— By Carol L. Carey — How to control social media and news coverage of your establishment through effective, preventative pest control. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, local news outlets and even national television cover everything: the good, the bad and the ugly — and not all publicity is good publicity. Contrary to the types of stories you want printed about your establishment, negative stories can “go viral” quicker than positive ones. If someone finds a rat in the produce section at a local grocery store, or food poisoning at …
Industry Voices
— By Dan Brickner — Now trending: right-sizing and reducing the store footprint with smaller-format stores. Retailers have discovered there is no longer a “one-size-fits-all” approach to market expansion. As a result, astute retailers are “right-sizing” their retail footprints and introducing small-store formats that are tailored to specific demographics in both urban and suburban areas. Through available data, retailers have the ability to tailor smaller store formats and curate their merchandising to better serve the needs of their customers. Take a look at how small-format stores are redefining retail real …
— By Mike Rosen — How your parking lot can drive down operating costs. Of all the areas you’re responsible to maintain, the parking lot is one of the largest. And, in the fast-paced retail and restaurant industry, it isn’t always convenient to make repairs to it. This is a significant challenge for c-stores in particular where downtime is especially costly. How do I know? Recently, I had the privilege of attending the National Leadership Conference for a leading retailer of gasoline and convenience merchandise. My participation gave me …
— By Charlie Slater — Consistent elevator & escalator maintenance is helpful to the bottom line. It’s no secret that elevators and escalators are essential to a building. They provide the building’s occupants safe and efficient vertical transportation to their desired location. With these conveyances being relied on by hundreds — if not thousands — of people in a single building on a given day, their safety is on the line. This means that building owners and facility managers cannot be too cautious when it comes to having their …
— By Ted Stouch — The financial benefits of converting parking lot lighting to LED. Anyone who has been in any part of the facility business, for even a short amount of time, has read, talked about or spoken to someone on the benefits of converting their facilities’ lighting to LED. For those of us on the service and project side of LED retrofits, we talk about the same concepts over and over. Retrofitting to LEDs will save on energy consumption, save on maintenance, and your lighting performance will …
— By Megan Varano — Changing the game from reactive to proactive facility maintenance protocols. The last decade-plus has brought tremendous change in the FM industry. It’s been thrilling to be part of the evolution. Working on both the retail and the service sides has given me a unique perspective on both the challenges and the opportunities. I started out managing work requests on pieces of paper. The dispatcher would take a phone call or read an e-mail and then write out the dispatch to the field; the work request …
— By Adam Kulpa — How the lowest asphalt bid might cost you more in the long run. Replacing a parking lot is a huge investment for most property owners. It is also a huge liability when it comes to trip hazards and increasingly stringent ADA regulations. Because of the cost, the inconvenience to the tenants and the liability, it is imperative to invest the time and resources into planning the project properly. Equally important is selecting the contractor that is experienced in dealing with your specific issues. Not all …
— By Jim Arabia — Grocery stores in particular generate big boosts in sales from refreshing and remodeling. The fear of online shopping overtaking in-store purchases certainly hasn’t hit the grocery market yet, with a Gallup poll showing 84% of U.S. shoppers never buy their food from the internet. With that in mind, many retailers — not just grocery stores — are ensuring their physical store is keeping pace with customer needs, through remodeling and introducing more technology for a better shopping experience. Indeed, artificial intelligence (AI) is playing …
— By Mike Watt — How to get rid of the frequent diners you do NOT want. There is no privacy anymore, and no privacy can often turn into terrible publicity for restaurants. For instance, go to YouTube and type in the query “video rats in a restaurant” and more than three pages come up all showing rats running around a restaurant kitchen. But, that’s not the only rodent restaurant owners and managers may have to grapple with. If rats are present, very often mice are as well. …
— By Michael Mastous — Fire prevention and protection tips business owners need to know. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, 8.3% of fires take place in non-residential properties, with an estimated 100,300 non-residential fires reported between 2014-2016, resulting in annual property losses of $2.4 billion, and, tragically, an estimated 90 deaths. What does this mean to you, as a business owner? Fire protection and prevention is an integral aspect of keeping your business, employees and guests safe. The Cost of Fires Lies Not in Repairs With a commercial …