Topics run the gammut: dealing with credit, controlling cash flow, contending with economic fluctuations, locating hard-to-find sources, POS systems, employees, market trips, vendor issues, and a thousand other issues. Basicallly, if it matters to you, we’ll be talking about it.

Hallmark stores have a similar forum, limited strictly to their own franchise owners. Large chains have multiple layers of support. Why not you too?

About the founder

Cinda Baxter wears a lot of hats—as one of the most recognized retail coach/consultants in the gift and stationery industry, founder of The 3/50 Project, Contributing Editor for Gifts and Decorative Accessories Magazine, and professional speaker.

Better yet, she has roots in retail, with 14 years of independent brick and mortar experience during her tenure as owner of a nationally recognized, upscale stationery and gift store in Minneapolis. She’s been seated as a memer of numerous boards, including the National Stationery Show, AmericasMart Atlanta, the Gift and Home Trade Association, and Gift for Life. She was a charter member of the National Stationery Show Delegates Program, and has twice been honored with the coveted Retailer Excellence Award.

Cinda‘s official job title is “Retail Enabler,” in support of both store owners and vendors through Always Upward, and is frequently a speaker at major trade shows. She’s been featured at the Hong Kong Gifts and Premium Fair, the National Stationery Show, The New York International Gift Show, the Los Angeles Gift Show, and at various regional marts, including Dallas, Seattle, Chicago, and Boston.

Considered a pioneer of social networking in the stationery and gift industries, Cinda founded The 3/50 Project in support of independent, locally owned businesses of all kinds, recognizing the vital role they play in the financial health of a community.

She also founded two smaller, successful organizations: Brilliant Ink (a nationwide collection of stationery/invitation retailers) and The Print Lab (a collaborative project with Epson America), each for the purpose of bringing richness to members’ lives as they share the critical information necessary to build their businesses and success. In Brilliant Ink alone, more than 9,000 messages were posted in the group’s first three years.

As a contributing editor for Gifts and Decorative Accessories magazine (and long time participant in the monthly “We Asked” column, plus regular contributor to the Greetings Etc. magazine “Hot Topics” column), Cinda’s words of wisdom have been shared with a multitude of readers. She and her original designs have been featured in Modern Bride, Gifts and Decorative Accessories, Greetings Etc., Gift Shop News, and a long list of regional and local magazines.

Oh yeah. And she likes dark chocolate...the way some people “like” oxygen.

Each member of RetailSpeaks is an “independent retailer”—someone who owns three or fewer brick-and-mortar stores, is not part of a franchise or chain, does their own buying, sleeps little, eats on the fly, and can juggle a fax machine, a telephone, a new employee and the UPS guy all at once. Each has at least two years of experience behind their own cash register. They are not home studio retailers...no franchises, chains or big boxes allowed.

Put simply, RetailSpeaks was created so brave entrepreneurial souls living with the unique challenges of today’s world could network on a large scale. By joining RS, members are able to post questions, reply with responses, or just peruse the postings of their peers, in a safe, private, territory-protected environment.