Today, I dive into brick and mortar retail trends with Steve Hart, the founder and CEO of the retail architecture and planning firm DedON. With projects all over the world, this North American-based company specializes in designing and optimizing retail spaces for clients such as Polo Ralph Lauren to Cineplex and Loblaws. Steve compares interviews with clients in 2019 with interviews from 2021, identifies changing trends in technology and materials, and lays out key takeaways for retailers that are opening their doors again.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
With vaccination rates steadily on the rise, retailers are now facing the reality of business after lockdowns. So, what’s going to be different?
Today, I dive into brick and mortar retail trends with Steve Hart, the founder and CEO of the retail architecture and planning firm DedON.
With projects all over the world, this North American-based company specializes in designing and optimizing retail spaces for clients such as Polo Ralph Lauren to Cineplex and Loblaws. Steve compares interviews with clients in 2019 with interviews from 2021, identifies changing trends in technology and materials, and lays out key takeaways for retailers that are opening their doors again.
Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a rating and review, as it really helps us grow so that we can continue getting amazing guests on the show.
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week
Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
With vaccination rates steadily on the rise, retailers are now facing the reality of business after lockdown. So, what's gonna be different?
Today, I dive into brick-and-mortar retail trends with Steve Hart, the Founder and CEO of the retail architecture and planning firm, DedON. With projects all over the world, this North American based company specializes in designing and optimizing retail spaces for clients such as Polo Ralph Lauren to Cineplex and Loblaws. Steve compares interviews with clients in 2019 with interviews from 2021, identifies changing trends and technology and materials, and lays out key takeaways for retailers that are opening their doors again.
Steve Hart
You know, until you have a green light, you don'. But you have to anticipate it and plan. But, it still helps us just to know something's out there, and it may be coming. It just it helps. And, then I would just say, you know, the other thing is that I think a lot of our, a lot of our customers have downsized their internal teams, which kind of, you know, I'd say from the executive level, I think your people are going to need quite a bit of support to pull some of this stuff off. So, again, just having those, those partners or those vendors.
Michael LeBlanc
Let's listen in now.
Steve, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How you doing this afternoon?
Steve Hart
Wonderful, Michael, thank you for having me.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, thanks for joining me. You know, much appreciated part of the retail ecosystem, when I think about the physicality in store. So, I'm really looking forward to our conversation. You know, we were talking off mic about how organizations like yourselves and things we do we, we want them to look, to make it look easy to the clients, but a tremendous amount of work and experience goes into making it look easy. And, I think I think you're probably the embodiment of that. But anyway, we've kind of jumped right in, why don't we start a little bit back in the beginning, tell us about yourself, your, your personal professional journey and what you do at DedON.
Steve Hart
Yeah, well, number one, I am the founder and CEO of DedON. So, I started the company when I was 22 years old. You really have nothing to lose when you're that young.
Michael LeBlanc
Right on,
Steve Hart
So,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Steve Hart
I studied architecture at a high school, and really always love architecture from the standpoint of how space influences people's experiences of anything. And after that, I started working at a millwork company. And, that sort of let me really experience everything from initial design, surveying, making sure everything was going to fit, the actual installation process. I saw that from the working side. So, that really led me you know, along that way, and then, you know, like I said, when I started the company, when I was 22, I left the millwork company, because I have a lot of, you know, I'd like to do it my way in my head and,
Michael LeBlanc
Right,
Steve Hart
Thought I'd take a shot at it. So, that's, that's kind of who I am leading into DedON.
Michael LeBlanc
We'll talk about the company today. Scope, scale, where you operate, where you know, where, where, what kind of clients, you have. What, obviously retail clients, of course, but you know, and where you operate, how many people work for you. Give us just a sense of the company.
Steve Hart
Yeah, I mean, first of all, we'll start with the name. I always get questions about the name DedON and its origin. It's a little different, it actually came from friends of mine that, you know, working, I always said, you know, a drawing had to be 'dead on'.
Michael LeBlanc
Ah, I see,
Steve Hart
And I wasn't doing to name a company one day, it was just a saying.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Steve Hart
So, it kind of stuck as the name of a company. So, that's, that's sort of the pronunciation of it. But, so DedON is, has really evolved over the years. When I started when I was 22, really what we were, it was, the company with me for the first six years. And,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Steve Hart
I traveled around North America doing survey. So, I did them on my laptop back then. I was really big on, I don't want graph paper and rulers, I want to put it right into CAD, right on site, you know, I can get it much more accurate. I had a lot of ideas on how I could do that. So, you know, over those years, I saw a lot of retail. You know, hands on, in the field, popping ceiling tiles, going on roofs, investigating back of house, front of house, you know, every, you know, not just you know, the structure, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, but also the layout of the shop. And, and so, just had a really interesting experience of that from, you know, better half of a decade and a half of being out in the field an awful lot.
