Our Work

CIVITAS is Latin for community and is a first-of-its-kind industry-specific performance enhancement network. As a division of The Bryant Group, It enables select home furnishings businesses to share access to a comprehensive array of advanced marketing, operations, team development, and business intelligence resources that maximize sales while minimizing costs.

Dealers that match the CIVITAS profile:

Are the dominant independent dealer their market.
Field a directed Sales Team delivering high levels of knowledge and service based on TRUST.
Are high sales volume operations with significant marketing muscle.
Aspire to a high-integrity culture that values the Team and is Customer-focused.
Seek a leading-edge online, on-air and in-store media presence.
Aspire to deliver exceptional online and in-store shopping experiences.
Have a longer-term business outlook, perhaps even generational.
Have a Leadership Team that is collaborative, curious and engaged.

The Bryant Group's online learning system; our in-store video environment network; our consumer, employee and industry research division; our learning, communications, video production studio and our experienced team of former independent retail owners and leaders; CIVITAS helps exceptional companies:

Hire, develop and keep quality teams.
Deliver credible, persuasive and impactful messaging and content.
Provide superior consumer experiences throughout the consumer path to purchase.
Acquire and analyze custom consumer, employee and industry data.
Access real-world best practices through collaboration with colleagues in a secure non-competitive network of like-minded companies.
Access business intelligence via research, along with marketing media, and channel testing.
Access leading-edge media assets, operational insights, and technology resources cost effectively.

To be clear, CIVITAS is not a buying group, but rather a sell-through organization. The mission, as always, is to help individuals and companies prosper by improving their customers' experiences.

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Team Development

Members of The Bryant Group have been hiring, developing and maintaining retail sales, management and support teams, as both retailers and via trade organizations for more than 40 years. During that time we've generated millions of online learning certifications from thousands of retail staff, in support of thousands of independent retailers throughout North America. We've conducted more live sales, management and leadership conferences and workshops than we can remember, and we're committed to making the CIVITAS Team development experience our most effective work ever.

It begins with our proprietary LessonSmart video learning management system. Through LessonSmart, those in the CIVITAS community will be able to access a comprehensive curriculum of retail and business best practice learning programs along with testing and certification.

Business Intelligence

CIVITAS is home to a revolutionary research lab known as SYNCIQ. This division was founded by The Bryant Group on the belief that data-driven insights can transform the effectiveness of members' Marketing, Team Development and Business to Business relationships. It began with a simple idea: that by bringing a data-driven approach to decision making, we could help organizations achieve greater success and growth than ever before. Today, we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in Consumer, Internal Employee and Business-to Business research, always striving to provide the highest quality insights and analysis to our clients.

CIVITAS provides members with periodically collected data via these specialties of our SYNCIQ division:

Partnalysis generates data and analysis through B-to-B client and industry focused studies. Through confidential studies conducted among the CIVATAS community your company is provided data revealing how various manufacturers and service providers compare when it comes to competitive pricing, product availability, dealer support and more.

Industry IQ generates data and analysis through Consumer-Focused studies based on geographic, demographic and psychographic characteristics. Why guess how consumers view your brand against their expectations and your category of retailer when there's data?

TeamPulse conducts internal employee-based surveys and feedback exercises allowing organizations to more accurately self evaluate their culture and performance before, during and after improvement programs are undertaken.

Our team of experts is at the heart of everything we do at SYNCIQ. With decades of experience in data analysis, business strategy, and business management, the Team is uniquely equipped to help organizations achieve their goals through data-driven insights and analysis. We are passionate about using our skills to help the CIVITAS community build stronger, more productive initiatives based on members' needs and suggestions.

Content Development & Brand Support

While those in the CIVITAS community represent some the largest retailers in the independent channel with resources greater than typical dealers, they are in competition with many corporate chains whose billions in annual marketing resources present significant challenges. Decades of watching these independent operations grow has made us aware of their remarkable stories and their unique array of consumer benefits, many of which are unavailable from the corporate stores. However, having that heritage and offering those advantages is only as valuable as the ability to communicate them effectively to consumers. That's why the CIVITAS Team has spent decades helping thousands of companies craft their messaging to be more credible, engaging, and persuasive. This fresh perspective, along with the CIVITAS studios' quality production values, provide a unique competitive advantage for the community.

Peer Collaboration

The pace of change and required innovation in today's marketplace has accelerated beyond anything we could have imagined just a decade ago. Advanced technology, the abundance of available information, the dawn of AI, and more, are continually revising our assumptions around consumer behavior and how we need to adjust to it. Our decades of experience with trade organizations and third party "experts" has taught us that some of the most current and valuable insights around today's best practices and consumer behavior come from those who live it every day -- independent retailers.

The CIVITAS support Team includes former retailers who have experienced the power of collaboration among business leaders first hand. We understand the value of sharing the kinds of ideas and experiences that can only be acquired through putting a key a store's door every morning, then letting "all hell break loose". As a result, CIVITAS takes advantage of every opportunity to provide vehicles for community interaction and the exchange of ideas upon members' request.

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