New firm to help Anniston drum up business

Bill Wilson, The Anniston Star, Ala.
·3 min read

Oct. 22—Anniston has a new "coach" in town, but this one is not concerned with X's and O's. It's a firm where the expertise lies in dollars and cents.

The city of Anniston recently approved a one-year partnership with a nationally known retail consulting, market research and development firm called The Retail Coach. Its mission will be to develop a retail recruitment strategy to bring new business opportunities to Anniston. The cost to the city is not to exceed $42,000 for the first year.

Jackson Hodges, public relations director for Anniston, said the city reported record economic growth earlier this year, making this partnership a prime opportunity to continue the momentum for new retail opportunities.

Toby Bennington, the city's director of planning and economic development, said The Retail Coach replaces Retail Strategies, which the city had been partnering with for years.

"As we looked at our economic development activities and our economic program over the last few years, we wanted to go ahead and take a look at different companies that were out there, their type of services, and just look at the possibility of getting a new set of eyes, a new way of thinking, new supportive minds coming in working with me and the city staff on specifically retail development," Bennington said.

Bennington said the previous firm the city used was part of a brokerage firm that could cause possible conflict of interests. The Retail Coach is not connected with any brokerage firms, he said.

Kyle Cofer, project director with The Retail Coach, said his firm is hired by cities directly to come in and produce an in-depth detailed market analysis on the front end, then sift through the data and come up with a list of retail prospects.

"The recruitment we do is targeted, we sift through that data and we say 'OK here's a list of retailers and restaurants that are a fit for Anniston based on available sites, traffic counts,' and then we go out and recruit those concepts to come in," Cofer said.

One of the tools used in creating the market analysis is "geofencing," a process that tracks retail business, shoppers, behaviors and activities.

"That's tracking the shoppers through cell phones," Cofer said, "That's become a very large staple in economic development and recruiting."

Bennington said geofencing helps to gauge which businesses are tracking positively and which ones are tracking negatively.

"We can track people leaving from here (city hall) that are going to other places to see also what kind of businesses match up and create a portfolio, to see if there is a demand for that particular type of store or business," Bennington said.

"The city looks forward to this new partnership with The Retail Coach. The services will expand with upgraded reports, more detailed assessment of the market's needs and a direct support link to local and regional real estate professionals in connecting with potential tenants," he said.