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 understands small business from the inside out, having once been a retailer herself. Past recipient of two national Retailer Excellence Awards and press coverage ranging from Modern Bride and Country Living to NBC Nightly News and the Wall Street Journal, she now “pays it forward” to independent brick and mortar merchants as founder of RetailSpeaks and The 3/50 Project.

Her resumé includes seats on numerous boards in the gift industry; speaking engagements throughout the US and abroad; and Contributing Editor for the trade publication Gifts and Decorative Accessories Magazine.

Singled out by Inc. Magazine for her expertise in using social media to engage audiences offline, Cinda is a respected social networking pioneer. Prior to RetailSpeaks, she founded two successful online communities supporting the stationery industry--Brilliant Ink and The Print Lab (a partnership with Epson America). Her launch of The 3/50 Project on March 30, 2009 garnered more than 15,000 endorsing businesses and over 30,000 Facebook fans in its first nine months alone...without spending a penny on marketing.

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

Each member of RetailSpeaks is an “independent brick and mortar retailer”—someone who owns three or fewer physical 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 easily, across the miles, in a safe, private, territory-protected environment.