What's This Place? Behind the Clicks and Mortar with Miranda Black

Collected Joy

September 23, 2021 Miranda Black Sharon Smyl Season 1 Episode 1
What's This Place? Behind the Clicks and Mortar with Miranda Black
Collected Joy
Show Notes Transcript

Sharon Smyl had a stable job making good money. She got the entrepreneurial bug and gave up all that security to open a bricks and mortar store at the peak of the Retail Apocalypse. She's seven years into it now.  She even opened a second store...right before the pandemic hit. And she has plans to open more stores! Where does Sharon Smyl's business optimism come from? And how can all retailers be this filled with joy?!  What is Collected Joy? Let's go inside and find out.

Enjoying the podcast? I am fiercely independent, and rely on listeners like you to help me stick around.
Can you share the episode on social media, or write a
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review in Apple podcasts?! I would be so grateful.

Collected joy is the perfect store to start this podcast with because its first year in business...late 2014 to late 2015...was a significant year in retail. Anyone with a little skin in the game knew the Retail Apocalypse was tearing through retail giants and little guys alike. Radio Shack, Sears, Office Depot...Do you remember this? They were just gone, or chopped up and sold. At my store, brands that I trusted, family brands three generations deep, were being bought up by investment companies. Local men's retailers that have been in business for 50 years were just closing! In October 2014, I could have been looking out my window on Bloor Street wondering: why the heck would anyone want to get into retail right now?  It is so bleak!

Well, across the city from me on the East Side...Sharon Smyl, who had a stable job in the advertising world, making good money, medical benefits!! She's got two teenage kids and a house! Somewhere along the way, she got the entrepreneurial bug and she gave up all that security to open a store at a point in history when the analytics might say...This is not the right time! Sharon Smyl did it anyway, and she's six years into it. She even opened a second store right before the pandemic hit, but she has plans for more stores on the way.
Who is Sharon Smyl.
And what is Collected Joy?

What's this place. What's this place, this place let's go inside and find out.

Sharon, what is this place?

So the store is collected joy. It is a, not yet chain.  It is a store of two plus an online store.
I opened October, 2014 here on Kingston road. And in November of 2019, I opened up on Mount Pleasant.
So I have two stores here in Toronto. For all intents and purposes, this is a gift store. It is a store filled with all of my favourite things.

So you opened your second store and then the pandemic happened pretty soon after.

Yeah, I did. Yep.

Wow. So I'm going to just go back before we get into that whole shenanigans.

Sure.

How did you come up with the name of the...

So the name of the store, it kind of happened organically. I wanted the store to be a place filled with things that I loved. The irony with all of this is I'm actually not much of a shopper. I like to go into places where I feel like somebody put a lot of thought into whatever it is they pulled together.

Sharon may not like shopping very much, but you certainly can't tell by the curated collection of our goodies. Everywhere you look is well, a joy for your eyes, your nose, your skin. The store is a comfort. So shopping may not be her game, but gifting certainly is.

The idea of collecting things and having a collection of things. That's where we landed. When I wrote the business plan, I wrote it:
How do I want people to feel when they're in the store?
I want them to feel welcome. I want them to feel joyous. I want them to feel like they belong. When we were toggling the ideas, Collected Joy came up and it worked perfectly.
But also my mom's name is joy.

Oh.

And my daughter's middle name is joy because of that. But when I was 15, my mother...I'm from a small town in Alberta. She opened a store called Just Joy's. So it just was a little bit of an homage and a nod to my crazy wackadoodle mom.

Is she still around?

She sure is. And so, she's so sweet and she's a complete, like we all are, a pain in the ass and she's fabulous and great. And so she called, when I told her about the name of the store. And she said, I know you didn't name it after me, but I just think it's really a sweet name. And she was very sweet and I go, oh, and I told her, I said, well, I didn't not name it after you. So, you know, it's...

Yeah, of course, she's in there.

Yeah.

Do you have a partner in this business or is it all you?

It's all me. I'm I'm incorporated. So it's me, and then my husband is one of the directors. But he's a really silent partner. He actually, there was one time I was expanding into some clothing lines and I need an area for women to change in and I've read Paco Underhill's books and he's all about how people shop...and women have really distinctive ways that they need to shop or else it turns them off...like if things touch their bums, did you know that women will leave a store? Like if they're....ugh. Cause you just go, oof, I don't have enough room or you, and so, yeah. So when we were figuring out where to put the change area, I have this closet under the stairs. He's like, Well, this'll work! I'm like, no, no!  So that was the end of that. Like that was that's where I've learned to just not get his involvement, but he delivers things to and from stores and he helps build shelves.

