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Small Business Spotlight: What NYC’s New Normal Will Look Like this Fall
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The post-pandemic future could be a win-win for workers.
Many businesses are preparing to welcome their employees back to the office after Labor Day, but they’ll be returning to a new normal.
“I think this time there’s going to be much more of an interconnected expansion and that that you’ll have more people that might be working in satellite offices or remotely in the suburbs, have a quality of life that’s more affordable, more open space, but then be able to come to the city when they want to be in the city and interconnect with these companies,” said Scott Rechler, chairman and CEO of RXR Realty, which owns large office buildings in New York City and the suburbs.
On the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank, Rechler told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso he expects both the city and the suburbs to recover “collectively.” He said most of his business tenants anticipate being back in September, but not at full capacity.
“We need to start reimagining a post-pandemic playbook,” he said.
That playbook includes hybrid schedules and a redesign of the city.
“There’s some office buildings and there’s frankly some retail buildings and hotels that just will not be competitive in a post-COVID world,” said Rechler. “The right thing to do in that instance is to convert them to multi-family.”
The Regional Plan Association Chairman told WCBS 880 adding multi-family apartments in place of empty office buildings could improve New York’s affordability and attract people to work and live in the five boroughs.
New apartment leases in Manhattan are at record levels as tenants gobble up rentals at a discount while preparing to return to offices. The number of new leases increased fourfold in May from the year previous to 9,491, according to Miller Samuel Inc. and Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
“(It) gives me confidence that people believe in the future of New York,” said Rechler, adding, “If they’re here, the big companies that want to attract that talent, that bring that talent in to grow their businesses, are going to be here as well. So, it’s a great leading indicator of what’s to come.”
Rechler, who oversaw the redevelopment of the World Trade Center as the vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told Connolly and Carousso hybrid work schedules are here to stay, though, because there is a “quality of life” balance that many people have enjoyed while working from home.
He’s advising businesses, telling them, “Don’t be a prisoner of the past, be a pioneer of the future.”
While productivity was high during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, the developer said businesses are finding productivity is slumping now that the U.S. has largely reopened 15 months after the initial shutdown.
“This is about bringing people back so they can build culture, they can have mentorship, collaboration, a sense of community, and create that corporate value set that makes their team members feel part of something bigger,” Rechler said. “You’re not going to get that if everyone’s in different satellite offices.”
See how developers are planning New York City’s post-pandemic future on the Small Business Spotlight video above.
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Westchester Bakery Forced to Pivot Online Discovers Promising New Business Model
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The macroeconomic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are measurably impacting local businesses, their workers and their customers.
Rising commodity prices and the labor shortage are two of Liv Hansen’s biggest challenges at The Bakehouse in Ardsley and Tarrytown. It’s now forcing her to rethink her traditional business model at her family-run bakery.
“Some of the foods we buy are up 8 percent,” Hansen told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
The Bakehouse is known for its custom homemade cakes. They also sell a variety of baked goods, sandwiches, soups, and even, pot pies. Hansen and her husband took over the Ardsley location at 660 Saw Mill River Rd., known as The Riviera, from her mother about 10 years ago. The Riviera Bakehouse has been a community staple since 1950.
The bakery business in Ardsley had been thriving before the pandemic, attracting customers from Westchester, Rockland and the surrounding areas. In March 2020, Hansen opened a new location inside the former Metro-North station building only to shut down when the coronavirus emerged the same month. They anticipate sales of breakfast goods and treats will spike when more Manhattan commuters pass through.
“We’re hoping as the city opens up that the commuters are up in full force,” Hansen said.
But, The Bakehouse is struggling to find enough skilled workers to make the volume of homemade custom cakes they churned out pre-pandemic. Currently, they employ four full-time workers and three part-time workers. They had been down to two workers at the height of the pandemic.
As a result, Hansen is expanding her website with “semi-custom” homemade cakes to order for occasions from graduations to weddings to birthdays.
“We hope that in the future, that will become our main source of orders,” she said. “It is much more efficient for us because we see what’s coming in really quickly rather than having people place the orders via phone and have a hand-written order.”
