Welcome to the Girl Gang Craft podcast, where we dive in deep to all things business, wellness, creativity and activism for artists and entrepreneurs. We talk with impactful, female driven companies and founders for an inside look at the entrepreneurial experience, where you'll come away with tangible steps to elevate your business. Are you ready? I'm your host, Phoebe Sherman, founder of Girl Gang Craft, artist and designer, and marketing obsessed. We're here to learn together how to expand our revenue, implement new organizational techniques, and cultivate about business practices as we work towards creating a life doing what we love. Let's get started.

Phoebe
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Hello, hello. Hey creatives, welcome back to Girl Getting Craft the Podcast. It is your host today and always Phoebe Sherman, the founder of Girl Gang Craft. And here we are in December. I don't know how we got here. I don't know where we're going. We are laughing through the trauma. We are holding space for the lyrics of Defying Gravity. We are doing our darnedest to be, to be, to live, to thrive, to make it through the holiday season, to grow our business, to make sales, to not be so stressed, etc.. Yeah, here we are in December. We have an episode for you with Allison E from popping up next, and this episode is for you. If you've been thinking about retail, if you've been wanting to dip your toes into retail, whether you're doing sort of a pop up or a long term solution, this episode is for you. Yeah. So here we are. If you're listening to this on the launch day, we are first week of December. We have two events coming up this weekend. We have both our Providence event, evening event at Farm Fresh and our Oakland event, Oakland, California. Our flagship event, if you will. And we are so excited for both events. What can I tell you about each event? Well, Oakland, as we said, is our flagship event. We have the goods, we have a pizza truck. Rosaria, we have tattoos, we have deejay, we have coffee, we have cocktails. All of the things culture pop will be there handing out goodies for free. First 200 people in the door. Get our goodie bag. It will be a grand time. And then over in Providence it is an evening event and we are going to have some entertainment. We have some drag performances, we have a deejay, we have some dancing. We are going to have a good time. We will have cocktails. Harvest coffee is going to do some fabulous cocktails for us, and we're going to have some food trucks and there's food at the venue, so it'll be a great time. Plan to come and like stay a little bit, do your shopping and watch and performances hang out. I'm really excited. And then of course we have our Malden event December 14th. What else can I say? This is our second to last episode of the year. And then I take a break. I take a three week break. I take some time off social media. I am raw team. I'm doing some puzzles, maybe go to nice slow walks with the dog. I'm staring at a pile of sewing stuff like I would like to mend some things. To make some things. Maybe I'll paint some rooms in my apartment, I don't know, but we are rotting. And then I'm starting to dream. We're going to think about next year. I learned a lot of things this year. There were. There's some stuff that can be taken away and studied and learned from and applied to next year. So we'll maybe do. Once I do the thinking about the thing, I will report back. I think that's really it. So let's go ahead and hop into the episode. Alyson earned her B.A. in Communications and Fashion Entrepreneurship from the University of Connecticut, and later her MBA from Babson College. She stayed on a fairly corporate path, spanning from buying, marketing and management for over 15 years before making the leap into full time entrepreneurship in 2018 and never looked back. Alison serves on the Charles River Regional Chamber Board of Directors, where she co-chairs their Retail Collaborative. She resides in Newton with her husband and their three young children. Stay connected with Alison and the Up Next team on Instagram at popping up next at project Dot, pop up and at the Alison E tools. And to ease in, you talk about mental health and boundaries around social media. That seems to be a theme that we talk about with everyone. Intentional creation, balancing and time blocking also a theme we tend to talk about here. Follow us our grog and craft me at Phoebe Shaman and subscribe to our newsletter. And if you are wanting to have grog and craft come to you to be in a city near you, send us an email hello at Grog and Craft. Tell us why we should come to your city. And if you have any venue suggestions, that's always very helpful. Okay, let's dive into it.

Hello. Hello. Today we have Allison Yee on the podcast. Hey, Allison, and welcome to Gong Gong Craft. The podcast.

Allison
Hey, Phoebe, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat.

