INDIVIDUALIZED SMALL-BUSINESS SUPPORT
Tell me what your business is working through.
Whether you are weighing a cost, a policy change, or a new idea, I can look into the details and help you make sense of what you find.
One-on-one support
Tell me what has changed and what decision is on your mind. I’ll ask questions, listen, and help figure out what information would actually be useful.
Customized research
I look into customer trends, industry conditions, policies, tools, or local programs and pull together the parts that matter to your question.
Data summaries & tools
If you have numbers to work with, I can help organize and visualize them. You can also try the eight Business Lab tools with your own figures for pricing, inventory, cash flow, sales, and more.
Community connections
If another organization is better placed to help, I can point you toward local associations, mentors, workshops, and other resources.
A QUESTION I WORKED ON
Brookline Booksmith and the cost of gift baskets
When I met with Brookline Booksmith in March, I learned that gift baskets were an important part of the store’s profits and that the items going into them were getting more expensive. That conversation made me curious about how a larger bookstore like Barnes & Noble handled its gift merchandise. I gathered public import records, organized the messy data, and looked for patterns in suppliers, shipment sizes, and mixed-product orders.
The records cannot tell us what Booksmith pays or how Barnes & Noble prices a basket. They did give me a concrete way to explore the sourcing question and a set of ideas a smaller store could test with its own numbers.
What question is on your mind?
Send me a short note about what you are trying to decide. I’ll respond myself and let you know where I think research or data could help.
Let’s talk ↗