That's so great. So is this your first business? You started six years ago. What were you doing prior to this?

This is definitely my first business. Prior to that, I was a director of marketing, working with Minto for about five minutes. And then I realized I didn't want to do that anymore. But prior to that, I was in marketing at Starbucks for six years. So all of their out of home advertising and the in-store stuff, and I launched their loyalty program. So a lot of everything, and it was a really fabulous experience.
And prior to that, I worked in advertising. So I was on the agency side.

So, did you have a little voice in you? Like something that just wouldn't stop nagging, tapping you on the shoulder?

Yes, I did it probably about 15 years ago. I was out for dinner with girlfriends while I was still in advertising.

We're talking about what do we want to do? And I was able to articulate that I knew I wanted to run my own something. I couldn't get any further than that. I didn't know what it was going to be. I didn't know what it was going to look like at all, but I knew I was going to run my own something someday. It was always this thing in the back of my brain, for sure.  And then when this idea came up, it actually came out of the idea that I knew I needed to work for myself. And I didn't know what that was. And so I just sort of let that happen and evolve. It happened quite quickly, but I kind of just put it out there to say, it's time for me to work for myself. And then this sort of happened.

So at that time, could it have been anything it could have been a coffee shop or, uh?

Yeah, it could.  Yeah, it was, I was actually at a conference. And I texted my husband and somebody who's being on a stage and they were being smart and I'm like, well, they're not smarter than me. And also I was like, they're not teaching me, I'm not learning anything here.
So I texted my husband and I just said, I need to work for me. And his response was YES. And that was it. And then I got home and I go, well, what would it be? And he said, it doesn't matter. You already know that you work harder than anybody I've known. And so whatever you do, you'll just do it really well.  So that was sort of where it ended. And I kind of sat on it for a few weeks and I thought, well, how do I want to feel when I'm working, how do I want to feel when I'm running a business? And there was everything from, I don't want a really big commute. I want to surround myself with people that I enjoy. And I also want to be able to dictate and decide how busy and stressed I want to be and how big I want to get.

I've interviewed about a dozen business owners now, and Sharon is the only one who started her businesses in this Inside Out way. Like, find the feeling that you want in your life and build your business from that. What a revelation to build your business around your ethics instead of the other way round.

So that's what it led to, and then I went: a store would be nice! And a store surrounding myself with things that I love would be nice. So that's how it happened.

So how did you start buying stuff like, oh, well maybe, maybe we're putting the cart before the horse. What would have next step have been now? You're like, I want a store and what are you going to, where are you going to put it? And how are you going to...

What happened was I said, yep, I'm going to open up a shop. At the time I was like,
I'm going to open up a shop near my house because I don't want to commute anymore.
I'm going to open up a place that is going to be easy to maintain that I'm not going to have to do a whole bunch of work to.
I then wrote a business plan. Quite frankly, the business plan is what grounded all of my decisions moving forward. And I wasn't going to write a business plan because I felt like it was all in the back of my brain. I'm like, well, I know what I want it to be. And everything in my head, my husband said, write a business plan and I go, well, what for? And he said, just get it down. So I wrote it and I sent it to him and I go, here's what it is.  He goes, well, I'm not going to read it. He goes, I don't need to read it. He said, you just needed to write this. And I'm like, damn, okay.

Now I don't like him again. It's up and down with this this guy.

I know it. So anyway, I did the business plan and then from it came the, well, how do I want to do this? And how do I want to differentiate it from other gift stores?  I did a whole bunch of business analytics before it even opened up the store. I did the, does it make sense to open up on Kingston road? What are the economics here? Like what are the demographics? Who shops here? What's their average income, all that data. And then I realized I wanted to make sure that when somebody walked into the store, they didn't get like Oh, yeah, I've seen this before. This is just like XYZ or Chapters or Indigo. So then that led me to, when I source products, the products need to be different and not different for different sake. Cause it has to be different, something that people are going to want to buy that they're going to want to value that they're going to want to spend money on.

I started to dig into products that I thought people would like that I would like. And I found myself very easily going down the road of Canadian, not Canadian themed, but Canadian designed and for the most part Canadian manufactured and made. And I would say probably 80% of my products here are Canadian.
 
