Demographics
Such a criterion as demographic data can be approached from two sides. First, think about who your client is and how important proximity to your business location is to them. For retailers and service companies, this is critical. For other companies this may not be as important. Socio-demographic analysis of the target market will help you make the right decision.
Then you need to pay attention to the community. If your customer base is local, does the majority of the population match your customer profile? Does the community have a stable economic base that will provide a healthy environment for business development? Be careful with communities whose economic status is highly dependent on the health of a particular industry, as a downturn in that industry could be dangerous for your business.
Now think about the workforce. What skills do you need? Are there people with these skills in the labor market? Does the community have the resources to meet the needs? Is there affordable housing nearby? Will your employees be able to take advantage of all the infrastructure they need?
Patency
For most retail businesses, foot traffic plays a huge role. It is unlikely that the seller will want to hide in some corner that most buyers will not reach. In contrast, if your company requires some privacy, you don't need to locate where there is heavy traffic.
Monitor the traffic around your potential location at different times of the day and on different days of the week to make sure the location has the traffic you want.
Where to start searching for premises?
Choosing the right location for a retail outlet is not at all easy, and you need to start with careful monitoring of the areas of your city.
It is the “sofa” analysis of the map of a locality that can suggest where it is better to open an office or store. Ivan Dronov
one of the founders of the brand and chain of hookah establishments Sweet Smoke
Ivan Dronov: “The first thing you need to start with is defining the concept of your future project and a clear idea of your future target audience. After this, you need to think carefully and collect absolutely all the places in the city where your target audience spends their time with the greatest likelihood and frequency, and then choose exactly those that are considered the most popular and crowded. You will say: “Shopping and entertainment centers” - and you will be right, but a location in a shopping center is not suitable for all types of activities. But one way or another, you are faced with the task of getting your name noticed by people, and your logo and brand becoming recognizable as quickly as possible, which means just choose places with the highest foot traffic. For example, our main establishment is located in the center of Moscow at the intersection of Stoleshnikov Lane and Petrovka Street - huge pedestrian traffic, a large number of offices and workplaces. Walking distance to public transport stations also plays a huge role when choosing a location for a retail outlet. It is very convenient for people to move around, and there is much more traffic. The same can be said about the location near major highways, which will allow drivers not only to notice you from the car window, but will also simplify the search for your point. For example, franchise establishments on the street. Pyatnitskaya in Moscow and on the street. Lenin in Ryazan are generally located right on the first line of houses, and it’s almost impossible to pass by without noticing.”
Anton Seleznev
Vice President for Business Development CENTURY21 Russia
Anton Seleznev: “The level of infrastructure development of the area where the premises are located is an extremely important indicator. If you have already drawn up a business plan and are ready to start looking for non-residential premises, then it is worth deciding on the area, as well as assessing the pedestrian traffic - if it is a retail space or catering premises. Having a public transport stop, metro exit, car parking or, even better, a cultural and entertainment facility nearby will raise the status of your business. For trading companies and the service industry, the reference point is the client - where there are clients, you need to be there too. The back office should be convenient for its employees to get to, and the warehouse space should be chosen where it is easy to deliver goods to different parts of the city. Pay attention to the development of infrastructure - the outskirts of the city may soon become a center of attraction, but paid parking in the center may scare away your customers.”
Zufar Garipov
General Director of the Coffee Like chain of coffee bars
Zufar Garipov: “When choosing a location, you need to consider whether people are planning a visit to this establishment in advance. If we are talking about the “coffee to go” format, then this is an unplanned visit. The rule here is: “Location, again location and again location.” If the outlet is around the corner, this is definitely a recipe for failure, because in our business it is important that the guest rests his forehead on the sign. A full-format coffee shop is a completely different story. Such an establishment in itself is a magnet for visitors. In this case, the location is also certainly important, but here other important things, such as, for example, parking, begin to play a role. Visits to grocery stores or home improvement stores, such as FixPrice, tend to be planned, so these stores do not need to be front-line.”