Even traditional businesses like bakeries have been disrupted by the pandemic. It’s become essential for The Bakehouse to streamline operations and make more cookie-cutter products with a selection of custom features to grow profit margins.
Hansen has also found cost savings in ingredients. When matzo meal became unavailable, The Bakehouse took one of their popular chocolate cakes of the shelves and developed a cake-like brownie special from a current recipe.
“Really, it’s cake, but it’s a very moist cake and we top it with different things,” she explained. “We have an Oreo one, just a plain fudge one, we have one with sprinkles, one with peanut butter butter cream, and we sell them as brownies.”
Since kitchen staff at The Bakehouse make the chocolate cake daily anyway, it saves time, labor and commodity costs, and increases their margins with an additional tasty dessert on the menu.
“It has made a great efficiency for us,” said Hansen.
See ideas to make yourself sustainable in the post-pandemic economy and grow profit margins on the Small Business Spotlight video above.
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Ken Burns Explores Life and Legacy of Muhammad Ali in New Documentary Series
By Steve Scott, WCBS Newsradio 880
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Muhammad Ali is one of the greatest athletes of all time.
His exuberance and brash personality outside of the boxing ring sparked controversy and conversation unlike any other Black athlete of his generation.
Ali captivated people from all over the world and inspired athletes with his activism during the Civil Rights movement and his refusal to serve in the Vietnam War, which resulted in a draft evasion conviction and a suspension of his boxing license.
Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns – who has told the stories of the first African American heavyweight champion Jack Johnson and Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s color barrier – will now explore Ali’s life in a new four-part documentary series that has been in development for six years.
“We focus on a lot of the fights, but also his faith, his conversion to Islam, his joining of a sect called the Nation of Islam, his fight with the United States government, his personal life, the many wives he had, the children, they’re all represented here,” Burns tells WCBS 880 anchor Steve Scott. “This is in every regard a hero’s journey. We just are so drawn to him. In all the biographies I’ve done, I don’t think I’ve ever come across a character that was so powerful and moved me so emotionally as Muhammad Ali.”
American boxer Muhammad Ali (1942-2016) training with a speed bag ahead of his fight against Britain’s Brian London, in London, England, 3rd August 1966. Photo credit R McPhedran/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images In addition to the three-time heavyweight champion’s boxing feats, the documentary also explores Ali’s profound impact during the Civil Rights movement.
“Here’s Muhammad Ali kind of cut from a different mold. Brash and confident and different from the fighters that we’d seen before. He was not Sonny Liston in any way, shape or form and so he struts across his stage and begins to animate a new generation of African Americans, some of them impatient with the slow progress of the non-violent civil rights movement, some of them opposed to Vietnam, not wanting their kids to be the cannon fodder that African Americans were early on in the war. All of these different things he’s in intersection of it and as we begin to in a post-Vietnam era kind of blossom into a media culture in which celebrity becomes everything he becomes in a way bigger than life itself. And then the tragedy is, of course, absorbing all of those millions of blows is going to provoke this terribly restricting disease. It’s going to silence a loud and brash man, and yet, in that journey he finds a kind of inner peace and begins to sort of atone for all the things he’s done. I can’t begin to tell you, it’s so exciting to have worked on this.”
Ali died in 2016 at the age of 74 from Parkinson’s-related complications.
Muhammad Ali in London on May 27, 1963. Photo credit Len Trievnor/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images While largely celebrated today as an icon of American sports and culture, Ali was not always widely embraced.
But Burns notes that at the end of his life, Ali became “the most beloved person on the planet.”
“This is a life that is beset by a terrible disease that sort of encases him and yet at the same time it’s this extraordinary arc and there was not a continent where people did not adore him,” Burns said. “And even Americans, some Americans who had grown to dislike him for his brashness, for his bragging, for whatever it might be and then obviously for his political and religious stances, came around to sort of respecting him and as America realized Vietnam had been a mistake, they began to forgive him, as he lost fights and then worked to come back and reclaim the heavyweight championship it’s one of the great, great stories of all time.”