Wow!

But you can't tell you don't walk in and see like maple leaf shaped maple syrup in here.  I mean people come in and they go, do you have even Toronto themed..? 
I don't have anything themed. You will come in and you'll be able to decorate your house or find really great cards or a great pair of mittens or whatever, that are fantastic that just so happened to be greatly made and locally made or Canadian made. That's sort of what's led to all this.

That's been a really big push ...for Canadian Made during the pandemic. People I think are talking even more about shopping local and just helping the actual people who live in our neighbourhoods and produce our stuff and sell our stuff to us.

It also just makes it, for me anyway, it gets me super duper excited about the products. The stories behind them are so phenomenal. The greatest gifts that have come from doing this has been meeting the makers and these aren't women sitting in their back rooms, crocheting, doilies. These are women that are like, all right, I got to figure out how to have an environmentally sound pump for my soap, because...and it's all these things and they're smart and they hustle and they worked so goddamn hard and they inspire me every day. So that's what I've surrounded myself with. And I'm in awe of all of them.

Have you noticed any shift in the general population toward buying Canadian since you've opened?

Yeah, I think appreciation has gone up for sure. I think in my small little corners of Toronto and now online, I think I've opened up the window for people to choose Canadian over Bed, Bath and Beyond or whatever, because I talk about both the quality and the fact that it's made locally and people are starting to, they're valuing that more. I think also people like that there's a story tied to what it is that they're buying for somebody or for themselves. I think there's a different kind of magic in that when you're gifting something and you can go, well, you're buying this, you know, love fresh product, by the way, Stacy went to Malvern down the street and her factory is up on Warden and Eglinton, people like that.  And they also love that they can see her stuff at Holt Renfrew they like that.

I have another idea for another season of this podcast to do the, the manufacturers.

Oh my God. Oh, yes!  I could give you a list of 39 of them. And most of them are women and they're so great. And they're just that's...yes...do that. Like I've got on my website, and it's just Meeting the Maker and my questions are stupid and lame, and I want to copy all of the ones you sent me. I'm not kidding. Cause I'm like, Ooh...

Go for it! Go for it!
They say that the most successful stores are ones that are a brand. Do you consider your. To be a brand. Are you as collected joy? A brand?


It's a great question. Two things to that:
1. I am building to become a brand for sure. That's my goal. Do I think I am one now?  I don't know. It's ironic, I'm formerly an advertising person, and I don't spend any money on advertising because I think there's a different way to do it.
Do I think I'm a brand ambassador for the brands I carry? A thousand percent.
When somebody purchases something here and when I tell them the story behind what it is they're buying, that they believe the authenticity of why I'm so passionate about it. So yeah, I would say sure. If you were to say Sharon, tell me all about Slow and Tea. I will tell you how does life story, because she's fantastic. Yeah.

Do you think that people have started acknowledging that their local business owners are an endangered species?

Yes. I think it's, um, changing.

I think what's probably happening more now, especially since COVID and all of this, I think people are now going, hang on a second, why aren't the great, big, huge corporations paying taxes? All that stuff's happening and how much, you know, how many billions does anyone really need all those things? So I think that's happening. I would like to think, and this is me being naive...and I'm also completely jaded now, since this last year really kicked my butt. But I do think that COVID has opened people's eyes to the earnestness of what small business owners, what, who they are. I also think though, that there is a real...and it's been really good...
COVID has helped push the wave of people valuing their local shops more and their local restaurants. There's a real vocal passion that I see a lot and hear a lot and it's really lovely. So I think it's evolved. I have a theory and I don't know if it's founded in anything. So all of the people that have been working downtown and all these big businesses are like, my husband hasn't worn pants in a year because he's in the basement working and I don't know how much of a rush his place is going to want to bring him back if they figured out how to master this at home. I think this is going to make people's communities more valuable to them. I think that people that used to go to The Path to grab their coffee and go grab their candle, they're going to leave their house for the 20 minutes, cause it's better for their mental health...they're going to go and they're going to shop their local shop. Was that loud? Sorry. We had somebody come to the door.

It's a little loud, but it's nice to hear, y'know, customers...
 
Human beings!

If you're interested in advertising on what's this place, get in touch. Here's a little something I put together for the city of Toronto, the place I was born, we've been running away up north for a lot of the pandemic. And now it's time for us to host the north and the east. It's still pretty good here. You'll compare it to other major cities in the world and it won't win, but that's Toronto check out some deals on your favorite hotel app finder.

