Lis Calandrino

There seems to be a lot of blame going on in Albany, maybe its catching.
In Albany we seem to have three situations: the closing of the inner city YMCA, the building of the new Honest Weight Food Co-Op, and a charter school.

Differentiation Builds Your Competitive Advantage and Delivers Customer Service
My definition of customer service is giving the customer more than then they expect, i.e. Red Hot Customer Service. That’s exactly what JetBlue did Friday, October 30th at JFK International Airport. Customers going through the terminal dressed in costume could show off their dance moves at the first-ever silent Halloween Eve disco. Friday I receive an excited call from Elin, designer supreme at Leader Carpet telling me about the event in J.F.K. Airport.

I've been speaking with my friend Tom Boschwitz from Homevalu Interiors. Homevalu Interiors has been around for a number of years and continues to change and reinvent itself. But it doesn’t matter how long your business has been around or how good it is, every business is dependent on customers who are willing to part [...]

I had the opportunity to talk with John Wells, General Manager for the past seven years of Taylor Flooring in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Taylor Flooring was awarded Mohawk Color Center Dealer of the year at the Mohawk Color Center Convention February 7, 2009. Taylor Flooring consists of four stores and has been in business for [...]

With stores going out of business right and left, it’s great to see one that isn’t: Anthropologie. 
As a matter of fact, it's growing!
If you want to make it, you have to be different than your competitors. Being different can mean offering different things or by targeting a specific audience, finding out their likes and dislikes [...]

My information from the retail and wholesale end of the flooring industry is that the middle and lower end of the market is pretty much gone. This started me thinking about the better end of the market… are luxury customers gone as well?
To answer this question, I immediate thought of Chris Ramey, president and [...]

New problems require new strategies; how about looking in the restaurant industry?
I was listening to WMHT today — our public television station — as the host interviewed Danny Meyer, the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) in New York City.
Like any good Italian, I am fascinated by all foods made with tomato sauce, but having spent summers with [...]

Go On The Offense or Defense?
Recent McKinsey research indicates that during the last two recessions (1990–91 and 2000–01), growth slowed for nearly every retail subsector in the United States. Of the retailers that existed during both downturns, 93% experienced slowing revenue growth in one of the recessions, and 59% endured it in both. Unfortunately, [...]

Black Friday was what we expected: lots of stuff got sold. We witnessed the crowds, the frenzy and even the frightening event at Walmart: crazed and desperate shoppers pushing each other to go after the bargains.
Black Friday might seem like a blessing to business owners, but any dummy can give stuff away. It takes a [...]

225 E. 60th St. – New York is all about fun and different. My friend Tony said we can’t go to New York City without going to Serendipity 3 for their Frrrozen Chocolate. Tony had taken one of his daughters on her birthday and had a banana split, which is a yearly favorite for his own [...]