The documentary titled “Muhammad Ali” premieres on PBS on Sept. 19.
It features interviews with his daughters Hana Ali and Rasheda Ali, his second wife Khalilah Ali, his third wife Veronica Porche, and his brother and confidant Rahaman Ali.
Others appearing in the film include activist and former basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, boxing promoter Bob Arum, former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, boxing promoter Don King and more.
Leading up to the broadcast, Burns will join PBS and The Undefeated to host a series of virtual events this summer called “Conversations on Muhammad Ali” that will examine Ali’s life and career in the context of America and the world today.
People can register for the events at: pbs.org/ali.
Produced by Neil A. Carousso
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WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast: New Creative Sales Methods to Rise from the Pandemic
Presented by First National Bank LI. Member FDIC.
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Small businesses are facing unprecedented challenges and barriers to growth upon the reopening from the COVID-19 pandemic, but this panel of business leaders offered optimism and concrete solutions for a recovery.
Nomad Health Founder Dr. Alexi G. Nazem, Shoptiques Chief Marketing Officer Lindsay Lightman, and MadCreek, LLC Founder and Creative Director Andi Jennings shared their approaches and experiences with Business Reporter Joe Connolly on the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast, presented by First National Bank LI. Member FDIC.
Lightman said her company’s mission is to “help small get smarter,” explaining that the pandemic accelerated the shift to digital as consumers were forced online amid the shutdown in March 2020 and subsequent COVID-19 restrictions, which provided an opportunity for them to grow their digital services previously resisted by some boutique owners on Shoptiques’ online marketplace.
“On the front-end of our business, we have our marketplace where we’re selling to consumers but on the back-end, we’re really just a services and technology company supplying boutiques and small business owners with everything they need to be successful digitally,” she said, continuing, “So, they were all of a sudden, challenging our online tech, forcing us to innovate quickly, innovate faster, innovate more, give them more tools, give them more access, give them more customers, and in a great way, it forced us to really think outside of the box and grow.”
Lightman, who is overseeing the company’s digital expansion and customer acquisition, told the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast that online sales are picking up for boutiques on her platform this spring. She said customers are now spending about 20 percent more per order than a year ago.
“They’re now buying outfits to go out and accessories and home goods and gifts for people,” she said.
Managing Fast Growth So You Don’t Grow Out of Business:
New York-based Nomad Health has been growing exponentially. They digitize the healthcare hiring process to help connect providers with clinicians worldwide to combat staffing shortages and provide competitive career opportunities for doctors and nurses.
“There has been this war for talent in the technical field and what that has caused us to do is broaden our horizons and start hiring people all across the United States,” he said, noting they are not only competing with other healthcare companies, but also technology firms that have disrupted traditional industries.
A number of businesses are struggling to hire workers amid a labor shortage while the enhanced unemployment benefits exceed wages in some cases.
“We’re starting people at higher rates than we used to,” contributed Michael Aboff, third-generation owner of Aboff’s Paints which has 32 locations on Long Island. Aboff’s home improvement business has flourished the last 15 months.
Nazem, a Yale and Harvard-trained doctor and businessman, agreed with Connolly that fast growth requires him to be selective and focus on his business objectives.
“There are so many shiny objects and you have to resist the temptation to pick all of them. You have to succeed somewhere before you can succeed everywhere,” he said.
Nazem added he communicates Nomad Health’s detailed growth strategy with its employees on a regular basis so they can focus on providing exceptional service to their clients and meet company goals.
Finding New Customers In The Post-Pandemic Economy:
New Jersey-based MadCreek has an impressive portfolio of clients for design and marketing, including Union Catholic High School, Rutgers University Libraries and Seton Hall Athletics. Many of their customers were forced to pivot to remote work last spring, but Jennings’ team of mostly mothers had already been working from home for years, and thus, became local experts in the virtual space.
“What we decided to do with our customers or our clients to attract new customers was explain to them that, ‘While your business is maybe slow or while you’re figuring things out, really try to think of other things you’ve always wanted to do with your business.
