downtowns and main streets turned out in March for a workshop with Schallert to learn how to reposition their businesses – and communities – as consumer destinations.
Schallert is the first speaker as part of Metro's Get Centered! series, designed to provide tools, training and technical expertise to help communities attract investment and revitalize the region's downtowns and main streets.
Business owners from Hillsboro, Lake Oswego, Oregon City, Milwaukie, Beaverton, Gresham, Portland and Corbett locked in on the animated Schallert as he hit the highlights of his trademarked 14-step destination business process in a three-hour, rapid-fire presentation.
The art of the destination business
Workshop participants Dawn and Doug Sellers blew through the first tier of steps for establishing their wine shop as a consumer destination within one year of opening in historic downtown Hillsboro.
The Sellers launched Primrose and Tumbleweeds Boutique and Wine last year with plans to expand into a restaurant and wine bar by early 2012. But the overwhelming response to their wine shop prompted them to move up their timeline. By the fall of 2011, they were serving food, wine, beer and cocktails.
Applying a strategy picked up at a Schallert workshop they attended last year, the Sellers created a unique positioning statement that distinguishes their business from every other in the industry: "The world's largest selection of Oregon wine."
Primrose and Tumbleweeds opened with 47 types of Oregon wine. One year later, their selection tops 2,000 – with plans to keep adding.
"There's so much to constantly learn," says Doug Sellers, who's been in retail all his life. "You can't possibly know everything. We're taking advantage of everything we can. We're just one of the little boats that want to rise with the tide – businesses with their anchors down will just sink."
Targeting distant markets
The Sellers are creating change in downtown Hillsboro by using another tactic Schallert promotes: pulling customers from distances up to two hours travel time from their front door.
"You have to convince the consumer (your business) is the only place you can get it – not online, not from a catalogue," says Schallert. "You have to get them to wait and check your store first."
While the Seller's estimate 67 percent of their customer base lives within a five-mile radius of their store, the rest come from up to 20 miles away, often as overflow from events in nearby Willamette Valley wine country.
"People coming from 15 to 20 miles outside the area are coming to buy," says Sellers. They're also more likely to stay and shop other businesses in the area, he adds.
Accessories from the Heart in downtown Lake Oswego attracts mostly local customers.
For Carol Winston, owner of Accessories from the Heart in downtown Lake Oswego, attracting customers from Portland's more than half million residents represents both the potential and the challenge of her location, less than 10 miles south of the city.
Estimating 70 percent of her customer traffic to be local, Winston would like to change that. "We'd love to attract more people from Portland," says Winston. "But it's not that easy." She cites all the shopping distractions between Portland and Lake Oswego as a barrier to bringing new customers through her door.
Power in numbers
Winston, a fan of Schallert's program and already taking many of the steps he recommends at her upscale accessory boutique, finds the economy to be the biggest challenge in growing her business.
"It thwarts what I would do product wise," says Winston. "Gas prices impact shopping. We can almost see the gears turning (in our customer's minds) – fifty dollars for a pair of earrings or a tank of gas?"
Schallert's strategy for combining efforts of several businesses from one community to create a destination district resonates with Winston. "You tend to see the same people at these workshops," she observes, noting the more businesses involved from one shopping area, the stronger the pull on customers from out of town.
A historic building in downtown Gresham with multiple businesses can become a destination for customers outside the city.
Reinventing business for a new economy
Larry Landgraver, property owner of a historic building on the corner of First Avenue and Main Street in downtown Gresham, knows it will take a group effort to make Gresham a destination.
Landlord to six or seven retail businesses in his building at any given time, Landgraver encouraged his tenants to sign up for the Schallert presentation.
Although none attended, Landgraver shared the highlights of what he learned from the Get Centered! event with members of the Historic Downtown Gresham Business Association.
"People in our area are struggling – and so are the retailers," says Landgraver. "A lot of business owners open their doors and really don't know much about running a business. They may have been successful in the beginning but now they're not," he says. "Businesses need to reinvent themselves."
Landgraver believes Gresham as a destination has a lot to offer visitors from around the region. "I want to get more traffic into downtown Gresham," says Landgraver. "Visitors can come out and spend the afternoon, walk around, get a drink, drive up the Gorge."
Sitting in Schallert's presentation, Landgraver was motivated to consider marketing his building on First and Main as a destination.
According to Schallert, reinventing a business as a consumer destination isn't as much work as it sounds. At the close of his presentation that jumped in rapid succession from product placement to signature items to Pinterest – the latest social networking platform – he put the challenge in perspective.
"Everything you're doing now as independent business owners is harder than this," he promised.
Get Centered!
Get Centered! events help build the capacity of business and property owners, and nonprofit and city staff to make investments
Workshops are funded through Metro's Development Center, which works to support innovative infill development and spur additional investment in the region's centers and corridors.