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JOSEPH MIMRAN
Chairman and CEO of Toronto-based Joe Mimran and Associates, and former head of fashion labels Alfred Sung and Club Monaco
BEAT THE 1981-82 AND 1990-91 RECESSIONS
ACQUIRE STRATEGIC ASSETS ON THE CHEAP
By his own estimate, Mimran has braved several “traumatic” downturns since launching his Canadian fashion empire in the late 1970s. Still, his businesses have resisted recessionary pressures, thanks, he says, to consistent investment in marketing. But during the 1990-91 recession, the entrepreneur who is now the “Joe” in Loblaws’ Joe Fresh Style fashions, turned his attention to strategic acquisitions. Mimran’s main target: prime real estate in major retail markets such as New York and Toronto. “Real estate prices were so depressed that it was a great time to start to accumulate good locations,” he says. “These are the times that can set you up for the next big move in the marketplace. In 1994, we got our Club Monaco space on Bloor Street in Toronto, and the rent then was probably 12% to 15% of what space goes for today. There were shopping centres where we would go back and get a second space or an expanded space, because the former occupants had gone out of business. If you have the ability to go out and make some key, strategic acquisitions that you wouldn’t be able to make at any other time because they’re too expensive, now would be the time to do it.”
MICHAEL GLAZER
CEO of Montreal-based mystery-shopping service Premier Service Inc.
BEAT THE 1990-1991 RECESSION
PROVE YOU'RE THE REMEDY TO RECESSION
“Wealth is never lost—it just transfers hands,” says Glazer. That knowledge helped him and his business partner maintain the optimism required to establish their mystery-shopping firm in the depths of the early ’90s recession. With that attitude, the pair focused on educating retailers in how mystery shopping could help them increase their sales during the downturn. However, Premier concentrated its marketing efforts on recession-proof prospects, such as low-end clothing retailers, rather than wasting resources on slumping stores that catered to the middle class. Once the partners landed a client, they paid employees on a piecework basis (i.e., per mystery shop) to keep expenses in line with revenue. These days, finding clients is no longer an issue—instead, retailers seek out Glazer and his army of 6,000 mystery shoppers.
LAURA HANSEN
President of Vancouver-based promotional products distributor Image Group Inc.
BEAT THE 1990-1991 RECESSION
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