Phoebe
Thank you so much for being here. So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do at popping up next?

Allison
Absolutely. I'm the founder and CEO of Up Next, which I launched back in 2018. So we're coming up on seven years, and we are all about supporting emerging brands to test drive brick and mortar spaces to develop and grow through nontraditional format, and creating an ecosystem of resources and connections for everyone to thrive in this crazy world of retail. And we did a few different ways which have your share all the details around. But really, we are all about low risk, high impact opportunities for brands to grow.

Phoebe
Amazing. And we also are around seven years, so we have very similar footprints I love it. How did you get into this space? Were you in retail beforehand?

Allison
Yes, I like to say I've worked in every facet of retail, so I did, working on the boutique sales floor. I worked for TJ and merchandizing and planning and allocation. I was a buyer. I was on the retail real estate development side, which is where I stumbled upon the world of pop ups. So I worked in a lot of different parts of the industry and learned so much about each of them to be able to see that some things were really stuck and all the ways, and it was time for a change. And the more that I leaned into that, the more excited I got about what those possibilities looked like. And also, I just have a passion for independent brands and finding ways for them to grow in this landscape.

Phoebe
So how did popping up next come to be?

Allison
Up next came to be through like a series of crazy light bulb moments that I had only read about. But basically at the time I was working for a local retail real estate developer, I had started their retailing creation division, so I had done quite a lot of different hats around retail properties. But as I was going through this, I was getting so much excitement and energy around the process of launching a pop up each time. So giving an opportunity to a brand founder who could never in a million years at that stage signed that five, ten, 20 year lease that a big property was looking for, and then getting this opportunity to get in front of an ideal customer and test things out and not have to pay for the build out of a space or remortgage their home, or do any of these wild things that a traditional lease requires. And I just started thinking, this is the window of opportunity for me to build something and go all in. Because I had always dabbled in entrepreneurship, I had had lots of side hustles and major passion for small business, but this was really that idea, spark, where I felt the confidence to go out on my own, to live corporate life and to really start building something amazing.

Phoebe
And what did those first steps look like for you as you established your business?

Allison
Well, I got the support of my husband, my family to really make this investment in myself and in our lives, to step away from corporate paycheck benefits and go completely, 100%. And I already had a young family. So with lots of responsibilities to juggle and basically just started little by little, looking for the first developer partnerships and opportunities. My very first project that summer of 2018 came through a former colleague, and we built a Pop-Up village with shipping containers as the vehicle. And it was exactly in line with the type of work that we started doing ever since. So finding lots of brands that were interested in this opportunity could only start for a weekend at a time or a week, and wanted to try something new and different and creating lots of collaborations and partnerships with other businesses. So in the food space and the experience space, there was a beer garden and there were all these elements that built and experience that people were attracted to. Early on, I started to see the sparks fly among brands because, as I'm sure you know, from the market world, when people get together and talk and bounce around ideas, it's just phenomenal to see how much bigger and better things can become. So that became a big part of our approach from early on. How can we put people together in a really meaningful way? How can we matchmake not just the brand and the space, but the brands with one another and find their synergies and just open the doors for them to think creatively as their businesses are getting set up?

Phoebe
I imagine that Covid had a toll on your business. Can you talk us through a little bit about what that looked like for you and the small businesses that you worked with?

