This is 3Bits & Change, an email about building a service and retail business. This one was written to the birds in the distance.
It had been almost 7 weeks since I had taken an intentional day to not go to the shop. It was time to intentionally not go there yesterday. The work continued. I wrote two blog posts and did a radio interview. However, it was good to put a boundary up, even if for a day.
Building new businesses… jeepers. They take loads of effort and commitment and intentionality over time.
//no.1 - So Mondays - and Sundays too?
We’ve held off on Monday hours. The restaurants in the district are closed. I figured we could and should be too. The foot traffic is low in Jan/Feb/Mar. The national days off for the USPS are Mondays. So, why be open? And, now… it’s getting nice out.
As I’ve been in the shop on Mondays to sharpen packages that have arrived via USPS and simply work, because it’s really nice to be in the finished space now, I’ve noticed loads of people walking by. Maybe this business at this location is more about the weather than I had previously thought? Maybe it’s just that folks use their knives to prep food on the weekends and a knife shop is top of mind on Mondays?
We opened last Monday. Leslie is taking lead. It was the first time we’ve had Monday hours since the beginning of the Wayzata store, over a year ago. The sales volume was nearly equal to the previous Saturday. Whoa… go figure. And Tuesday? It should be lower, right? Nope, Tuesday was just as big.
It’s a weather based business. I’m going with that for now. It was nice out. We’re going to open on Sunday’s for a few hours - starting today. It’s time to make the real-estate work a bit harder. We’ll see how it goes. We’ll know in a few weeks if Mondays are valuable days to be open or if it was just really nice out and people were thinking of their kitchen knives.
//no.2 - Power Lunch Update
Our intro to kitchen knife skills class has been taught to the point where it’s really solid. It’s dialed in. It’s been an evening class. We moved one session to Saturday mornings in recent weeks and it’s going really well there too. So, I got thinking… what could we do midweek for work teams (4-8 people)? Every manager has a budget for team building. Want to spend yours on lunch?
I thought we could offer some spots for folks to come in with their teams and enjoy a brief skills class, a killer lunch sandwich and get back to work. As it turns out, retired ladies booked the first of the Wednesday lunch classes. They’re loads of fun. Conversation is easy. The learning is casual. And once folks book one class they book another because the menu changes.
Yet, the sandwiches are going to get old. So, we’re going to shift to salads in June. I’ve reached out to some folks in the salad arena. We’ll see what kind of partnerships we kick up. We have some spinning.
//no.3 - About that construction
14 weeks of closure became 5 weeks of closure and 10 weeks of construction (best case) in just 10 days of meetings. For a project that has been in planning for years and months it is not being presented like it.
The funds to make this existing bus line on France a faster one are from a bucket of national dollars. It sure seems like the aim was never to minimize impact on local communities during construction. Nor was it to spend the dollars efficiently. Nor was it to maximize the dollars spent on construction to help recuperate the dollars lost during construction by local communities. The dollars, however, will be spent. The contractor will certainly optimize their efforts. The rest of us will learn of specifics late and deal with the negative impact. It this it keeps going as it has been we’ll continue to be sold a hopeful story of the potential for positive. Hopefully the transit planners will win some national awards?
We were told in a meeting last Wednesday that system ridership has nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels. One click to here tells a different store via data and graphs. We were also told that the ridership of this existing bus line will likely go up ~20% from today’s numbers. However, no one who spoke from the gov orgs had considered, nor seemed to care, how long it will take, if ever, for the local grocery store (one of ~175 businesses in just this district) to recuperate the dollars (from the projected increased in ridership) lost from an estimated 5-10% reduction in revenue during construction.
Just as this new business is starting to get some lift in this new location, we’re going to need to press through an (un)planned, challenging and expensive obstacle. That adventure starts in mid June. Here we go.
Sum
Be open on Mondays. Do lunch classes. Do your best to anticipate what has not been well planned or communicated.
Change
New post from travels - Inside Takefu
Father’s day gift ideas? Check out the EDC here.
New post from travels - Inside Kikuichi
Transcript and links to the audio for the radio interview yesterday.
The Friday Insta Reels are getting more views when they’re of me and not fed through a scheduler. Thanks all!
Questions
Would you subscribe to a podcast about kitchen knives?
Why? What would you most like to hear?
Why not? What would you be most turned off by?
On Your Way
It’s been in the 80’s in the midwest. Enjoy!
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