Knoxville Wholesale Furniture succeeds using a team concept
By Tom Edmonds -- Furniture Today, March 10, 2002
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Coaching, teaching and preaching. To Tim Harris, it's all pretty much the same.
Done correctly, he says, you can help people win a game, do something better or follow the right path. Or you can create a commitment to success that drives a new furniture store to remarkable growth and success.
Harris, president and founder of Knoxville Wholesale Furniture, is a former football coach who clings to the idea that the requirements for success in the gridiron are not that much different from what it takes to be a first-rate furniture store.
"Our major emphasis has always been on people," he said, noting that 13 of 74 employees who joined him when he started his company 10 years ago are still with him. "We've been trying to create a team concept here where nobody ever says, 'It's not my job.' We want to solve it. Don't avoid it."
Knoxville Wholesale Furniture is a 10-year-old business that Harris started with his life savings, selling his house and moving his family into an apartment while retrofitting a 60,000-square-foot former Hills Department store. Harris had left his old job and was starting a company in 1992 with the idea that he was going to be a wholesale distributor. The name of the company may be a marketing plus, but it's not a deliberate deception.
"That was what we were going to be, but when we opened the doors, people started coming in and buying things," Harris said, noting that he still has three people on the road in eastern and Middle Tennessee working his wholesale business.
For the first three years, he didn't spend any money on advertising as he thought the consumer sales were just a nice sideline, not his core business. But as sales mounted, Harris adapted his strategy, taking on more of the trappings of a retail operation.
It's all about people
The company's focus on value and presentation, supported by committed and positive people, seems to strike a responsive chord with the people of Knoxville. A couple of years ago, Harris built a gleaming new store with freeway frontage on the city's west end. The two stores generated $21.7 million in sales last year.
Like any good coach, Harris attributes his success to his team. As the leader, it's his responsibility to create a winning culture. "We don't ever have a sales meeting unless we mention attitude," Harris said. "We want our people to look a certain way and act a certain way, and we want all the grouchy guys to go work for somebody else."
A Christian, Harris believes strongly that character counts, and he makes every effort to hire people who work hard with a good attitude. While that may sound trite in a single sentence, Harris believes it's been the key to his success.
On top of that, Harris pays people more for giving more. "We've got special people, and we're going to pay them for it," he said. "Last year, we had a phenomenal year in sales, and our profits were up. How could that be when we pay our people more?"
While he doesn't have statistics or measurements to back this up, Harris says his team is at least 50% more productive than the norm, and that's how his company has stayed on its fast track.
The flip side of paying more for good performance is the company's kangaroo court, where violations of policy or decorum are penalized with deductions from an individual's spiff money. "Fining people," Harris said. "They understand that better than fussing at them."
Destination shopping
The Knoxville Wholesale stores are both impeccably maintained, and the new one on I-40 has the advantage of being a new building. A few years back, Jeff Young, who was then the president of what was called Lexington Furniture Inds., said something that caught Harris' attention.
Young talked about the power of "destination displays," and Harris said, in building his new two-level 65,000-square-foot store, he wanted to create "a store nice enough that people would drive to see it."
He seems to have achieved his goal with a spacious and appealing store where each vignette has plenty of room.
The mid-priced furniture is tastefully and appropriately accessorized by Harris' wife, Robin. "Ladies love it," Harris said. "They enjoy being able to go somewhere and look at all kinds of new ideas for their homes. They trust us to have the newest, hottest and latest stuff."
The new store is a step up in price from the original location, which also includes a clearance center. "If we get a promotional customer in here," Harris said of the original store, "we have a pretty good chance of selling them something. The stuff that is clearance is for real one heck of a deal." Weak sellers are moved to the clearance center in as little as 30 days, he said.
| Owner Tim Harris and his brother, Daniel Harris, in front of the new Knoxville Wholesale Furniture location, designed to be a destination store. |
Knoxville Wholesale Furniture at a glance
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Founded: in 1992 by Tim Harris as a distributor to retailers, but primary focus turned to retail by 1995.
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Two locations: A 65,000-square-foot, two-level store built two years ago and a retrofitted former Hills Department store, 60,000 square feet including the clearance center
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Warehousing: 150,000 square feet in a former Levi Strauss plant.
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Staff: 74 people
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Galleries: Kincaid solid wood, Lane Comfort Showcase
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Other key vendors and lines: Alan White, Alexvale, Bernhardt, Durham, Hooker, Leather Trend, Lexington's Timberlake, Riverside
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Key price points: $399 to $599 for upholstery in the original store; $599 to $1,299 for upholstery in the new store; $999 to $1,999 for bedrooms.
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Inventory: Stocked deep. "We don't have to be this full, but the return we get from having inventory far outstrips the cost of money today with interest rates as low as they are," Harris said.
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Growth plans: Looking at real estate opportunities in Middle and Eastern Tennessee. Planning to open an Ashley home Store in the Knoxville area.
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| Robin Harris, Tim Harris and Daniel Harris make Knoxville Wholesale Furniture a matter of family pride and integrity. |
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