Allison
Absolute for everyone? Covid was such a shock and a time to reflect and figure out how to make the pivot, but essentially it ended up creating a new pathway for us that up next, that has been wonderful. It has had such a silver lining for us and the brands that we support in 2021, we had the opportunity to start applying for some grant funding and open retail incubator storefronts. So we started working directly with cities and towns and getting public dollars grant funding from a variety of different sources to open these hubs of economic development. Because with all the stores closing and everyone trying to figure out what was next, if they wanted to sustain a permanent storefront, there was a lot of vacancy. It was really sad to go downtown. People were unsure what the retail climate would be long term. We were both meeting that need with bringing vibrancy back to these main streets and downtown, and giving an opportunity for brands. That was way more accessible than we had ever been able to do before. So we launched what we now call project pop up. And essentially we rotate seasonally through storefronts. Sometimes it's a few months at a time, sometimes it's a multi-year commitment to where we've got a great storefront in partnership with the city or town, and then we're opening applications to brands or building collaborations among them, or they're playing together. Sometimes the brand takes the full space, but they get lots of resources through that. They get a rent stipend. So reduced from market rate rent, they get fixtures. We build really turnkey spaces so that they can focus on what it's like to run a brick and mortar day to day, without all of the different pieces that typically go into it. We help them with signage, we help them with marketing, and it's still a lot of work. They still have so much to do on a day to day basis, but they're getting a really great test drive of being in a particular community, deciding if they actually want retail to be part of their day to day, or if it's something that they pull on a seasonal basis as a marketing tool, and then they get the collaboration, the community, our support, the local economic development office, the mayor, whoever it may be. They get a lot of people behind them. They're cheering for their success. So that has been really amazing. We've done over 20 different storefronts to date. We've been all around Massachusetts. We started doing holiday ones where we do little pop up art boxes or small mobile formats for just a quick week at a time. So there's all different ways that this has grown and evolved, and we get a lot of inquiries from out of state, too. So we may be looking to bring this elsewhere beyond Massachusetts, but it's just been a really amazing experience. So as heartbreaking as the pandemic has been in so many ways, there are these little nuggets of hope and light that it has helped evolve for our business and others.

Phoebe
I think what is so important about the work that you do is there's like accessibility to storefronts because like you said, in some of these rents, period, are expensive. And then the contracts you get stuck into, what is that five, ten, 15, 20 year contracts, which as a small business, you know, that's almost like an impossible thing to sign on to you. I mean, we all know that retail is changing all the time. Consumerism is changing, inflation of blah pandemic. I mean, to have this sort of trial space and time to even see if retail is something you like and be to see if it can be fruitful and profitable. I think that's really amazing because as creatives, sometimes we just have to try things and to commit to like a long thing where you have to the long contracts and like you said, paint the walls and get the stuff up and do it. All of those bells and stuff that really on top of that can be really overwhelming and maybe even a poor decision.

Allison
It's true many times that I've seen a small business get in over their heads. Coming from a retail real estate background, seeing amazing entrepreneurs who just sign on for a little bit more than they were ready for, there needs to be this stepping stone. And so that's what we're all about creating and going into something eyes wide open. You're always going to learn so much through that experience. We see and hear that it's transformational, and it doesn't always have the outcome that you expect. You may say, my dream is to have a storefront. I've wanted this all my life. I'm finally here testing it out, and then you may come away from the experience saying, wow, retail is exhausting. I love it when I have the energy and when I'm in my peak season. But there's so many highs and lows, there's so many cycles. I don't know that I want this storefront every day for the rest of my life. Maybe there's a different approach, and on the complete opposite side of that, we also have a lot of entrepreneurs who come into this totally thinking it's a marketing play. I want to do this for the holiday season or whatever it may be, and loving it. Getting the retail bag saying, I'm never leaving this. I want a permanent space. I want to do this and create something special in a physical environment ongoing. So it's really, really interesting to see what the outcomes are. And I think it's a wonderful way to de-risk that whole scenario.

Phoebe
Yeah. And I think the flexibility is really cool in itself as we sort of explore more hybrid forms of selling period, like having just a holiday pop up could be a really cool way to boost your sales and have a presence, but not all the time, and not have some of those hardships of smiles, seasons, employees, Etc. rent

Allison
Exactly all of the factors and variables that go into it. It's true.
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Phoebe
How do you know you're ready to open a store or a temporary store?