September is a gorgeous month and Toronto hit a patio. Some stores walk around a park or stay in your room, order takeout from some of the best restaurants in the world. It doesn't have to be crazy. You don't have to go clubbing to run. It's still here. Anyway, back to the show,

Aside from COVID, what is the biggest challenge that you've faced in your business?

So I would say one, I would say COVID yes, but COVID has done a lot of good. It's forced me to do things that I've been putting off for a really long time. So that's been good. There've been things that have happened, that has pushed me into things that I've avoided going: There's no rush for that.

Like what?

Like going online.

Oh yeah.

Going online, getting my inventory really tight. Like knowing what I have realizing that I've got this excess little bits that are living in places that's been helpful challenges for me, I would say, or what I find hard because I. So much maybe is staff labor. So finding the right people and finding the right people who are going to fit and align with who we are as a company, I've been immensely blessed with who I have had and who I currently have working for me and with me, I barely do anything anymore and they just are fabulous.

And it's so great. They're these women that. So effing. Awesome. So I would say staff, labor's hard to find if you can't find people that are aligned. I learned something this past year, and it's a reminder for myself, why I'm here is very different from why they're here. I'm mindfully checking in to make sure that I'm understanding that why they're here, that I'm feeding that need for them.

So if one of them is here because they need to get away from their two little kids at home, then I make sure that her schedule is really, really tight and. She's got the freedom to flex with her kids. That was one of my big things. So labor staff and you know what cashflow just managing cashflow is always important too.

Those are boring. Sorry. No, no. I love the it's inspirational. How you treat your employees. And the thought that you put into your poise. Cause that's your biggest asset. It is. Well, because they really, so you ask about whether I'm am I a brand? Well, yeah, my goal is to open three or four more stores at some point, and I can't get all of them.

I'm trying to make sure that I have a face here and a face up at Mount pleasant, but the reality is I need the people up at Mount pleasant to fall in love with the ladies I have at Mount pleasant. Yeah. Yeah. How do you curate the items in your store? Like how did you go from four empty walls? Coming a store.

Do you travel to find things? How do you find stuff? So what I did to start, I would find various brands and products either online that I just would stumble across, or I go to craft sales. You go to the, not even the one of a kind show, but you go to the Cabbagetown festival, like the cabbage talk show.

And then I get all pathetic and desperate and go, do you do wholesale? I didn't even know how to ask people. I'm like, do you do wholesale? And I didn't even know really what that meant. And then I would send them these dorky notes and I would say, hi, I'm about to open a store. And I knew full well that when I'm about to open a store, you know, nothing about me or how I'm going to treat your brand.

Please trust me. So that's how I started. Did they, I'm interested to find out was everybody like yeah, of course I'll put it in your store. No, they weren't. And so that went really well. It shocked me. So then, then I, you know, at first I'm like, oh, well, how come? Because it then brought me full circle to the importance of brand.

I needed to explain to some companies, some brands like some product owners, why their brand was going to fit with mine. So collected joy is a really good place to be. Ridiculously trending, nor am I ridiculously folksy. I'm very welcoming. I think this is a really good place to come to get a whole bunch of really great, wonderful items.

So when I would approach those and I'm from a small town in Alberta, I've been here for 20 years, but I still feel like this little small town girl, who's trying to talk to this really slick, what I would deem as this is a really slick, cool brand from Toronto. Like this is the cool, so, but then I realized I was.

To let them know that I will treat their brand properly. And it's everything, it's everything for how I talk about it, to how it's placed in the store to even things like where we put a price tag, I'll make sure that where we put our price tags goes in a place that's not going to destroy their packaging because they're important.

That's their brand. That's how it started. And then it started to grow. And now what's happening is I get people emailing me or calling me. If I would sell their stuff, which is really lovely and flattering and great. And then I get to look at things through a lens of one when I have to love it. Like I have to love it.

And if I don't love it, then I'm then I don't, I won't sell it. So now when they email me, they'll ask me if I would like to sell their brand. And I always take a look at it. I put them through a professional lens. There are people that are like, Hey, I'm just starting out. And I can't do your market research for you in my store.

