Retail Bedding Tour

Verlo's bedding dreams shine in rural America

TOUR UPDATE: We are in the land of the Field of (Bedding) Dreams.

The corn fields of Wisconsin glistened in the fading sunlight as we drove from the quaint Janesville, Wis., airfield up to Fort Atkinson, Wis., where VyMac Corp. and its Verlo Mattress Factory Stores unit are located. As we drove by the fields, I expected to see some old baseball player come walking into view, a scene made famous in the movie “Field of Dreams.”

Verlo is also in the dream business. The well-known factory direct operator marches to a different drummer and has carved out a successful niche in the highly competitive bedding arena. The factory direct channel of distribution is one that we don’t write about too much, so it was great for me to meet with several members of the Verlo team.

We added a heavyweight in the world of sleep to our already strong roster of experts for our visit at Verlo. Dr. Rubin Naiman, a clinical psychologist and author of a number of books on sleep, shared several insights with the Verlo team.

I had a chance to sit down with Dave Young, CEO of VyMac, who has a refreshing outlook on many bedding issues. He has done a superb job of managing his business, and his stores have established formidable market positions in several rural markets. The hand-crafted image his company projects is one that clearly resonates with its customers.

Young said the factory-direct model is “alive and well” despite the industry’s big retailers and producers continuing to grow larger.

Verlo’s store managers and franchisees seemed to appreciate the better sleep message that the tour’s consultants delivered. We left Fort Atkinson on a high note. Now we are getting ready to fly to Cleveland. And our Better Sleep Crusade rolls on.

BETTER SLEEP MOMENT: Light is the enemy of good sleep. Light at night is particularly detrimental to a good night’s sleep, Dr. Naiman said. “We’ve lost touch with night and with literal darkness,” he said. Is your bed in a dark corner of your bedroom? It should be.

INSIGHT OF THE DAY: “You are not just selling mattresses. You are really selling a health product. You need to understand the implications of that.” That was one of Naiman’s more intriguing points, and the implications are, indeed, significant. If our industry is selling a health product, we need to change our sales language. Craig McAndrews has been talking about the importance of using different sales language in his presentations. Questions focused on consumers’ health are critical to selling the health benefits of mattresses.

THE VIEW FROM 25,000 FEET (LITERALLY): Some people don’t enjoy flying, but I’ve always found a sense of peace soaring through the clouds. Yes, we have all had bad travel days, but it is relaxing to look down on the world from an airy perch high in the sky. On our flight to Wisconsin, I listened to Oldies on my iPod while watching the patchwork quilt of farms pass by far below

THE VIEW FROM 25,000 FEET (FIGURATIVELY): I have to admire the men and women who sell mattresses for a living. They are the unsung heroes of our industry. While the big brands set the tone for their lines, it is up to the retail sales associates, or RSAs, to make the sale. It’s inspiring to meet them each day on this tour. I’ve interviewed dozens of RSAs over the years, and this week is giving me a graduate-level look at their challenging world.

SPRINGING FORWARD: One of the clever parts of Leggett & Platt’s Active Support Technology campaign is the use of the word “active.” That is a good word. Everyone wants to be active. Being active is better than being passive. And “active” suggests that innersprings have a dynamic nature.

“There is a common misconception among consumers that a bedding surface shouldn’t move,” said Mark Quinn, the L&P bedding executive who is leading this Spring Alive Tour. “That’s simply not true. A mattress should respond to your body movements. Active Support Technology allows your muscles to relax in a more natural sleep position, moving as your body moves, all while maintaining a consistent support system which is crucial in comforting and supporting your body actively as you dream on.”

There is that “active” word again.

TOMORROW I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT: Original Mattress Factory.

FOR MORE ON THE TOUR: See Leggett & Platt’s special Web site, www.LeggettSleep.com, for daily tour updates.

Mattress Firm associates get better sleep message

TOUR UPDATE: We had a great day Monday at Mattress Firm, one of the nation’s fastest-growing and most respected bedding specialty stores. Interestingly, this is one of three Retail Bedding Giants we are visiting on this tour. That’s an award that we present each year at our Bedding Conference to honor outstanding bedding retailers.

We met with the Mattress Firm sales associates in a room on the 21st floor of the Renaissance Grand in downtown St. Louis. I could see the famous St. Louis arch from a window in the hallway outside the meeting room.