Allison
Great question. I would highly recommend that anyone who is thinking about opening a permanent store, if they have any piece of hesitation or financial uncertainty, you test it with a pop up first and that can take a lot of different forms. It can be a weekend, a week, a month, a season. We consider a pop up anything all the way up to a year. But there are a few basic pillars and it comes down to sort of brand readiness and founder mindset, I would say. So do you have an operational website that you're going to drive people from to your store and back online? And sometimes that answer is no. We do get a lot of applicants from people who are not quite there yet. Or have we prioritize that? Perhaps they do a lot of markets, but you do need an online presence to complement your offline presence and some form of social media. I'm not saying you have to go all in with all channels, but something to drive people back to their Instagram or Facebook or whatever it is you've chosen to start building your brand around. And then I would say founder mindset really comes down to being willing to clear your schedule or make accommodations for when you can't. So staffing is a huge part of what makes the store successful. You have to be open for people to find and shop with you. You have to be ready to build those partnerships and hosting events and give people reasons to come back again and again, and literally maximize the time that you have, whether that's a week or a month or a year, this is your chance to really test it and see what you can make of it. So you want to pull as many levers as possible during that time. So those are sort of the three core pieces. And then what's flexible. So there's lots of different ways that you can approach it. As long as you have the baseline and the commitment there's probably a financial component to we walk through budgeting a lot, but you do want to have a cushion so that if you only broke even or if you needed to take a loss because of whatever reason, life, whether retail, you have that bit of cushion in that event.

Phoebe
What are some ways to make sure that your retail space is successful? How are we driving traffic to the space?

Allison
Yes, there are so many fantastic ways to do it. I would start with building out a calendar. So you want to be really proactive about how you're utilizing that time. So you're going to think about all the touchpoints in-store and online. How are you getting the word out? How are you using your physical space? All of your marketing opportunities, windows and storefront. That's a real estate play. Some direct to consumer companies are opening stores because it's cheaper for customer acquisition. It is really putting your brand front and center. So there's a ton of physical opportunity, but you want to complement that online. You want to be sending emails and putting social media messages out there and figuring out what that store experience is so that when people do find you, they're really intrigued and excited. You have to focus on customer service once they get through the door. Beyond that, though, I would say within that calendar, make friends with your neighbors. Get to know the restaurants and other local retailers that are there, and think about how you can collaborate and cross-promote one another. I always like to say a rising tide lifts all ships or shops. In this case, there's so much value in coming into an area and being warm and friendly and open and wanting to support other businesses and having them do the same for you. So that should not be overlooked. Make friends in the neighborhood and then think about what events do I want to do during this time? Am I leading into a holiday season? Can I make something fun out of a January month? Do I do a big sale this time of year? Do I have inventory to clear? Can I bring experiential components and can I do personalization? There are just so many different fun ways to create customer engagement and experience, but you need to be intentional about it.

Phoebe
Yeah. And I think one of the really cool things, like you said, besides that customer acquisition quality with a in person space is also that experiential quality. And thinking about if you want to host workshops or, you know, have gift wrapping, like what sort of activations can you have to entice people to come in on that specific day? And I think that can be really powerful for folks to think about. Some of it translates to the online space, too. And I think that thinking about how we can create experiences both online in person, I think can really create more success than if you're not thinking about that.
Allison Yeah, I totally agree. Thinking of your business holistically, looking at all of these different places that people are interacting with you and how you can have that common thread, how you can do an online workshop versus an offline, how you can collaborate with other brands in multiple spaces.

Phoebe
Yeah, I think the collaboration on quote unquote Main Street can be really fruitful too. You want the restaurant next door to be talking about you. You want the coffee shop to be talking about you. All of these things, like how can you lift each other up when someone physically walking on that street?

Allison
Yes, absolutely.

Phoebe
Okay. What does your day to day look like? What do you do in a day?

