THE SHOP DOCTOR CAME TO FLINTSHIRE

Following a Town Centre Health checks Study in August 2008, Flintshire County Council, contracted Main Marketing & PR Ltd to undertake some of the recommendations and provide a programme of tailored business support to the independent retailers in Flintshire’s town centres.

Funded by Flintshire County Council the aim of the business support was to equip independent local retailers from seven of Flintshire’s main towns with basic marketing skills in order for them to attract more business and maximise turnover. The selected towns were Buckley, Connah’s Quay, Flint, Holywell, Mold, Queensferry and Shotton. Branded as the “Shop Doctors”, three experts on different aspects of marketing aimed to put back the health and vitality into the county’s independent shops through a series of workshops and one-to-one consultations between January and April 2009.

35 businesses attended the workshops, receiving 256 “man hours” of learning in total. 14 businesses attended the one to one consultations bringing the total “man hours” to 270.

Without exception, highly positive reactions were received from all delegates in follow-up calls after the workshops. They included particular insights into how the programme addressed the loneliness of being a sole trader, how it recognised occasional dips in confidence about their own decisions and how it confirmed the assumptions that retailers can rightly or wrongly make about customers’ reactions. A further significant insight was sheer relief that for once, experts were there to give them free advice, and not to make some sort of sale.