In late October, Kelly Barber, with the Small Business Center at Halifax Community College called to see there if any of my tenants or vendors would have a need for some assistance with the Pandemic Relief Funding she had available. I was able to connect her with Ceasar Neville, the owner of the recently opened “That Pops” a Vintage-Inspired Thrift Shop. He will be receiving 5 hours of Social Media Marketing Training with Melanie Diehl.
In the conversation with Kelly Barber, she mentioned that one of the services that she could offer was professional photography with Les Atkins. After giving it some thought, I reached out to Kelly and pitched the idea of having Les do a photoshoot of the businesses and some of the sites to see in Weldon. These photos would be used to promote the theme of Find Great Treasures in Downtown Weldon. These photos will appear in brochures, on the website www.WeldonNC.com and on the Facebook page of Explore Weldon.
For Kelly, it was a win since she would be able to help a whole community of businesses with the funding she had in addition to individual businesses.
I started coordinating with Les Atkins on a date and the focus or intent for the photoshoot. I solicited the help of a young couple, Candace Luter Porch and Zach Wilson, to be the “model tourists/shoppers” for the photoshoot. We all met on the Saturday morning of November 7th.
The concept of the photoshoot was to focus on all of the businesses where you can Find Great Treasures as well as the treasures we have around town in our sites to see. We visited all the businesses, took photos of the merchants, some pics of their merchandise, and the outside of the business.
We also took photos of our model tourists enjoying themselves at Weldon’s sites to see and had them taking selfies. Rocky the Rockfish, the train mural, the Hwy 301 tunnel, the caboose, and the Weldon Mills Distillery Tour and Whiskey Tasting just to name a few. We want to encourage visitors to take selfies and post them to their social media accounts. When they do this it will promote Weldon to their friends.
As we arrived at the Rocky Rockish to snap some selfie photos of our models, a car with Virginia tags pulled over with four ladies inside. One of them jumped out and began taking selfies of herself with the Big Rockfish at the entrance to Weldon’s Downtown. She jumped back in the car and away they went. But that would not be the only time we saw her and her friends.
As we made our way around town doing the photoshoot, we kept running into these same ladies. We saw them shopping at the Riverside Mill Christmas Open House. We saw them again at Riverfalls Park taking selfies at the river observation deck and we all showed up at the same time for the Tour and Whiskey Tasting at Weldon Mills Distillery.
This is an example of what we are trying to accomplish here in Weldon. Attracting more people to visit and enjoy themselves and supporting our businesses.
The photoshoot was successful and will be used to bring attention and success to the Treasured Business of Downtown Weldon.
Find previous blog posts at www.weldonnc.com/blog. Next time, read about Making Progress with a Full Plate.
Weldon Mills Distillery, Small Batch Bourbon Maker
51 Sycamore Restaurant & Rockfish Bar
Madeline’s Kitchen.
Andy Whitby has been an advocate for Weldon and a local historian for many years. Whitby has been involved in Downtown Revitalization efforts through tourism and economic development for nearly 30 years. As the owner of several downtown commercial properties, Whitby seeks to provide attractive and affordable rental space for locally owned businesses and entrepreneurs.
If you know of others that would enjoy this type of information on the revitalization of Weldon, please forward their email address to andywhitby789@gmail.com with ADD in the subject.
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For a while now, I have had this idea of promoting Downtown Weldon as a destination for treasuring hunting, meaning customers seeking to find a treasure in our antique and thrift shops.
I’ve bounced around several potential slogans. A Treasures Hunters Paradise, A Destination for Treasure Hunting, Let’s Go Treasure Hunting. But none seemed to be accurate to meet the current number of shops and allow for growth. I didn’t want to use a term that would oversell what we have and lead to the disappointment of the customers.
Then recently the convergence of several things has allowed me to flesh out this idea and land on the term Find Great Treasures in Downtown Weldon.
Convergence Number 1. Riverside Mill began promoting a Community Yard Sale on the weekend of October 3rd to serve as a replacement of the canceled Highway 301 Yard Sale. Then some of the businesses Downtown on the Avenue began talking about having a sidewalk sale the same weekend. Then I became aware that several residents were planning yard sales at their homes for the same weekend.