Tour host Mark Quinn of Leggett & Platt talked about the importance of promoting better sleep, and added that such an approach will put more money in sales associates’ pockets. Then Craig McAndrews, a retail bedding consultant, shared his insights on how to benefit by selling better sleep. He encouraged the sales associates to ask lifestyle-oriented questions rather than the all-too-familiar questions that many sales associates use: What size and type of bedding are you looking for, and who is it for? The problem with those questions, he said, is that they are so common that consumers will think your store is just like every other store they have visited.

Later that morning we watched Kurt Ling, president of Customer Kinetics, conduct a focus group discussion with seven female consumers. We watched on the other side of a one-way glass window that the consumers couldn’t look through. It was fascinating to get their thoughts on key mattress issues. I didn’t like what they had to say on warranties — they were very much in favor of them — but found it interesting to see what they had to say about the importance of coils in bedding. Those consumers credited coils as the heart of the sleep set, providing durable support and comfort.

Now we are getting ready to fly to Wisconsin. It’s been a great day.

BETTER SLEEP MOMENT: Want to help consumers sleep better? Advise consumers to knock off the caffeine after 2 p.m. “Caffeine is one of the biggest contributors to bad sleep,” he said.

INSIGHT OF THE DAY: “A mattress expert can talk about the anatomy of the mattress. A sleep expert can talk about the anatomy of the body in better sleep.” McAndrews made that comment after a woman in the focus group said the sales associates she had encountered knew more about “the anatomy of the mattress than the anatomy of the body.” That was an “ah-ha” moment for our group.

THE VIEW FROM 25,000 FEET (LITERALLY): We are flying on Leggett & Platt’s corporate jet each day, which enables us to meet the tight deadlines of this week of retail visits. I’m starting to feel like a political candidate who is flying from one campaign stop to another. And that’s an apt analogy: We are seeking support for the Better Sleep Campaign.

THE VIEW FROM 25,000 FEET (FIGURATIVELY): Is McDonald’s in the burger business or in the training business? Both, of course. Bedding retailers face a similar challenge. Yes, they are selling mattresses. But training is a constant as sales associates come and go, and so do product lines. As we conduct mini-training sessions with sales associates, I am reminded of how important training programs are for the most successful bedding retailers.

SPRINGING FORWARD: Yes, we are going to talk about innersprings in this section of our daily blog. And we have a lot to say, because Leggett & Platt is launching a strong innerspring marketing campaign on this trip. One key theme is that L&P innersprings offer “Active Support Technology.” That defining benefit of an innerspring mattress is the “dynamic response of the coils to body movement,” L&P says. It is delivering that message to retailers and retail sales associates this week.

TOMORROW I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT: Verlo Mattress.

FOR MORE ON THE TOUR: See Leggett & Platt’s special Web site at www.LeggettSleep.com for daily tour updates.

In St. Louis, better sleep sells

Mattress Firm visit kicks off retail bedding tour

ST. LOUIS — Welcome to America’s Heartland, a good place for us to begin this first-ever retail bedding grassroots tour.

We arrived here last night to get ready for our first retail visit today: Mattress Firm. That’s also a good place to start because the retailer understands the importance of selling better sleep. Mattress Firm recently announced a major partnership with noted sleep doctor Michael Breus, one aimed at helping it communicate better sleep messages to consumers. That’s an exciting venture.

Mattress Firm also is in the news because of its incredible string of retail acquisitions. The latest, which we first reported on last week, will take the company into California for the first time. Mattress Firm has signed a letter of intent to acquire 53-unit Mattress Gallery, based in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, by the way, is where we will be wrapping up our tour at the end of the week when we call on Sit ‘n Sleep, the dominant bedding retailer in the L.A. market.

I’m fortunate to be one of the participants on this unique bedding tour, which has been organized by Leggett & Platt, a major supplier to the bedding industry. The tour promotes the health benefits of a good night’s sleep and will also focus on the role that innersprings play in delivering a good night’s sleep.

This “Spring Alive Tour” brings L&P executive Mark Quinn and two retail bedding veterans, Craig McAndrews and Kurt Ling, to leading bedding retailers across the country. That trio will be talking about several better sleep issues.

Each day I will be filing live reports from the tour, telling you about the bedding men and women we meet and about some of the better sleep messages that we are sharing with them. Quinn says this is the first such national grassroots effort that he has seen to address the link between better sleep and health.

I’ll see you in this patch of cyberspace tomorrow to tell you about our first day of retail meetings. Here’s the link to this Retail Bedding Tour. And here’s a link to L&P’s special Web page on the tour, www.LeggettSleep.com. That site will provide a daily blog and video-log from the tour, and will let retailers order educational materials for retail sales associates and customers.

Here’s wishing you better sleep tonight.