But since then we've really evolved into more of a full service store planning company. And, our evolution really was a pull from our customers who said, 'It's great, you can get great surveys, but now can you lay out the store because we're a little strapped'. And you know, we had that evolution into that. And really what we've learned with that, that was probably about 12 or 13, maybe closer to 15 years ago now, the company's 23 years old. We're about 40 employees spread out across Canada and the United States. So we're completely active in both markets. We've actually worked in about 20 countries. We've done rollouts through Europe, Mexico, Caribbean. I will, wouldn't say just for listeners, that's not really our focus area. But, we took North American customers and we went beyond the borders of North America for specific rollouts. So, we're,
Michael LeBlanc
So, so is it fair to say that you would go in those international assignments to help your clients based in North America versus trying to go get North, global business? Is that a fair statement or fair care, way to characterized?
Steve Hart
Right, yeah. And I'd say our definite focus is the North American market. We're based just outside Toronto is our head office. But, nowadays, I mean, you know, you could be anywhere.
Michael LeBlanc
Sure,
Steve Hart
We're just as active. Historically we've been more active in the United States with projects than Canada, just because of the, the size of the market. But, in a nutshell, I would use to describe our company that, you know, our sort of tagline that you'll see when you hit our website is, 'Helping brands prepare for, plan, and execute in-store change with confidence'. So, we're, we're real excited about these conversations. And you know, I mentioned off air too, I've been a longtime listener of your podcast, because I'm really interested to see where retail is going. I'm really excited about the evolutions of it. So,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, you know, tell me a little bit more about how you've made inroads in the US market? I mean, typically, it's a crowded market for suppliers. And it's a, it's a big market. What, what is it about your organization that they look to? And how did you how did you crack that market? I think the listeners would be really interested in, and retailers and everyone else, be particularly interested in how you came to focus, not just focus but, but be successful south of the border?
Steve Hart
Yeah, I would say to crack the market, you know, really, just in the early days of DedON it was, you got to do what you got to do. I used to, I used to just drive a lot, from location to location to location. I never really, funny story, our first big retail customer was Polo Ralph Lauren, out of New York. And, I literally just cold called, talk to somebody, they said, 'Yeah, we need some surveys done, we'll give you a try'. And years later, I've known him for now 20 years, he said, 'Man, if I would have known you were a one person crew, there's no way I would have, but you had a website, you called'. Anyway, we just started where we just, you know, we'd made contact like that.
And then I was lucky enough that some of that personal intersection of what I'm good at, and what I like to do, that I can always see space, back and forth from the drawing to real life, back and forth, back and forth. It just, it just came to me. So, the idea of going to a location and helping, in this example, someone like Polo Ralph Lauren, you're going to, you're going to completely build out a new space here, what do you need to know? You know, I could capture a lot of that information. And I could do it very accurately. And that, it's a nice happenstance that, that our hallmark over the years, not just in the US, but in Canada, has been our level of quality, the number one feedback we get from our customers, and I think, when we talked about expansion into the US, it's really expansion into any market if you, if you offer something that's it's hard to get, and I don't think, you know, when we first went into the US, I wouldn't say that the site survey industry had a great reputation for very accurate, and we right from day one made a promise that if it's wrong, we'll go back and make it right on our dime. And that usually gave them the confidence to go with us. But then, to be honest, it was more word of mouth growth, just on that, on the site survey side. And then, just by the evolution, like I described earlier,
Michael LeBlanc
Right,
Steve Hart
As retailers coming out of saying, 'Well, you do this pretty well, can you do that?'
Michael LeBlanc
Right?
Steve Hart
And that's where we really expanded into other areas.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, you certainly set the bar high with a name like DedON. I mean, the expectation,
Steve Hart
Yeah, we did,
Michael LeBlanc
You got a brand to live up to there for sure.