And, what are those things? And, how can we help you?'” the creative marketer said.Jennings has become more of a “trusted consultant” for her clients in the pandemic, using virtual whiteboards and other collaboration tools internally and externally, which she demonstrated on the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast.
“If they come to us with a very unique problem or a service that we don’t necessarily provide, chances are we’re going to research what type of service they need, find the greatest professional in that industry and provide them with all the tools they need,” she said.
Lightman told Connolly she loves when boutique owners present her and her team with big ideas. She said Shoptiques will try just about anything.
“When you stop learning, you stop living,” said Lightman.
Nazem agreed with that mantra.
“You have to be willing to try different stuff and fail fast so that you can learn that, ‘Okay, this is an area that probably isn’t right for me.’ But, you have to try multiple things,” he said.
“Try selling to them in a different way, try hosting events, try anything you can, but thinking digitally first is really important,” said Lightman, adding, “Customers are not going to go back to just shopping in stores.”
One of the lessons from the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast is ensuring products are diversified. Another is to be diverse in ranks so that workers’ skills complement each other.
“I think you have to look out of the box and learn and be creative and it really helps to have young people on your team – next generations that know the world of what’s going on today with Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and all those mediums that help you to sell,” said Candy Udell, president of London Jewelers.
Several retail owners have asked Connolly and WCBS Business Producer Neil A. Carousso about finding new customers online now that their stores are not as busy compared to before the pandemic as some consumer behaviors have changed. Carousso asked the panel about acquiring customers.
“We actually rely really heavily on affiliate marketing,” Lightman responded. “It’s a really big channel for us. You only pay for what you get. There’s little risk in it. So, it’s a really great source.”
The Shoptiques CMO said they shy away from social media because it’s an overcrowded space and hard to compete against large corporations that have sizable digital marketing budgets.
“It’s ironic, but for us, our customer base responds really well to SMS and email marketing, still. They really love us putting forth trends and being like a thought provider as to what they should shop and that’s where we see the best results,” said Lightman.
How To Handle Competitors Undercutting Your Prices:
One challenge all three panelists have faced is competitors driving their costs down.
“A lot of times, they’re going to find cheaper online outlets with people that don’t know their business, that don’t care about their business, but they’re just running out there because they need a logo or they need a landing page,” said Jennings. “So, the money that they’re spending out there on these one-shot deals really does not help them grow foundationally.”
She told Connolly it happens frequently among her smaller clients working on tight budgets, but more often than not, they return because MadCreek is invested in the success of their business.
Nazem commented that people will pay for higher quality work and personal service as Jennings described, but he’s concerned technology companies are disrupting hard-hit industries and driving prices lower for small businesses that are operating on tight profit margins.
See solutions, fresh growth strategies and innovative ideas to jump-start sales on the WCBS Virtual Business Breakfast, presented by First National Bank LI. Member FDIC. Watch the free one-hour program above or on our YouTube page.
MEET THE PANELISTS
About Alexi Nazem, Co-Founder & CEO of Nomad Health:
Alexi Gharib Nazem, MD, MBA, is the co-founder and CEO of Nomad Health, the first online marketplace for freelance clinical jobs. In addition to leading Nomad, he is also a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell in New York.
Previously, he led field operations for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s successful 100,000 Lives Campaign.
Alexi trained in internal medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston after receiving an MD from Yale and an MBA from Harvard. He also holds a BS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale.
About Lindsay Lightman, Chief Marketing Officer of Shoptiques, Inc.
As Chief Marketing Officer of Shoptiques inc., Lindsay is responsible for developing and managing the companies B2B and B2C marketing strategies; as well as identifying and negotiating strategic partnerships. This includes overseeing the Shoptiques.com marketplace customer acquisition, marketing, merchandising, and support; developing and growing Shoptiques Managed Marketing Services for luxury boutiques; and building the Shoptiques SaaS offerings designed for small business owners, focused on helping small get smarter.