So you know what you want to charge? What sells really well, all those kinds of things. Then I used suggest they go to a local craft show for a couple of years. Grown. And, and there's some things that I know would probably sell well here, but I don't, I don't like them. I don't use them, so I can't sell them authentically.

So I just don't tell them, is there anything that you look for that you would like to be made in Canada, but that we aren't producing here? That's a really good, hard question. Like you have to, if it's 80% Canadian, you have 20%. That's not Canadian, is that because you can't get those things anywhere. No it's because the things that I'm getting that aren't Canadian are also really great and I love them.

So I can I sell these really great Swedish blankets and it's not that they're just gorgeous. And they're lovely. That's a really hard question. What I will say is that when it comes to jewelry, all of my jewelry is Canadian because there's way too many, really great Canadian design. They're so fantastic to choose from that.

I don't need to look at a great little designer from Portland as great as they are, and they reach out to me. It's I have a slight obsession with cards, like funny cards and really good cards. I don't care where they come from. If it hits me in a good place, I bring them in, which explains why I have so many cards.

Right. Have, have you ever heard of the retail apocalypse? No. Explain. So prior to the pandemic, everyone was talking about the retail APOC. But if you haven't heard of it, what you're implying that retails, like going to just go away, closing down, it's only going to be online. So I've heard, I've heard of that.

I don't think I've heard that name. All that even six and a half years ago when I, or seven years ago. When I decided I wanted to do this, people were like, well, you know, you can't, you can't really make a living doing retail and you can't really do this and this. And then I thought, well, but people are right, but people are so not withstanding that Heather Reisman, who also had the Gerry to defund her and back her up with her indigo and chapters, but people still are shopping at indigo and chapters.

People are still shopping at the bay. That's retail back then. I was like, no, I think, I think we're going to be okay. And so now. Point of the what's going to happen. Now? I, I think just the look on your faces when you got to see the inside of a store was really, really compelling to me because it's showing me how much people like to connect and how much people like to touch things and feel them and smell them.

You know, we are. Open for curbside pickup and the number of people that stare inside longingly. I don't think that goes away. I think that sort of stays even generationally. I have a 17 just turned 17 year old and a 14 year old and they shop in stores. They're not necessarily good at shopping online.

They're kind of crappy at it. I think that good retail will continue forever. I think that really great. Awesome green grocer will always do great because people. Go into there. So BU bah humbug. No, I don't think I'm going to go away. What are some of your strategies to stay relevant and, you know, stay, stay open.

So I just wrote a 2122 plan, a business plan slash where do I see myself go from here? My focus is, are, how do I grow my brand within Toronto? How do I grow my brand beyond Toronto? And how do I. Build my online before I even start putting a pen to a checkbook, I'm not going to start investing in advertising or formal advertising.

I'm going to be as grassroots and high touch as I possibly can with things I'm going to kind of wing it. I know that sounds a little bit dumb and a little irresponsible, but I'm going to believe in what I'm doing. I'm going to do it by making my website better. It's a good website. It's highly functional.

It's easy to use, but I'm going to make it better and I'm gonna make it easier for people to shop. I'm going to open up. Two or three stores over the next two or three years, we'll look into doing a pop-up or two and test that I did a pop-up a couple of years ago up in port Carlin. It was fun. It was too far away.

The learning I got from that will then inform the next one. So those are the things that I'm doing and here's the other thing I have no set, hard timelines. I refuse to get caught up in the need to get it done as soon as possible. And that just got to do it. You kind of have to do it and that's sort of it, but think it was in my, not in my first year, but we had people over and a really good friend asked me, what's been your biggest mistake so far.

Oh, I was going to ask you that question. What is that? Wow. You don't want that first year. I ordered way too many of those bags. I thought I'd sell more of them. And then all of a sudden it took them a lot longer. It might true. Can I tell you it might be. I ordered two of them. And so when I'm not saying that I haven't made mistakes, but I'm actually okay with the mistakes that have happened, you only learn from the mistakes, but I genuinely, it might be choosing the biggest mistakes have probably just been stupid, sloppy ordering errors.

Yeah. I think to. You know, rose who works here, goes, you know, we have 37 of those already and I go, Hmm, sorry. Yeah, I would do that. And whoops, seriously when I go, oh my God, no, I need tons of those. And then I look and really have a lot of them all ready and that, and that's just truthfully, that's me being sloppy and lazy.

