Apr 1, 2010

Understanding ‘The Awesome Experience’By Kevin DaumSBNOnline.com

What if I came to you recently for advice on opening a business? What if I said I was going to open a 15,000-square-foot, brick-and-mortar, retail store selling gift items and furniture? What if I told you I was going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars creating this store? What if I told you it was in suburban Detroit? Put down the phone, there is no need to have me committed. The suggestions I’m making are exactly the choices made by Mary Liz Curtin and Stephen Scannell just a few years ago, and thanks to their understanding of The Awesome Experience, their store, Leon & Lulu, was in the black in less than four months, and today, it is a highly profitable multimillion-dollar destination store in Clawson, Mich.

It’s no secret that most new retail ventures fail, so dissecting the strategy behind Leon & Lulu’s success is a worthwhile endeavor that neatly exposes The Awesome Experience components.

Mary Liz and Stephen love retail. They both had decades of prior retail experience and Mary Liz speaks, writes and consults for the retail industry. As Detroit locals, they were well aware of the economic challenges in their area. With unemployment greater than 15 percent and the decimation of the automobile industry, Detroit business had suffered for more than a decade.

But through their research, they realized that more than 80 percent of suburbanites still had jobs and needed to buy things.

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