Lindsay joined the company in 2018, as Head of Support & Business Development, bringing her over 7 years of experience in global marketing and relationships. In this role, Lindsay helped bring to market Shoptiques first tech product, SPOS; was tasked with bringing new business into the portfolio; and developed account management and technical support for Shoptiques VIP boutique partners.
Prior to joining the organization, Lindsay served as Director of Global Strategic Market
Development & Chief of Staff to CRO at True Fit. During her tenure at True Fit, she nurtured long-lead retail relationships with enterprise retailers like Nordstrom, Kate Spade, Ralph Lauren. Lindsay managed the global events strategy, PR and communications, and social media marketing, developed a client success program and marketing strategies for retailers to grow customer adoption of True Fit, and facilitated the onboarding of new retail brands onto the True Fit SaaS Platform.
Lindsay received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics, and Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish Linguistics from Occidental College in California.
About Andi Jennings, Founder & Creative Director of MadCreek, LLC:
Andi Jennings has spent 25 years in the advertising and design industry with the majority of her career leading MadCreek, LLC as founder and creative director.
With an award-winning design portfolio, and a history of diversity and longevity in the MadCreek client roster, their extensive, brand management experience, top-line creative direction expertise, and strategic digital and social management, allows them to stand the test of time and keep their clients current.
MadCreek’s clients include the athletic programs at Rutgers University and Seton Hall University, Union Catholic High School, AAA, Hoboken Cultural Affairs and JustinTime Foundation.
They are guided by a strong belief that their job is to function as a problem-solving tool and find ways to turn any idea into reality.
Andi recently realized that her lust for creativity and problem-solving had no boundaries. She dove into multiple labors of love, creating art societies and town-wide ‘art walks,’ managing fine artists, and co-writing children’s books. She tackled interior design projects, taught software applications, and has even written short stories and memoir essays.
Her newest adventure is co-founding “Project CheerUP!”, a positivity movement, uniting cheerleaders to “CheerUP!” the world, literally.
The WCBS Business Breakfast series with Joe Connolly is produced by Neil A. Carousso.
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Small Business Spotlight: StrongArm Technologies CEO on How to Get Big Clients
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The key to business is often relationships. But, getting a foot in the door, especially with a prominent brand, is challenging.
“You have to start with the end user and you have to never lose sight of the individual at all,” suggests StrongArm Technologies CEO Sean Petterson on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
StrongArm Tech counts Walmart and Toyota North America among its clients. Walmart recently reported the Brooklyn-based tech company helped the retailer reduce worker injuries in its factories by 64 percent using StrongArm’s wearable safety devices called FUSE that utilize haptic technology to alert laborers to risk on the job by vibrating. FUSE collects real-time data so companies can make safety improvements.
“The goal for us is to not overcomplicate anything, but rather just provide small insights throughout your day so you can avoid getting hurt,” he said.
Petterson told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso that the key to gaining big clients has been loyalty to their original ally within large corporations.
“They may not have the budget to take you globally with the organization, but they are the champions and they are the best voice of customer,” he explained.
“It’s almost like the old adage ‘treat your new friends like silver and your old like gold.’ That’s really how we try to operate.”StrongArm Tech’s first client eight years ago was a small charity distribution center in Upstate New York, which purchased their exoskeletons that provide ergonomic support to industrial workers lifting heavy materials.
Petterson told WCBS 880 one way they’ve been able to scale is by taking their data “a step further” to help their clients find cost savings.
“By eliminating those injuries, we don’t simply have the dollars fall on the bottom-line,” he said. “If you’re anticipating a workflow improvement, but you can’t really find the operational budget to do so, there’s a very good chance that there’s a safety ROI hidden in those numbers.”
He told Connolly and Carousso their clients have been able to increase profits and productivity by placing value in the labor system.
Petterson tells his clients “if you can measure it, you can manage it.”
New York City tech companies, like StrongArm, are booming largely because they are introducing needed solutions and upending traditional businesses that were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
See ways local tech companies are innovating and growing and get ideas on how to scale a business on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight video above.
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