Accessibility and parking
See how accessible the place is to everyone who will be associated with it: clients, employees, suppliers. If you are on a busy street, is it easy to get to you by car? Is there a parking place? Is the place accessible for people with disabilities? What goods will be supplied to you, will it be convenient to deliver? Couriers carrying small packages need to be able to get in and out quickly, and freight companies need adequate roads and loading docks.
Find out how the building is maintained (by days and hours) where you want to use for business. Are heating and cooling systems running on nights and weekends? If you plan to stay in an office building, find out when the front door is locked. Can you have your keys? A nice office building at an attractive price will still be a bad option if you plan to work on weekends when the building is closed or the air conditioning and heating are off.
Find out if there is a large and convenient parking area nearby for clients and employees. Take the time to carefully inspect the building at different times and on different days and see how busy the parking lot is. Also, make sure the parking lot is well maintained and well lit.
How a colleague tried LSD, had a bad trip, and almost lost his mind
I am publishing this with the permission of my colleague, a psychologist who loves to experiment with his mind. Although he does not hide his name, for ethical reasons I do not publish it. An instructive story that ended well. The point is - don’t use anything that harms your psyche... So, here’s the story: The story of how I tried LSD, ended up on a bad trip, almost lost my mind and (hopefully) came back without any losses.
While such an experience is an incredibly personal experience, what follows is to describe how, for nearly 18 hours, I wandered through the labyrinth of my own mind, went beyond it, went crazy, came back, and how it ultimately affected my life . Let this become just an interesting story for some, a lesson for others, and good advice for those who are especially desperate about how not to use psychedelics.
The ideas of expanding consciousness, exploring the possibilities of one’s own psyche, studying psychology and near-psychological sciences, searching for one’s own limits and overcoming them have become the leitmotif of the last 7 years of my life. Second degree in psychology, an impressive number of hours of practice both as a patient and as a psychologist, long-term practice in a psychiatric hospital, countless master classes and trainings: today I can consider myself a good specialist in this field, which is confirmed by indicators such as internal and external in nature. The choice to try a drug that is famous for its properties of “going beyond” the psyche is a completely logical continuation of the path that I took many years ago, and this choice was made by me completely consciously, in a state of peace and in the absence of strong stress, at the moment of my life’s journey, when a lot of things in my life suit me and the vector of my movement is extremely clear to me. It was not a search for adventure, not a desire to get high, not being subject to the moment, and not someone’s sick idea. I understood perfectly well what I was doing, and that it could have both positive and negative sides.
The reason why I decided to take this step lies in the metaphors of “all-awareness of life”, “free flight through the expanses of one’s own mind”, “touching the divine” that are very close to me.
LSD is famous for its effect of erasing the boundaries of consciousness. Hallucinations and all sorts of “glitches” are, of course, present, but this is rather a side effect, since the main feature of acid is the opportunity to temporarily fly through the expanses of your own psyche and the opportunity to go beyond its limits. Both the first and the second turned into absolute hell for me, which lasted for almost a day. But everything is in order; below is the chronology of events.
Phase 0. Preparing for the “journey”. The main mistake, as it turned out, was the decision to use the psychedelic drug alone. Despite my preparedness in matters of the psyche and travel across its expanses, LSD turned out to be stronger than all my previous experiences combined, which ultimately played that very cruel joke. Meditations, esoteric experiences, personal growth trainings, insights, strong emotions and spiritual experiences - all this pales in comparison with a small half-centimeter stamp. The most vivid experiences, which seemed to be the peak of existence, turn into insignificant grains of sand scattered at the foot of the majestic mountain that is the psychedelic experience. Perhaps the fact that there is a schizophrenic patient in my family history also played some role, but it is impossible to reliably talk about this influence. Maybe during my bad trip the same burdened heredity in the form of schizophrenia was revealed, or maybe it has nothing to do with it and I was just unlucky. One way or another, the key point in a psychedelic experience (especially the first one) is the presence of a trusted guide. There must be a person nearby whom you trust, and preferably knowledgeable about the use of such drugs. Its function is to protect you, if necessary, from bad thoughts, anxiety, fear and to direct your experience into a pleasant, truly bright journey across the horizon of mental life. I didn't have one, and it turned out to be worse than anything I could ever imagine. But everything is in order.
