If you’re selling something – be it a product or service, you will benefit from attending these bite-sized, 90 minute workshops, designed with your hectic schedule in mind and led by one of North America’s leading retail industry experts, Donna Geary. Each workshop is followed by an optional 30 minute Question & Answer period, so bring your challenges and get solutions. Each workshop includes a workbook.

* These workshops can be combined into half-day or full-day sessions, and can be customized to your business or retail niche. Contact Donna

1. Defining Your Strategy
The days of being “all things to all people” are gone forever. With the influx of competition - including Big Box, Power Retailers and retail or service franchises - the customer has increasing choice and influence over where to spend their hard-earned dollars. Your strategy serves to differentiate you from the competition and develop the appropriate tactics to stay “top of mind” with your target audience.

It’s about

than just Price!
Truly Unique Assortment/Service Offerings
Becoming a Destination
Customer Loyalty
Co-Opitition and Partnering for Success

2. First Impressions
Studies indicate that businesses have a mere seven seconds to capture the attention of a passing customer. Enticing a potential customer through the door is a victory unto itself. Discover how your image, marketing and “storefront” combine to form a single impression in the mind of the customer.
Your Image
The First Point of Contact
Touch Points in the Customer Experience
Storefronts/Windows and Entrances

3. Design and Planning
This interactive workshop is designed for retailers who want to plan their work and then work their plan. Whether you are planning a new store or re-planning an old one, the exercises will force you to take off your retailer hat and look at your store through the customers’ eyes. Shopping is based on some fundamental principles that dictate how you should ideally design and lay out your store.

Learn to optimize your space and opportunities with the following topics:
Storefronts and First Impressions
The Transition Zone
Store Layout
Traffic Flow
Prime Real Estate
Sensory Marketing

4. Merchandising for Shopability
This interactive workshop is designed for retailers who want to take their merchandising to the next level and make their store more accessible, appealing and shopable. Do you plan your seasonal store merchandising based on the products you have purchased, or simply wait for the shipments to arrive and scramble to find homes for it? Do you understand how the customer intuitively shops and place your products accordingly?

Learn to maximize your store’s selling and cross-selling potential
with the following topics:
Emotional Triggers – What are you Really Selling?
Segmenting Merchandise by End-Use
Departmentalizing the Store
How we Shop
Why we Buy
Impulse Purchases

5. Adding the Wow
This interactive workshop is designed for retailers who want to stand out and be remembered as a destination. Regardless of what you are selling, you can add creative touches to your store’s design, signing, displays and the overall shopping experience that will make your customers gasp, “Wow!” With the onslaught of competition and the variety of retail formats available to the consumer, interactivity in your store is a must.

Learn to add the Wow and keep the creative ideas flowing, season after season with the following topics:
Show-Stopping Design and Displays
Developing Themes
Using Colour
Accenting with Light
Event Marketing
Co-Marketing

What participants have said about Donna’s workshops:
"Both polished and professional, Donna Geary enjoys and benefits from enviable international connections in the world of visual merchandising. Sought after by retail giants and educational institutions alike, Donna possesses a delivery style that is down to earth and engaging. Whether solving the challenges of retail giants or instructing small independent business owners in the skill and science of dynamic merchandise presentation, Donna is equally effective and extends the same quality of expertise and professional courtesy. Most importantly, she addresses the issues, delivers the goods and solves the problems.”

Wendy L. McNulty,
Consultant and Professional Trainer to the Craft and Cultural Sectors
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

“ I attended Donna’s workshop at a conference in Toronto and was blown away by her knowledge and experience. I later hired Donna to help renovate my store – after one trip, she was able to understand my business, re-plan my store and provided me with all the tools to implement the plan. I achieved a 15% storewide increase that year, and my customers love the new “look”.

Bruce Tannis
Owner
Mounted Police Gift Shop
Jasper, Alberta, Canada