This led to a Facebook post in which I used the term “Explore Weldon for Great Treasures” and listed the places that were doing something extra for the weekend.
Convergence Number 2. In late September, Kelly Barber with the Small Business Center at Halifax Community College called to tell me she had some pandemic relief funding and she wanted to discuss with me if there were any needs I had that would help my business recover during these times. After talking about it, she was able to connect me with a Social Media Marketing Consultant who would help me develop a strategy to better promote my business through social media. The intent was that I would get 5 hours of training to assist with the marketing of the Downtown Weldon Flea Market.
Convergence Number 3. I began to have Zoom meetings with Melanie Diehl, the Social Media Marketing Consultant. As we discussed the flea market business, I mentioned that I really had an interest in learning more about how I could promote all of Weldon. I stated that in addition to having the Facebook page for the Downtown Weldon Flea Market, I also have a Facebook page for Explore Weldon. It has been my intent to use Explore Weldon as a portal to promote the tourism facets of Weldon.
As discussions developed, the theme of “Find Great Treasures in Downtown Weldon” emerged. This slogan does not oversell what we have but conveys that you could find a great treasure among our shops.
As Melanie and I talked, we fleshed out several ideas, needs, and should do’s. We, all of the merchants of Downtown Weldon, should be trying to obtain the contact information of our shoppers. Encouraging customers to do a Facebook Check-In or post a “Selfie” with tags and hashtags. This will promote Weldon when shoppers let their friends know that they have found a Great Treasure in Weldon.
In conclusion, the pandemic relief funding provided through the Small Business Center will be benefiting a whole community of businesses which will be a win for everyone.
We hope you find this information interesting and will support the Treasured Businesses of Downtown Weldon by Shopping and sending others to shop with us.
Weldon Mills Distillery, Small Batch Bourbon Maker
51 Sycamore Restaurant & Rockfish Bar
Madeline’s Kitchen.
Andy Whitby has been an advocate for Weldon and a local historian for many years. Whitby has been involved in Downtown Revitalization efforts through tourism and economic development for nearly 30 years. As the owner of several downtown commercial properties, Whitby seeks to provide attractive and affordable rental space for locally owned businesses and entrepreneurs.
Weldon is seeing a growth of businesses that offer an opportunity to shop and Find Great Treasures in vintage, antiquey, old & used, crafty, unique stuff with whiskey tastings, rockfish slaying, and good eats. To prove that point here’s a list of businesses that we already have in Weldon.
Weldon Mills Distillery, Small Batch Bourbon Maker
51 Sycamore Restaurant & Rockfish Bar
Madeline’s Kitchen.
These businesses are beginning to work together to promote themselves under the mantra “Find Great Treasures In Downtown Weldon”
In the coming weeks, each business will be displaying a large OPEN sign with the heading of Find Great Treasures Here. A brochure will be produced and the info will be on the website www.WeldonNC.com. Explore Weldon Facebook and Instagram accounts will be used to push out posts promoting this effort.
In addition to working with what we already have, a list is being compiled of potential storefronts that will allow more businesses to locate and open in Weldon. The more we have, the more we can promote ourselves as a Destination. “How to Open a Business in Downtown Weldon” checklist is being developed too.
Plans are in the works to host monthly Treasure Hunt events that will encourage shoppers to visit each store to get their treasure map marked so that it will be entered into a drawing for prizes.
We hope you find this information interesting and will support the Treasured Businesses of Downtown Weldon by Shopping and sending others to shop with us.
In previous episodes of the Weldon Advocate, I have cast a vision and discussed some of the financial benefits of attracting tourists to Downtown Weldon.
Self Guided Walking Tour
To assist in getting the ball rolling, I have created a Self Guided Walking Tour connecting Weldon’s sites to see and things to do. It’s on the website www.WeldonNC.com.
The Walking Tour can be followed by using your smartphone. It will lead the user around downtown to Explore Weldon and learn why Weldon is the Rockfish Capital and an Early Transportation Hub. Users will be encouraged to “Take A Selfie” and post it on their social media accounts where it further promotes Weldon.