Let's talk about retail in the before time. You've been operating in retail for, you know, almost a quarter century 23, 20, 23 years or so. And, and where I'm going with this is I want to get a sense from you what, what were the trends and what you were being asked to build and what the builds look like pre COVID. And then now we've all had this experience, and thankfully, we're getting to the other side of it, so I want to first start about what, what you were being asked to do, as I said, pre COVID, and then try to get some sense, you know, you're the tip of the spear, you're being asked, you know, to build do the builds, and what retailers are reflecting on, what lessons were learned during COVID. Or, changes in consumer habits that they expect to build differently. So, once you, let's start at the beginning, what, how did you approach a pre COVID? And what were the big trends?
Steve Hart
Yeah, I would say leading up to COVID, and 2019 was kind of the ultimate pre COVID gauge because we were on quite a growth trajectory. We had introduced many new customers, and we're seeing absolute trends in what everyone was asking for. And we were quite busy and predicting quite a sharp increase again in 2020. But then, as I've been saying, we were kind of rudely interrupted with COVID. But, there was some really definitive trends. And, I'd say number one was that the technology integration like touchscreens, self-serve checkouts, integrating technology into signage and pricing. That was a fairly universal initiative that was being pushed across not just like QSR quick service restaurant, but in many retailers as well. So, we saw that trend across many of our customers.
Michael LeBlanc
Is that, it feels like in the early days of that technology, they were kind of orphans in the design.
Steve Hart
Oh, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
Right, there was just like a paddle still stuck in the middle of somewhere, maybe it's in the right place, maybe it's in the way, but it wasn't, it didn't feel organic to me. I mean, I ran a store of the future program, and in that you're just experimenting. But it did feel like I, I don't want to say an afterthought, because the technology was starting to take such a big role. But, it from a design perspective, it was, it must have struck you as, as kind of a, even an orphan, or just kind of stuck in the middle somewhere. So, I can really relate to how you would be asked to start thinking about how it integrates more deeply and natively, so to speak.
Steve Hart
Yeah, and Michael, I would say that the, the point that, that came across to us was the internal teams handling store design were not usually the internal teams developing the technology. and they felt almost threatened by it, the in-store folks. That was definitely a trend before that there was, there was just the beginning of trying to figure out how to integrate the bricks and mortar in-store with online. Because leading up to it, like I've literally been in our customers offices where, like, there's this adversarial, us and them between the online team and the bricks and mortar. Like online is trying to eat our lunch kind of idea, instead of, and that's definitely evolved during this period of time.
But, but sticking to the pre COVID, I think that was, you know, it was the early days, like you said, of, 'Okay, we have this technology, the technology can help us and it works. What does it look like to get it in the store?' That was just such a prevalent conversation. And there was lots of different retailers testing and trying different things. But it, it felt very, like you said, very new, like everyone was trying to figure it out for the first time.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Steve Hart
You know, and I'd say the last piece that was, again, I would say, it was starting to pick up some real momentum that we saw, from the store planning side, was a, was a heavier adoption of, of modeling, you know, specifically in programs like a Revit, which is like an integration of like a 3D architectural modeling and a database, really trying to mine out more bricks and mortar data points that would inform buyers, would inform other parts of the organization. Because, for the most part, what we were talking about was a store planning group that had no resources ever given to maintain the drawings, right. And, as people hear me say that they're gonna, 'Yes, of course,' right like, and that was just, just so all store planners out there know that, that is a universal across the board experience.
But it really was that 'kicking the tire' of how do we move into Revit and such and, and into that sort of data collection. And, I was lucky enough to be in many conversations with the, at the executive level, where they were trying to figure it out and go there. And, I can talk for an hour on that. I won't go down that. But just as a, as a nugget, I think that was a real big focus across retail was that, that, that shift to a smarter way to design and tell what your store look like,
Michael LeBlanc
Well unpack that for a little bit, talk for a minute, if not an hour, about what data points you're talking about. Is it store traffic? Is it flow? What, what data is the input that, that is making the output richer?
Steve Hart
Yeah, I would say we were looking at it from the angle of more specific to store layouts and the placement and size. I'll give you an example, like we have some customers in big box, we have some in QSR, some in banking, some in all kinds of different industries, but one thing that was pretty prevalent was they really didn't understand it at a definite enough level to compare with sales, exactly how much space each product type was being given in a store.
Michael LeBlanc
Oh I see.
Steve Hart
And its relationship to other things. Right, because typically what they would have is they would have a, I always looked at AutoCAD as automated hand drafting. That's what AutoCAD was, right. Like it has some intelligence built into,
Michael LeBlanc
Like doing the same thing just faster, right?
Steve Hart
Yes,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah.
Steve Hart
It's just an automation of, of sort of dumb 2D lines. They don't, they don't know what they are. They don't know they're a cabinet. They just know they're a box.