Allison
So I take a question. Each of my day is like a little different, which honestly is how I like it. It keeps things really interesting. I love pop ups and working with lots of brands and always discovering something new and learning about a new product or service, or founder and building connection. But generally speaking, I am up early. I've got three little kids are getting all ready and out the door, so that's always kind of a hectic start to the day. But then I have the opportunity to be in my office space here, or work from home, as the case may be, and also have. I do have a lot of zoom meetings. If the team is not gathering in person in the office together, there are about seven of us who meet on a regular basis and put together all of the moving parts of these pop ups and initiatives that we run, and then I spend a lot of time working on external projects and supports and building content for our community and our courses on working with the municipalities. I mean, there is actually no surprise to anyone who owns a business listing. There's so much paperwork that goes into it. So the behind the scenes is not super glamorous. I'm working on lots of grants, application, lots of government contracts, lots of developer contracts, which is not the fun part, but it is the reality of the things that have to go into every week or day to day. But generally speaking, I tend to have more meeting heavy mornings and then more flexible afternoons. That seems to work well with my team and with my flow and, you know, running a business and building a life there, all interspersed. So some days I'm taking the kids to doctor's appointments, some days I'm working late and I'm always refining it. Now I was just talking the other day. We moved our team meetings from 930 in the morning to 1:00 in the afternoon on Mondays, and it's just been like this very small but pivotal change for us. So I'm looking for more and more ways to build that. And we're all just kind of building the right rhythm and schedule.

Phoebe
Do you have any tips for scheduling? What is your calendar system like? Any tips to sort of balance having a family and running a business?

Allison
Sure. So everything does go to my calendar and is very full Google calendar. I've got my work, my personal in different color codes, so I am very much focused on just keeping myself accountable in that way. We do use asana for project management, which has been both a huge blessing and a big learning curve because there's just a lot of detail that can get lost in the shuffle of our various projects. And I would say, hard as it is to give yourself grace to realize that family and the whole mix of life's obligations and exciting opportunities, things are not always going to go according to schedule, and I try to give myself grace about that. I really try to give my team grace about that because we all have different family circumstances, but just being a safe working environment where we can talk to each other about what's going on, both personally and professionally, I don't feel like you can separate the two in terms of like needing to be nimble, have each other's backs cross-train. So if someone is out, you can support each other. So that's just really kind of the human element. And I think that comes above everything else. I do have little tricks that I've picked up along with my own. So if there's something that I'm having trouble getting done or that I know I really need to focus on, I'll start that. Or I'll use an Alexa timer. Something to keep me really focused. Because of course, like everyone, it's easy to squirrel away our time, have a go to social media scrolling or something else. So when you're running a business and you have a lot that you're trying to accomplish, just staying as focused as possible and time blocking or holding yourself accountable in whatever ways possible, I find to be really huge.

Phoebe
What is your revenue stream like then? So you have your classes and then are the small businesses paying you as a consultant, or are you getting some of that grant money? How does that work?

Allison
Sure. So we have a few different revenue streams, most of which are not driven by the small business. So we have municipalities and the grant funding that is one source of income. And then we have the developer contracts, our landlords who are typically paying for exposure or the application process us to matchmake for their spaces. So in those scenarios, we've really shifted the cost on to the property owner or the partner with the city or town where that varies a little bit is through our courses and through the Retail Play grant, which is the community where we're actually launching this month, which is an accessibly price but brand based payment. So that is a membership based. It is about inviting them and to have access to all of these resources and courses and support from us outside experts and each other. And that is where we're making a little bit of a shift where that is becoming something that the brand can pay for, become part of and have instant access to. Because a lot of our other projects involve waiting for the right space to become available, waiting for something in their geography, waiting for the stars to align. There are a lot of different layers of approval, and we want everyone to feel really empowered to just take action and start building something for their business. You can dream all day, but we want you to really be empowered to do it and move things forward.

Phoebe
And what does your team look like today?

Allison
Today we have seven amazing women who are part of the team, an assortment of wonderful contractors as well. But essentially it's myself. It's our CFO who also leads a lot of our project pop up and is a professional photographer. It's our creative director who also runs her own brand and social media agency. It's our catalyst and head of community who is involved in so much of the brand, communication and really understanding the needs and being that support system. We also have our head of strategic Partnerships who is on the matchmaking side, heavily helping to talk with the brands, get to know their needs. She has a great wholesale background, so there's a lot of different pieces that she brings into thinking through what the right fit is for someone. We also have a project manager who keeps the glue together, and asana and all of the paperwork and we have a team coordinator who's our most recent hire, who's really been a wonderful addition to getting through the general inbox and making sure everyone's been tasked with the right thing and that it can move through the system. So I think I got everyone there, but I would say the biggest thread that's been really interesting for me as a leader is that I love working with other entrepreneurs, and it's just happened pretty organically. I've been so fortunate to build a team of people who really enjoy each other's company and are super productive together. We just get a lot done. It is not all a full time team, so we are just as flexible and how we approach scheduling and work as we are with how we approach retail. This is about bringing together people with really incredible talent that can collaborate internally to make a big impact. So it's been one of the greatest joys and sort of unexpected pieces of building. Up next.