That's all. Retail is kind of a big ship to turn because you order it. Uh, a few months. I don't know how far it advanced is with you, but with clothing it's eight months in advance. It's seriously. Every time I look at clothing stores, I'm thinking, holy crap, I don't know how you manage your inventory. All those things.

I, God bless you. Well, you're doing it. I look at you and I'm like, she's doing it. She's still doing it. She's doing it in a pandemic. Blows my mind. So we're winging it. It's been really interesting. It's been pretty fantastical. In fact, sometimes I think back to cause March 16th was when I closed down and it was really emotional.

I remember. And I keep getting hints of that emotion. That was a big thing now. Um, do you feel, do you think that coming up to the year anniversary is going to give you some PTSD for lack of a better word? Does it, it reminds you of the time. Yeah. You know, what, as we start to kind of move into the year two of this, and however that's going to unfold because we just kind of keep putting little band-aids on things and yeah, let's close, collected joy.

Cause that's, what's causing the, the growth and the numbers, but it's ridiculous. Whatever Sharon, what advice would you have? For an aspiring store owner. I have two answers to that one, I would say. And this sounds a little bit lame and cheesy. It's know why you want to do it. Be really clear with your why still really clear with my wife.

I know why I'm doing this. The other thing is truthfully and he keeps he's getting credit and he keeps coming up. Read the business plan. It grounded me in. Thinking about all the things, especially retail. And I found it online and just like, how do you write a business plan? And I found one that I liked that I thought wasn't gonna take too much writing.

And it took more than I thought, but it grounded me in making sure I had answers to as many questions that I thought I was going to have to, because when you're writing a business plan, you're always forced to go back to the why you're doing it. And when you're writing, if you're struggling with writing it, because you weren't going back to the why, then you're not.

Is what I would say. I had a business plan by the way. And it was my father who told me to get one that sounds like too much work. And he's, if you're not going to do that work, you're not going to have a store. Oh, okay. I'll go online and I'll figure out the, yeah. It just forces you to answer the questions.

I'll deal with that later. Oh, I have to deal with that now. Oh, here's my other state of guidance or the thing that I learned. Hire experts in areas that you're never going to be an expert in. A lot of people can navigate their way through the, how do I set up my phone and my stupid printer and all that crap.

And if it's done, half-assed no one on the outside will notice, but hire a good accountant. So I don't go to jail for tax. Yes. Yes. Just hire a really good bookkeeper. Hire a good accountant for the first little bit. I had a few small batch vendors out of the U S. That I would bring it into Canada. So I hired somebody for that because I didn't ever want my passport to ever get damaged by me doing a paperwork wrong.

And then me sitting at the border. And these are things that quite frankly, you never should have to get really good at. Just make sure you have somebody you trust that can teach you as you go along, but you don't have to be the expert in it. So hire a good, hire, a good accountant. If you can find one, okay.

We're into the touchy feely part. What is one thought or mantra book or recipe or whatever it is that helps you persevere in retail? My mantra is every day I get to decide that this is what I get to do, because quite frankly, I could, I could stop this tomorrow and go back. And, but I get to decide. And so every day I choose to do this and it's under, so it's my mantra of you.

You're choosing to do this again today. Share. Go and do it and have fun. And if there was one retail super power that you could not live without, what is it? Oh God. Oh, Christy just said something. No, now I can't use it, but it, what did she say? She said resilience. So that's my, that's just a word I like, I like.

Thank you, Christine. I don't know if that's my superpower though. My superpower is keeping things in perspective and looking at things in the long haul. You know, I don't have to, you don't have to solve for this tomorrow. It doesn't have to get solved for next month. We just need to build to the longer game.

It's a long game approach. I'm the two marshmallow girl instead of the one marshmallow girl, you know, that study. No, no. The study with kids where they put a kid in a room and they said to the kid that you can have this one marshmallow right now, or you can wait five minutes and we'll give you two marshmallows.

Right. And so I'm the, I'm the one that I'm willing to wait the five minutes to get. So it also just tells you that I was really like marshmallows and cookies. The pandemic has really pushed that for me to go, okay. If I had to shut down for six months, what would I need to do to make sure that lasts?

What's the long game? How do I make sure I survived? I think it's being able to see. More of a macro longer game perspective. Amazing Sharon, you are an inspirational business owner. We're so thrilled to be able to talk to you and dive behind the bricks and the mortar and people have gotten to know you better.

And. The story behind your store and they want to shop there. Well, thank you. .