Phase 1: “launch the carousel.” Duration: from the moment of consumption to approximately 2 hours. The effect of the mark placed on the tongue begins to appear after about 40-60 minutes. Before this, I calmly drank green tea, was in an elevated state of mind, chatted with friends, listened to pleasant music, enjoyed the smell of incense sticks, and was just beginning to think that there would be no effect. If only I had known at that moment how much I was mistaken... After about an hour, the drug began to manifest itself and from somewhere in the depths of my soul a feeling of incredible joy began to rise. Everything around seemed harmonious, notes flowed sweetly in space, colored patterns began to appear before my eyes, objects began to acquire new volumes and the space began to be filled with a warm and sweet feeling of grace. I thought this would be the case throughout the trip and was already starting to get excited about what a wonderful experience it would be. If you wanted, you concentrated on the music, if you wanted, on the subject, if you wanted, just sit and be happy. A metaphor for driving a car immediately appeared in my head: I naively thought that I had mastered the basic commands and would now have a great time driving a brand new Porsche. In reality, everything turned out differently: I was not driving a racing car at all, but in the cockpit of an intergalactic quantum ship, not having even the slightest idea how to control it, the co-pilot’s seat was desperately empty, and the ship was already rapidly picking up speed and was about to was about to take a leap into another dimension. This is where the “fun” began.
Phase 2: "Welcome to the Abyss." Duration: from the 2nd to the 4th hour of the trip. My biggest misconception was dictated by previous experiences of trance/meditation: being in a borderline state of consciousness, in the background the brain understands that this is just a “glitch” caused by music, meditation, a special practice or something else. And the brain is well aware, although it does not realize it, that at any moment you can jump out of this state simply by switching your attention and leaving the trance. Having tried to do the same thing on LSD, I was disappointed as a bargain hunter who couldn't find the right size shoes. The train left, and my consciousness scattered into thousands of fragments, which began to blur in a rapidly changing shape of the world. Two things began to happen here: firstly, visual images began to take on more and more bizarre forms. It’s hard to pull yourself together when the phone in your hands literally seems to be made of plasticine, the walls take on volume, and views from Dali’s paintings appear before your eyes. The second is growing anxiety. In a state of psychedelic influence, our consciousness becomes incredibly sensitive to everything that happens around us: as if all the strings of my soul were torn out from my chest and were left without any protection. Even the faintest touch of every emotion generates a reaction of unimaginable proportions. Joy becomes all-encompassing, love becomes divine, and the horror that was in my case becomes nightmarish, like a black hole absorbing light and all fragments of consciousness. Having experienced the fear of the irreversibility of the process and not receiving feedback from the co-pilot that this was completely normal and that this was just the effect of the drug, I began to try to piece together my consciousness so that it would serve as a support for me in difficult times. And it, consciousness, has already split into millions of crystals and scattered to the edges of the universe. It's like trying to grab a sand figure that, when touched, crumbles into nothing. And the hands that tried to grab this figure also crumble. And in general the whole body crumbles into sand, and in general there is nothing else but sand. Patients with schizophrenia describe the experience of depersonalization as “a complete loss of one’s own self” - and this is a completely correct description. It is impossible to find your “I” when its boundaries are not visible, when everything around is one big whirlpool of events, feelings, objects and experiences. And the worst thing about this is the loss of reason. The psyche is not able to control and realize the process if it does not understand where it is happening, which is why, without the appropriate installation, the psychedelic experience becomes an event of erasing one’s own “I”. The huge eraser began to destroy, layer by layer, any form of my identity, mercilessly depriving me of support for a further successful trip. It's like being at a fork in the road. If at this moment you reduce anxiety, receive information from the outside that this is completely normal in this state and is safe for the psyche, that an amazing journey awaits further and that everything will be fine - a person steps along the golden staircase to the gates of heaven and begins to dance the lambada with the angels there , sing karaoke with leps and pick flowers in the garden of eden. If this does not happen, welcome to the Minos labyrinth without an exit, where you are doomed to run away in horror from a huge minotaur with bloody eyes and a giant ax, which every time catches up with you and cuts your body into pieces, so that the next moment it will put you back together and throw you to a new point in the labyrinth and embark on a demonic pursuit of your pathetic defenseless carcass. Again and again, time after time, until the disfigured psyche begins to beg for mercy, which never comes.
