This week’s guests are Marshall Frieze and Simon Williams who, for only three weeks a year, run a speciality pop-up shop.

Hear why they do it, the unique challenges they face, how Covid turned EVERYTHING on it’s head and what the key is to the shop’s continued year-on-year improvement.

INTRODUCING SIMON WILLIAMS & MARSHALL FRIEZE

Simon Williams is the owner of SW Retail Consultancy Ltd. Having been in retail for nearly 30 years in various roles, he using his retail knowledge & experience to help grow and develop SMEs and start-ups.

As a consultant his aim is to miniaturise everything he has learned in large corporations and provide the SMEs with a template for success in retailing and business.

Marshall Frieze is the founder and MD of The One Solution, an award-winning Leeds based supplier of cloud and mobile telecoms, connectivity & IoT to businesses throughout the UK and farther afield. Marshall has been working in telecommunications since the mid-1990s, when he was appointed Store Manager of Phones 4u at their flagship Leeds store. In 2003 he launched Pioneer Communication Solutions, becoming Vodafone Gold Partner of the Year in 2011 and then selling in 2012.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

[00:00:10] What is the Passover Pop-up shop

[00:03:00] Where the idea came from and how it all started

[00:08:40] The challenges faced in year one

[00:10:30] Analysing the first year’s performance and then into year two

[00:18:30] The problems (and solutions) to Covid

[00:25:40] the key learnings and the importance of data

[00:31:30] Advice to someone looking to set up a pop up show

[00:35:00] How to retain customers

[00:39:00] Lessons for the future

KEY TAKEAWAYS & BUSINESS LEARNINGS

• You need to ensure that you have no, or little, stock left at the end

• Data is key to making better decisions, and the key to success

• Open with the offers, rather than the offers at the end

• If you get 80% of it right, you should just about be ok

• It’s really beneficial to work with a business partner

• Be clear on your objectives

BEST MOMENTS

“We needed a product, somewhere to sell it from and we needed finance”

“When Covid happened we had to change the whole business model overnight”

“I did around 90,000 steps in 4 or 5 days”

“The lockout period is your retention strategy”

VALUABLE RESOURCES FOR YOU

Website: www.leedsbusinesspodcast.com

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/leeds-business-podcast/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshallfrieze http://linkedin.com/in/simon-williams-616b876

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ABOUT YOUR HOST

Phil Fraser went from an accidental kitchen table start up, with no investment, all the way to multi-million pound sale to a PLC 18 years later. He’s travelled the full SME business journey of launch, growth, scale and exit.

As well as hosting the Leeds Business Podcast, Phil now works with ambitious SME-owners as a Business Sounding Board (think somewhere between Business Coach and Business Mentor). In simple terms, he’s ‘a pair of ears and an extra pair eyes’ for SME Owners helping them to be better at what they do. Phil’s mantra is It doesn’t need to be ‘lonely at the top’. He helps Business Owners to be better business owners, by helping with their clarity and focus.

As a Business Sounding Board, he gives SME Owners the time & space to regularly discuss their challenges and opportunities, with no sense of judgement or bias, and in complete confidence. This allows them to explore their options in full, culminating with a list of issues to address/clarify, a clear target in mind, a roadmap to success, and a renewed enthusiasm and confidence for the challenges ahead.

Phil has appeared as a guest on over 60 podcasts, webinars and interviews, from around the whole globe, talking on a variety of business subjects. You can view them all at https://philfraser.co.uk/watch-hear-phil/.

LEEDS BUSINESS PODCAST

Leeds, Leeds Business, Business in Leeds, Nous of Fraser, Business Sounding Board, Business Coach, Business Mentor,

Email: phil@leedsbusinesspodcast.com

Mentioned in this episode:

Pre roll November

As November is my birthday month, I've got three special offers for you. If you can say yes to the following four points, you qualify. You have to be a business owner, have three to 15 staff, a turnover of between 350, 000 and 3 million, and wanting to develop and improve yourself and how you run your business.