It’s doing projects like this that will begin to attract visitors to Weldon and we’ll begin to see success.
I know this can happen, this being, having tourists wandering our streets enjoying Weldon.
Once upon a time when we owned the bed and breakfast inn, I produced two issues of a 48-page magazine called Beyond The Exit. That publication highlighted the sites to see and things to do that were beyond the exit of hotels and restaurants. It was geared toward the I-95 travelers that were spending the night at the exit and was looking for something interesting to do before they hit the road again.
When that publication was in circulation we often saw people walking around town with that magazine in hand, looking at and exploring the sights to see and things to do.
In future podcasts we’ll discuss the new edition of Beyond The Exit.
“Let’s Go Treasures Hunting”
I also envision creating Weldon into a destination for treasure hunters seeking antiques and good old stuff. Businesses like Riverside Mill and The Downtown Weldon Flea Market will serve as anchors. They can be coupled with several other thrift stores in Downtown Weldon to create a place that people will seek out for a day of treasure hunting.
We have seen the type of success that an event like the Hwy 301 Endless Yard Sale can have on drawing people looking for a bargain. Next, we could create A Treasure Hunt type event that will have people looking for clues to a treasure. This is the type of event we can create that will draw people to Weldon and support these businesses.
15 Tourist A Day
Marketing for both the Self Guided Walking Tour and the “Let’s Go Treasures Hunting” can work hand in hand to get the ball rolling to attracting the 15 tourists a day mentioned in episode 3. In that podcast, I discussed the Financial Benefits of attracting tourists to Weldon.
In that discussion, we explained that attracting 15 tourist day, each spending about $30 each would have an economic impact of supporting one new business and creating $165,000 in annual retail sales for Downtown Weldon.
Other Tourism-Related Businesses
In addition to these new efforts that I have been putting together, there are others that are working on tourism-related businesses too.
The most recent of these is Weldon Mills Distillery. The Club at Weldon Mill is already open. On weekends, they have live entertainment that is drawing more than 100 people a night to Weldon. Work is ongoing to get all of the equipment installed for the distillery where they anticipate having their first batch of spirits ready this fall.
When in full operation, Weldon Mills Distillery will seek to attract tour buses and group tours. These tours will also have the opportunity to visit other businesses in Downtown Weldon too.
Riverside Mill Antique, Craft and Outlets just celebrated their 10th Anniversary. They market to I-95 travelers and their business is supported well by local customers too.
When we operated the Weldon Place Inn Bed & Breakfast Inn in Downtown Weldon, we had four guest rooms. Often we had a full house. Our marketing efforts were paying off and we were attracting guests from throughout the region and up and down the east coast. Often we had guests from Richmond and Raleigh coming to Weldon for a getaway and we would have guests that were traveling through from points North on their way to somewhere South.
The financial benefit to us, to have all four rooms rented out for two nights every weekend was good. While it was good for us, it was also good for the local economy.
Those four guest rooms represented 8 people, while we served them breakfast as a part of their stay, they went out to lunch and dinner. That represented at least 12 meals purchased from local restaurants. These guests often did other shopping or sightseeing in the area too. They most likely filled up with gas for their return trip.
It’s easy to say that the 8 people a day, two days a week that visiting our bed and breakfast inn spent about $300 during their stay. With all four guest rooms rented, the economic impact we produced in the local economy was about $1200 a weekend and about $5000 a month.
In the past, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has reported that when a community attracts 100 tourists a day, it results in
7 additional retail outlets
111 new industry-related jobs
$1.1 million in retail sales,
$78,000 in tax receipts,
creating 140 new households, and
$777,000 increase in personal income,
I often arrive at the traffic light and have to wait for the traffic to exit off of Interstate 95. Sometimes, I’ll count the cars coming off the interstate and do some math. Each car pulling off the highway is doing so for a reason. Some may be getting off just for gas and a bathroom break. Many will buy a meal. Some are ready to check into a hotel for the night.
Depending on their purpose for pulling off the interstate, each car represents some money spent in the local economy. Whether it’s $50 for a tank of gas or $75 to $100 for gas and a meal or $200 with a hotel stay. This is money spent supporting the businesses in our local economy.