The next step from that was moving to try to understand not only the placement, but the size of certain things. How much space departments are taking. I'll give you an example. We did a layout for a major bank brand in the United States several years back and, and they came to us and they have you know, 1000 locations in this one region of the United States and they just purchased another bank and they wanted to you know, renovate the space. And they came to us thinking all these, we estimate the average, we're gonna be about 4500 square feet a branch. So, we're kind of you know, that the old paint patch approach. We're going to put some new branding, you know, maybe new carpet, paint, etc,
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Steve Hart
And we had to do some fairly, fairly simple surveys, I would say. But they, they got some key information about spaces and what furniture they would need. And so, they could so then, they could put the plan together to go the rest of the way.
And when we actually did that survey and put everything together, the actual average square footage was 8500 square feet.
Michael LeBlanc
That's almost double, almost double.
Steve Hart
Completely blew the doors off everything they were trying to do,
Michael LeBlanc
Oops.
Steve Hart
But they didn't they couldn't get that information out of the hodgepodge of drawings they had. So, there was a, I think it was just a, the, the data component of the business and how they analyze sales and such was so advanced that but the one area they couldn't advance the way they wanted to was the, the physical bricks and mortar space. Like what do we know about it, right. Like in most cases, and,
Michael LeBlanc
How interesting,
Steve Hart
This isn't a slight on anyone, it's just kind of a, our experience, it's, it's pretty rare that somebody has, has a drawing in CAD that would stand up to the scrutiny of a real survey. When someone gives us a drawing, we've gone into brand new stores that were just built, and we find walls that are three feet off. Right?
Michael LeBlanc
It sounds like some of my home renovation.
Steve Hart
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
It sounds familiar. It's interesting. Okay, so now we've got a set of things that are improving, you at some intersection of technology and, and all that great stuff. Up comes COVID. We've talked about it, my good friend, Carl Boutet, has talked about it as the great acceleration. You know, move things forward years. It's certainly, you know, when I think of store design, I can imagine, I can only imagine what, what retailers are thinking and asking and getting you to build today. But, I don't need to imagine I have you. So, tell me what you're hearing and how you see the next short, medium and long term. And what changes COVID, do you think has brought on in the, in the store design and in your line of work?
Steve Hart
Yeah, it's interesting, because we, it's an interesting question, because we actually stopped and made the effort where I reached out in the spring of 2020 to most of our customers. Took some time with them. And, I usually requested 15 to 20 minutes and occasionally went over an hour, I was just asking for their perspectives, because that's really, we don't, I don't sit here and kind of pretend to know what's going on until I get that reflected in our customers and what they're seeing. And when you bring that into aggregate, there was some really cool trends.
So, for us, the spring of 2020 was a full stop on anything non-essential,
Michael LeBlanc
Right,
Steve Hart
Like, so obviously, the amount of work we were doing, you know, the brakes got hit pretty hard on that.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Steve Hart
And luckily, we had some, some customers, some pretty significant customers that were deemed essential. And their essential projects continued. When I sat down and talk to people about, you know, what, what is the world look like in that kind of that June 2020? So, we're a few months into it, but we're still, you know, a year ago, we were in a very different headspace than we are now, I'd say the number one thing that kind of came back were, like you said, like, this is a great time to accelerate things that it was described almost as long-term aspirations became short term opportunities. Like, like tech adoption, right. I had one customer said, 'You know, we had this whole five-year plan to get our customers to move more on the tech side of things, and COVID did it in three months'.
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Steve Hart
Right. So,
Michael LeBlanc
So, cultural stuff, you're talking cultural stuff as well, right?
Steve Hart
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But what it was doing from a design standpoint, is you know, we had in certain cases, we had programs to, like on, on the books to roll out certain store designs or whatever, that were completely put on hold, and they're not coming back,
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Steve Hart
Simply because the tech adoption now we don't need to teach people how to use the tech. And a lot of things were geared at that. And also, the questioning started whether online and bricks and mortar were mortal enemies are not. That really did come up in spring 2020. Because, I think most businesses, if you weren't essential, were relying on online a lot more than you ever thought you would this soon.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Steve Hart
So, that conversation started to come up. And then specifically in store design, it was a lot of touch, or a lot of, a lot of talk about safer stores. Because a year ago, it was a really, like we're gonna have to live with this. And, even then I think the science on you know how COVID traveled, I think today there's, there's more science around it airborne and interior spaces isn't the primary,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Steve Hart
Thing but back then it was heavily believed that it was like surfaces. Like you touch that and then I touch that and I can catch it. So, there was a lot of talk about what type of materials to use in store. There was a lot of talk about backing up from touchscreens and, and high touch like the tech that would allow people, self-serve, that you know, everybody would be touching. And, there was a lot of talk about PPE and, and how to divide customers from employees with you know, the plexi we've all seen and, and different aisles and that was, that was pretty much the main point of conversation in spring 2020.
