Grace-ful approach: Listen twice as much as you speak
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, October 21, 2006
Rockford, Ill. — This is one appliance store that knows how to turn the heat up on mattress sales.
In so doing, Al Grace Appliance here breaks with conventional wisdom on a number of fronts.
For starters, this retailer says it doesn't really sell mattresses.
"We don't sell beds," insists Scott Norcross, the mattress expert who oversees the bedding department. "All we do is fix people's problems.
"If you approach the bedding business from the point of view of selling, all these walls go up. We take a different approach. We ask, 'What do you like most about your current bed?' We also ask, 'What do you like the least?' Then we concentrate on how the bed feels to them. By doing that we sell them the right bed."
The right beds at Al Grace Appliance could be anything from Restonic innerspring mattresses to Restonic's specialty sleep lineup, which includes air, latex and visco-elastic foam. Restonic is the retailer's only bedding resource.
And, again breaking with convention, the retailer offers mostly two-sided mattresses. "We know we have to do something different and unique," Norcross said. "We have to be just as unique inside our stores as we are in our advertising."
Did he say advertising?
The retailer serves up a steady diet of clever bedding ads, all on television and radio. The ads don't tout low prices, a staple of most retail bedding ads.
In one television spot, a gymnast named Kyle shops for a new mattress. He enters the store, changes into his pajamas, and performs a series of flips and jumps on the mattresses, finally finding the bed that is just right for him. During that spot, the announcer says that Restonic mattresses are "rated No. 1 by consumers."
Other commercials offer fun takes on popular television shows. In one, "The Bachelorette," a young woman picks Al Grace, the store's 87-year-old founder and namesake, from a lineup of competitors. In "Rockford Idol," a contestant sings the praises of Al Grace Appliance, to the delight of the judges.
The retailer also has fun with its "Low Carb Peanut Sale." A streaker with a sign for Al Grace disrupts a local baseball game. A sign saying "censor" covers his otherwise naked midsection.
The spots end with the retailer's distinctive tag line: "Al Grace. Appliances and other neat stuff."
That's the sort of open invitation that enabled the company to add mattresses to its sales floor about a year ago, a move that was led by bedding veteran Norcross.
Among his mattress moves is the $399 "don't walk bed," a model designed to stop consumers from walking out the door without buying.
"That bed feels great at an inexpensive price point," Norcross said. "When a customer says she wants to shop, I take her to that bed. We want every customer to sleep well, even those who might not have the income to afford a more expensive bed."
Norcross believes in showing customers the best beds on the floor first. That means a $5,000 Restonic Tapestry model, with a steel foundation from Flexsteel. "It's the last bed you'll ever buy," said Norcross. "It has a lifetime warranty."
There's a reason to show top-of-the-line beds first, Norcross said. "They say you can't sell the customer anything better than the first bed you show them. We start them at the top. It's easier to sell down."
During the sales process, the store's sales associates focus on the difficult art of listening.
"I had a professor once tell me, 'There is a reason you have two ears and one mouth. You need to listen twice as much as you talk.' That is especially important in selling mattresses," he said.
Al Grace Appliance has a strong closing rate of six out of every 10 customers.
"We are not selling," Norcross said. "We are fixing problems and doing comfort selling. We never advertise prices. We will sell you the bed that feels good to you. And we know that satisfied customers will tell at least three people about their purchase."
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