Recently, Visit North Carolina (visitNC.com), the state agency responsible for promoting tourism, announced that domestic visitors to and within Halifax County spent $96.95 million in 2017. That represents an increase of 5.56 percent from 2016, according to Lori Medlin, President, and CEO of the Halifax County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Visit NC Executive Director Wit Tuttell said, “The continued growth in visitor spending is great for communities across our entire state. North Carolina’s continued position as the sixth most-visited state in the nation with more than 46 million visitors in 2017 reinforces its status as a premier tourism destination.”
Downtown Weldon can get a piece of this pie.
Using the stats for the US Chamber of Commerce, if we were successful in attracting 15% of those numbers, we would be attracting 15 tourists or 7 couples a day to Downtown Weldon. For every 15 tourists we attract, it will result in supporting 1 new business in Weldon creating 16 new tourism-related jobs and $165,000 in retail sales annually. That breaks down to $452 spent per day by those 15 tourists or $30 per tourist.
That’s do-able!
Weldon just needs to work on developing its tourism attractions and marketing what we have to draw the people and the dollars they will spend in Weldon’s economy.
And let me go back to the statement of attracting 15 tourists a day to Downtown Weldon will result in supporting 1 new business and $165,000 in sales revenue. And every time we grow that number, it results in another business being successful in Downtown Weldon. That will produce a thriving downtown with a variety of successful businesses.
Let’s expand on that idea and do some more math.
Let’s say that Weldon has been successful in developing our sites to see and things to do that are packaged in ways that make it easy for someone to come and enjoy.
Let’s also say that Weldon has attracted several Bed and Breakfast Inns and a Boutique Hotel in one of the downtown buildings.
And let’s say that in one weekend, there are 16 couples staying in Downtown Weldon.
Each couple, while in Weldon could be paying for a two-night stay, having 3 lunches, 2 dinners, do some shopping, enjoy a river cruise and get a refill of gas for the return trip home. This could easily be a $500 trip by each of the 16 couples.
There could be other spending too. Like hiring a guide for an afternoon of fishing or renting tubes for a float down the river or making a deposit on for a canoe and camping adventure for a return trip a few months later.
Those 16 couples, each spending at least $500 in a weekend would be spending $8000 among area businesses.
To further expand this example, let’s say an additional 10 families come for a day trip on a Saturday and 6 on Sunday. Each family may spend about $100.00 on meals, ice cream, shopping and entertainment/adventures. That will be another $1600. This could total nearly $10,000 spent in one weekend among Weldon’s businesses.
Believe me when I say that the downtown businesses would be thrilled to have an additional $10,000 a weekend pumped into their cash registers.
While this will be good news for existing businesses, it lends itself to attracting more investment into Weldon.
When there is a vibrant downtown, it serves as a symbol of the community’s economic health, providing a higher level of quality of life, giving its citizens something to have pride in and it encompasses the community history.
These are all factors that are looked at by the industrial, commercial and professional developers. Many times these developers will look to see how an area has dealt with their existing business districts and neighborhoods when considering locating there themselves.
It’s a Saturday afternoon and the downtown streets are filled with people going in and out of the businesses and lingering on the street talking with friends.
This could be describing the period of time in the ’50s and ’60s or maybe it’s describing the 20’ and 30’s.
If it’s the period of the 1950s and 1960s the businesses would have been mostly retail with department stores, hardware stores and cafes near the train station. This would have been a period of time when downtown areas like Weldon were the regional shopping center. This would have been in a period of time before Interstate 95 had been built and Hwy 301 was the main North-South highway delivering traffic into town and when several trains a day were stopping in Weldon.
In this podcast episode of the Weldon Advocate, I want to Cast a Vision for Downtown Weldon.
The opening statement could be describing the 20’s and 30’s, the years in the 2020s and 2030s.
In this period, most of the businesses may be the type that provides an experience. Whether its several restaurants with evening entertainment, a coffee/ice cream shop, a taproom with craft beer or antique and thrift stores fulfilling a treasure hunters delight. Some will be tourism-related businesses like a place to rent a kayak or float tube for an afternoon on the river. Maybe it’s a riverboat cruise or a ghost tour.