Phoebe
I love it. What advice do you have for folks who are thinking about hiring and starting to build their team?

Allison
Let's see, I have lots. I mean, I started as a solo founder. I've been through every stage of this and for some people that is what they want, that they really thrive on that independence and not having to meet anyone. And I think there is a sustainable path for that through other partnerships and contractors. But if you are thinking of hiring someone, whether that's part time or full, get really clear on what you want that role to look like as early as possible. Think about what you are struggling with, what you think someone else doing. It is really hard as a business owner to be wearing all the hats all the time, and I was pretty aware of that early on in terms of wanting to hire people smarter than me, bringing in other skillsets and not being afraid to say when I don't know something because it takes so long to get it through the path of figuring it out. Perhaps not to land in the ideal spot. So just looking at sort of what your core capabilities are, what you really enjoy doing, what you don't want to offload to a new team member and then what you really do need, what would make a huge change in your day to day and just start putting it on paper. A job description can evolve. And then I think as clear as you need to be on that, you also need to be open minded for when you are interviewing or connecting and putting the word out to your community that you're looking to make a hire. I think every one of my team members has come through a warm relationship. It's not come through posting on a job board. It doesn't mean you can't hire that way. You certainly can. But I think just utilizing your network and getting to know people, maybe in a different capacity before they become part of your team, can be really instrumental in building a sustainable model.

Phoebe
I love that, I love my team also, and I could talk about this for so long. I think all my current team came from just posting on our social media. Oh well. Some warm relationships, some just internet randoms that have turned out to be really amazing. So I also agree the warm relationship or just posting to your own community where people sort of already get what you're about, I think is a better choice of LinkedIn, etc. at least initially. And maybe I could be wrong.

Allison
But the other thing is, have the mindset of you're always hiring because I will get people reaching out to me saying, hey, do you have anything available? And if I don't, that's okay. I keep their information on file. We can keep in touch if something opens up because I find the people who are proactively excited about you and your brand are the ones that you want to attract. So keep your doors open.

Phoebe
And there's always more to do.

Allison
There is always more to do.

Phoebe
You find someone you like, find something for them to do because there's always something to be done. Okay, so back to retail then. How can folks get in touch with you if they want to start to dip their toes in retail?

Allison
Absolutely. Well, there's a few different ways you can go right to our core website, which is popping up next.com. You can also follow us on Instagram. It's our primary social media app popping up next. We also have a site for project pop up.com and at Project Pop Up I have Instagram at the Allison you and soon we will have the retail playground.com pop up playbook.com. So there's lots of different touch points where you can get to know us, get to know all that we are offering, and providing for support to emerging brands and property owners all over. But we're really accessible. We like to get a lot of information, have you share with us upfront what you're looking for and what your dreams are to test drive brick and mortar. And then we have this amazing team, as we said, that that will keep brands top of mind and that will get you plugged into the right spot. So whether that's our community or physical space or combination, there's lots of ways to connect.

Phoebe
Perfect. So go check out the site. If you are thinking about dipping your toes in the retail space, we'll make sure that we leave all those links in the shownotes. And of course, you can always reach out. If you need more information, we'll put you in touch with Alison and her team and thank you so much, Alison. This has been so lovely. Thank you for being on the podcast.

Allison My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Great to chat.

OUTRO
Thank you so much for listening to the Girl Gang Craft podcast. Head to GirlGangCraft.com/podcast for Shownotes and more. See you next time.