We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gretchen Skedsvold. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gretchen below.
Gretchen, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?
In the context of owning and operating a small business, the kindest thing anyone has done for me was to give me a book. I’ll explain. I was falling farther and farther behind on accounts payable to one of my vendors. They’ve always been the most patient of all of our vendors and the company’s owner was one of the first people I met in the industry when I began to research the idea of opening our business, but as financial conditions began to tighten it became even clearer the favor they were doing us being our bank and I knew that they too had bills to pay. The owner of this company began to reach out periodically to check in with me and feel out if we had a plan to get caught up on past due invoices. They said they were confident we had the financial acumen to know if we were getting into trouble but from their perspective it was a growing risk to keep extending credit if we didn’t see a path out. In our discussions I was very frank about the challenges we faced, my frustrations, my hopes and fears for the business and the different directions I considered taking as a business owner. I did not gloss over our problems or posture as though everything was perfectly fine and always going to be ok. And my vendor, in turn shared with me some of the challenges they faced. It helped to make me feel less alone, less like I didn’t know what I was doing, less like a deadbeat who couldn’t pay my bills on time, less like I was just faking it until I made it (or didn’t make it). It was a huge comfort to understand that other people, seasoned business owners, faced some of the same challenges I did. And that helped to relieve some of my anxiety so I was able to think clearly and trust my judgement about changes I needed to make to our business. I came up with a simple plan to cut costs in order to improve cash flow and realized I had an underutilized asset I could sell to generate cash. That asset, it occurred to me, might be of use to the vendor with whom I needed to get caught up on payables. Indeed, when I conveyed to the vendor my plan to cut costs, improve monthly cash flow and sell my underutilized asset, they were interested in purchasing it. On the day we signed the bill of sale, after the vendor had given me a check and I had given them the title, they handed me a book to read, “Dealing with the Tough Stuff, Practical Wisdom for Running a Values-Driven Business” written by the female founders of Birkenstock USA and Vermont Bread Company. They said they thought reading it would make me feel less alone, hearing the stories of other business owners with whom I could identify. I’d become so stressed out by my cash worries I’d lost track of why I cared about my business. Of course money (cash) is important–it’s the blood of a business. Just like a body, without enough and a reliable flow it can’t survive. But a body with good blood flow and no consciousness is a vegetable–relationships are a business’s consciousness, its awareness, its soul if you will. That’s what the kind gesture of this vendor reminded me.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
We sell mostly wines but also beers and spirits made by small independent winemakers, brewers and distillers. We like to think of ourselves as the indie record shop of liquor stores. We’re a mom and pop shop supporting mom and pop producers of alcoholic (and non-alcoholic) beverages. A lot of our wines fall in the “natural” category, a loosely defined category that typically includes wines that are made with grapes grown without the use of industrial pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers (sometimes certified organic or biodynamic but indie farmers don’t always go through the red tape of getting certified), wines that are spontaneously fermented (without the addition of commercially obtained yeasts) and wines that do not include chemical additives, enzymes, flavor enhancers, colorants, etc. We’re proud of our kind, helpful, knowledgable staff who are all dedicated to the same principles we are, our carefully selected inventory (we drink everything we sell–if we wouldn’t drink it ourselves it’s not on the shelves), the non-intimidating vibe of our shop and our dedication to people and principle, not just profit.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
As some of our longstanding customers may recall, the original location for our shop was in a beautiful refurbished industrial space with polished concrete floors, 18-foot ceilings and floor to ceiling glass windows a few blocks down the street from where we operate today. At the time it was the only space available in the neighborhood so we decided to go for it despite the steep rent. There were three problems in addition to the rent: 1) the space was about twice the size we needed, 2) it was in the back of the building where people driving down Glenwood couldn’t see us, and 3) we were inexperienced commercial tenants who signed a 10-year lease without negotiating points such as a growth cap on common area maintenance fees, square footage calculations, and others. We should’ve negotiated for tenant improvements or asked for the landlord to subdivide the space but we agreed to rent it as-is (was) and took out an SBA loan to pay for build-out. After two years struggling to make rent we started to look for a new, more affordable location. We looked in other neighborhoods, looked at places to buy and one day were driving down Glenwood Avenue and saw a space available to rent that was even closer to our home. We called the number on the sign in the window, arranged to see the available space and meet the building’s owner, who came to visit our store a few days later. He liked our shop and told us he’d rent us his space (which was less than 1/2 the price of our old space) as long as we could get out of our lease with our old landlord. So we began the painful process of negotiating with our old landlord to break our lease. They told us we were being insincere and irresponsible, that we were smart people capable of running a business that could afford the rent they were charging but we just weren’t trying hard enough. They threatened to sue us for rent due over the remaining term of the lease. We counter-offered by proposing they deduct the value of improvements we’d made to the space from the total amount they said we owed and we’d cut them a check for the difference to walk away from the lease. They insisted we first provide a detailed list of all our income and assets. I provided this for only myself since my husband and co-owner hadn’t signed a personal guarantee on the lease like I had. They finally sent us a termination agreement. It included a stipulation we not reopen our business anywhere at any time. I struck the language from the agreement in my final round of edits and to my surprise no one objected. The termination agreement required we be fully moved out of the space on the day we and the landlord signed the agreement. Without telling our customers our plan (we couldn’t for fear of our old landlord catching wind before signing the termination) we quietly closed our doors, frantically worked to get out of the space in a matter of days and signed the termination agreement. With the termination signed we sealed a 3-year lease with our new landlord, submitted the paperwork for our amended liquor license and reopened after a 2-month hiatus.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
Our wine club, Bottle Service, our weekly marketing email, The Weekly Clipping, and our regular Thursday wine tastings are the main ways we regularly engage our customers. Our wine club has grown from a dozen customers in our first year of business to nearly 250 members today, provides a reliable revenue stream and a means to purchase inventory in bulk, drives regular customer traffic into the shop and builds customer trust in our wine selections as well as loyalty through dedicated discounts and interest in special orders for weddings, parties and other special occasions. The Weekly Clipping, modeled on Robinhood’s Daily Snacks newsletter, is a way for us to share what we’re reading, learning and listening to in the sphere of sustainable winemaking, food and agriculture and helps us communicate about events at the shop like our regular Thursday wine tastings. Our Thursday wine tastings provide an opportunity for customers to try new wines, sometimes meet the winemaker, connect with us in person and enjoy the wines we sell together.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.shophenryandson.com
- Instagram: @shophenryandson
- Facebook: @shophenryandson
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/henry-&-son-llc/
- Twitter: @shophenryandson
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKz44IhSNq8Z5fxY8tNfePg
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/shophenryandson/
Image Credits
Linda Zimmermann, Chelb McMurray