In the past, Downtown Weldon was situated in such a way that it was THE draw for the region. Now, with the regional shopping center being where Walmart is and the majority of Weldon’s population lives closer to the interstate than they do to downtown. Weldon will need to find a way to attract businesses that can survive and thrive and not try to compete with the interstate businesses that are two miles away.
Weldon as a tourist destination is possible. We have many of the necessary elements to make it happen.
But how do we get there?
We take what we have,
We work with it and
We make it happen.
I’ve been working on revitalization efforts in Downtown Weldon for more than 25 yrs. In that time we have had several studies done and talked with lots of people on what we need to do to make Weldon viable again.
In nearly every case there have been two suggestions.
Weldon will need to find a niche to make it unique and different from the shopping centers and we need to “work with what you have and make it work for us”.
One study concluded that we should create Weldon into a tourist destination.
What do we have to work with?
We have our history and many sites to see, like
The Roanoke Canal and Aqueduct
The First Railroad Building in The State,
One of the First Electric Power plants in the country
we have the Roanoke River and the beautiful River Falls Park.
We have several businesses that could be categorized as places to find treasures. Riverside Mill Antiques, Crafts and Outlets, Downtown Weldon Flea Market and several other thrift stores.
And the recent opening of the Weldon Mills Distillery which when in full operation will work to attract tour buses and group tours to Weldon.
These assets of our community need to be promoted and used to attract visitors to come and enjoy what we have to offer.
We need to work with what we have
Cast a vision for what we want
Work to attract the types of businesses we want
And Repeat
I believe that if we use what we have to attract visitors to Weldon we will begin to see rings of success happen. By attracting more people to Weldon we’ll see our downtown businesses thriving and being more successful, which will lead to more businesses wanting to open in Weldon, which will lead to a greater need for more places for the visitors and citizens to shop, eat and be entertained at.
For the second ring of success, we could see additional
Treasure Hunting businesses opening in Weldon.
We could work to see some tourism-related businesses opening like
a Canoe, Kayak, Tubing Rental, and Guide Service. And a River Boat Cruise with a storyteller, telling all sorts of fishy tales.
How about a tour guide service and maybe even a Ghost Tour.
There will come the need to have more places to stay in Weldon. We could see a
Bed & Breakfast Inn or two or more open
How about a RV park, Even Houseboat rentals
Then as another ring of success we will have several really nice restaurants open.
In addition to these assets and ideas, we have the efforts of our community leaders to attract an Amtrak station in Weldon.
To make Weldon vibrate again, it will take work to make it happen.
Let’s Make It Happen!
In the next podcast, I’ll tell you about the financial benefits of attracting tourists to our town.
Thank you for listening…if you have not done so yet be sure to subscribe to this podcast. Just hit the subscribe button in the whichever podcast app you are using to listen to the Weldon Advocate.
To assist in getting the ball rolling, I have created a Self Guided Walking Tour connecting Weldon’s sites to see and things to do. It’s on the website WeldonNC.com. The Walking Tour can be followed using your smartphone. By using something like this to begin to attract visitors to Weldon we’ll begin to see the first ring of success.
In addition to the Walking Tour which can be enjoyed right now, I envision creating Weldon into a treasure hunters destination using the businesses that are in that category. A Treasure Hunt type event can be created that will draw people to Weldon and support these businesses.
I know this can happen, this being having tourists wandering our streets enjoying Weldon.
Once upon a time when we owned the bed and breakfast inn, I produced two issues of a 48-page magazine called Beyond The Exit, it highlighted the sites to see and things to do that were beyond the exit of hotels and restaurants. It was geared toward the I-95 traveler that was spending the night at the exit and was looking for something interesting to do before they hit the road again.
When that publication was in circulation we often saw people walking around town with that magazine in hand, looking at and exploring the sights to see and things to do.
And by the way, I am creating a new Beyond The Exit website that will promote all of the communities in the area. That is will be a topic for a future podcast.
Well…Call me crazy, but for Weldon to be vibrant again, it will take some crazy ideas and hard work to get there.