Somewhere between the hellish torments and the meeting with the minotaur, I managed to call Chip and Dale for help. Chip is a friend who corresponded with me from the very beginning of the appointment, and who understood what was happening. Dale is a friend who was warned in advance that if something happened, he urgently needed to run to my aid in order to save my crippled mind. The eternity that passed from the moment of the call until the arrival of first one, then the other, will forever remain in my memory as the most terrible experience I have ever experienced. Endless running along an endless corridor, the mechanical doors of which slam shut one after another with a terrible grinding sound, and me running, trying to get to an exit that is not visible.
Phase 3: “Thank God you came.” Duration: from the 4th to the 12th hour of the trip. With the arrival of living people it became a little easier. Chip helped me survive the remaining hour of the peak effect of the drug, and Dale appeared when the so-called “plateau” began: the acute phase is over, and now you can just enjoy the consequences of the experience for several hours. Since the peak did not pass well for me, to put it mildly, the plateau was filled with anxious thoughts, fear of losing my mind, the irreversibility of what had happened, and other joys of mild madness. It turned out to be completely impossible to fall asleep, despite the fact that it had been a day without sleep, the hallucinations became a little easier, the exhausted Chip and Dale went to bed for a little sleep, so I tried to at least put the experience in writing. This is what I wrote on the 10th hour of being under the influence of LSD: “In general, everything is certainly not bad. I really can't close my eyes or sleep because then the pieces of my consciousness start to be thrown in all directions like on a crazy carousel. In my eyes (or not in my eyes, but somewhere in the back of my head) everything gets dark, the space inside my skull becomes more and more empty, my limbs begin to twitch. A state in which I can do nothing but suffer. In this awareness, something incredibly hidden is revealed, something hidden from myself for an obvious reason, but incredibly strongly striving to come out, and as if tearing apart my human body along the way. For many hours now I have been trying in vain to control or simply cope with this condition. An attempt to simply listen to it leads to the raising of terrible images from the back of my subconscious; the feeling of losing my mind is the most “pleasant” thing I have experienced today, not to mention the completely tangible feeling of the proximity of death, which still does not leave me. It was as if a gusty wind began to pick off the flowers one by one from the green meadow and was about to tear out the last one along with the meat, after which there would be nothing left of the beautiful field. All this quickly blurs the contours of what is happening and seems to rinse reality with splashes of bloody red color. Trying to capture this moment and make it palatable seems like an incredibly difficult task. In these moments, I feel the entire emptiness of existence, despite the fact that I continue to lead this existence out of inert necessity.
On the other hand, somewhere outside this madness, I barely feel something opposite. Something that is also in me, but to which I seem to have lost access. It’s like a cool, fresh wind calmly sways the blades of grass on a huge, serene field. The wind is of a different nature, not human, and therefore free from suffering.”
In this state, I sent Chip home, and Dale and I went for a little walk in the fresh air, since the main effect of the brand was already behind us, and I desperately needed a change of scenery.
Phase 4: “If only this would ever end. » Duration: from the 12th to the 18th hour of the trip. After the end of the main effect of use, consciousness begins to slowly gather back, the experience begins to be assimilated and the world slowly takes on its previous forms. The worst thing is that, although your consciousness is beginning to gather, it is with huge gaps, and anxiety continues to hang over you like a terrible kite, holding in its beak a sign with the inscription “Congratulations, Sanya, you’re fucked... Xia and this is forever.” It's like putting together a puzzle of 10,000 pieces using an incorrect picture, in which every 3rd piece is lost, and every 5th piece is from a completely different puzzle. The only thing that saved me was that Dale was there throughout the entire time and helped distract my attention from terrible thoughts. We walked through a beautiful and calm park, ducks swam serenely in the ponds, and birds flew around and sparrows chirped joyfully. The kite didn’t go anywhere at that time, but at least it was possible not to notice it. The most valuable observation of this phase, as well as the entire trip as a whole, is the serene joy of simple things. From laughter, from nature, from closeness with living people, from peace. A thing never becomes more valuable than at the moment when we can lose it.
