Furniture Retail Tip #24 From Grandpa Mike-e-e! at 90 - Bring Your Spouse To Work Day!

As I've preached for a couple of months: Every month you rent, you pay for one ceiling, four walls and one flat floor.  A-n-d I've presented some examples of retailers that have done a great job of maximizing their rent-paying investment. Therefore, why have some of you not been merchandising this paid-for real estate like all sharp, aware entrepreneurs do?

Well, here's another retail location I want to tell you about that I ran across some time ago. I think it was called, The Highway Home Furnishings Gallery, planted somewhere between Nebraska and Kentucky and Maine.  This operation was a retail package consisting of a smart one-guy manager/owner, and a team of uniquely selected sales personnel that knocked me for a loop with surprise and delight. It was a winning combination that rattled around in my tiny mind for years.

"The Gallery" was the home furnishings location of entrepreneur-owner, John Doe. When I found it, the store sported an inviting, warm display of dining room furniture, bedroom sets, mattresses and upholstery, plus a full range of accompanying dress-up accessories.

This retail store actually started  as a picture frame shop, selling only stock and custom-made (empty-in-the-middle) frames.

One day John realized that he was paying rent for the  empty-in-the-middle frame spaces, so he filled these spaces with paintings, framed prints and mirrors. Then he noticed that his floors and ceilings were bare, so he added furniture and chandeliers. After that, he went to High Point and bought oriental area rugs to fill the empty spaces under the tables, and pillows and throws to fill empty spots on the sofas. He saw some bare mattresses, so he added bedding protectors, sheets, pillows and comfortors. Y-e-s, John was obsessive about filling those empty spaces!

When he ran out of floor, wall and ceiling space, he started adding services such as expert in-home decorating consultations and furniture/leather repair.  Then he went one step further, by tracking the profitability of each of the items in his store, since he figured that an item that doesn't sell has a carrying cost, so it is worse than an empty wall, floor or ceiling. 

John was a unique professional who practiced what he dreamed about. As the operations chief of the store he was a committed bug to value and service. A chief who delivered to his customers what he would enjoy receiving if he were furnishing his own rooms. A-n-d he trained his gang with that concept as a guide. Then he took it one step further by (believe it or not), hiring the wives of his male staff for heavy traffic holidays and selected weekend-special promotions.

Did I say "wives"? Yes, the partners of his regular sales team who listened to their husbands' job-opinions, sales suggestions and complaints, at dinnertime.

I ran across this store quite a while ago when most spouses working in retail stores were the husband part, and the stay-at-home people were women. But it could still work today in this underemployed time of the business cycle. Well maybe not, but  his basic idea was sound. That idea was that even with the complete merchandise selection at Highway Home Furnishings, John knew that if his salespeople weren't coached, corrected and watched by someone in authority, much of his investment in rent would still go down the tube! He figured that there was nobody better than a wife to notice that their husbands' were being too pushy or not pushy enough -- talking too much, listening too little... or saying the wrong things at the wrong time and losing sales from their women customers.

John said it was a training scheme that worked. Especially, when weekend-planned-sales goals were stirred up and backed up by extra weekend sales bonuses pre-set by the company management. Not only that, but during the marked weekends the closed-sales were announced for the sales staff on the company loudspeaker. Wow-e-e! It was a winner!

If I saw John today, I would suggest that instead of hiring wives to coach their husbands, I would  hire a good sales manager to act as a sales coach and make sure that he or she stayed out of the the back office. A sales manager should be on the sales floor watching sales! A-n-d a really good sales manager who watches the numbers, coaches and supports salespeople is better than any bring-your-spouse-to-work day.

Do you have a story you would like me to share with Furniture World readers. Yes? Then plop an e-mail on the airwaves and let me know. Even at 90 I haven't heard everything!