1. Janaury 17, 2017
I have done real estate for Hallmark Cards for the last 15 years, retiring temporarily with
a reorganization for a surgery my wife had and to downsize homes. The experience
entailed site selection over 23 states in the U.S., plus the top 7 cities in Canada,
developing comprehensive distribution plans for those cities with use of psychographic
mapping to our preferred households. This formal plan covered all real estate activities
for the markets: new and relocated stores, expansions, renewals, rent reductions and
closings. Negotiation of deals in all center types, with all types of Landlords was done
according to plan. In 2013, I negotiated 52 deals and secured over $32M in corporate
revenues, plus completed 1 of 3 (for the U.S.) new Hmk. concept stores in Denver,
Colorado. In addition to these responsibilities in 2013, that covered 8.5 states in the
U.S., I was also responsible for managing activities for Hallmark's Canada franchisee
network, managing a Canadian broker and paralegal, to bring the network to a higher
standard on rent ratios and deal-point protections.
From 2007-2009 in addition to handling real estate activities for parts of 13 U.S. states, I
was involved with our Hallmark Canada team and corporate market planning in doing
distribution plans for: Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Montreal, Victoria, Vancouver
and Toronto. Prior to real estate (before real estate and distribution planning merged) I
did distribution planning for Hallmark, developing a methodology by overlaying key
layers of demographic mapping for C.M.S.A.'s, to discern the best locations for
distribution (1995-1998). The corporation through market planning, bettered this initial
methodology by reflecting Hallmark's +14,000,000 Gold Crown cardholders and defined
14 key psychographic profile groups (through Claritas and Prism Group), that defined
per major market, Hallmark's concentrations of preferred household concentrations
mapped to the market. We then overlaid existing distribution and targeted appropriate
retail corridors or centers for new and relocated sites, to the heavier concentrations of
defined preferred households.
My background has always been with Hallmark Cards, starting in store installation,
promoted to a starting sales territory, to a sales executive territory, to a sales trainer
position, to a current account development position, to a market distribution position
(which covered 40% of the U.S. -west and mid-west), to a real estate manager (covering
parts of 19 different states at different times). I understand retail operations, selling,
distribution planning and real estate. While I did do corporate store deals, the majority
of my real estate and prior position activities (90%) dealt with our licensees. Presenting
new sites, negotiating deals, renewals, lease questions; created distribution plans for
metros in the western 40% of the U.S. for corporate and mainly licensee stores for new,
relocated, roll out of concept stores, and integrating licensees to those plans- reviewing
impacts, prioritization, etc. Managing existing stores financials: sales to space,
marketing, sales productivity; sales executive and sales representative to licensees,
selling store concepts (remodels), major product changes, marketing integration,
reviewing and enforcing store standards for the licensee Gold Crown program.