Michael LeBlanc
Did you think, a good year, a good year to launch a plexiglass company, I think.
Steve Hart
Oh, can you imagine? Yeah, yeah, it would have been.
Michael LeBlanc
You know, you bring up a really interesting point, I just want to, I just want to follow up a little bit. I was talking to a retailer last week, and we're just reflecting on, you know, lessons learned. And one of the things he mentioned was, you know, and he brought up something I knew, but hadn't thought about in the same context, how many people in Canada got the flu or got head colds this year?
Steve Hart
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
You know, it's, you can literally count it on, you know,
Steve Hart
It's lower, I believe.
Michael LeBlanc
It's in the hundreds, it's in the hundreds, like, it's, it's next to nothing. And, the point you made was, you know, the COVID era may fade, thankfully, thanks to science, if all goes well, but what if, what if, you know, we can have years that go forward, thanks to what we've learned about infection control, now all of us too much to learn some days, do you think that's going to apply? You've talked about touchscreens, you talked about all these things, so yes, COVID goes away, as life, as a life-threatening pandemic. But you know, the flu still comes and goes, and it's quite unpleasant at the best of times, do you think, you think the lessons are going to be learned about, 'Hey, you know, we should, we should adopt these things and put them into place in different ways?' And, you know, what do you think of that?
Steve Hart
Yeah, I think there are going to be some items that will absolutely affect store design. That I've described it this way, I'd say in the short term, which I'm going to describe as the next five years, it'll be mandatory, because there'll be a large portion of the population that won't feel safe without them. And,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Steve Hart
I've already had the conversation of like, if tomorrow, they said, 'No more mask, we can do whatever we want'. I don't know that I'm ready to take off my mask, and I wasn't the first person to put it on either. So, it's quite a year later, it's quite a mind change. Because
Michael LeBlanc
You wouldn't, you wouldn't know it looking at looking at some of those pictures of Memorial Day in the United
Steve Hart
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
States.
Steve Hart
Yeah, yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
My goodness, they, they,
Steve Hart
That's a different world, for sure.
Michael LeBlanc
It's a different, but you operate in that world too, right, I mean,
Steve Hart
Yeah, we do, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
You know, as you say, you know, it's interesting, you describe the short term as five years. So, lends, lends me to your perspective, but you know, this thing's not going away globally, for years. We'll be inoculated and that, that kind of 18 months of experience. So go ahead,
Steve Hart
Sorry, just to finish my thought about the, the sort of the during COVID. Because, I touch base again, in the winter of 2021. And again, had those conversations, now there's sort of the evolved thinking of what stores are going to be and, and come around to things. And this is even before vaccines were really rolling. The number one thing is that a lot of the store planners we talked to, are really wrapping their heads around the customers expect the environment to be different. From a safety standpoint, mostly, but it's also being viewed as a really, if there was anything you wanted to change and try, you probably have a little more leeway in the customers mind to try it out, maybe even get it wrong, and then try it again. Because a customer walking back in, sort of the universal thing that I kept hearing was, we have to do something because if a customer comes back into our store, and it looks exactly the same, it won't be good enough,
Michael LeBlanc
Oh, that's interesting.
Steve Hart
Because there's been so much change.
Michael LeBlanc
Interesting,
Steve Hart
Which was quite a shift in thinking. So, now all of a sudden, we're in all these conversations about, 'Okay, what does change look like?' and then along with that there's been this, 'Maybe online and bricks and mortar on enemies anymore. Maybe they're friends that can play nicely together', which now there's all kinds of talk across our customer base, especially in some of them were already rolling out things like curbside pickup and, and such prior and this accelerated it. But, I would say there's, there's a lot more discussion about that retail level fulfillment. Whether it's, you know, restaurants expanding the back of house to do, to cater to more delivery and more,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Steve Hart
Takeout or its retailers doing, trying to fill in that last mile delivery, or be more of a fulfillment center and a store to kind of double use that. And, I've heard some of your guests talk about the same kind of things. And, we're hearing the same. A lot of right sizing retail locations. Maybe the downtown isn't the only place we can go, maybe the suburb. There's, there's a lot of that, but I would say the consensus now is that there is a, there is a boom coming. It just nobody can pick the date.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, I mean, it's a great, it's a great way to pivot off to my last question for our time here together. And, you know, we have listeners who are retailers and listeners who are part of the industry. What, what advice do you have to retailers about how to best get, how to get the best out of their partners like yourself? I mean, you've been, you've been doing this for 20 plus years. What's your advice to the, on the buy side, the decision makers, the folks who have to put into place the decisions that are made, what, what are the things you've learned that you would say, 'Listen, if you as clients would do these three things we'll, be, it'll be one plus one equals three', like what would those pieces of advice be.
