In a joint meeting of the Brownwood City Council, Brownwood Economic Development Corporation board, and the Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce board, officials heard a proposal from retail consulting firm the Retail Coach outlining strategies for bringing new retail business to Brownwood while offering support to existing businesses.
C. Kelly Cofer and Aaron Farmer of the firm made the presentation and showed how their company will use a seven-step process to help recruit and support retail businesses.
“What we propose is a retail retention, recruitment, and development strategy,” said Farmer. “What that says is we’re here to help your local businesses.”
The seven-steps in their process include a market analysis, community analytics, consumer analytics, community marketing, retailer matching, retail recruitment, and retail coaching. According to the Retail Coach’s proposal, the following services will be performed for Brownwood if an agreement is reached:
- Retail trade area determination and analysis – a hand drawn trade area based on where customers come from to shop in Brownwood
- Retail gap (leakage) analysis – to determine what potential local products and services are needed locally that Brownwood shoppers leave the area to purchase.
- Marketing and packaging – create retailer feasibility study for targeted retailers for recruitment to the area, develop a community-specific retail market profile, create a community resource guide that includes developer-related information, and make presentations to targeted retailers on behalf of the City of Brownwood
- Conduct a HPU student survey – to determine the spending habits and buying patterns of students to incorporate this information into the marketing and recruitment.
- Downtown Analysis – to determine what opportunities exist in Downtown Brownwood and how to leverage HPU to spur retail growth.
- Hold Business Seminars – The Retail Coach will hold one to two business seminars for existing local retailers and those interested in entrepreneurship to explain the results of the analysis and ways to implement those results to the existing local businesses.
- SWOT Analysis – conduct strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threat analysis to provide a list of community and economic development recommendations.
- 12 month coaching period – after the initial process in completed, the Retail Coach will provide a 12 month coaching period where they will work with the city and follow-up on the recruitment efforts.
During the presentation, the Retail Coach representatives outlined some of the retail needs that they noticed during their short visit to the area.
“I can tell you right now, one of your huge gaps is going to be grocery store,” stated Farmer. “One of the first people we will go after is HEB.”
Farmer also said that they will approach other local grocery stores and help them indentify product gaps that they are missing.
Another area that they identified while scouting the area was helping to fill in existing and available commercial property.
“Our mission is to fill that Commerce Square shopping center.” Confer said. “That would be your most immediate, quickest opportunity.”
City officials said that the city’s Retail Advisory Committee has been researching the benefits, costs, and success rates of hiring a retail consultant for the city in recent months. After meeting with and researching several consulting firms, the committee voted to recommend the hiring of The Retail Coach as a retail consultant for Brownwood at a cost of $45,000. The committee suggests this cost be split three ways by the City of Brownwood, the Brownwood Economic Development Corporation, and the Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce.
“One of the things I like about the proposal the most is that, when we talk about recruiting, you don’t want to take a shotgun approach, you want to take a rifle approach,” said Brownwood Mayor Stephen Haynes. “You want to specifically target where you know that there is a need. This, to me, is a tool for us to identify a specific need.”
The three organizations will vote to approve funding for the hiring of the Retail Coach at each of their regular board meetings over the next two weeks. A final decision is expected to be reached by the next city council meeting on May 24.