Phase 5. Consequences. Duration: from the moment I managed to sleep, that is, almost a day later, and without expiration of the duration of action. Having tasted psychedelic hell and found myself outside the visible universe, I realized very clearly: there is no point in going beyond the psyche, because the entire value of life lies in the form in which it is given to us. The only real “divine” experience is to live this life in awareness and in love, in simplicity towards things and in attention to people.
“I definitely had enough of psychedelics for a long time: I’d rather continue traveling in the real world, find myself a wife, start a family and a garden. And no LSD, just good old phenibut, and only when absolutely necessary :)"
Proximity to other companies and services
See what companies and services are nearby. Can you benefit from such a neighborhood? These companies and their employees can become your clients, or vice versa - you will become their client, because it is profitable and effective. Then think about how they can improve the quality of your work or company as an employer. Is there a good selection of cafes nearby where your employees can eat lunch? Are there nearby childcare centers for employees with children, shops and service centers that may be useful for you and your employees?
Image and history of the place
What does the address say about your company? If you are targeting a local market, then the location should reflect the company's image. Another good idea is to check the history of the location. Look how it has changed over the years.
Find out about the previous owners. When you open a restaurant in a place where five previous restaurants have failed, you are starting with an insurmountable obstacle. Perhaps there is something wrong with the place, and the public will assume that your company will suffer the same fate as the previous owners. If several completely different companies failed here before you, find out what the problem was - in the companies themselves or in the location. If the previous owners were successful, this is a good sign, but it is worth immediately clarifying what exactly they were doing.
How to choose a business with the best location?
If you are not sure of your calculations, you can simply buy a ready-made business, where someone before you has already identified an excellent place to establish a production facility or store. By examining the business owner's papers, you can see whether the business is profitable. And if a business consistently generates income, it means it is in demand among clients and it is convenient for them to contact this company.
Altera Invest is the largest store of ready-made business and commercial real estate in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region. Our company strives to make selling a business a simple and understandable process for you. Altera Invest guarantees full support for the purchase and sale of an existing business>. We will draw up the contract and control all legal aspects of the transaction>.
Maintenance and other costs
Rent will become the main expense item. But pay attention to other costs that may not be included in the rental agreement. If they are not included, ask your service company for a list from last year. Also find out whether different service companies require a security deposit, this will help you plan your budget better.
If you need a cleaning service, how much will it cost? Will you have to pay extra for parking? Consider all costs associated with the location and factor them into your decision.
Passability in the morning and evening
Numbers are everything
We advise partners before concluding a rental agreement to count: how many people pass by, how many belong to the target audience, how many cars are passing, at what speed they are driving, etc.
However, quantity does not always equal quality. On a busy highway, the traffic flow is much higher than in the city, but at high speed no one will look around and is unlikely to stop to enter your store. And in the city, cars are stuck in traffic jams, parking slowly, stopping at traffic lights. They have time to study the stores and advertising around them. These are our clients.
Measurements should be taken 3 times a day for 3 days in a row. On weekdays in the morning at 09:00, in the afternoon during lunch and in the evening at 18:30, when people return from work. Same thing on weekends.
Morning or evening
An important aspect for which life did not prepare you is the division of the sides of the road into morning and evening. The flow of cars and people in the morning is rushing to work and is unlikely to be ready to buy power tools, memberships to a fitness club or expensive jewelry. Maximum – coffee. Therefore, there is no point in opening a business on the path of the morning traffic, especially if the road is multi-lane and there is no way to cross it.
Choose a location with evening traffic, provide safe parking or at least a pocket where your potential client can stop and enter the store.