Steve Hart
Yeah, we actually have this conversation with new customers, often because it's kind of startling. My first one may be startling to some people, but it's have high standards of your suppliers. We actually run into some situations where, you know, we want the push to be better. If, if somehow we're not hitting the mark exactly. Don't take it as something that's just okay, well that's good enough. I think give good feedback, push the suppliers to be there. Because, I think especially in the kind of change that's coming, like we all win and all lose together, right.
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Steve Hart
As store planners, we don't look good if the store opens later over costs or anything like, we don't win, even if the drawing is right, I mean, we don't win. So, I'd say just have those high standards and expect the quality and on time to be there.
Two, I'd say let's talk early and often. That's the number one like, so the number two thing I say is, is 'The more we know, something's coming'. And I don't even need a schedule. I know, I know, in the world of retail things move very quickly. But, you know, until you have a green light, you don't, but you have to anticipate it and plan. But, it still helps us just to know something's out there. And, it may be coming. It just it helps. And, then I would just say, you know, the other thing is that I think a lot of our, a lot of our customers have downsized their internal teams, which kind of, you know, I'd say from the executive level, I think your people are going to need quite a bit of support to pull some of this stuff off. So again, just having those, those partners or those vendors that are there to have those conversations with, to provide that support.
And finally, is it kind of starting to feel a little bit like 09, 2010, because we experienced that full throttle, where same kind of thing from a business perspective, we got real quiet. And luckily, we had, again, a couple of customers that were doing quite well at the time. So, we survived it. But the demand of resources is going to get high soon. It's, you can just, you can feel it. I mean, I'm talking to construction companies and
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Steve Hart
And fixture manufacturers and everything, like well if this thing starts to go. That was the biggest challenge where you know, a retailer would want 'Okay, it's 2010 times are good, let's roll'. Like, but we can't get the crews to build, like we,
Michael LeBlanc
Right,
Steve Hart
Don't
Michael LeBlanc
It's a people business, right. It's people, materials.
Steve Hart
Yeah, absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc
Time, doesn't happen overnight.
Steve Hart
We already know what materials look like these days.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, no kidding, supply and time. Well, listen, it's great, it's great advice, it's a great way to wrap up our conversation because you know, it's a good, it's both a great advice and a good, I would say warning. But you know, heads up, if a lot of work comes, you know, we can, you know, we can't always get it all done. So, tell us in advance even if you don't have the final details, that's great to, a great way to kind of wrap up advice.
Michael LeBlanc
So listen, where do, where can listeners go to learn more about, about DedON and get in touch?
Steve Hart
Yeah, I think our website is our primary landing spot, DedON.com. It's D E D O N, we dropped the A because that's kind of negative, but it's pronounced DedON even though it doesn't know, the word dead in there.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah.
Steve Hart
And, you know, it gives you a pretty decent overview. But, at the same time, Humzah, who is our Head of Business Development and myself, we, we basically spend our time talking to customers. So really, what we're saying is we just want to talk to you, to hear your unique challenges. And, there's no real one size fits all even though, you know, we have a toolbox of things that can apply to almost everybody. So,
Steve Hart
DedON.com.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
All right.
Steve Hart
Give us a call.
Michael LeBlanc
Alright, well, fantastic. Well, Steve, thanks for coming on The Voice of Retail and allowing me and the listeners to explore this element, all important element of retail trade. And, I wish you much continued success and, and sounds like a fun journey for the next couple of years as we, as we pull out of this thing. So, congratulations again. And thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Steve Hart
My pleasure and good luck, everyone. It should be, should be fun.
Michael LeBlanc
Thanks for tuning into today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure and follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you enjoy podcasts so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. And if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Michael LeBlanc
Until next time,